A Top-Tier Contaminant, Yet I Run a Vacation Island

Jiang Xu woke up one morning to find that the sky had fallen.

He was no longer human! He had become a coal-ball monster, leaving a trail of black fumes wherever he went. The more he tried to wipe them off, the dirtier he got.

Thankfully, happiness comes from comparison. He soon discovered that the area was full of monsters even more haphazardly put together than he was:

A fish-headed man with a mocking expression;

A man with angel wings and a fly's head;

A woman with scarlet lips, deer antlers, and a snake's tail;

An unknown monster with eighteen tentacles...

Jiang Xu, round and neat despite being pitch-black, suddenly felt very lucky.

Since he was alive, he might as well live well. So what if he'd been reincarnated as a coal ball? In a word, he'd get to work!

-

There was a strange pollutant in the S-class high-risk zone. It busied itself every day, and nobody knew what it was doing.

The others, who were now all monsters, had minds full of nothing but the urge to rampage. Whenever they had a brief moment of clarity, they were fond of making a daily ritual of trying to kill themselves.

The pollutants in Zone S were all top-ranked, though, so even dying was difficult for them.

Their lives had long since become just like this scorched earth, a wasteland of death.

But one day, a patch of grass suddenly sprouted and a cluster of flowers bloomed in this most heavily polluted land.

The pollutants, whose consciousnesses had been muddled for a long time, were startled into a little more clarity. They instinctively drew closer. Miraculously, the flowers and grass were alive and well.

Following a gravel path built at some point, they came upon a wooden hotel with a warm, welcoming decor.

A wooden sign beside it read:

"Welcome to Xiao Jiang's Vacation Island!"

-

After three days of exploring himself, Jiang Xu was delighted to discover that he had a System and a skill: he could devour the pollution in the soil and air and turn it into Greenery Points.

As his Greenery Points increased, he gradually unlocked roads, environmental decorations, an inn, shops, vehicles, and more.

And, just as he wished, he built the island into the place of his dreams.

His neighbors no longer spent every day feeling miserable. Some came to work for him, while others came to stay.

Perhaps their moods had an effect: the strange parts of their bodies gradually disappeared, and eventually they returned to being ordinary humans.

Jiang Xu, still a black ball: Wait, everyone else is in a fairy tale, and I'm the only one still stuck in a monster world?

Oh well. Being a monster wasn't so bad. At least he had his System to keep him company.

-

By 30XX, the human world had fallen completely. The entire planet had been contaminated, from the far north to the far south.

The last survivors lived in despair every day. They had no future.

Then one day, a ship on patrol spotted a lush, green island.

This place, once the most dangerous forbidden zone, had somehow regained its ecosystem.

It was a miracle!

And even more astonishing, the pollutants who had once lived there had returned to normal!

They soon learned, however, that the island had been created by a top-level pollutant.

Just as both sides went on high alert,

The officer known as the light of humanity, usually so stern, pushed through the crowd and scooped Jiang Xu into his arms. In a hoarse voice, he said, "Xiao Jiang, you've waited long enough."

Jiang Xu guiltily rubbed at the military uniform he'd smudged, then looked up into the man's eyes and suddenly got angry. "System! How did you turn into a human too?!"

#Everyone turned human and nobody told me :)

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Reader's Guide:

1. The shou will turn human;

2. Jiang Xu (coal ball) x Li Jiubie (System);

3. Post-apocalyptic wasteland setting.

4. Blurb written on March 7, 2025.

Theme: Keep a steady mind and turn the tables against the odds.