Chapter 83-I Clean Up Garbage in a Wasteland World
Chapter 83 Black Dental Clinic (Fourteen)
Zhu Ning felt something in her collar. That thing was ice cold and eerie, and very viscous—like a living creature that wanted to burrow into a person's body the moment it touched their skin.
Zhu Ning had always worn protective suits on missions before. Even when the suit was damaged, she would patch it to maintain her sealed state. This was the first time her skin was exposed.
When walking under poplar trees, if a caterpillar fell into your collar, no matter how brave or timid you were, you would instinctively brush the bug away.
This was human instinct—an instinctive fear of foreign objects entering the body.
But Zhu Ning had to forcibly suppress this instinct. She controlled her body to the maximum extent, not letting herself jump up immediately. She could feel that bug-like thing seemed to be crawling inward.
She could also feel the Xenomorph hanging above her head looking down at her. It seemed to be breathing. The breathing sound was very eerie, extremely cold.
And that small piece of slippery, slimy thing that had fallen on the back of her neck was slowly sliding into her clothes. The movement was very slow, leaving a trail of slime on the skin it passed over.
Zhu Ning kept feeling it was a living thing. For a moment, goosebumps rose all over her, and the hair on her back stood on end.
Zhu Ning endured the strangeness on the back of her neck and took another step. There was more than one High-Level Xenomorph in the stairwell. After turning a corner, three High-Level Xenomorphs hung in the next floor's stairwell, like a cluster of bats.
Zhu Ning felt as if she had stumbled into a mysterious cave. Black shadows completely enveloped her.
High-Level Xenomorphs gathered in groups. Black slime like asphalt slowly dripped from the ceiling.
Zhu Ning's control over her movements had indeed been correct. If she had panicked even slightly just now, once she attracted attention, these things would have pounced on her without hesitation. Not just her—Liu Niannian and Pei Shu behind her would also be attacked.
Rustle rustle—
The High-Level Xenomorphs above made eerie sounds, seemingly sensing something below, searching for prey.
Zhu Ning's understanding of High-Level Xenomorphs was limited. She only knew they were restricted by vision. Whether they had a sense of smell was hard to say.
Zhu Ning had never been in such close, prolonged contact with monsters before. Her goal wasn't even to kill the monsters but to bypass them—practically walking through a pile of Xenomorphs.
Fortunately, both Liu Niannian and Pei Shu had helmets. With that layer of protection, and with Liu Niannian keeping her eyes closed, she didn't actually know what was happening outside. They wouldn't be as panicked as Zhu Ning.
Two out of three people could stay calm. The odds were high.
High-Level Xenomorphs seemed to have no vision, or rather, their vision had to use human gazes as a baseline. Once no one was looking at them, they would lose accuracy in their movements.
Eyes. The key was the eyes. Don't make eye contact with the Xenomorphs. These things had very low intelligence. As long as you didn't make eye contact, there was hope.
The Xenomorph dripped slime, like a black tongue probing in the air.
Drip—
Another piece of black slime fell on her collar, like a fat black bug dropping down.
Zhu Ning tried her best to ignore it, but its presence was too strong.
She had to suppress the urge to scream or make sudden movements. Sometimes you knew your survival depended on it, but you still found it hard to control yourself. The black slime was bone-chillingly cold. She felt her body getting even colder.
Zhu Ning held her breath and walked carefully. Even this tense, her pace had never been disrupted from start to finish.
She stared at her toes, completely forgetting how long she had been walking. When all attention was focused on one point, many things were overlooked.
She couldn't quite remember what time it was now, and she had ignored the foreign object in her collar. It was as if the only thing left in her life was one task—get out.
Her limbs were numb, no longer as agile as before. Liu Niannian behind her was in a similar state. None of them were in good shape after this journey.
Zhu Ning successfully passed the stairwell corner. Her foot stepped onto the next stair.
12th floor. A new floor number was written at the stairwell corner. They had successfully passed one floor. The next task was to maintain this pace and slowly go downstairs.
11, 10, 9, 8...
First floor. The last floor.
They were about to succeed. Zhu Ning pressed one hand on the door and pushed open the last door. But The Ant Nest was a slum. The door had rusted and no one would come to repair it.
Creak—
When Zhu Ning pushed the door open, it produced a sharp metal-on-metal friction sound.
This sound was completely different from conversation and footsteps. If their previous talking counted as low decibels, this was practically noise.
The metal friction sound traveled up through the entire stairwell structure, floor by floor, like a stick poking into a monster's nest, alarming the High-Level Xenomorphs in the entire building.
The Xenomorphs behind let out synchronized screeches, simultaneously shaking their antennae, all looking toward the door.
Zhu Ning froze for a moment. Had they been discovered?
She could feel something crawling down in the stairwell. Those black shadows looked like liquid, but when moving, they weren't actually flowing. Instead, the edges of their bodies transformed into countless tiny legs, crawling upside down on the ceiling.
They made sounds when moving—rustling, mixed with human voices, as if people were talking, or as if humans were calling for help.
You couldn't listen carefully to their sounds. Once you listened carefully, it was as if they would occupy your mind. You would feel cold all over, unable to think.
The Xenomorphs moved extremely fast. They were crawling over. Zhu Ning could feel it—those things were coming!
They were coming!
Zhu Ning abandoned the strategy of staying still. In an instant, she assessed the situation, pushed the door completely open, grabbed Liu Niannian's hand, and started running.
Compared to the High-Level Xenomorphs behind them with their eerie movement speed, Zhu Ning and the others' running speed seemed very slow. The only advantage was that they were already near the exit. They just needed to get through this door.
Even though she had injected GeneBoost, these two steps only took her half a second. Her movements were already fast enough, but she felt the things behind her were faster.
They're coming. They're coming!
Under the High-Level Xenomorphs' influence, terror was amplified to the maximum. Human judgment was reduced to the minimum. All Zhu Ning could think was this sentence—they're coming.
Zhu Ning could even imagine their movement trajectory—shaking their long black tentacles as they moved, surging down the entire stairwell at a speed humans couldn't match.
Ten meters, five meters, three meters...
The distance shortened immediately. It seemed like they were right behind her, already at her heels, about to grab her ankles.
Once a person started imagining, they easily fell into panic, because what you imagined was always more terrifying than reality.
You would fall into a trap of terror because you couldn't stop imagining.
You could control your muscles, not make panicked movements, but you couldn't precisely control your thoughts.
High-Level Xenomorphs could evoke the fear in people's hearts. People in a state of fear would lose judgment, especially under the influence of their rustling cries. It was easy for one's mind to go blank.
By then, Zhu Ning was almost unable to think. Only one very simple command remained in her mind.
Run! Get out!
Bang—
The metal door slammed shut. Zhu Ning could feel something crashing against the door behind her. The Xenomorphs' speed was indeed astonishing. And the metal door couldn't completely block the Xenomorphs. They turned into thick black liquid, already seeping through the door cracks.
Vroom—
An engine sound broke the situation. The next moment, Zhu Ning's newly bought Luxury Car had stopped before her. Once the Contamination Zone was cleared, contact with the outside could be established. Before going downstairs, Zhu Ning had used her secondary brain to send a command to her car's AI.
The Luxury Car had an autonomous driving system. The AI wouldn't get lost in the neighborhood. It used the positioning connection function and found Zhu Ning's signal.
The Luxury Car really was her good daughter—extremely reliable at critical moments, actually arriving at the scene at the precise time.
Zhu Ning had never felt her 2.5 million was so well spent. She would have been willing to pay 25 million.
Zhu Ning didn't look behind her. Without thinking, she pulled Liu Niannian onto the vehicle.
Liu Niannian had been completely following Zhu Ning. She had already been cold all over, half her body stiff. Before she could react to what was happening, Zhu Ning suddenly yanked her onto the vehicle.
Then the Luxury Car activated overdrive mode. The engine ran in an instant, tracing red light, galloping like a true cheetah.
When riding a motorcycle, you should stay as low as possible, pressing your body down to match the motorcycle's lines. This way you wouldn't be thrown off at high speed.
After getting on, Liu Niannian instinctively wrapped her arms around Zhu Ning's waist, barely avoiding being thrown off.
By the time Liu Niannian came to her senses, the vehicle had fully started. Zhu Ning was still immersed in the terror of the High-Level Xenomorphs and hadn't recovered. Half her body was numb. The driving was actually automatic.
Zhu Ning finally had time to touch the back of her neck, wanting to brush off those bugs. But after feeling around, she found nothing at all.
Was it her imagination? Too much was happening. There was no time to think more. They had to leave immediately.
Zhu Ning put on a helmet—not the sealed helmet of a protective suit, just an ordinary black motorcycle helmet. Its purpose was to cover her face and avoid being captured by cameras.
Just as she left The Ant Nest, she heard a siren. The sound was very abrupt, echoing repeatedly in The Ant Nest's eerie structure.
At the motorcycle's high speed, all buildings were quickly left behind. Zhu Ning looked back.
Everything seemed deliberately slowed down. She saw flying vehicles descending overhead, bearing the Sanitation Center's logo. The so-called Abnormal Incident Investigation Team had finally arrived.
The flying vehicles' two headlights were very bright, instantly illuminating part of The Ant Nest's buildings. Zhu Ning had left through the back door. She wasn't swept by that beam of light.
A piercing siren sounded, accompanied by flashing red and blue lights. The red and blue light fell on The Ant Nest like a belated light of justice, preparing to drive away the snakes, rats, and insects lurking in the corners.
This abandoned ancient slum had waited so long to finally attract outside attention. Prometheus had used its private authority to raise the priority of the entire matter.
But the people who should have died inside were already dead. Hundreds of homeless people had consumed Black Dream. They had fallen in The Ant Nest and died alone in The Ant Nest.
Including ordinary people like Xu Mei who had just moved in because it was cheap—they hadn't lived to see the Sanitation Center arrive.
If not for the High-Level Xenomorphs inside, they might never have been discovered even in death.
The aftermath of The Ant Nest wasn't Zhu Ning's concern. It took her three minutes to recover. Her blood slowly warmed. The numbness faded. She regained control of her body. That feeling of terror seemed to have been left behind as well.
Zhu Ning looked down. A pair of hands was wrapped around her waist. A soft body behind her was pressed tightly against her.
Actually, when she was escaping just now, she wasn't quite clear about what she was doing. Her mind was full of leaving immediately. Only now did she slowly think—Liu Niannian was holding onto her, panic transmitting through the protective suit.
She was like a little kitten, her invisible fur all puffed up.
Zhu Ning had wanted to say something comforting, but the words died on her lips. She felt Liu Niannian didn't need it. Comfort was useless anyway.
Encountering terror, then digesting terror—this process was actually quite cathartic. It was an experience unique to the individual.
However, Liu Niannian's mental fortitude was really quite strong. They had stayed in a B-rank Contamination Zone for at least half an hour, and Liu Niannian showed no signs of contamination.
For something as difficult as passing through a swarm of Xenomorphs, Liu Niannian had performed very well. She wasn't a professional, but she hadn't made a single mistake from start to finish.
Zhu Ning hadn't seen her specific sanity value, but she always felt it would be very high.
Zhu Ning touched her neck again. Still nothing. And her body was warm. The cold feeling had completely faded, as if the black slime had disappeared.
It probably wasn't her imagination. That thing really had fallen into her collar. But where had it gone? Had it fallen inside her clothes? It couldn't have actually been absorbed by her body, could it?
Just thinking about this process would cost sanity points. Zhu Ning chose not to think about it for now and would check when she had time.
Zhu Ning still had a lot to do. Thinking of Liu Niannian behind her, she asked, "Where's your home? I'll take you back."
Liu Niannian gave an address. Zhu Ning was about to head there when she suddenly felt like she had forgotten something. What had she forgotten?
Gao Zijian was dead. The Contamination Zone was cleared. She had gotten the notebook. Professionals would handle the cleanup afterward. She didn't need to worry about the finishing work. Except for not collecting the Contamination Spores, she had done everything she needed to do. Nothing was missing.
Wait.
It took her a full thirty seconds to react. "Where's your teacher?"
Liu Niannian was behind her. So where was Pei Shu?
Liu Niannian's face was buried in Zhu Ning's back. Whether she was still in a state of fear was unclear. Hearing this, she answered in a muffled voice, "I don't know."
Screech—
Zhu Ning braked. Because it was so sudden, Liu Niannian's whole body lurched forward from inertia, nearly hitting her nose.
Zhu Ning took a deep breath. She had forgotten Pei Shu!
Ten minutes ago.
When Zhu Ning walked out the last door, before Pei Shu could even say "run," Zhu Ning had already taken Liu Niannian and started running.
Pei Shu had just been about to praise this young woman for her flexible thinking. She didn't need his direction at all. She would smartly assess the situation herself.
And she had instinctively been protecting Liu Niannian the whole time, which made Pei Shu very relieved.
A talent worth cultivating. Someone like this could survive to the end even outside the walls.
When they ran out of the building, before Pei Shu could react at all, he saw Zhu Ning taking his young lady onto a vehicle.
Zhu Ning's speed was incredibly fast. Her coordination with her vehicle was too high. From getting on to leaving only took two seconds.
After a roar of the engine, Pei Shu was left alone on the spot, with High-Level Xenomorphs pouncing from behind.
Pei Shu: "..."
They had agreed to cooperate, and then she had ditched him. Pei Shu gritted his teeth. You really are something.
Comments
Post a Comment