Chapter 78-I Clean Up Garbage in a Wasteland World
Chapter 78 Black Dental Clinic-9
Zhu Ning stepped onto the stairs.
The moment she stepped up, the Contaminants around her moved. They erupted with unprecedented power. Some dentists had already broken free from the metal restraints.
Metal Manipulation only had a range of two meters. She couldn't maintain full suppression continuously. Xu Mei's severed limbs were wriggling, seemingly wanting to revive immediately and continue working for Gao Zijian.
Not only that, the emergency exits on every floor had opened. The dental clinic was a renovation. Based on the structure, like other rooms, each floor had two exits connecting to the sky bridges.
Now the emergency doors on every floor were open. Homeless people poured out from the emergency stairwells on both sides. They had consumed too much Black Dream—emaciated, some not even wearing pants. They opened their mouths wide, revealing black and yellow teeth, looking at Zhu Ning like stray dogs smelling meat.
The Contamination Zone was this large, so there were more Contaminants.
Sure enough, Zhu Ning had only encountered some of the Contaminants earlier. Gao Zijian was much more cautious than she thought—he hadn't even let these people show themselves before.
Perverts were all afraid of death. He wouldn't give Zhu Ning a chance to talk her way out. He would kill her before she could make a move. The difficulty of approaching Gao Zijian had suddenly increased.
Her little trick with Metal Manipulation now seemed somewhat inadequate. The iron rod in her hand pierced a dentist's throat, then she used brute force to pin him to the stairs.
Soon the two iron rods in her hands were used up. The metal objects she could use were becoming fewer. Meanwhile, Gao Zijian's Contaminants were inexhaustible—they were just consumables to him.
Second floor. Zhu Ning was covered in blood. She stood on the second-floor steps. The dentists' blood had splattered all over half her body. Since the fabric wasn't absorbent, the blood dripped down her protective suit onto the ground.
Third floor. Zhu Ning was slowly closing the distance between herself and Gao Zijian. Her protective suit had been clawed open with a hole. The helmet damage was even more extensive—the helmet's internal system had completely crashed.
Gao Zijian frowned. He didn't like Zhu Ning being this close to him. It instinctively made him uncomfortable. She was getting annoying.
Just as Zhu Ning steadied herself on the third-floor platform, the homeless people seemed to receive some kind of summons. Suddenly, everyone lunged at Zhu Ning at once. Were they using human wave tactics?
Zhu Ning was fighting alone against a group. When a group of people pressed down, the unbearable pressure would instantly suppress a person.
The homeless people now seemed like zombies, pressing down in a dark mass. It looked like Zhu Ning wouldn't have time to escape, but these people only grabbed at empty air. Their bodies collided with each other—Zhu Ning herself had suddenly vanished.
Gao Zijian furrowed his brow. Using invisibility again? Gao Zijian had long noticed Zhu Ning's bloody footprints. He deduced that Zhu Ning's ability was related to invisibility, but this ability shouldn't be very useful.
The next second, Zhu Ning suddenly appeared on the fourth floor.
[Use Putrid Fish Head acceleration function? Will consume 3 health points?]
The System asked again. Zhu Ning chose yes.
She could teleport? Gao Zijian understood in an instant. Zhu Ning's speed had increased. Her entire being became a blur.
Fifth floor. She had reached the fifth floor.
Closer. Even closer. She quickly passed through the crowd and was right before his eyes in the blink of an eye.
By the time Gao Zijian reacted, the black helmet suddenly enlarged, and a flash of cold light appeared before his eyes. Zhu Ning had a dagger on her, moving extremely fast, aimed at Gao Zijian's neck.
The dagger drew a sharp straight line in the darkness. It was a beautiful strike, aesthetically pleasing from any angle.
But it was useless.
Crack—
Half the dagger fell to the ground. Gao Zijian's neck had no wounds. Instead, it was covered with a layer of hardened substance.
Pure white, like tooth armor. Zhu Ning had noticed this on Xu Mei earlier. Teeth were the hardest part of the human body. This Contamination Zone had been amplifying the properties of teeth. The armor's hardness was enough to resist any weapon in the world. It could block bullets. Even if Zhu Ning used some explosive device, it wouldn't work on him—let alone just a dagger.
The dagger was useless against Gao Zijian, but Gao Zijian's weapon was effective against Zhu Ning.
His right hand suddenly began to change. His wrist rotated twice, spinning faster and faster. Human skin disappeared, and white bone instantly crawled over the back of his hand. His five fingers merged together, forming a cone shape—wide at the top and pointed at the bottom—like it had suddenly become an electric drill, spinning at high speed, made of hard material, more terrifying than any existing dagger.
Gao Zijian raised his right hand and thrust at Zhu Ning's helmet, wanting to drill through half her skull. Even though her reaction was fast enough and she instinctively leaned back to create distance, a corner of her helmet was still forcibly drilled off—it nearly took off Zhu Ning's nose.
Zhu Ning had nowhere to go. All the Contaminants were heading this way, blocking her retreat.
To break through, she had to kill the contamination source. So the answer became very clear.
Gao Zijian's full-body defense was completely impenetrable. Meanwhile, the spinning drill on his right hand could easily breach Zhu Ning's protective suit.
Zhu Ning's helmet was destroyed, revealing half her face. Blood kept flowing from her forehead, running down her left eye like a drop of bloody tears.
Gao Zijian's left hand gripped Zhu Ning's neck. His grip was surprisingly strong.
Looking closely, it wasn't that his grip was strong—rather, his skin hardened immediately after grabbing Zhu Ning's neck. This way, his palm would be harder than stone, making it impossible for prey to escape.
Gao Zijian had Zhu Ning by the neck. Zhu Ning had angered him. He rarely got this angry. Zhu Ning was quite special. For a moment, he couldn't even think of how to punish her.
With Zhu Ning's helmet disabled, she was completely exposed to the Contamination Zone. Gao Zijian saw Zhu Ning's face—a woman's face. Zhu Ning was much younger than he had expected. What was strange was her eyes.
Her gaze had been calm from start to finish, still cold even now, as if the one being choked wasn't her but Gao Zijian.
Gao Zijian asked, "What exactly are you trying to do?"
"I told you," Zhu Ning gripped the hand choking her neck, "I'm here to resolve your inner conflict."
Gao Zijian frowned. No one had ever said they came to resolve his inner conflict, let alone in such a fierce tone, like making a threat. Zhu Ning must be planning something. What could she do?
Gao Zijian thought rapidly. Metal Manipulation was useless against him. Invisibility was useless too. That guillotine couldn't even kill Xu Mei. Zhu Ning was too weak.
She seemed so confident, as if Gao Zijian was already a dead man. Why?
Thump—
Suddenly, Gao Zijian's heart contracted violently. His heart hadn't beaten this hard in a long time, so he couldn't react for a moment.
Zhu Ning smiled slightly. "You breathe and bleed, don't you?"
Zhu Ning had heard it. Gao Zijian had breathing sounds. Unlike Xu Mei's strange breathing rate, his breathing was that of a normal person. That was how she had identified who the real dentist was.
Zhu Ning had used a dagger to test his true trump card. So Gao Zijian's ability was skin hardening.
He was only hard on the outside. His skin hardness had reached unprecedented levels. No matter what weapon Zhu Ning used, even explosives couldn't blow him open from the outside. But what about the inside?
Blood flowed through Gao Zijian's body. When the two of them were close enough, Zhu Ning could sense the sound of blood flowing through his body.
Gao Zijian's ability was the exact opposite of Lin Xiaofeng's. Lin Xiaofeng had great strength and invisibility, but correspondingly poor defense. Gao Zijian had maxed out his defense, protecting his fragile interior.
The System said to have Zhu Ning help him resolve his inner conflict.
The way to break through had been told to her from the start. The most suitable ability to use here was Liquid Manipulation. Blood was also a liquid.
Blood flowed through Gao Zijian's body. Zhu Ning could feel it. She had climbed the stairs floor by floor to find the mechanism that triggered this talent. She had found the range of Liquid Manipulation. Now Gao Zijian was within her range.
Thump!
Gao Zijian felt his heart becoming more and more wrong. All the blood in his body was surging toward his heart. He had never had heart disease, but what he was experiencing now was probably similar to a heart attack.
The heart was only the size of a fist. It was the central organ of the circulatory system, one of the most vulnerable parts of a person's body. It simply couldn't withstand all the blood in the body flowing back at once.
Now Gao Zijian's heart was like a balloon. Zhu Ning kept pouring into it like filling it with water. She was going to resolve Gao Zijian's inner conflict on a physical level.
She had consumed fifty health points to use the Liquid Manipulation skill. She had made up her mind before coming in—either kill Gao Zijian at all costs, or Zhu Ning would exhaust herself here.
Zhu Ning's neck loosened. Gao Zijian's face turned deathly pale. He released the hand gripping Zhu Ning's neck. Gao Zijian stared wide-eyed at Zhu Ning in disbelief, but couldn't utter a single word of accusation.
His vision began to darken and he had difficulty breathing. His brain was oxygen-deprived. In fact, he could no longer breathe on his own. He kept trying to take a deep breath but couldn't exhale.
He tried hard to fight against that inexplicable force, but he couldn't. No matter what, he couldn't do it.
It was like someone had him by the throat. Like a grim reaper had raised a scythe and stood behind him. He had been locked on by death and couldn't escape.
In the past, he had played the role of the grim reaper. He was always high above, and as the master of a B-rank Contamination Zone, he held the power of life and death.
He watched that fool Xu Mei work herself to death for him without any guilt. He sold Black Dream to all patients without remorse. He could kill patients expressionlessly, just as he never hesitated to kill the tooth-people in his mouth.
He was so short that he had to look up at most people, but in his heart, he always thought of himself as a god high above. But now, the one playing the grim reaper was Zhu Ning. Gao Zijian was the lamb being toyed with.
Imagine a person forever inhaling but never able to stop. The heart kept expanding like a balloon, bigger and bigger and bigger. Zhu Ning let him experience what victims felt when dying.
Strangely, he felt this sensation was very familiar. It reminded him of the first Defective he had killed. Back then, his father's general practice clinic still took in patients.
One patient was very ill. His father had put him on a ventilator. The patient lay dying on the hospital bed. When he saw Gao Zijian push open the door, he showed a smile. This was his savior's son. Even as a Defective, he knew to repay kindness. That smile was very sincere.
Gao Zijian was only seven years old at the time. He sat beside this patient, observing him the whole time. No one would be wary of a child. Children were natural angels who could heal everything and even bring hope for life.
But Gao Zijian's gaze held no warmth. The way he looked at the patient was like looking at a cat or dog. He was savoring the scent of death.
Out of survival instinct, the patient began to feel that this child by his bed was very strange. Sometimes a person's sixth sense could save their life. The patient tremblingly reached out his hand. He wanted to press the call button by the bed.
He was a little afraid of Gao Zijian and wanted to call someone to take Gao Zijian away.
But at the same time, Gao Zijian made his move. As a healthy child, his movements were much faster than the patient's. His hand landed on the ventilator. He turned off the ventilator.
It turned out that people on the verge of death would erupt with unimaginable strength. The patient suddenly struggled violently. He opened his mouth wide, wanting to breathe, but he couldn't get any oxygen.
The patient was like a fish gasping on shore. The process of breathing stopping was very long—not even as quick as a single knife stroke.
Death was forcibly prolonged. Gao Zijian could savor the pleasure of death. He watched for a long time.
Many times, Gao Zijian could have reached out to help him. The power of life and death was in his hands. He only needed to move his finger and turn the machine back on.
For him, it was only a second—as simple as pressing a button. But he didn't move.
Beep—
Gao Zijian heard the alert sound indicating breathing had stopped. Then he expressionlessly turned the ventilator back on. The patient had already stopped breathing. The ventilator was useless now.
He was dead.
"Dad!" Gao Zijian suddenly started crying loudly. "Uncle Li is dead!"
His father rushed over. He glanced at the hospital bed but hadn't noticed anything wrong before his attention was drawn to his son. His father carried Gao Zijian out of the room, then showed rare tenderness, comforting him the whole time.
"It's okay, it's okay, don't be afraid."
His father's voice was pleasant. At that moment, all his attention was on him. But Gao Zijian couldn't stop crying. He lay on his father's shoulder, looking past his father at the patient who had already died on the bed.
Strangely, that was the first person he had killed. He felt no guilt. He always felt he had done a good thing. His father told him to be a good person.
Father.
In the moment of explosion, he thought of many things. He thought of his father.
His father was highly respected in The Ant Nest, but he only had eyes for patients. Even when free, he would only look at his notebook. He rarely looked at Gao Zijian. He would only endlessly review his past research results, then sink into endless regret.
He never looked at him. Why wouldn't he look at him? He was right here. Why couldn't anyone see him? What was so interesting about that notebook?
At the moment of Gao Zijian's death, the father he imagined was just a back view. From beginning to end, he refused to turn around and look at him.
Squelch—
This sound brought Gao Zijian back from the past to reality. Balloons would explode, and so would hearts. It had reached the limit. All the blood had surged up. The heart had reached maximum load.
Have you ever heard the sound of a heart exploding? Gao Zijian had heard it. It was like something tearing, or like pressure being squeezed to the extreme. The sound of the explosion was very crisp.
The last sound Gao Zijian heard was the sound of his own heart exploding.
Zhu Ning had crushed his heart.
Author's Note
Ning-baby has always been like this—if she can wreck the place, she wrecks it; if she can crush it, she crushes it!
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