Chapter 25-I Clean Up Garbage in a Wasteland World
Chapter 25 Race
Li Nianchuan was curious for a moment: "Then why didn't you continue on that path?"
Zhu Ning sighed, "Accidentally, the path went astray."
She was already a national team player at the time, and then the zombie crisis broke out. Her competitive sports skills turned into life-saving skills. If not for an athlete's physique and her shooting skills, she would have kicked the bucket as soon as the zombie crisis broke out.
Li Nianchuan: "..."
Although he didn't know what Zhu Ning meant by the path going astray, looking at it this way, Zhu Ning had gone too far astray, right? How did an athlete come to sweep trash?
However, this was the first time Li Nianchuan heard Zhu Ning talk about her past.
Li Nianchuan asked, "Were you with a Club?"
He didn't know if the professional athlete Zhu Ning mentioned was from a Club or the Federal Team. The citizen ranks of professional athletes in Clubs could be diverse, while Federal professional athletes only absorbed First-Class Citizens.
In the Wasteland, Androids and Synthetics ran everywhere. If machines could participate in Federal sports competitions, it would violate the spirit of sports.
Therefore, only First-Class Citizens with natural genes would truly have the concept of competitive sports, and pure competitive sports had become a spectator event for the nobility.
Matches between Clubs were more like Underground Matches, without the spirit of fairness, justice, and openness in sports. They only liked to pursue the spectacle of the game.
Zhu Ning had long prepared her rhetoric. "Yes, a Club."
Zhu Ning had already fired a gun during the encounter with the Fishman. The video had long surpassed one hundred thousand views on the forum. She couldn't hide her edge in the shooting assessment, so she might as well openly display her strength.
Now that so many people in the Sanitation Center were paying attention to her, she had to explain the results she just achieved.
She actually didn't know if the original owner had had contact with shooting training. The original owner was a Defective, belonging to the batch about to be scrapped. Official records about her should be very few; even Zhu Ning couldn't find traces of her identity.
This person seemed to have appeared out of thin air, with only basic identity information, and the only person she knew was Auntie Wei.
Zhu Ning guessed that the original owner's identity might be fake, which gave her ample room to make things up.
If someone inside the Sanitation Center wanted to kill her...
Zhu Ning looked around. There were many people in the training room, including Demon Hunters and Cleaners. They were conducting fighting training. If there was someone in here who knew the past Zhu Ning and saw the strangeness in her, they would definitely come out to probe.
That would be her chance to get clues.
She didn't know if others believed it, but it looked like Li Nianchuan believed it. "Professional teams in Clubs are also very awesome."
Xu Meng nodded. "Clubs are harder to get into."
Federal teams only absorbed First-Class Citizens, so the competition wasn't that fierce. But Club members covered five citizen classes; any kind of genius could appear.
For a moment, Li Nianchuan and Xu Meng looked at Zhu Ning with somewhat subtle expressions. Zhu Ning graduated from university at eighteen. One year before entering the Sanitation Center, she might have gone to a Club to fight underground matches.
Maybe even earlier, fighting Underground Matches in a Club to earn money while going to school. Zhu Ning didn't say much, but the two of them utilized their full brain-filling skills and had already imagined a hard-working girl working part-time to study.
Zhu Ning was also a Defective; maybe she had to constantly run around just to survive.
Xu Meng: "You've worked hard."
Li Nianchuan: "You've worked hard."
Zhu Ning: "?"
What worked hard?
Li Nianchuan: "By the way, you are the first Defective I've ever seen."
Zhu Ning looked at Xu Meng. Xu Meng also said, "Also the first one I've seen."
Zhu Ning: "..."
So she was quite rare. Mainly because Defectives generally couldn't pass the Sanitation Center's big data screening. Most Defectives were actually doing marginal jobs; very few had proper jobs.
Li Nianchuan asked again, "By the way, do you Defectives know what you were before?"
Right, what was she before? Before being classified as a Defective, what type of human was Zhu Ning?
She couldn't be a Android (Mechanical Person), so she could only be one of a Natural, a Synthetic, or a Replicant.
Unfortunately, Defectives didn't have "product traceability." Zhu Ning couldn't find her "place of origin" and had not a bit of data.
"I don't know either." Zhu Ning asked, "What about you? What class of citizen are you?"
Li Nianchuan: "I am a Second-Class Citizen, Synthetic..."
He just said one sentence, and Zhu Ning looked shocked. "You are a Synthetic?"
This was the first Synthetic she had come into contact with. Theoretically, Replicants could be realized in Zhu Ning's world—her world had cloning technology, although not as developed as this world.
But Synthetics were definitely black technology unique to the Wasteland world. Zhu Ning's world had synthetic meat at most. Li Nianchuan was a conscious person created artificially?
"Yeah." Li Nianchuan felt Zhu Ning was a bit excited. Never seen a Synthetic before?
Zhu Ning really hadn't seen the world: "But aren't Synthetics all very powerful?"
Synthetics used gene editing technology, which generally added many "functions" to them. Li Nianchuan looked a bit unremarkable.
Li Nianchuan was unconvinced: "What do you mean?"
Zhu Ning: "Nothing, nothing."
Li Nianchuan: "It also depends on the batch. Some Synthetics are created just to be consumables."
When Li Nianchuan said these words, he didn't have any special expression, as if he had accepted the fact that he was a consumable very freely.
Some jobs needed people to complete them. Under the premise that robots couldn't enter the field, people with flesh and blood and self-consciousness were very important. Replicants, Synthetics, and Androids were all consumables.
They were originally tool-people created by First-Class Citizens, no different from a gun. But the tool-people developed self-consciousness, so they were assigned citizen classes based on whether they were beneficial to the Federation.
Objectifying people and personifying objects to this extent was also rare.
Zhu Ning asked, "May I ask which genes you synthesized?"
Synthetics used gene editing technology. generally fusing multiple superior genes. She didn't know if this question counted as privacy or if it would offend him.
Li Nianchuan: "Nothing I can't say. I fused some sheepdog genes, hoping that our batch of Synthetics would be loyal enough and highly domesticated."
To ensure they would never betray the Federation and humanity. Sometimes, compared to ability, loyalty was more important.
Zhu Ning: "..."
She suddenly understood a little?
Zhu Ning digested this information and asked again, "What about the Captain?"
Xu Meng: "Third-Class Citizen, Replicant."
Zhu Ning paused. She remembered Fang Ying saying that Replicants didn't live long. Replicants would have a "template" human for each batch. The production quantity was set, and they were produced on an assembly line. Of course, the total number was also controlled, and they were put into different areas. After integrating into different communities, even if they looked the same, it was hard for them to meet, so it wouldn't easily cause chaos.
Seeing Zhu Ning suddenly look heavy, Xu Meng was relaxed instead and comforted her in turn, "I know what you want to ask. It can be intervened, for example with GeneBoost, or switching to Cybernetic Implants (Mechanical Prosthetics). It's about the same situation as yours."
Xu Meng didn't know whether to laugh or cry. She still had a dozen years or so at least; Zhu Ning only had one year left herself, so why was she worrying about her?
Xu Meng: "I do this job to save money, you understand?"
Xu Meng blinked at Zhu Ning. In a way, the two of them were the same kind.
Xu Meng and Zhu Ning instantly grew closer. Zhu Ning asked, "What is your life-saving direction?"
Life-saving direction. Xu Meng was amused by these words and said, "I want to upload my consciousness to the cloud in the future and use Cybernetic Implants."
Completely abandoning the human body and uploading consciousness directly. In the future, she could change into different bodies. It was actually a kind of evolution. To some extent, as long as the "server" didn't crash, Xu Meng could achieve immortality, considering it as forever getting rid of the suffering of the flesh.
So cool.
But Zhu Ning was a conservative. She still preferred the human body. Becoming a consciousness entity was a bit too illusory. Without an anchor, she would easily feel confused about her self-existence.
Xu Meng asked, "You want to inject GeneBoost?"
Zhu Ning nodded. This was also why she wanted to join the Sanitation Center. It's good to lean against a big tree for shade; the news she got should also be more than ordinary people.
Xu Meng: "I'll send you a file later. I did some homework before and went through one course of GeneBoost injections. Later, I didn't want to pursue this direction. By the way, our Center's GeneBoost is also very advanced. If you have time, you can go to the Medical Department and chat with those people. Employee consultation is free."
Zhu Ning's eyes lit up hearing the word "free," like getting detailed postgraduate entrance exam materials from a graduated senior.
Xu Meng looked at Zhu Ning like a little sister and transferred the materials to her Employee Wristband.
The three of them exchanged their backgrounds—a Replicant, a Synthetic, and a Defective. None was a noble. Running around every day to extend their lives, they formed a unlucky trio.
Zhu Ning suddenly thought of a question and asked, "By the way, what is the current 100-meter sprint record?"
Xu Meng: "I haven't paid attention to that either. You're interested in this?"
Commoners generally had no interest in sports events. The reason was simple: Naturals couldn't outrun Androids and Synthetics. In the eyes of Androids, the speed of purebred humans was simply too slow.
Many people found watching Natural competitive sports very boring.
Zhu Ning was in the sports circle in her previous life and paid close attention to sports events. Unfortunately, after the zombies appeared, human competitive sports were forced to stop. The search engine in this world was very powerful. Zhu Ning just opened the search box of her Sub-Brain, and before she input anything, the page automatically displayed:
Search for world 100-meter sprint record?
Zhu Ning clicked yes.
The page jumped: 9.58 seconds.
Same as Zhu Ning's world. This number was very weird because the technological level of the Wasteland world was at least a hundred times more advanced than Zhu Ning's world.
The record for competitive sports remained unchanged.
Zhu Ning had also easily tied the training record just now. Although the training record didn't count for much—probably many big shots had never been to the training room.
The shooting record in this world should be about the same as in Zhu Ning's side. Zhu Ning checked a few other sports, and the results were all the same.
Known: The Wasteland world possesses Contaminants, a powerful tech tree, and even exists mutated humans, but humans themselves haven't progressed.
In the doomsday era, no progress meant regression. A simple deduction: are the genes of purebred humans marking time?
Zhu Ning had never seen a First-Class Citizen. She didn't know what these nobles were actually like. From her shallow understanding, maybe the future Sixth-Class Citizens were the mainstream of human "evolution."
She thought of the Mutation Path and Degree of Mutation options on her system panel which were still empty. She wondered if she had the chance to "fall" into becoming a Sixth-Class Citizen.
...
Zhu Ning made a name for herself all morning. Threads about her were flying all over the forum.
Someone pinned the video of her shooting assessment to the top of the forum. The title was very eye-catching: 《Come and Observe How a Big Shot Shoots!》
Never had a newcomer been so watched by people. The heat continued uninterrupted; the matter about killing the Fishman had just subsided not long ago.
Now people were discussing the video of Zhu Ning shooting again. Many people suspected that Zhu Ning's data detection was wrong and requested the observation room and R&D Department to conduct a secondary assessment on Zhu Ning.
If Defectives were all like this, these "wholesome products" shouldn't live anymore.
Zhu Ning: "..."
Thank them for affirming her strength as a national team member. Zhu Ning had trained from dawn to dusk for over ten years. She didn't get the highest international medal, but she got the supreme honor of the Sanitation Center forum. She really wanted to give an acceptance speech.
In the afternoon, it was the fighting class assessment.
Xu Meng asked Zhu Ning again if she wanted to go for training first. Zhu Ning had high aspirations at the time, thinking she would directly participate in the assessment to see.
Fighting considered entertainment value and adopted a PK system. One person went on stage first, and another came to challenge. The winner passed, and the loser continued to accept challenges until victory.
So it depended more on luck. Those with good luck who met rookies could pass directly. Those with bad luck who met a "Demon King" were easily beaten.
Zhu Ning found that the idea of the fighting class was not to improve the level of the weak, but to cultivate the strong. The strong would become stronger when meeting the strong. If the weak passed by luck meeting the weak, they should still be at a basic level after participating in the assessment. Of course, the weak could challenge the strong if they wanted to become stronger.
Setting it up this way should be for mutual stimulation, testing people's subjective initiative more. Otherwise, the weak would never have the chance to stand on the same stage as the strong. The Sanitation Center training gave them a chance.
Not a fair competition system, but very effective for people who wanted to improve their strength. In itself, it was just mutual exchange between departments.
Quite a few spectators gathered around the fighting arena; everyone was here to watch the fun.
The fighting teacher was shocked and asked, "What are you doing? Not training?"
Someone said loudly, "We want to witness history!"
Witness history? Zhu Ning was confused. What history? These people couldn't be talking about her, right?
The fighting class teacher kept trying to make everyone relax. "Entertainment match, focus on exchanging experience."
Zhu Ning actually believed it. They couldn't start a war right off the bat, could they?
The fighting assessment was 1V1. Colleagues exchanged fighting experience with each other. Demon Hunters and Cleaners fought against each other, and they could choose their opponents independently. Zhu Ning was a Cleaner, so the opposite side could only be a Demon Hunter.
"Zhu Ning is up. Who's coming to challenge the ring?"
"Me."
A Mechanical Female Warrior went on stage opposite her. White short hair, 180cm tall. She exuded a cold metallic luster all over. Eighty percent of her body was mechanized; both arms and her left leg were mechanical.
This was the first time Zhu Ning had seen someone with such a high degree of mechanization. Sure enough, her luck was bad; she met a Demon King right away.
A Demon Hunter's physical fitness crushed a Cleaner's. Her degree of mechanization was so high that Zhu Ning could totally use the Metal Manipulation talent on her for a fatal blow to end it directly, but that would violate the spirit of sports.
Zhu Ning still wanted to fight a real match; otherwise, it would be unfair to the opponent.
Zhu Ning had never dealt with Androids (or mechanized people) at all and lacked a concept of mechanical strength. The mechanical warrior was extremely fast. The battle between the two lasted less than a minute.
Intercepting the waist, a body slam.
Bang—
By the time Zhu Ning reacted, her back was already on the ground. Crack, she heard a desperate crisp sound. That was the sound of her shoulder blade cracking.
The audience preparing to witness history was stunned. Xu Meng and Li Nianchuan were also stunned.
The mechanical warrior opposite didn't expect the legendary Zhu Ning to be so fragile. She said apologetically, "I thought you were a warrior."
Some warrior! Zhu Ning was almost beaten into Swiss cheese! Humans simply couldn't go hard against machines!
Author's Note:
The men's 100m sprint world record is 9.58 seconds, created and held by Jamaican star Bolt (from a certain encyclopedia).
Unlucky trio squad, rich in species.
Added an explanation for the fighting class competition system. Everyone just read it for fun. It's not a fair competition, just training to stimulate strength. Just treat it as them playing~
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