Chapter 16-I Clean Up Garbage in a Wasteland World
Chapter 16 The Man-Eating Hotpot Restaurant-5
A Defective?
Zhu Ning paused upon hearing these three words. The hotpot restaurant boss was a Defective, a similar kind to Zhu Ning. So he wasn't sick at all; his body was just naturally decaying because his time had come.
Zhu Ning had looked up some information on Defectives later. In this world, everyone undergoes a comprehensive genetic screening after birth. After the screening, genetic defects are detected.
The side effect of overly advanced technology is the ability to directly predict your future, and with great precision. Genetic diseases can be diagnosed immediately after birth, and they can even detect approximately how many years your future lifespan will be.
Synthetics, Androids, and Replicants
Defectives can improve their condition through genetic agents, but the effects vary from person to person, and there is no guarantee they will be no different from normal people. Moreover, the development of genetic agents thirty years ago didn't seem to be mature.
As for why genetic screening isn't done before birth, Zhu Ning guessed it might be due to production line reasons. Due to some historical legacy issues, quality inspection is done after manufacturing because it's more efficient. Furthermore, many people believe that Defectives are manufactured intentionally to stimulate pharmaceutical consumption.
"I don't know how much I can still remember. Since coming in here, my memory has become chaotic." A man's voice came from the recording.
"Xiao Hui
Xiao Hui must be the cashier who wrote the diary. The person recording might be another employee.
Creeak—
Zhu Ning pushed open the door. Behind the door... it was very cluttered. Many white plastic sheets were hanging from the ceiling down to the floor. The wind from pushing the door open made the white plastic sheets rustle.
Click. Zhu Ning closed the door behind her backhand.
The room was large, with rows of shelves on the two side walls. The white plastic sheets obstructed Zhu Ning's vision somewhat. Moving through the plastic sheets created rustling sounds, exposing her position at any moment.
Zhu Ning advanced cautiously with her gun while listening to the recording in her ear.
"We are usually managed by the store manager and have never seen what the boss looks like. That day, Yang Tao asked me to help carry a giant Therapeutic Pod into the basement. Only then did I see the boss. He was paralyzed from the waist down and couldn't stand up at all."
"I felt it was a pity at the time. Such a young boss was actually a Defective. Yang Tao told me to keep it a secret and not tell anyone, saying if word got out, competitors would seize the handle. I knew business at this shop made many people jealous, so I never said anything. It had nothing to do with me anyway."
Zhu Ning brushed aside a plastic sheet. Against the backdrop of this stuff, it looked like ghostly shadows were shuttling through the room.
"But that day, I was resting alone in the staff dormitory. In a trance between sleep and wakefulness, I saw a figure standing in front of me."
"I woke up with a start. It was the boss. The boss was standing at the head of my bed staring at me. How to describe that look in his eyes... it was like looking at a piece of meat."
"As soon as I woke up, I called out to him. He didn't respond at all and walked away slowly. I stared at him for a long time before realizing—wasn't he paralyzed? Why did he stand up? Later I found out, he seems... to be doing some experiment."
Crunch—
Zhu Ning's boot crushed something. It was a glass medicine bottle. Zhu Ning picked up the discarded bottle. Four words were written on the broken bottle body: Eternal Pharma.
There was more than just this one bottle in the room; this place was likely a drug storage room.
Swish—
Zhu Ning carefully pushed aside the plastic sheets. The shelves were densely packed with medicines: injectables, glass vials of agents, and even a set of surgical scalpels.
Attached next to them was a pink card with a smiley face drawn on it: Welcome to participate in the Eternal Pharma Free Experimental Project.
The man's voice mixed with static continued in the earphones: "It got more and more wrong later. The meat in the kitchen got weirder, the hotpot restaurant smelled more and more fragrant, my mental state got worse every day, and my memory was chaotic. Until one day—"
His voice paused, speaking with a sobbing tone, "Xiao Hui went missing."
"I proposed going to look for Xiao Hui, but Yang Tao didn't care at all. He immediately wrote a new recruitment notice to hire new employees. Not only a cashier, but also many chefs and waiters, but this shop simply doesn't need so many employees."
"They are just like... like my reserve supply. I had a feeling at the time that as long as I died, someone would be able to take my place."
Thud—
Zhu Ning turned around, her back bumping into something.
In the darkness, something three meters tall stood inside the room, part of it pressed against Zhu Ning's back. Layers of plastic sheets shrouded the behemoth, like a monster lowering its head to look down at her.
The hairs on Zhu Ning’s spine stood up. She spun around abruptly, instinct urging her to fire immediately, but reason suppressed it. She pointed the gun muzzle at the giant object, her finger pressing on the trigger.
The monster looked down at her from above, casting a thick black shadow on the ceiling, as if the entire room were its territory.
Don't attack. Do not attack rashly within a Pollution Zone.
"I wanted to call the police, wanted to quit, but I always felt like everyone was staring at me. Yang Tao, the other employees, even the diners—they were watching me all the time. As soon as I moved, they would kill me. I couldn't even sleep peacefully."
"The boss's spirit got better and better. He was full of energy every day, no different from a normal person. But the healthier he got, the more scared I was. I felt he wasn't human anymore. Today he said he wanted to close the shop to focus on treating his illness, and that if the shop closed, he could give us employees severance pay."
"When I heard about a sum of money, I hesitated, thinking maybe I should take the money before leaving."
"Later, the shop closed, but guests still came late at night. The manager told us to serve them well; those were our VIP users."
His voice got lower and lower, trembling more and more. "The guests started acting not right. That day I saw a guest stick his index finger into the hotpot. His whole finger was scalded, but he kept smiling."
"I started suspecting... what are the guests eating? Am I an accomplice? Did I... kill them?"
"Am I a murderer?"
"Wang Ming
Immediately after, the sound of the man's panicked panting was heard, and then the recording stopped abruptly. It ended.
Ding—
System Notification: [Sanity decreased by 3%]
The recording was a form of pollution. After listening to it, her mental state began to destabilize. The pollution concentration of the recording was much higher than that of the diary; language is a stronger pollutant than text. It was at a level where a normal person listening here might suffer brain death. She snapped the recording off and deleted the entire folder while she was at it.
So the employee recording was named Wang Ming. He seemed to have encountered the same problem as Xiao Hui.
Zhu Ning had been confronting the giant monster in front of her for a while, and the opposite party remained motionless. Influenced by the Mental Pollution, she had preconceived notions; the thing in front of her might not be a monster at all.
Covered by plastic sheets, people scare themselves. Humanity's greatest fear is the fear of the unknown; imagined fears will kill you.
She gritted her teeth and decisively ripped off the last plastic sheet, revealing the thing behind it.
Sure enough, it wasn't a monster, but a... large Therapeutic Pod?
The three-meter-tall Therapeutic Pod was completely transparent and shaped like a test tube. The transparent glass had been violently smashed, and the thing inside was gone. What used to be in here? Where is it now?
Wang Ming's recording was only two minutes long.
Combining it with the cashier's diary, Zhu Ning already had a rough guess. The boss of Hao Zailai Hotpot Restaurant was a Defective. He participated in Eternal Pharma's free experimental project, but clearly, the experiment failed.
Zhu Ning guessed he might have already turned into a Contaminant
As for the Pigman Yang Tao, he might have listened to the boss initially for money, but later his state looked more like being infested by Contamination Spores
But this guess wasn't quite accurate because both Xiao Hui and Wang Ming were mentally polluted, so the credibility of their words wasn't high. And many things were unexplained. Hiring so many employees could be explained, but what about the bounty later?
Was the bounty for heart, liver, spleen, lungs, and mutant genes for experiments?
The internal bell of the hotpot restaurant was still ringing. It had lasted for at least six minutes. The pollution concentration was getting higher and higher; Zhu Ning had to hurry.
The system said there was a survivor here. This unlucky survivor might be close to brain death.
Zhu Ning carefully checked the Therapeutic Pod and confirmed the thing inside had left.
There was a light source behind the Therapeutic Pod. The light projected the pod's shadow onto the ceiling, creating the illusion of a monster here.
This thing was used to confuse people. It was on a completely different level from the rotten meat fingers and the tentacles in the dumpster Zhu Ning saw earlier—like a toy created by a child playing house.
The light source came from a palm-sized hole behind the Therapeutic Pod. Someone had chiseled a hole here to see into the basement.
Who did it?
Peering through the floor hole, one could spy on the basement. The basement emitted a warm orange glow. Zhu Ning had to squint to adapt to the light.
The Pigman and the other employees were gathered in the basement, kneeling in order of hierarchy.
The Pigman knelt at the very front, the waiters knelt behind him, and the customers, who should have been God, knelt in the last row. They were orderly, like a... WiFi signal icon.
And the smallest dot of the WiFi icon was a hospital bed.
Zhu Ning didn't even know what to call the thing lying on the bed. A mass of humanoid rotten meat lay there, its body constantly writhing, every piece of meat seeming to still be growing.
The rotten meat writhed continuously, slowly spilling over the hospital bed. At this rate of growth, it might fill the entire hotpot restaurant.
If she guessed correctly, the thing lying on the bed should be the boss. The Pigman led the employees in kneeling before him, chanting words, their expressions incomparably pious, as if praying to God.
While kneeling respectfully, the Pigman took out a knife.
What was this? Internal strife?
Squelch. The Pigman's knife aimed at the person on the bed and sliced off a piece of meat. The meat continued to writhe after leaving the body.
The employee behind held a black plastic bag, receiving it respectfully. With every piece of meat cut off, the employees and customers behind would reveal satisfied smiles.
Zhu Ning: "..."
So that's where the strange meat came from. Isn't this boss a bit too great? Supporting a viral internet hotpot restaurant single-handedly?
She understood the situation more or less. She needed to get out of the Pollution Zone as soon as possible. Just as Zhu Ning thought to stand up, she suddenly heard a click.
She was all too familiar with this sound. Someone had cocked a gun. A gun extended from the darkness, pressed against the back of Zhu Ning's head.
Sure enough, there was another person in this room.
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