Chapter 48-I Clean Up Garbage in a Wasteland World

Chapter 48 The Bizarre Aquarium-5

Click—

Someone pressed the shutter.

Zhu Ning squinted instinctively. The flash was very uncomfortable; it was the discomfort of being gazed at and treated as an object.

Zhu Ning remembered Chu Ling saying that merfolk were already washed up. Would there still be so many tourists coming to visit?

Among the crowd was a narrator. He was dressed in a suit with a red bow tie, looking at his tourists with satisfaction as he continued to explain, "The Mermaid Pavilion hasn't been this popular for a long time. Everyone is very lucky today to see the restricted-level merman courtship and reproduction scene."

Reproduction? This word sounded simply horrific to Zhu Ning.

Inside the glass wall, Zhu Ning was wrapped in hair strands all over. She floated quietly in the water, just like a captured prey.

She seemed to understand her situation a bit. She had indeed stepped into a trap, but not to be eaten. Instead, she was used to become a prop. They had to ensure she couldn't break free during the reproduction process, so the hair strands wouldn't strangle a person to death instantly.

The aquarium of the Wasteland had somewhat heavy tastes.

If this was a solo mission, Zhu Ning could totally use system tools. She had many choices to escape the scene.

For example, the 3D Defense Space from before. As long as she opened it here, she could gain at least thirty minutes of respite.

For example, the Pigman's Guillotine. She could slash a target suspected to be the pollution source once.

But she was currently under Prometheus's surveillance. She realized a camera was pointed at her. The artificial intelligence might be analyzing Zhu Ning's behavioral patterns, recording every flaw she revealed.

All videos would be transmitted back after it ended. She had to behave like an ordinary employee and couldn't use system tools. The only thing she could use was the Cleaning Backpack.

"Wow! Look quickly!" Someone in the crowd pointed excitedly at her back.

The mass of hair behind her moved.

In the constantly floating hair strands, everything was very hazy. Amidst the floating hair, Zhu Ning met a pale face without warning, only twenty centimeters away from her. That face was whiter than the popular cool white skin tone—exaggeratedly white.

If some skincare products claimed the effect of glowing white skin, this face achieved it; it was truly glowing.

A face so beautiful it was suffocating. The exquisite features had a strong visual impact. His ears were very dazzling, resembling two pale purple fins, swaying with the water waves.

An incredibly beautiful male face appeared right in front of Zhu Ning. His expression looked fragile and innocent, full of broken beauty.

His upper body was human, with a firm chest and smooth muscle lines, like an ancient Greek sculpture. His appearance far exceeded Zhu Ning's comprehension, a bit overly advanced, making her stunned.

Merman.

This must be the merman Chu Ling mentioned. The floating hair strands were his hair. She saw a fish tail under the large mass of hair.

The fish tail was pure silver, about five meters long, emitting a beautiful shimmer in the water.

The two were very close. He was like a siren from mythology, staring at her with a pair of extremely seductive eyes.

There seemed to be light in his eyes. When the pale purple pupils looked over, they would create an illusion.

All humans were visual creatures. Women also loved beautiful women and handsome men. As a human, Zhu Ning would be no exception.

Moreover, this was such an incredibly charming handsome man. He appeared without any aggression or lethality, unlike all the ugly contaminants encountered before.

The merman reached out. His muscular arms were equally pale, muscle lines smooth like a perfect sculpture. He made a gesture of wanting to embrace Zhu Ning.

At that moment, novels about domineering merfolk falling in love with me that Zhu Ning had read before flooded her mind.

The beautiful merman captured the human. He took the human away, like taking away his bride. The whole scene was beautiful enough to film an idol drama directly.

No, the idol dramas of Zhu Ning's era couldn't even restore one ten-thousandth of his beauty.

The hair strands surged toward Zhu Ning's back with his movements. Under the contrast of such absolute beauty, the hair strands that were disgusting just now weren't even disgusting anymore.

Click click click—

The flashlights were like a played musical movement, flashing continuously.

"Wow!" Outside the glass wall, the audience exclaimed.

"So beautiful!"

"The merman's courtship period lasts for three months," the narrator looked at Zhu Ning with a smile. "What everyone sees today is the courtship period. For the next three months, our exhibition hall will display the three-month reproduction period."

Merfolk were washed up. For a long time, the Mermaid Pavilion had no tourists.

Maintaining the survival of merfolk cost a large sum of money. For this, the curator had to find a new path. They publicized the merman courtship process and created a monthly merman courtship season, using this as a gimmick to attract audiences.

The effect was quite significant. At least the Mermaid Pavilion had a batch of regular customers every month. It accurately hit human curiosity—how exactly did merfolk reproduce?

The merman's tail swayed in the water. The huge silver fish tail tentatively tried to wrap around Zhu Ning. This was a way for them to court.

The merman revealed a smile, opened his mouth, and emitted a string of very wonderful syllables, "Ah—hiss—tzz—hiss—"

Zhu Ning wasn't a mermaid and couldn't understand his words. To her ears, these four syllables didn't even have any difference.

The smile on the narrator's face deepened. "He is starting to court. Everyone pay attention to his tail; he is expressing his fondness."

Following the narrator's words, people began to shoot frantically, giving some close-up shots of the fish tail.

Narrator: "This sentence means 'I like you' in merman language. What will this lady do?"

The crowd's gazes focused on Zhu Ning. They looked over urgently, waiting for her answer.

"Accept him, accept him!"

"He's so handsome! What are you hesitating for? Quick! Get together, get together!"

The narrator glanced at the scene. The emotion was almost reaching its peak. He added fuel to the fire at the right time, "Merfolk are very faithful creatures. After becoming mates, they will be with each other forever, never betraying."

"So deeply affectionate."

"Worthy of being a merman."

"Why isn't this woman moving? Why doesn't she have a reaction?" The audience was slightly dissatisfied. Zhu Ning's expression disappointed them greatly.

"Yeah, she's not some peerless beauty. Why keep us in suspense?"

The audience didn't like too wooden a performance, and the narrator wasn't too satisfied with the current plot progress either. It was too slow. The narrator was responsible for controlling the overall rhythm of the program.

The narrator's hand hovered over a certain button. The merman seemed to sense his anger. He had experienced the consequences of disobedience many times.

The merman wanted to court even more urgently. His purple pupils became brighter.

Zhu Ning smelled a fragrance mixed with a faint fishy smell. Past experience told her fishy smells were foul, but smelling it now actually felt very fragrant. The fragrance emanated from the merman in wisps, making her brain somewhat groggy.

The most terrifying thing wasn't being trapped inside the glass wall, but becoming a performance prop. In this process, your will wasn't important; you only needed to cooperate with the performance.

Zhu Ning discovered that as long as she was stared at by the merman, she didn't seem to have such a strong intention to resist.

The seductive purple pupils were like beautiful glass shards, constantly luring people into his trap, always making you think: This isn't so bad, right?

This... isn't so bad, right?

Flashlights filled the surroundings. The audience was shouting, endlessly saying "get together, get together."

They repeated one sentence thousands of times, as if this was a tale of love.

Zhu Ning should walk into this tale amidst everyone's expectations, write this legend, become part of the story, and write a beautiful ending.

She would become the dazzling female lead, fulfilling everyone's expectations, making everyone satisfied.

Zhu Ning lowered her eyes. This... isn't so bad, right?

Everyone can do it, why can't you?

...

[Zhu Ning?]

Prometheus tried calling Zhu Ning's name. From his perspective, which was a bystander's perspective, Zhu Ning floated in a mass of hair without any reaction.

The species characteristic of merfolk was being good at capturing hearts. Once a human looked directly into a merman's pupils, they would be affected, unknowingly following the other's train of thought.

Especially since merfolk were created based on human imagination, their appearance was attractive enough to humans. Even every detail was carefully designed; this influence would be maximized.

Zhu Ning hadn't replied to him for three minutes. The merman was slowly approaching. His hand was very pale, with webbing between the fingers, attempting to pull open Zhu Ning's Cleaner protective suit.

Once the protective suit was pulled open, contamination spores would parasitize, and Zhu Ning would become a contaminant.

The blue ring attached to Zhu Ning's temple was flashing, seemingly drawing circles again and again, one circle after another. Prometheus seemed to hesitate for a moment. For an intelligent being, hesitation was rare. Then he performed data analysis and sent a request upwards, asking to exit monitoring status and enter command status.

Two seconds later, he received a reply. Request denied.

Xuan Qing specially let Zhu Ning participate in a B-Level mission today just to see where Zhu Ning's limit was. This place wasn't even the crisis-ridden Mechanical Jellyfish Pavilion.

Once Prometheus took over, this mission would lose its meaning.

The blue ring kept flashing. Besides the contaminant, there was only Zhu Ning here. Zhu Ning was being charmed by the merman, meaning she had relaxed her vigilance and was in an unconscious state. Her mental defense wasn't that strong, slightly different from the initial repulsion upon connection. This might be an opportunity.

The blue ring stopped drawing circles. Snow-white mycelium suddenly grew, tentatively probing towards Zhu Ning's brain. Zhu Ning's brain was like a treasure. Complex brain structures were very common to Prometheus; he had probed countless people's brains, and his goal was deep in the brain.

But the snow-white mycelium had just grown two millimeters when, like a stunted plant, it abruptly froze in place and moved no more.

Zhu Ning suddenly opened her eyes. Her expression was cold, like a machine rebooting.

...

Inside the glass wall.

Against the sea-blue background, a silver merman and a woman in a black protective suit floated in the water. If this counted as a merman's wedding, it possessed all the elements: brilliant lights, a beautiful stage, the couple on stage.

Throngs of guests, countless flashlights. They revealed satisfied smiles.

And blessings, thousands upon thousands of blessings.

Zhu Ning looked completely insensate. She had stopped for too long, seemingly having completely lost the intention to resist. Every courtship scene would be like this; even if a merman of the same gender courted, one party would fall into a sluggish state.

The merman's arms wrapped around. He was about to embrace Zhu Ning in his arms. His hand landed on Zhu Ning's right shoulder, where the opening of the protective suit was.

Zhu Ning also raised her hand. This was her first movement, and also the first intention she actively radiated.

People stared tightly at Zhu Ning's movements, unwilling to give up any detail. What hung on her left arm was a gun, but she didn't raise her left arm.

Did she give up resisting? No, she agreed!

She bravely took the first step actively! Casting aside so-called reserve. In the audience's view, Zhu Ning abandoned her weapon. She was about to embrace the merman. Like ballroom dancing, the man extended his hand to the woman, and the woman's hand was about to be placed on it.

People's mouths seemed to have zippers installed, unzipped to the maximum at this moment, pulling tightly to both sides.

Inside the glass wall, Zhu Ning raised her right hand, and then she turned on the flashlight. Strong light shot out instantly, beaming a pillar of light in the water.

Everyone's smiles froze on their faces.

The moment the strong light touched the merman, he was like a vampire exposed to sunlight, suddenly revealing an extremely painful expression. His skin surface began to ulcerate rapidly as if corroded and burned.

He opened his mouth. His purple ears trembled, fish gills shaking and opening and closing at high frequency. The hissing sounds emitted between opening and closing were like some kind of cry of pain.

Water flowed through his gills. He had to tilt his head back and open his mouth wide, exposing a fragile neck. A string of bubbles surged out of his wide-open mouth; it looked like he was about to suffocate.

Even so, he didn't even blame Zhu Ning, the culprit. The merman's expression was painful and fragile, easily evoking pity. He was begging Zhu Ning to stop.

The audience's smiles faded. They seemed to hover between anger and smiling, finding it hard to control their true expressions.

The narrator paused. This performance scene would naturally have many accidents, greatly testing the narrator's ability to improvise. The narrator had his own set of rhetoric for dealing with this phenomenon: "It seems this lady is throwing a tantrum. The merman looks very painful, but, this is a tortured romance."

Tortured romance was also a very popular trope.

Narrator: "All love must go through twists and turns. There are peaks and valleys. The current tortured romance will be the future sweetness. How painful it is now, how happy it will be in the future."

Happiness. Hearing these two words, the crowd revealed a happy smile.

We want to wait for a happy ending.

After the narrator explained like this, the audience's anger extinguished a little. They looked into the glass wall, expecting the subsequent tortured romance scene. A merman would maintain elegance at all times; he looked at Zhu Ning pleadingly.

Zhu Ning had a bit of a headache. After using the Metal Manipulation talent before, the sequelae hadn't healed. It always felt like a needle was stuck in her mind. Now this pain intensified, making her somewhat irritable.

She loathed the crowd's gaze, loathed the manipulated body, loathed a performance. Zhu Ning silently intensified the light, turning on the high-intensity mode.

Tortured romance, is it? I can make the "torture" part a bit more intense.

The merman instinctively blocked his face. This time he could no longer control his expression, emitting painful screams. His face was hideous and ugly.

He waved his arms trying to snatch the flashlight in Zhu Ning's hand, but he feared the light. The light burned on him like fire.

His expression twisted, facial features squeezed and deformed. It seemed the previous beauty was just an artificially fabricated mask, and beneath the mask was the ugliness of a marine monster.

The narrator's smile froze. The audience's smiles also froze. The guise of tortured romance could no longer stand.

They had watched the performance in this pavilion many times and had never seen a courtship failure. But they still held a shred of fantasy, hoping Zhu Ning could find her way back.

The price of resistance was unpleasant.

Once possessing the intention to resist, the hair strands on the body would identify it. The hair strands were wrapping around. She felt endless pressure squeezing toward her. The gene potion had strengthened her bones and skin; otherwise, she should be like a deflated balloon now.

The merman hair strands were tough; they might slice her into a ball of minced meat later.

It was like a hand pinching your body, squeezing you, wanting to deprive you of the last wisp of air, until you agreed to this absurd courtship ritual.

Under the premise of being threatened, she actually endured severe pain to resist.

Cleaner work uniforms needed to cope with various dark environments. There were many light sources on the body; even the employee wristband had a flashlight mode. At this moment, the helmet, employee wristband, and flashlight were all turned on.

The entire inside of the glass wall was as bright as day in an instant.

Light was like a weapon at this moment. The audience closed their eyes in pain. The narrator turned his head with a gloomy face.

The hair strands sensed Zhu Ning's strong aggressive intent and tightened instantly.

And the merman in front of her was screaming. The high-frequency scream of the merman was very piercing. After injecting gene potion, a person's hearing was five times that of an ordinary person. It made her brain sting instantly.

[Anti-noise mode has been turned on for you.]

The helmet's anti-noise system turned on, and the noise pollution was immediately reduced a lot.

[Optical pollution purification system has been turned on.]

The helmet turned on the filtration system; the strong light had no effect on Zhu Ning. Endless pressure pressed on her. She would suffocate in no more than seventy seconds.

[Pressure increasing. Protective suit imminent damage.]

Of course Zhu Ning could feel it. The dense hair strands wrapped up, bypassing her helmet, seeming to want to wrap her completely airtight.

If not for the hardness of the protective suit, she might have been sliced into minced meat now. Time left for her was not much.

Zhu Ning only turned on the strong light for an instant, then immediately turned it off. The high-intensity light disappeared instantly. No matter what creature, there would be a moment of daze.

At the same time the strong light lost effect, she felt the hair strands wrapped around her body loosen for an instant. This was a biological natural reaction, like a conditioned reflex.

One second was enough.

The merman's face was burned by the strong light. The exquisite and beautiful features disappeared, leaving a face bloody and fleshy, like a burn patient.

Just as he looked up, he felt his chest stiffen. Zhu Ning pressed the muzzle against his chest. She was wrapped in hair strands all over; some hair strands had already cut open the protective suit on her thigh.

But she didn't relax at all, pressing down like a mountain. The merman was a performance creature; Zhu Ning was a survivor who had rolled and crawled out of the apocalypse.

As long as she was alive, she could resist.

She lived to come to the Wasteland, dealing with various forces, not to fall in love with a fish.

Zhu Ning choked the merman's neck, dead-pressed the merman's body, pinning him against the glass wall, and turned on the flashlight again. In the intense light, the sound of the gunshot seemed very strange.

Bang bang bang!

Zhu Ning fired five shots in a row. The bullets penetrated the merman's chest and finally hit the glass wall, making a very dull sound.

The merman's eyes widened. Initially, he would roar in anger. He wanted to avoid the light but couldn't. The pain was severe, but it ended quickly. Zhu Ning didn't let him suffer much.

Especially compared to the suffering he had endured in the aquarium, it was even mercy. He had had enough of the day-after-day performances, being driven by strong light to the performance area, facing countless audiences every day.

They stared greedily, raising their flashlights, capturing every scene.

He needed to court day after day, performing the same drama in the crowd.

The most painful thing wasn't this. Merfolk had been performance tools since birth. The most painful thing was going against their nature. Merfolk were only willing to have one mate in their lifetime, but the curator wouldn't allow the merman to court only once.

Someone would wash the merman's body repeatedly, erode their memories, inject estrus potions, and force them to start over again and again.

Start, restart. Start, again.

Under the flashing lights, the tourists' lenses recorded every beginning and end. This time was the real end.

The merman's body went limp and sank slowly. The upper body belonging to a human had been smashed by high-intensity bullets. Only a complete fish tail was left falling in the end.

The five-meter-long fish tail sank slowly, as if finally returning to the seabed. How magnificent the fish tail was, how bloody and terrifying the upper body appeared.

Blood, like ink, instantly dyed a large area of seawater red, enveloping everyone's eyes.

The audience and the narrator watched blankly. Until the merman's body fell to the bottom of the pool, the narrator didn't even know how to narrate.

And the "female lead" of the story they watched before, wearing a pure black helmet, floated in the water like a real water monster.

Bang!

Her hand covered the glass wall. Through the helmet, they couldn't see Zhu Ning's expression, but they felt it was a provocation.

She looked at the audience provocatively. The audience was gazing at her, and she gazed back.

Her posture was extremely aggressive. In an instant, the positions of the audience and the performance creature were swapped. It was as if these spectators were the stupid creatures.

After the merman died, the hair strands wrapped around Zhu Ning finally loosened, like losing all life, becoming a ball of messy straw floating down.

Zhu Ning fired five shots just now, creating a spiderweb-like mark on the glass wall.

Before entering, she watched the video of the Mechanical Jellyfish Pavilion. At that time, she stood from the audience's perspective. Now she stood from the perspective of the exhibited marine creature.

She didn't know what the mechanical jellyfish was thinking at that time. Was it thinking about this?

Let it be destroyed. Let everything be destroyed. Cannot start over again.

Zhu Ning pressed gently on the spiderweb cracks on the glass wall. Centered on this, the cracks spread rapidly towards the surroundings. The audience and tourists screamed; they realized this place was about to collapse.

Boom—

The glass wall couldn't withstand the heavy pressure. Massive amounts of seawater surged out, instantly submerging the entire viewing area. Zhu Ning recreated the aquarium disaster.

...

Cough cough—!

Zhu Ning lay in the ruins, unable to stop coughing. That mass of hair strands just now almost strangled her to death.

Surrounding her were glass shards, as well as the corpses of the merman and tourists. The dead narrator stared at her with wide eyes. His earpiece had taken in water, emitting fizzing electric sounds.

Bang!

The earpiece exploded, emitting a faint smell of burning. The merman corpse beside her was broken out of shape. A contamination spore floated out from his body, and then hundreds and thousands.

It was Zhu Ning's fourth time entering a contaminated area; she was already very familiar with this scene.

Zhu Ning lay in the aquarium, watching the contamination spores floating everywhere. The aquarium simulated the deep sea. She seemed to be lying quietly on the seabed, witnessing a rare spectacle with her own eyes.

But she couldn't feel any beauty at all, only cruelty.

This world was very cruel to humans and creatures. Were merfolk humans?

After technology developed to the extreme, scientists were like creators. They could fabricate a species at will.

Merfolk had human faces and possessed emotions similar to humans, yet were not treated as humans. They were forced to perform when alive, and formed contaminated areas after death, capturing humans to become performance animals.

Merfolk didn't even count as Fifth-Class Citizens. Fifth-Class Citizens actually seemed very precious at this time; at least this world admitted Zhu Ning was a human.

Objectifying people, personifying objects. The boundary between people and objects was gradually disappearing.

Zhu Ning recovered a bit. Her brain was still aching. She got up and saw a wound on her thigh. This time it was different from the Pigman incident.

In the Pigman incident, she applied a Patch within thirty seconds. This time it was too urgent; she had been exposed in the contaminated area for too long. She didn't even know if she should apply a Patch.

Was applying it now a bit like locking the barn door after the horse had bolted? Was she about to turn into a contaminant?

Zhu Ning paused, took out a Patch, and applied it. Regardless of whether it was useless work, she had to stick it on properly; otherwise, her teammates might shoot her later.

"What's the situation now?" Zhu Ning asked while treating herself. "Did I complete the mission?"

[Cleaner Zhu Ning has successfully purified a pollution source. Notifying other teammates.]

Since Zhu Ning didn't complete the system mission to purify the entire aquarium, the broadcast was made by Prometheus. The system didn't make a sound at all. Quite magical; this time it was Prometheus speaking.

Zhu Ning had wanted to ask about the others' situation. She paused and asked, "You wanted to control my body just now?"

Just now she clearly felt pain in her brain. At that time, she thought it was the sequelae acting up. Thinking back now, it should have been Prometheus.

Prometheus corrected Zhu Ning's phrasing: [Attempted. I was saving you.]

"Ah, lucky you didn't do it." Zhu Ning stood up.

She hated someone controlling her body, regardless of whether it was for her own good. Letting Prometheus reside temporarily in her brain was already the biggest concession. She had to draw a clear line with this artificial intelligence.

Zhu Ning turned her head to look at the glass wall beside her. There was a fragment of the glass wall covered with cracks, reflecting Zhu Ning's shadow, as if splitting her into countless pieces.

Zhu Ning stared at the reflection inside and said to Prometheus, "Otherwise, if I survived, I would definitely blow up your main server."

---

Author's Note: Sorry, the update is a bit late today. I wrote to a plot point and didn't want to stop, afraid of affecting your reading experience, but this chapter is very long! To relieve update pressure, starting tomorrow, updates will be changed to 9 PM every night~

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