Chapter 103-I Clean Up Garbage in a Wasteland World
Chapter 103 The Forsaken Village (VII)
"Zhu Ning!" Jin Tao noticed something was wrong. His first instinct was to call out to her from outside, trying to get her to come back—but no matter how he shouted, there was no response. "Zhu Ning!"
He ran over. Zhu Ning and the others had only gone in less than a minute ago.
"Zhu Ning!" Jin Tao tried the door. The battered wooden door should have been flimsy enough to shoulder open—Jin Tao was built for it—yet it wouldn't budge.
It was as if the door had been cast from iron. Not even a crack showed.
And right beside him, the old woman stood at the window, two bloody hollows still staring at him, a grotesque smile on her lips.
She seemed to have moved a step closer. Her nose was now fully pressed against the glass, flattening it out of shape—and she was still smiling.
Jin Tao had the uncanny feeling that this old woman could actually squeeze through.
—
Zhu Ning walked into the house.
There were no lights inside. With the sky darkening, the only illumination came from the fading sunset outside, casting everything in a dim, eerie light.
Her first action after stepping in wasn't to survey the room—it was to turn and look at the window. No one was there. The old woman had vanished.
What had happened? She'd been standing right there just a moment ago.
And from inside, she couldn't see out. Normally, looking through the window from inside should have given her a clear view of Jin Tao and the rest of the group.
But all Zhu Ning saw was an empty village road. The sunset fell across the stone-paved path, staining it red—like it had been soaked in blood.
The road looked more desolate than when they'd arrived. Wild grass and flowers pushed up through every crack between the stones, as if this were a path that had truly been abandoned for years.
Had they entered another kind of space?
Zhu Ning walked to the window. One corner of the glass was blackened with soot. The window itself was strange—looking in from outside, it was perfectly clear, but looking out from inside felt like peering through a dark filter. On the floor were a pair of distinct footprints.
The house was abandoned, its surfaces coated in a thick layer of dust. Any movement left a visible trace.
If Zhu Ning's team were the first to enter, there should only be their own prints.
But these footprints belonged to someone else—pressed close against the wall, as if whoever left them had stood there for a very long time. The impressions were deep.
Like the clear marks left behind when you move a sofa that's sat in the same spot for years.
They must have been left by the old woman.
That was exactly how she'd been standing—eyes unblinking, fixed on the window. What had she been watching? There was nothing outside but wild grass.
The footprints were strange too. Only the standing impressions remained. There were no tracks leading to or away from the spot.
As if the old woman had been standing there from the very beginning—standing for years and years, until the thick dust slowly buried her.
But how had she left? Vanished into thin air?
Wait—why assume she'd left? She might still be here.
Was she… right beside Zhu Ning? Invisible, standing just in front of her, still in that same posture facing the window, the back of her head pressed against Zhu Ning's helmet?
Zhu Ning suddenly held her breath.
Li Nianchuan had barely stepped inside before he sensed something wrong. The old woman was gone—and so were Jin Tao and the others.
Zhu Ning's first instinct had been to check the window. Li Nianchuan's first instinct was to try the door—maybe opening it again would bring Jin Tao and the others back.
The wooden door had been creaking and groaning. It looked like it would fall apart if you breathed on it.
Li Nianchuan reached for the handle, expecting resistance. Instead, it swung open effortlessly.
Wait—hadn't this door only opened inward? How did it open from both sides?
Li Nianchuan looked out. No Jin Tao. No one. Just an empty village road.
Wild grass covered the path. A gust of wind sent a wave of goosebumps across his skin.
Li Nianchuan tried closing the door and opening it again. No matter how many times he repeated it, the result was the same—the Cleaners who'd been standing guard outside were simply gone.
Then Li Nianchuan froze. He thought he'd heard something.
He stopped immediately and listened carefully. He had canine genes—without any gene injections, his hearing was naturally sharper than most people's.
It sounded like… someone shouting? He couldn't make out the words, but somehow he knew the person was screaming with everything they had. Li Nianchuan could only tell that someone was yelling—he couldn't understand a single word.
Jin Tao was pounding on the door with all his strength. No matter how hard he hit, he couldn't get the sound through to Li Nianchuan.
Two timelines overlapping. Li Nianchuan and Jin Tao stood at the same doorway simultaneously, their silhouettes layered on top of each other, yet unable to pass a single sound between them.
"Did I mishear?" Li Nianchuan was puzzled. "I never mishear things."
He could even sense the emotion behind the voice—the person was shouting something, absolutely terrified. That fear transmitted itself to Li Nianchuan, sending a chill down his spine.
"Hey, come look at this." Xu Meng's voice came from somewhere inside.
Li Nianchuan stopped puzzling over the sound. Xu Meng had found something. Zhu Ning had been standing at the window, lost in thought—hearing Xu Meng, she moved away from it too.
Zhu Ning's first instinct had been to check the window. Li Nianchuan's had been to try the door. Xu Meng's had been to search the house.
Xu Meng had already done a quick sweep of the interior. The house had six small rooms, with a small courtyard at the back and a vegetable plot beside it.
The furnishings were unremarkable—leather sofa, large television, rattan chairs. Everything a home should have.
If this village hadn't been abandoned, it really would have been the perfect hideaway for a city worker dreaming of a quieter life. Li Nianchuan had once said he wanted to retreat to the mountains—this was exactly the kind of place he'd meant.
The vegetable plot out back had gone entirely to weeds.
Beside the plot stood a small wooden shed—a common enough feature in rural homes, usually used to store farming tools.
The shed was covered in moss now. An unidentified vine wound around its right side, its leaves parting to reveal a blackened wall beneath. Blackened walls weren't unusual in the countryside—the back of a stove often got scorched—but the blackened area here was very large, as if there had once been a fire.
The fear left by the yellow flower earlier still lingered. They were all wary of plants now. A mutated plant would be a serious problem.
It looked peaceful enough—the sunset, the wooden shed, the quiet village—but nothing about it felt safe. Every cell in the body was screaming: run.
Xu Meng had felt uneasy the moment she stepped into the courtyard. A sense of being watched—as if an invisible pair of eyes had opened somewhere and was tracking her shadow.
She approached the shed carefully. The vines didn't react. Creak—Xu Meng pushed the shed door open.
Xu Meng had been a Demon Hunter before. She'd been in and out of plenty of Contamination Zones. Even so, what she saw inside made her frown.
"Hey," she said. "Come look at this."
Zhu Ning and Li Nianchuan followed the sound and found Xu Meng quickly. The house wasn't large.
Xu Meng stood in front of the shed. Inside was… a bank of surveillance equipment?
The large monitor screens gave off a cold, dark glow. The black screens were like mirrors, reflecting the three of them—wherever they looked up, they could see their own silhouettes captured in the dark glass.
Zhu Ning often felt this world was contradictory. Sometimes technology was breathtakingly advanced; other times, things were deeply old-fashioned.
This forsaken village was the same. The house had surveillance equipment—more sophisticated than anything from Zhu Ning's own era, very precise.
This must have been a workroom. The shed was dark inside—clearly designed specifically for monitoring.
Zhu Ning thought of the old woman who'd been pressed against the window. What had the owner of this room been watching? Who were they monitoring?
Li Nianchuan pressed the power switch on the surveillance equipment. Nothing happened. "No power."
Unlike the rest of the house, the shed had neither electricity nor light. Every electronic device had gone dark.
The helmet's night-vision mode activated automatically, coating everything in a green tint.
Their Cleaner suits had their own power supply. Li Nianchuan had tried to use his suit's charge to power the computer, but after connecting it, nothing happened. If this Contamination Zone could stop the clocks in their helmets, trying to charge the computer was probably pointless.
The computer was completely unresponsive. The only usable resource was a handwritten work log. When all technology fails, written words are the most durable way to preserve information.
The notebook was old, its pages yellowed. It wasn't even a proper notebook—just a few sheets of paper stapled together, looking rather makeshift.
Probably because the computer handled the actual records, this log was just a backup, or a place to jot rough notes.
Zhu Ning, Li Nianchuan, and Xu Meng leaned in together. The cover of the work log bore a single line of text: Happiness Village Observation Report.
The handwriting was neat and delicate—clearly someone educated. It was probably the old woman who'd been pressed against the window.
Why would anyone need to observe a village? Was she a researcher? Wasn't this a privacy violation?
So this village was called Happiness Village.
The first page had only a date: New Calendar Year 10, November 1st.
Zhu Ning frowned. The New Calendar? This had happened after the contamination?
Xu Meng explained: "In the early days, people lived outside the first Protective Wall. They were original residents—the Federation offered them free public housing inside the wall, but they preferred life on the outside. Back then, the contamination levels were still low enough for humans to survive, and the area outside the first wall was relatively safe."
Li Nianchuan: "Squad leader knows so much."
Zhu Ning gave Xu Meng a second glance. She'd definitely been a Demon Hunter before—her experience ran much deeper.
The Federation had offered options. People could choose to move inside the wall, but many didn't want to. After all, a Federation-assigned apartment wasn't as comfortable as your own courtyard home.
The space between the walls had once housed quite a few people. City dwellers had even chosen to move out here. But as contamination levels rose, the population dwindled.
Zhu Ning thought back—most of the villagers she'd seen were middle-aged or elderly. No young people.
She understood their mindset. Her grandmother, for instance, had never liked living in the city. If her grandmother—that formidable old woman—were dropped into this wasteland world, she'd probably figure she was going to die sooner or later and would rather die at home.
Xu Meng opened the log.
"That insufferable Old Zhang, acting like some kind of hero. Made me help him solve a case—who does he think I am? Said I should get into the habit of recording the surveillance footage every day and writing down my thoughts too, so we'd have evidence to submit later. Big shot, isn't he, bossing people around."
It opened with a string of complaints. Zhu Ning could picture an old woman sitting here writing, probably bored out of her mind, pouring her thoughts into this makeshift notebook.
"People have been going missing in the village lately. Some say it's the mutated Contaminants killing them—terrifying. Our village is so small. Old Zhang said to borrow my equipment and keep watch, said mine was high-end, hidden, that outsiders wouldn't know I had it installed. He really knows how to take advantage of people. Using mine for free."
Zhu Ning thought she understood. This equipment belonged to this household alone. Probably a single elderly woman living alone, out here beyond the wall—not the safest situation—so she'd invested in a good security system.
"Old Zhang said the other equipment in the village has all been requisitioned. Not just mine—Old Li's place, the family with the convenience store next door, Old Zhang's own equipment is running too. Other villagers are keeping watch as well. Those without equipment are using their eyes."
She thought she understood the villagers' watching gaze now. It wasn't her imagination—they really had been monitoring things. Something had happened in this village.
"Damn Old Zhang, making me work for free. Nothing to report today. Done."
New Calendar Year 10, November 7th
"Another person went missing. This time it was Old Lady Xu—I ran into her just two days ago up on the hill behind the village. Strange. Most people in the village are old. Not worth much. Tough as old leather. What would anyone want with us?"
The notebook seemed to be more personal diary than observation report.
"Nothing on the surveillance today either. Done."
New Calendar Year 10, November 8th
"I ran into A-Fen today. She was acting strange—asked me if the old locust tree at the village entrance seemed bigger than before. I thought she was being ridiculous. Trees don't grow like grass. You can't watch them grow. And that kind of old tree doesn't grow anymore—I've been looking at it my whole life, it's always been the same size."
"But today was genuinely odd. The missing Old Wu came back. They took him to the village doctor for a checkup—said there was nothing wrong except his eyes hurt. When they asked what had happened to him, he wouldn't say. The whole person seemed hollow."
"We brought him home afterward. At first we were worried he'd go missing again, so a few of us took turns keeping an eye on him. But Old Wu seemed fine, and most people stopped watching him."
"But A-Fen told me Old Wu has been replaced. The Old Wu now isn't the Old Wu from before. Her evidence: the old Old Wu could play the keyboard—he was quite talented, used to play for us at festivals. Now he seems to have forgotten how. He plays terribly, like his hands are brand new. Even worse than me."
"I asked Old Zhang if we still needed to keep up the surveillance now that the missing people were coming back. Maybe after a while, the others who disappeared would find their own way home too. Old Zhang said yes, but he still wouldn't tell me why."
"Nothing captured today. Whatever's doing this, it hasn't come past my house. Don't know if the others caught anything. Done."
New Calendar Year 10, November 9th
"Today I caught Old Wu on camera. He was wandering around outside my house for some reason. Very strange—he showed up at eleven-thirty at night, didn't do anything, just stood outside staring up at my surveillance camera. Like a ghost. I was already asleep by then. What was he doing at my place?"
"What was he doing at my place?"
The same line appeared again below—the writer must have found it deeply puzzling and was still turning it over in her mind.
"I kept the footage and gave it to Old Zhang. He told me to keep watching. I don't know what he's looking for. I added a few more cameras—put some in the back courtyard too. Done."
New Calendar Year 10, November 10th
"A-Fen said she bought surveillance equipment too. She secretly installed cameras. Things have been strange in the village lately, and a lot of people are buying them. Some have started burning incense and praying. But A-Fen is the strangest—she told me she caught Old Wu on camera."
"Old Wu went to my place, and now A-Fen's too? What does he want? Is he some kind of pervert? I'll tell Old Zhang tomorrow. At this rate, the village is finished."
"I didn't see Old Wu on my surveillance today, but I was staring at the screen the whole time. I kept watching and watching, and then my vision flickered—like an eyeball was glaring at me through the monitor."
"I blinked and it was gone. Like an illusion. I didn't dare tell anyone—didn't want them thinking I was losing my mind. I can't have people thinking that. But this village really is losing its mind."
"I think I've been straining my eyes. They've been hurting a bit. I need to go get some eye drops tomorrow. Done."
New Calendar Year 10, November 11th
"Old Zhang says there's a Contaminant that's gotten into the village!" The handwriting on the page had become very messy—the writer must have been agitated. "But we don't know who it is. So we've all started calling it the Ghost."
"Who is the Ghost? Old Wu?"
"My eyes are hurting more and more. The drops aren't helping. I need to go inside the wall to see a doctor."
The diary ended there. Xu Meng flipped through the remaining pages. Nothing. Everything after was blank.
Had she switched to writing everything digitally from that point on?
Or… had the writer finished this entry and then died?
Why had her eyes been hurting?
Zhu Ning blinked. She wasn't sure if it was her imagination, but after reading the diary, her own eyes felt strange—she had a strong urge to rub them.
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