Nathan Thompson said sincerely, "Boss."

　　Nancy Clark: "I've been at work for less than two hours."

　　Nathan Thompson changed his tune: "Sis."

　　Nancy Clark: "......"

　　Just what exactly have they been through in these short two hours?

　　After hearing this, Nathan Thompson suddenly didn't feel so afraid of the fishmen anymore; in his eyes, these things had turned into "performance numbers." A total of twenty-five performances, which would convert to at least 250,000 new coins.

　　Not rotten fish, but glittering cash.

　　Nancy Clark: "Do you think we could mentally contaminate them?"

　　"Huh?" Nathan Thompson had just accepted that the fishmen in front of him were performance numbers and couldn't keep up with Nancy Clark's train of thought, but he was a bit eager to try. "How do we contaminate them?"

　　Nancy Clark pondered for a moment. "Mental contamination means seemingly normal people doing abnormal things, or seemingly abnormal people doing normal things. It's a bit convoluted, but the key is repetition."

　　The core of contamination is repetition. The dead fishmen kept repeating about the last train, and the fishmen constantly boarding kept staring at Nancy Clark and Nathan Thompson over and over.

　　Repetition + abnormality is the formula for mental contamination.

　　Both Nathan Thompson and Nancy Clark were grassroots garbage collectors; this was the first time they had seriously analyzed the internal logic of a contaminant.

　　Nathan Thompson followed this line of thought and considered it. "Makes sense."

　　Nancy Clark asked, "Do you have anything on you that could brainwash someone?"

　　Nathan Thompson thought for a moment. "I brought a cookbook."

　　A cookbook?

　　Nancy Clark tilted her head and glanced at him. Nathan Thompson explained, "You know, in our line of work, you can't do it for many years. I need to prepare a backup plan for myself."

　　Once cleaners make enough money, they have to think about retirement, and they'll need lifelong mental checkups. Nancy Clark might have to do the same in the future.

　　Damn, being a garbage collector is really tough.

　　Nancy Clark: "Read a passage."

　　Nathan Thompson flipped through his digital cookbook, found a page, cleared his throat, and read aloud: "Braised crucian carp recipe, step one, score the surface of the fish with crosshatch cuts, add salt to the oil, fry slowly over low heat until both sides are golden and the skin is crispy..."

　　Nancy Clark: "......"

　　Fishmen: "......"

　　Nathan Thompson really is a talent—is this a guide to braising fishmen?

　　Nancy Clark used the helmet's recording function to capture it. Both of their helmets could play audio out loud. Nancy Clark asked for a copy of the cookbook and joined the recipe-reading team with a straight face.

　　With two helmets and the two of them, there were four voices in total. If someone boarded the train at this moment, at first glance, it would look very strange: on the last train of Line 1, two passengers in "biker suits," wearing black helmets, just like two robbers.

　　The "robbers" had no shame, loudly reading out the recipe for braised crucian carp. Not only that, but they even played it on a loudspeaker in a loop.

　　Disturbing the peace! Shameful!

　　Abnormality + repetition = mental contamination.

　　The surrounding passengers frowned, their gazes shifting from sinister to confused. After they had read it about ten times, the fishmen in front of them seemed to lose their momentum, lowering their bloody, severed heads, no longer as menacing as before.

　　"The contamination level dropped?" Nathan Thompson couldn't believe it. The current contamination level was 78%, down by 1%.

　　It actually worked!

　　Nancy Clark grunted in acknowledgment, then suddenly stood up. "You keep reading, I'm going to look for the source of the contamination."

　　Nathan Thompson said this was a ghost-hunting game; the source of the contamination must be on the train. After Nancy Clark stood up, Nathan Thompson followed suit. In contrast, the fishmen didn't follow.

　　They held onto the hand straps, turning in unison, facing Nancy Clark and Nathan Thompson with their battered bodies, but not a single one followed.

　　Probably because the mental contamination had failed—they were useless now.

　　Nathan Thompson didn't dare stop and kept reciting the braised crucian carp recipe, trailing behind Nancy Clark like a loudspeaker.

　　This subway train had only four cars in total. Nancy Clark carefully searched inside, looking for clues.

　　Car 4 had three passengers, car 3 had two, car 2 had five.

　　The car Nancy Clark was in—car 1—had the most people: twenty-five fishmen plus the two of them, twenty-seven in total. Something must have happened on this train before.

　　The system said the last train of car 1 disappeared. What was the cause? Was it contamination?

　　Contaminants could cause mental contamination, so could the formation of contaminants also be a kind of mental force? Like a grudge?

　　Ring ring ring—

　　A phone rang, interrupting Nancy Clark's thoughts, in car 3.

　　Nancy Clark ran over to check. A cell phone was lying on a seat. Just now, Nancy Clark had carefully checked the entire train and hadn't seen any phone—this phone had suddenly appeared.

　　Someone was calling this phone.

　　The phone was very old-fashioned, surprisingly a touchscreen model. In this post-apocalyptic world, technology had long since advanced; most people had chips implanted that could be linked to a secondary brain.

　　The secondary brain was like ID authentication + wallet + communication device. No one used phones anymore in this era.

　　Nancy Clark: "A phone left behind by a passenger?"

　　Nathan Thompson was also surprised when he saw the phone. "This model must be at least eighty years old."

　　This thing was practically an antique.

　　Nancy Clark: "Keep reading."

　　Nathan Thompson kept reciting the recipe. The moment Nancy Clark picked up the phone, the ringtone abruptly stopped, and the phone started playing a video.