Chapter 105-I Clean Up Garbage in a Wasteland World

Chapter 105 The Forsaken Village (IX)

[Sanity decreased by 3%]

The moment Zhu Ning pulled out the long worm, she heard the System's prompt.

Hairworm.

That was all she could think about. A worm that long—it had to be a hairworm.

This parasite could live inside a mantis's body. It would drain the host's nutrients without killing it outright, turning the mantis into its puppet.

It could even drive the mantis to drown itself in water, completing its own reproductive cycle.

Zhu Ning had once seen a video online of someone extracting a hairworm from a mantis's body. Watching it, you couldn't help but wonder: how does something that small contain something that long?

Now the red worm in Zhu Ning's palm was still writhing, as if searching for its next host.

This thing was a parasite? After the contamination of the wasteland, humans had mutated—and so had the parasites.

Rural areas were far more dangerous than cities when it came to parasites. Being closer to nature, and in an era before modern medicine, entire villages had often suffered from parasitic infections.

Zhu Ning looked up at A-Fen. The worms in her eyes were twisting. One had slipped halfway out of her eye socket, dangling against her cheek, its tail still twitching.

All the villagers had been parasitized?

Zhu Ning carefully retraced the diary's story. At first, people in Happiness Village had been going missing frequently. Old Zhang, trying to investigate the truth, had mobilized the neighbors who had surveillance equipment—including the old woman next door—to keep watch. Those without equipment used their own eyes. The whole village began monitoring itself, hoping to identify the culprit.

The diary's author had been watching the village throughout. And yet, during her watch, people continued to disappear.

Then, more than a week later, the missing Old Wu suddenly reappeared—different from before, even having to relearn how to play the keyboard.

Had Old Wu been infected by the parasite?

After infection, the parasite had to re-coordinate with Old Wu's body—but the coordination wasn't perfect. He couldn't even play the keyboard properly anymore.

Old Wu's increasingly strange behavior followed: wandering outside the old woman's house in the middle of the night, staring blankly at her surveillance camera. He'd also appeared outside A-Fen's door. Was he trying to infect new hosts?

A-Fen had definitely been infected—you could tell just by looking at her eyes. The worms were already spilling out of her sockets. And the old woman next door? She'd written in the diary that her eyes were hurting. Had she been infected too? And where had she gone?

In Zhu Ning's palm, the red worm writhed, trying to find a gap in her protective suit to slip through. She knew the suit protected her—the parasite couldn't do anything to her—but she couldn't help her mind from going places.

A worm this long, if it moved fast enough, could strangle her.

A-Fen was still watching her. She wanted Zhu Ning to eat the apple.

Was this a clumsy attempt to infect Zhu Ning?

Suddenly, Xu Meng, sitting to her left, shot to her feet. "Sorry, ma'am—I've got an upset stomach. Could I use your bathroom?"

Xu Meng broke the deadlock cleanly and naturally. Zhu Ning had never seen her act before. She was remarkably convincing.

A-Fen's eyes shifted. She looked displeased. She pointed toward the back courtyard. "That way."

Zhu Ning hadn't coordinated with Xu Meng at all, but she understood immediately.

Xu Meng was going to look for clues. Zhu Ning needed to find a way to get them out.

Li Nianchuan had been sitting rigidly, pouring all his effort into not losing sanity—but his eyes kept drifting involuntarily toward Zhu Ning.

The parasite was crawling across Zhu Ning's thigh, twisting its body like a length of blood vessel. Even though it was on Zhu Ning, Li Nianchuan kept feeling it was on his own leg.

In that moment, the apple in Li Nianchuan's hand felt scorching hot. It was no longer an apple—it was a beating heart. Any second now, something would crawl out of it.

Li Nianchuan's hand jerked. The apple rolled off his lap and hit the floor.

It made a sound that was hard to describe—like a piece of meat slapping wetly against the ground, then rolling away.

A-Fen clicked her tongue. She hated waste. Her first instinct was to bend down and pick it up.

Li Nianchuan had also started to reach for it—then his movement froze.

As A-Fen bent over, the back of her neck was exposed. There, the size of a little finger, was a blood-red hole. A blood-red worm had already half-emerged from it, the exposed portion writhing.

Li Nianchuan's mind went there immediately: if you grabbed the worm's head and pulled, it would be like pulling a thread with no end. The worm from a single apple was two meters long—how many meters of worm were inside A-Fen's body?

Twenty meters? A hundred? A thousand?

If you pulled it all out, would it fill the entire room? Flowing like liquid blood, writhing frantically across every surface?

And A-Fen, once drained of her worm, would she collapse like that hollowed-out apple—nothing left but a soft, deflated husk?

Li Nianchuan's mind was spiraling out of control. Just imagining it was enough to drain his sanity. He slapped his left arm sharply. A small needle extended from the suit and pierced his skin—the Sanity Healing Agent took effect. Li Nianchuan closed his eyes. His mind felt marginally clearer, but when he spoke, he was already shaking. "W-we should go. It's getting dark."

Whatever Zhu Ning was planning, Li Nianchuan couldn't stay in this room any longer. If he did, he might snap—grab his gun and start shooting wildly.

Zhu Ning stood as well. As she rose, the worm on her body tumbled to the floor. The room was abandoned, the floor thick with dust.

The worm rolled in the dust, coating itself in gray, and writhed like a maggot in mud.

Zhu Ning could see Li Nianchuan was at the edge. She said immediately: "Sorry to bother you. We'll be going."

She moved toward the door as she spoke. She wasn't sure how A-Fen would react, or whether the worm on the floor might suddenly lunge—so her movements were careful. She wanted to leave quickly, but she also had to make sure her exit didn't startle A-Fen.

A-Fen had just touched the apple. She was still bent over, her back not yet straightening—but the parasite at the back of her neck had risen fully upright.

As if whatever was controlling the puppet had given up on the host and was now facing Zhu Ning directly.

The worm was looking at her.

A deeply unsettling sensation. Being seen by a worm.

Zhu Ning could still hold herself together. Li Nianchuan basically couldn't. Every part of him was screaming to run. The Sanity Healing Agent couldn't touch the fear. His legs weren't cooperating—his feet kept tangling with each other, nearly tripping him.

He didn't know what he was doing anymore. He only knew he had to escape. He shoved the door open and ran, and even after he'd crossed the threshold, he felt like he'd brought something out with him.

He patted his back, his sides, his whole body—searching for invisible worms, trying to brush away what he couldn't see.

Maybe a worm had already gotten in. He just didn't know it. The worm would invade his brain, occupy his body, breed inside his shell—until someone drew a blade lightly across his skin and the thin surface split open, revealing nothing inside but writhing red worms.

They'd look like many worms, but lift them and they'd all be one—one impossibly long worm with no end.

Li Nianchuan looked back. A-Fen hadn't come after them. She was standing at the window, both eyes now completely filled with red worms—so full the sockets couldn't contain them. They fell like tears, pattering down one after another.

Those eyes were fixed on Li Nianchuan.

A-Fen wasn't angry. She was even smiling. That expression made it worse—as if there was no escaping, no matter where you ran. Something would always be watching from behind, a worm forever following in your shadow.

When panic builds to its peak, it's like a tide reaching its highest point. You need an outlet, or you'll go mad.

Li Nianchuan's first instinct was to reach for his gun. He felt himself losing it. The terror had made his movements faster than usual—he chambered a round and raised the barrel in one fluid motion.

He was going to fire.

A hand pressed down on the barrel, with a force that was hard to describe. Zhu Ning stepped in front of him, completely unafraid that Li Nianchuan might accidentally discharge.

Zhu Ning's low voice reached him: "Don't."

Don't act. Not until they understood what was happening.

Li Nianchuan looked at Zhu Ning in front of him. She was wearing her helmet—he couldn't see her eyes. He could only hear her voice. He could feel the certainty in it.

Li Nianchuan's hands were shaking. Red worms flashed in his vision like a hallucination, crawling across everything he looked at. It felt like his eyes were already full of worms. Everything he saw had worms in it.

Zhu Ning was covered in worms. He was covered in worms. They'd been drowning in parasites long ago.

A wave of nausea surged up, making him desperately want to vomit.

"Don't," Zhu Ning said, steadying him. "You don't have any worms on you. I checked."

Li Nianchuan steadied himself. He looked carefully at Zhu Ning—no parasites. He looked at himself—same. Clean. Just an ordinary black protective suit.

Zhu Ning: "Put it away."

She hadn't taken Li Nianchuan's weapon. She hadn't stripped him of his right to defend himself. She'd said: put it away.

Li Nianchuan's trembling hands went still. He didn't know how Zhu Ning managed to stay calm. The gulf between a genius and an ordinary person had fully opened before him—Li Nianchuan could see the gap, even if it was invisible. But Zhu Ning's voice was so clear. Clearer than the Sanity Healing Agent.

Could someone with high sanity stabilize others? Did they radiate an influence?

He didn't know about others, but he could feel Zhu Ning's effect on him. His shaking hands gradually stilled. He holstered his gun.

"Good boy," Zhu Ning said.

She was soothing him like she'd soothe a dog. And yet Li Nianchuan was, inexplicably, soothed.

Li Nianchuan's reaction was the reaction of a normal person. He hadn't done anything wrong. In an A-Level Contamination Zone like this, holding on this long was already impressive.

Zhu Ning looked back. A-Fen was still at the window, a dark silhouette with that eerie smile, watching them. Others began to appear—villagers drawn by some shared signal, drifting to their windows.

The Contaminants had stirred.

Zhu Ning could picture it: they had walked exactly to those footprints, stepping into the predetermined anchor points.

Now, looking out across the forsaken village, every house had figures at the windows, watching. Monitoring.

It overlapped with the image from the first layer—noses nearly pressed to the glass. But here there was no warm breath. These were truly dead people.

Zhu Ning looked back at the house where they'd found the diary. It was empty. The old woman who'd written the surveillance log hadn't appeared.

She had vanished as if she'd never existed.

The logic of a Contamination Zone was to drive you mad. Li Nianchuan, as an ordinary person, was already at the breaking point. Zhu Ning and Xu Meng could hold out longer—but for how long?

And even if Zhu Ning could hold out, Xu Meng might not be able to.

From Zhu Ning's experience in Contamination Zones, once the zone sensed you couldn't be broken psychologically, it would shift to physical attacks.

Li Nianchuan was taking slow, deep breaths. "Where's the squad leader?"

Zhu Ning frowned. She looked back at A-Fen's house. Xu Meng had said she needed the bathroom—and she still hadn't come out.

Xu Meng was still inside A-Fen's house.

—

She'd used the bathroom as a cover and done a quick circuit of the place. A-Fen had been occupied with Zhu Ning in the living room and hadn't paid much attention to her.

A-Fen's house shared a wall with the old woman next door. Their back courtyards were connected. The dust-covered furnishings gave a rough picture of the owner's personality—embroidery, potted plants, decorative flowers. If the neighbor was a cantankerous old woman, this one was a gentle, warm-hearted grandmother.

A-Fen's surveillance equipment wasn't in the back courtyard—it was in the room beside the bedroom. Xu Meng tried to power it on. Nothing. The whole village had lost power completely, every circuit dead.

Xu Meng felt around the back of the surveillance unit and found the cables had been cut.

Deliberately severed?

Who had done it? Old Wu? Had he destroyed the surveillance before making his move?

There was nothing on the desk. A-Fen hadn't kept a diary—probably because Old Zhang hadn't asked her to keep watch, and A-Fen had installed her equipment purely out of self-preservation.

That was one difference between her and the neighbor.

The room with the surveillance equipment held no written materials at all. Not even a photograph.

Probably because A-Fen had already been parasitized. The first thing the replacement did was destroy the evidence. So there was nothing to find here.

Xu Meng heard movement from the living room—Li Nianchuan's halting voice saying they had to leave. Something had fallen on the floor. The apple, probably.

She'd only been in here two minutes. She sensed Zhu Ning and Li Nianchuan were about to go. She couldn't make it back through the front door in time—she'd have to go through the back courtyard.

This Contamination Zone was deeply strange. Xu Meng had been in and out of many A-Level Contamination Zones, but none had been like this.

Her instincts told her they had to find the Source of Contamination and get out immediately. Something worse was waiting for them if they didn't.

A-Fen's courtyard connected to the neighbor's. The old woman's house was empty—getting out through there was relatively safe.

Xu Meng moved fast. If she wanted to disappear from somewhere, she could do it in under a second. No one would even catch her shadow.

She was just about to move when she stopped.

There was a small hole in the wall. Someone had stuffed it with paper.

Xu Meng pulled out the paper wad—and found it wasn't just one piece. It was like accidentally disturbing a hamster's winter stash of nuts. A cascade of crumpled paper balls tumbled out.

Large and small, they'd been packed tightly into the hole.

Was this a way to pass messages to the neighbor next door?

Xu Meng could picture it: A-Fen standing by the wall, passing one note after another through to the other side. This was probably a quiet, understood way the two old women had communicated.

Xu Meng unfolded one of the paper balls. Written on it: Shengxin, run! Old Du has gone crazy!

Shengxin? Was that the cantankerous neighbor's name?

And who was Old Du?

Xu Meng unfolded another: Shengxin, Old Du isn't Old Du anymore. I think he has worms in him.

Third note: There's a huge worm in his ear. Meters long. Old Du keeps staring at me. Run!

Fourth note: Shengxin, my eyes have been hurting more and more. I think Old Du's worm got out of his ear and into my eyes. I'm going to end up like Old Du.

Fifth note: Shengxin, run! Don't try to save me. Just run!

The remaining notes all repeated the same thing. Every message said the same thing: Old Du had been infected. A-Fen suspected she was being infected too. She wanted her neighbor Shengxin to leave.

She didn't know how much longer she could hold onto her own mind. Under Old Du's surveillance, A-Fen had still been passing messages—right up until she lost herself completely.

Xu Meng frowned. The notes kept mentioning Old Du. That meant this house wasn't a single woman living alone. She had a husband.

There was another person in this house. Or rather—another Contaminant.

Crack—

Xu Meng heard a sound behind her. Someone had stepped on a branch. A sharp snap. He was right behind her.

---

Author's Note:

Hairworm: adults live in rivers, ponds, and ditches. Females lay eggs in water; the larvae hatch and are ingested by insects or humans. When swallowed by large arthropods such as mantises or locusts, the larvae continue developing inside the host, gradually taking control of the host's behavior. When the larvae mature into adults, they manipulate the host to seek out water and drown itself, then emerge from the host's body to complete their life cycle. — From a certain encyclopedia.

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