Chapter 89-I Clean Up Garbage in a Wasteland World

Chapter 89 Two-in-One

District 103 Waste Processing Center.

Garbage was piled up around the incinerators. The entire Federation's waste processing center was District 103. Every day, hundreds of tons of garbage were transported here via underground pipelines or aerial rail trains.

Garbage and waste were District 103's specialty. You'd be hard-pressed to find this much trash and Defectives anywhere else.

There was a group of scavengers around the incinerators who made their living picking through garbage. These people were either very old or had genetic diseases—the kind you could see with the naked eye.

Some garbage was perfectly fine to them. Some things could clearly still be used with a little repair.

They could salvage broken mechanical arms or broken robots, sell them by weight to junk dealers. Sometimes, rummaging through the piles, they'd even find valuable jewelry carelessly discarded by the wealthy.

Rather than picking through garbage, it was more like panning for gold.

Back in the day, Defectives in District 103 didn't have many employment options. Most people had actually scavenged garbage at some point.

But in the past two years, good finds had become increasingly rare. They had to sift through mountains of garbage like panning for gold in a river, spending half a day just to pick out what they needed.

Metal contamination and biological contamination were extremely severe. Under the scorching sun, the income from this line of work wasn't great. Not many people did it anymore these past two years.

"Lao Yang, what are you doing?"

The old woman called Lao Yang was hunched over, desperately digging with both hands. Her gaze was excessively focused—she hadn't heard a word from the person beside her.

Liu Sheng glanced around. There were very few people in their area. A few scattered figures in the distance were sprawled on the hillside digging, like people harvesting caterpillar fungus in the old world. It was just the two of them on this little hilltop, but judging from Lao Yang's reaction, she'd struck gold.

You couldn't shout about a chance to get rich. Nobody wanted to share the spoils. Liu Sheng carefully sidled up to Lao Yang and whispered, "Did you find treasure?"

The old woman was desperately trying to pull out a mechanical limb. "Brat, I can't pull it out. Get over here and help."

Liu Sheng looked at her old bones, clicked his tongue, and helped pull. But that mechanical leg was incredibly heavy, and it seemed to be genuinely stuck on something. After two minutes of pulling, they'd made zero progress.

Liu Sheng was drenched in sweat. "What exactly are you looking for?"

Lao Yang: "There's a living person down there."

Liu Sheng froze mid-motion. Hearing this, he nearly let go. "Are you crazy? How could there possibly be a living person down here?"

Lao Yang had started digging from the top of a small mound. The garbage she'd already dug out had piled into its own little mountain.

If there was a living person underneath, they'd have been crushed flat long ago.

Besides, garbage transported to District 103 went through layer after layer of screening. They definitely checked for signs of life. Only confirmed dead things got sent here.

Liu Sheng had been scavenging for ten years. He'd never found a living person—only corpses. Who knew if they'd been killed by some serial killer or what, just tossed into the dump.

Liu Sheng particularly hated those kinds of corpses. Rotting bodies caused biological contamination.

Then there were the experimental subjects from those shady laboratories. Especially terrifying—they looked just like you, but also not quite like you.

What Liu Sheng hated most were experimental subjects. Some were radioactive. Ordinary people who came into contact with them would be dead within days.

Hearing this, Liu Sheng didn't want to keep pulling. "Even if they were alive, they'd be crushed to death by now. Stop wasting your energy."

What was wrong with his mother? Why couldn't she face reality? Bottom-rung people should act like bottom-rung people. Stop daydreaming.

Liu Sheng felt his old mother was at it again. Every time, the same thing—she'd see a glimmer of hope and rush toward it, eyes bright, convinced she'd found gold.

Did she really think she was digging up ginseng?

Lao Yang: "What are you talking about? It's really alive."

Liu Sheng: "Seriously, our family is too poor. Only rich people can afford to save others. Even if we pull someone out, it's useless."

It was the truth. They were this poor, couldn't even keep food on the table. If they really rescued someone, the family might as well give up.

Liu Sheng didn't want to help at all. "I'm letting go, okay."

Lao Yang was frantic. "Don't let go! We're almost there. I'm not lying—there really is a living person. I can hear a heartbeat."

Liu Sheng: "A heartbeat? You can hear a heartbeat from in there?"

Lao Yang: "I'm old, but my ears still work. It's very loud. Thump, thump, thump."

Liu Sheng broke out in goosebumps. In his understanding, large creatures had more powerful heartbeats. If there really was something alive down there, and the heartbeat was as strong as Lao Yang described...

Then what were they digging up?

A monster?

Liu Sheng thought of those monsters from outside the walls and felt even more terrified. "This is really scary. I'm seriously letting go. You dig by yourself. I don't dare move."

Lao Yang nearly passed out from anger. "Just help me move this one thing. I'll do the rest myself. You can't bully your own mother!"

Liu Sheng: "..."

"Hey, that's going too far." Liu Sheng said this, but he didn't let go. Lao Yang was right—he couldn't just leave his mother here. She was old and frail. Scavenging was already dangerous. If something happened because of this, Liu Sheng would never forgive himself.

Crack—

The spot where the mechanical leg was stuck gave way. The two of them nearly tumbled over. Liu Sheng's quick reflexes caught Lao Yang before she could roll off the garbage mountain.

"Shit! Scared me to death!" Liu Sheng steadied his mother. "You're going to hurt yourself."

Liu Sheng thought he couldn't let Lao Yang come here anymore. The old woman didn't have many years left as it was. If she took a fall today and they couldn't afford medical treatment, that would be more terrifying than digging up a monster.

Lao Yang's face was deathly pale. At first, Liu Sheng thought she'd been frightened. "Just rest for a bit. I'll handle it."

Lao Yang: "Don't move. Listen."

"What? You..." Liu Sheng didn't finish his sentence, because this time he really heard it.

Thump—

Lao Yang was right. It was a heartbeat. A vigorous heartbeat.

There really was... something alive down there?

Lao Yang reacted faster than him. She was already on her hands and knees digging beside the garbage pile. Liu Sheng froze for two seconds, then started digging too.

This time they didn't dig for long before both of them stopped simultaneously.

Both Lao Yang and Liu Sheng were deathly pale. They had never seen such a bizarre sight.

The garbage dump had everything—metal waste, biological waste, including some rotting animal carcasses. The dump was synonymous with decay—chaotic and filthy. Nobody but fifth-class citizens like them would willingly be here.

But now, a hand was reaching out from the garbage pile. So soft. It was a child's hand.

Thump—

...

Thump—

Zhu Ning was in trouble.

She meant it—she was really in trouble.

Zhu Ning was running. Whenever she felt troubled, she would go running. It was late at night. She was alone on the rubber track. No referee, no coach, no companions.

From start to finish, she was alone. She mechanically moved her legs, the only sound in her ears being her heartbeat.

Once you start running, don't stop easily. Even if you feel exhausted, keep moving forward. Otherwise, it's hard to pick back up—breaking that rhythm is a real problem.

So Zhu Ning's footsteps never stopped. She kept moving forward, repeating, lap after lap.

How old had she been then?

Fifteen, at the training camp. She had already made the national team.

Daily physical training, professional shooting instruction. The nation's top marksmen were all around her. Day after day, an extremely mechanical training regimen.

It was incredibly monotonous. All the glory existed only in that moment on the competition stage. Off the stage, training was endless torment.

You could never reach perfection. There would always be a stronger opponent. There would always be harsher demands.

Climbing to the peak, teetering at the summit. If you weren't strong enough, every competition became extreme pressure.

She'd been in poor form lately. Her scores were terrible.

"Can you even shoot?" the coach said. "If you don't want to do this, switch careers now! You still have time to do something else."

"Zhu Ning!" the coach said. "Extra training tonight."

"Zhu Ning," the coach's expression was grim. "I said, if you can't hack it, just leave. We don't keep deadweight."

Deadweight. Garbage. Zhu Ning had been called deadweight countless times.

Nobody could wear the halo of genius forever. Most of the time, she was just garbage.

Every failure was like a sledgehammer crashing down. People needed to be hammered repeatedly, tormented repeatedly.

Could she really shoot? Did she really have talent? Was she really trying hard enough? Was she really cut out for this?

Maybe she should leave early. Maybe she should just be an ordinary person. If you had no expectations, you wouldn't be disappointed. She could barely take life's beatings anymore.

Slap—

Zhu Ning stopped. She braced her hands on her knees, gasping for air. Sweat from her forehead dripped onto the track, instantly soaking a patch.

It was quite cold at night, but she couldn't feel it. Because she'd just been exercising, her whole body was burning. Her body was numb, as if all the blood was surging wildly.

Sweat poured like rain, dripping steadily. Zhu Ning stared at the deep red track, feeling her own intense heartbeat.

Her heart was beating very fast.

Zhu Yao had said she hoped Zhu Ning would have a powerful heart. Zhu Ning had said she hoped to be super happy. What had Zhu Yao meant?

She would never demand that Zhu Ning succeed. She could let Zhu Ning grow up however she pleased. She had zero expectations.

Even if today Zhu Ning got kicked out by the coach and went home to lie flat and be a deadbeat forever, Zhu Yao wouldn't say a word.

She allowed Zhu Ning to be garbage.

On the track in the dead of night, Zhu Ning pressed her hand to her chest. Beneath her palm was her own heart. She quietly felt the heartbeat.

"The human heart is inherently full of beauty." Zhu Yao had once said this.

Zhu Ning had been very young then, only five or six. She was curious about Zhu Yao's work and asked if seeing bloody hearts scared her.

Zhu Yao shook her head and said the heart itself was beautiful.

"Every organ is fulfilling its own mission. They work independently yet cooperate with each other. That's what keeps you running. You're alive right now because your heart is still working hard to beat."

Zhu Yao had Zhu Ning place her palm over her own chest. "Can you feel it? When you have nothing to do, pay attention to it. It's working very hard."

Little Zhu Ning curiously felt her own heartbeat and found it wondrous. When she was resting, her heart wasn't resting.

She asked naively, "Doesn't it ever get tired and want to rest?"

Why didn't it get tired?

People got tired and wanted to sleep. Didn't the heart?

Zhu Yao laughed. The happiest part of raising a child was right now. Children's questions were truly delightful. She had originally wanted to say that when the heart got tired, it would develop disease. Many patients died of heart failure.

That was a very heavy topic.

Zhu Yao's job was exactly this. She had seen many dead people, many hearts that had stopped beating. No matter how hard Zhu Yao tried, she could never completely prevent death.

Most people couldn't feel their heart's existence in daily life. They just lived normally—waking up, working, eating.

But if one day a person suddenly felt something was off with their heart, the moment they strongly felt their heart's presence, it was already too late.

They might feel a sudden sharp pain in their heart when standing up. They might suddenly feel a heart attack at work. They might suddenly collapse on the street.

Some were lucky enough to make it to the hospital for emergency treatment. But others weren't so lucky and couldn't even hold on until they saw a doctor.

Zhu Yao looked into Zhu Ning's eyes and didn't say any of that. She chose a more innocent and idealistic answer: "Humans are far stronger than you can imagine."

It was something you'd say to comfort a child, but Zhu Ning remembered it.

She stood on the competition stage again, thinking about that phrase. Humans are far stronger than you can imagine.

The national ten-meter air pistol championship. It was the most heavyweight competition fifteen-year-old Zhu Ning had ever entered, one that would practically determine her career.

Whether she could advance further or stop here—it all came down to that day.

Countless media cameras were trained on her, broadcasting live to countless viewers. The audience was cheering.

Some in the audience might have been her fans. Zhu Ning had been labeled a genius since childhood and became famous early.

Commentators would narrate her every move. Zhu Ning had to face everyone.

Many people were watching her, but not Zhu Yao. Zhu Yao had surgery today and couldn't watch the live broadcast. She would probably watch the replay afterward.

But Zhu Ning couldn't think about that at the time. The moment she picked up the gun, she forgot everything around her. She couldn't hear the audience.

Her world contained only the gun and the target.

Zhu Ning picked up the gun.

The competition had reached its final stage. Only Zhu Ning and one other contestant remained.

Her performance that day had been steady and consistent. She made it to the top two. As long as she performed steadily, the worst outcome was silver. But she didn't want to stop there.

"The gold medal showdown. The suspense remains. Both contestants are evenly matched. Their cumulative scores are currently tied. They're back to square one. Between them, a champion and a runner-up will emerge."

"Zhu Ning is in good form. The camera is now focused on her face. You can see she's very calm. She's always been a mental-fortitude type of athlete. We're very optimistic about her."

Applause erupted at the venue. Competitive sports were a spectator event. Zhu Ning had to learn to face people's expectations and pressure.

"The final shot will determine who takes the women's ten-meter air pistol gold medal."

The audience began to erupt. The clapping was rhythmic. Her opponent fired first. "10.6 ring."

Zhu Ning was breathing. She heard her own heartbeat. Zhu Yao had told her to pay attention to her heartbeat. She said the heart works very hard.

At this moment, her heartbeat was steady. Strangely, she wasn't very nervous—calmer than she had imagined.

Bang!

She fired her final shot.

"Zhu Ning scores 10.8 ring!"

"Congratulations to Zhu Ning for winning the championship!"

Zhu Ning lowered the gun. Her fingers hung naturally at her sides. She couldn't hear the sounds around her, couldn't feel the audience's gaze. She breathed deeply, earnestly feeling her heartbeat.

Have you ever experienced standing at the peak? The joy of that moment lasted only a few seconds, but it let you experience the most extreme happiness in the world.

All your effort was proven worthwhile in that instant. You were acknowledged, affirmed by the world.

You didn't even care about others' gazes, because you had won your own approval.

Zhu Ning won first place in the national professional competition. She could go compete internationally.

Zhu Ning cheered at the venue. She hugged her coach.

The old coach who had scolded her was now more excited than she was. She picked Zhu Ning up and spun her around. "I knew you could do it! You cocky little girl."

At that moment, Zhu Ning had the illusion that the whole world belonged to her.

She was invincible. She could have everything.

As long as she was willing, she could stand at the peak.

But her joy quickly vanished.

The old coach's hair passed through her palm. Data twitched with struggling currents, like a patch of mosaic.

Zhu Ning stared at her palm, unable to process what she had just seen.

"Coach Zhang?" Zhu Ning asked.

The coach still wore a smile. You could tell she was happy—happier than if she herself had won gold.

"What's wrong?" Coach Zhang looked at her.

Zhu Ning broke free from her embrace, stepping back one step at a time. Fake. She was fake.

The competition was fake. The effort was fake. Breaking through herself was fake.

Zhu Ning stood in the center of the arena. On the big screen above, Zhu Ning's name had just moved to first place. She should have been going to receive her award.

She turned and looked around. The audience was cheering. Applause and cheers surged toward her like ocean waves.

But the audience and the venue were becoming eerie.

The audience was excitedly shouting. Their eyes seemed to have data bars twitching inside them.

Countless tiny dividing lines appeared on their faces. Block by block, data carved them apart. Data streams fluctuated.

Then—shattered.

The audience and the venue collapsed into data blocks in an instant.

A river of condensed data flowed around her. Smiles, cheers, excitement—all emotions became data.

Fake. Fake.

Was the most important competition of Zhu Ning's life real?

Were the day-after-day training sessions she'd experienced real?

Data destroyed everything she had. The competition, her career, a lifetime of pursuit. Every effort, every improvement, every honor.

Even every time she'd fallen into desperate straits. Every time she'd struggled.

Zhu Ning clutched her chest. The arena beneath her feet collapsed. Data recongealed into the shape of a red rubber track.

This time she wasn't in the competition arena but standing at the side of the track, maintaining the posture of bracing her hands on her knees, having just finished a long run.

As if the competition just now had been nothing but a dream.

She had never competed, never won a championship. She had just been standing in place, fantasizing.

She had just finished intense exercise. She was covered in sweat. Her heartbeat was at its peak.

The other side of the track began to collapse. Strangely, she was very calm this time, as if the world was supposed to be made of data blocks.

This time there was someone else on the track. Zhu Yao stood at the far end.

She wore a white lab coat, her hair combed immaculately. Ms. Zhu was very particular about cleanliness—even her collar was always kept pristine.

Why was Zhu Yao here?

"Zhu Ning." Zhu Yao in her white lab coat turned to look at her. "I watched your competition."

Zhu Yao was speaking, but Zhu Ning couldn't understand. Which competition was she talking about?

What time was it now? Time, space, events—everything had been destroyed into fragments. She was merely standing in a river pieced together from data blocks.

Zhu Yao looked into Zhu Ning's eyes and said very gently, "Ningbao, you were amazing."

Zhu Ning's hands were shaking. She was trembling because of that sentence. She was more terrified than ever.

Was Zhu Yao fake too?

Behind Zhu Yao was the collapsing track, already nearly reaching her position.

The collapsing data was like a storm—a devastating force that would sweep away everything, including Zhu Yao.

"Ningbao... you were a-a-a-amazing..."

Twitching data appeared on Zhu Yao's face too. Code crawled across her face. This was a horror story.

Just like the contaminated zones Zhu Ning had entered, except this time the horror story was aimed at her.

This was horror descending upon herself.

Zhu Yao was about to become a string of code. She would die here. Zhu Ning was actually going to experience Zhu Yao's death twice.

More unbearable than the time in the Zombie World.

And Zhu Yao was completely unaware. She simply looked at Zhu Ning and said, "Ning... Ningningningbao, you were amazing."

The data storm rolled through. Zhu Yao shattered.

Next it would be her turn. They would deny her too.

The data collapse was accelerating, sweeping toward her. After the track shattered into data, it became an abyss.

Under normal circumstances, she should have run. She should have left the track, abandoned the half-digitized Zhu Yao, and not let herself be swept up in this data storm.

But she didn't move.

She raised her eyes and stared directly at the data storm. Standing before the collapsing world, Zhu Ning looked incredibly small, as if she were facing a tornado alone.

If she got pulled in, Zhu Ning would disappear.

But she didn't move.

She fixed her gaze ahead. The collapsing data was already at her feet. One step forward and she'd fall into the abyss.

But she didn't move.

She reached out her hand, staring directly at it. She didn't even know what it was. She looked at it all the same.

No. She refused to accept it.

She didn't know what was real and what was fake, but she refused to accept it.

She didn't know what she had been created for, but she refused to accept it.

She didn't know whether Zhu Yao existed, but she refused to accept it.

Zhu Ning was being crushed. Those things pressed down on her like garbage. Negative forces became tangible. Data both real and fake was destroying her reason.

Zhu Ning could feel it.

She felt as if she were buried in a garbage pile, mountains of garbage on top of her. With her strength alone, it was nearly impossible to fight back.

She could barely even gasp for breath. She couldn't move an inch. She bore pressure beyond ordinary imagination.

She reached out her hand.

Even with a mountain on her back. Even with countless hands beneath her feet pulling her down in unison. Falling was the easiest choice. Accepting fate was the most comfortable.

She struggled to reach out one hand.

Just like a hand once reaching out from a garbage pile—so frail, so thin, so weak compared to the enemy, so fragile compared to the metal waste.

This time, someone grabbed her.

"Alive!" Lao Yang grabbed her hand and shouted, "She's really alive!"

"Dig faster!" Lao Yang screamed with excitement.

Liu Sheng gritted his teeth. He'd lived this long, always scavenging in the garbage dump. He was garbage too.

He had never found gold in the dump. But this hand was the most bizarre thing he'd ever found, yet it carried an indescribable sense of hope.

He couldn't even describe what he was doing.

This hand wasn't worth any money. His family was this poor. Why was he still saving someone?

He couldn't stop. Even so, he couldn't just stand by and watch someone die. It was a child—such a small hand, probably only a few years old, thrown into the garbage dump.

Lao Yang and Liu Sheng were already spent. Liu Sheng was a Defective who wouldn't live much longer. But right now, all they wanted was to dig this child out.

Lao Yang lifted the last piece of scrap metal. A little girl lay beneath the garbage pile. Half her body was still buried in the trash, but her full face was visible.

There were some stains on it. No wounds. A very clean-looking little girl.

Liu Sheng saw her face but had no reaction. He stood frozen, terrified that she was dead.

If she had been dead from the start, Liu Sheng wouldn't have felt anything. He'd seen too many dead people. Don't give him hope only to give him despair.

Bottom-rung people really couldn't handle that.

Lao Yang felt the same. Her trembling hand reached toward the little girl's forehead. So soft—it was human skin.

"L-Lao Yang..." Liu Sheng called his mother, then couldn't say anything more. He didn't know what to say.

Lao Yang's weathered hand stroked the little girl's forehead. Suddenly, she felt the girl's tightly shut eyelids tremble, her eyelashes fluttering.

Liu Sheng didn't dare breathe. Had he seen wrong? Did she move?

The little girl opened her eyes. They weren't mechanical eyes, nor a monster's eyes. They were somewhat curious—just a pair of very normal child's eyes.

"She opened her eyes!" Liu Sheng had never been this excited. Their family was so unlucky. Nothing good had ever happened to them. This was actually the one good thing.

Liu Sheng clung to Lao Yang's neck like a child, shouting at the top of his lungs, "She's alive!"

That day, every Defective in the garbage dump heard that shout. Liu Sheng's cheers carried from one end of the garbage mountain to the other. "She's alive! She's alive!"

Zhu Ning opened her eyes.

Late night. The Dignified Queen's basement. The mysterious room at the end of the hallway.

Black slime flowed across the ceiling. Cold and chill permeated the surroundings. The slime grew more and more, larger and larger.

The instant Zhu Ning opened her eyes, the black slime froze as if flash-frozen, suddenly going rigid.

Zhu Ning gazed calmly at it. Her eyes were remarkably bright in the darkness, flowing data visible in her pupils.

She was alive.

---

Author's Note

First day of the weekend—paying off my debt! Here's the bonus chapter!

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