Chapter 97-I Clean Up Garbage in a Wasteland World

Chapter 97 The Forsaken Village (I)

Green. Zhu Ning hadn't seen this much green in a very long time.

Before her eyes was a vast expanse of grassland. When the wind blew, it formed waves across the grass.

You could hear the natural sound of wind brushing over the meadow.

It looked like an endless wilderness. If it weren't dangerous, she really would have wanted to take off her protective suit and feel the wind.

That was an instinct etched into human genes. Compared to the technological world inside the city, people preferred to be close to nature.

Behind them stood an entire high wall. The wall was hexagonal in shape overall; what Zhu Ning could see was just one face. The wall wasn't made of metal—it seemed to be some sturdier material—but its surface was covered with a tech-looking blue membrane.

It looked very much like the protective barrier that appeared when the A-Level Program activated—rising from the ground, soaring to the sky, forming an arched cap overhead.

When the apocalypse came, layer upon layer of these caps would lock into place, providing protection.

Blue high walls, green wilderness, and these Cleaners in black protective suits scattered about like ants. Behind them were the black hovercrafts, engines still rumbling.

Technology and nature contrasted to the extreme in that single moment.

Li Nianchuan squinted. "That's breathtaking."

Awe was humanity's first reaction. Even Xu Meng felt the same. For people who'd been born and raised inside the city districts, this was likely one of the few chances in their lifetime to see nature.

Nearly half the squads on this trip were newcomers. Everyone was a bit curious.

After her initial awe, Zhu Ning began observing her surroundings. There were no Contaminants here, no Contamination Spores—just vast waves of grass.

It looked like a perfect spot for a picnic or camping trip. Not a single monster in sight.

What were they supposed to collect?

Six hovercrafts had landed. All personnel disembarked, grabbed their cleaning equipment, and lined up in an orderly row.

There was a reception party here. They wore blue protective suits. One of them was massively built—exaggeratedly muscular, like a mountain.

He swept his gaze over them. "This is all the poor saps they sent?"

Zhu Ning asked quietly through her helmet's internal channel: "Who is that?"

Xu Meng: "Garrison troops from beyond the wall."

Garrison troops from beyond the wall? They were the gatekeepers—the first to detect anomalies, then report up the chain.

Xu Meng had barely finished when the burly man took over: "I'm Fan Minghua, officer of the Third Squad, First Protective Wall Garrison. Also the highest-ranking commander for this operation."

A man with military rank, Zhu Ning thought. No matter what era, soldiers were respected.

These garrison troops had to stay far from the city, unable to return home for years on end, guarding this place day after day.

It was because of them that the people in the city were safe.

"The Demon Hunters are almost done over there. You go in five minutes. Remember—do not touch anything."

Don't touch anything. Fang Ying had said this. Xu Meng had warned them repeatedly too.

But Fan Minghua's tone was the most severe of all. "What I mean is, anything other than Contamination Spores and rotting flesh—including a single pebble—do not touch lightly."

A Cleaner raised his hand: "But our job requires us to clean contaminated soil."

The question was perfectly reasonable. Zhu Ning had been told the scope of collection on her very first day—Contamination Spores came first, followed by Contaminant flesh. Contaminated soil and tiles also needed cleaning.

That was the proper procedure for a professional Clean Squad—leave no chance for secondary contamination.

If they couldn't even touch a pebble, how were they supposed to define their work scope?

Fan Minghua: "This land has already been contaminated. You just need to collect the Contamination Spores and rotting flesh."

Cleaning contaminated soil and tiles was the ideal scenario. In worse situations, they could only prioritize Contamination Spores to prevent them from drifting into the city and infecting District 103.

This land had already been contaminated?

When Fan Minghua said this, everyone's mood sank. They understood the implication behind his words.

Lost land was nearly impossible to reclaim. Even maintaining it required enormous manpower and resources. One day, when they could no longer maintain it—

That would be the true apocalypse for District 103.

Fan Minghua: "You've never lived out here. If you don't want to die, you might want to remember a few things I'm about to say. First rule—no random touching. You already know that."

Fan Minghua spoke at breakneck speed, giving no one time to think. "Second rule—don't trust sounds."

"Third rule—don't lose your sense of direction."

"Fourth rule—don't make unnecessary movements." Fan Minghua paused. "I know you want to ask what counts as unnecessary. Anything that isn't essential is unnecessary."

Zhu Ning frowned. This was the first time she'd heard such bizarre instructions before a mission.

Each rule was perfectly logical, yet also deeply strange.

It wasn't just Zhu Ning who didn't fully understand—the other Cleaners were equally confused.

This was a contamination hotspot. Being cautious couldn't hurt.

"Of course, if your mission succeeds and you return safely, you won't need any of these. But if things don't go so smoothly..." Fan Minghua glanced at them and continued: "If you're unlucky enough to enter a Contamination Zone or encounter a Contaminant, or even unluckier and run into a Xenomorph, I suggest you relax."

The other Cleaners stared at him expectantly, waiting for him to continue. But Fan Minghua said nothing more.

A Cleaner asked: "And after we relax?"

Fan Minghua: "Personally, I'd say leave it to fate. If you've got what it takes, live. If you don't, just relax and die."

Zhu Ning: "..."

He was telling them to go die.

"Here's a bonus tip—if something touches you, don't struggle, don't resist." Fan Minghua added.

After Fan Minghua finished, resentment rippled through the Cleaner ranks.

Zhu Ning: "What does he mean?"

Xu Meng hadn't expected this mission to be so strange either: "My guess is contamination events are frequent here, and the forms of contamination are hard to predict. There's not much he can tell us. If an emergency occurs, these few principles might save our lives."

This place was like a random zone—everything was too random. Fan Minghua could only offer some universal rules.

Li Nianchuan suddenly felt like the flag he'd raised was about to come true. The mission hadn't even started and he was already getting chills.

He wasn't really going to die here, was he?

Li Nianchuan fiddled with his helmet interface: "Good news—I just checked the mission mortality rate. It's not that high."

Before Zhu Ning could respond, Li Nianchuan took another careful look at the data he'd found. "Hmm... I might have misread it. The outcomes of these missions are either the entire team returns without a scratch, or total annihilation."

Extremely binary. Only 0% or 100%.

Zhu Ning: "..."

So it really was pure luck?

Fan Minghua gave them a long look: "I wish you all the best."

...

The garrison troops led the way, three of them at the front, with Zhu Ning's main group following behind.

They needed to cross this grassland. The grass here grew taller than a person—at least three meters high.

Walking through it felt like entering a forest, instantly swallowed up.

And what made it even more unsettling than a forest was that a forest at least had somewhat open paths. Here, you had to carve your own way through. As you moved, the grass would "caress" you.

You couldn't shake the feeling that the grass was alive, like a group of mischievous children running up beside you and giving you a pat.

Moving through it produced a rustling sound.

Shh shh shh—

Apart from their footsteps, there was only the sound of the grass waves.

Zhu Ning looked up and felt as though she'd been plunged into some strange field. Because of the acid rain earlier, there was no sun—just an overcast, oppressive sky that seemed ready to press down on them.

Inside her helmet was a virtual map marking her position. According to the map, they'd only covered half the distance. The destination was still halfway ahead.

Li Nianchuan: "This is really creepy."

Zhu Ning reminded him: "Don't touch the grass."

She hadn't fully understood Fan Minghua's meaning, but if contamination was frequent here, this grass could mutate at any moment.

Li Nianchuan acknowledged. He wanted to survive and go home to open his fish restaurant more than anyone.

After about forty minutes, the main group ahead suddenly stopped. Someone called out: "We're here. Everyone out."

When Zhu Ning emerged, she glanced back. The grassland looked like a mysterious swamp.

After the last Cleaner crawled out, all traces of human passage vanished. Only silence remained.

An eerie kind of silence.

"Holy crap, there's a mountain village here?" Li Nianchuan's exclamation drew Zhu Ning's attention.

Only then did Zhu Ning notice a cluster of low brick-and-tile houses.

In the distance, the brick houses formed a continuous stretch. From their vantage point, they could see the rooflines. It looked like an abandoned village.

Zhu Ning frowned. The architectural style of this forsaken village was so different from District 103 that it took her a moment to process.

This place looked very much like a countryside from Zhu Ning's era—completely at odds with high technology.

Zhu Ning's grandmother's home had looked like this too, nestled deep in the mountains with beautiful scenery. Every summer break, Zhu Ning would go back to visit.

Their main group began moving slowly, penetrating deeper into the village. At the village entrance stood a large pagoda tree. Many villages had a tree at their entrance—usually chosen with care, carrying some symbolic meaning.

This tree was at least five times taller than a typical pagoda tree, blotting out the sky.

Its roots tangled and intertwined beneath it, blocking the village entrance like a net. Everyone entering the village had to climb over the great tree's roots.

The entire village had been abandoned for a very long time—at least fifty or sixty years without inhabitants. Inside was not just dust but also grime left by rainy days.

Looking in from outside, the paper-cut window decorations for New Year were somehow still there, though completely faded. A single touch would turn them to powder.

On a mottled wooden table sat bowls and chopsticks, with chairs scattered beside it—as if someone had been eating and was suddenly interrupted by something.

Something unexpected had struck this place.

The entire village was abandoned, but most homes had no curtains. Zhu Ning had been injected with GeneBoost, giving her much better vision than ordinary people. As she walked past, she could clearly see the furnishings inside.

Zhu Ning felt like she'd entered a bizarre theme park. Every house she passed revealed its interior, and through the furnishings, she could even piece together a rough picture of each family.

Some homes had family portraits, and the kind of cross-stitch embroidery hung on walls.

One household must have had a child—there was a baby walker inside, and children's toys on the floor, all covered in dust.

This family must have loved art. They had an old electronic keyboard, its keys covered by a tattered music book.

The buildings in the forsaken village weren't tall. Most were single-story, with only a few being two or three stories.

Zhu Ning passed another house. She'd been instinctively glancing inside each one, when she suddenly froze.

She saw a person.

The figure was hidden in the dark corner of the room, only about a meter tall, like a child.

It was watching her.

Someone was in the forsaken village?

Zhu Ning stiffened. She felt a wave of cold emanating from that direction. She blinked and looked again.

It wasn't a person. It was... a deity statue?

In a shrine sat a half-human-height idol. Its eyes bulged as if the eyeballs were about to fall out. She couldn't tell which deity it was supposed to be.

This family's furnishings were too strange. The statue faced the window, as if... watching every person who passed by.

Was this a local belief?

Zhu Ning glanced at the offering table. There were even sacrificial offerings—plastic fruit, which was why they hadn't rotted, only gathered dust and faded.

On the roof ridge of this house sat a goat's skull, apparently for warding off evil.

Zhu Ning was so absorbed in looking that she completely forgot about her surroundings, standing motionless for a long time. Why did she feel the statue was alive?

Slap—

Zhu Ning's shoulder sank. A hand landed on her right shoulder from behind.

She instinctively started to turn, nearly getting into a fight with the person behind her.

"Don't look, don't touch, don't interact." Xu Meng immediately gripped her shoulder and warned in a low voice.

Zhu Ning suppressed the urge to punch someone. They were both wearing helmets, unable to see each other's expressions—they could only guess emotions from tone of voice.

Xu Meng's voice was also very low. She probably found this place strange too.

Xu Meng opened a private channel with Zhu Ning: "This mission must succeed. Get Li Nianchuan out. Everything else can wait."

Zhu Ning's shoulder relaxed as Xu Meng withdrew her hand.

What did she mean?

A ceasefire? Zhu Ning had assumed Xu Meng would take the opportunity to kill her in a place like this.

But Xu Meng was right. The priority was getting Li Nianchuan out.

Li Nianchuan was completely oblivious to what had happened behind him. His heart was set on going home to open his restaurant, so he didn't dare touch or look at anything carelessly.

Li Nianchuan: "People really used to live here?"

Xu Meng picked up the conversation: "They probably evacuated right after the radiation."

Xu Meng knew more about the Federation's history than Zhu Ning. The radiation eighty years ago had been too sudden—massive mutations in flora and fauna, humanity nearly wiped out. The high walls were built afterward.

But constructing the walls was enormously expensive. Between the walls, the original traces of life were preserved.

This place was itself a relic of human habitation.

Li Nianchuan gave an "oh" and said nothing more. The group fell quiet.

After about another ten minutes of walking, they reached the hills behind the village. The main group finally stopped.

They arrived just as the Demon Hunters were withdrawing. Some of them were actually being carried out on stretchers.

There were fresh bloodstains on the ground.

Was this place that dangerous?

Everyone was already on edge. Cleaners were inherently less capable than Demon Hunters, and seeing what had happened to the Demon Hunters made them all a bit scared.

This was completely different from previous missions. Secondary contamination could erupt here at any moment, and without Demon Hunters watching over them, they felt uneasy.

This area was a forest. Nearby was a well—probably the villagers' water source.

There were also a few low buildings beside it. Some were rest areas, and others appeared to be latrines.

Scattered on the ground was a pile of rotting flesh, so decomposed it was impossible to tell what it had once been. Probably because this wasn't an enclosed space, there wasn't much of a stench.

Blood-red Contamination Spores drifted through the air. Zhu Ning had seen Contamination Spores before.

They'd always been in dark sewers or buildings made of concrete and steel—always inside the city.

But here, the Contamination Spores existed in nature. Behind them was a forest. The spores drifted everywhere—settling on the edge of the abandoned well, clinging to the edges of leaves, landing on the eaves of houses.

The Contamination Spores emitted a blood-red glow, like some kind of strange fireflies. The entire scene was stunningly, hauntingly beautiful.

In that moment, it felt as though Contamination Spores were meant to coexist with nature.

Humans were the monsters in nature.

The officer in charge said: "Stop gawking. Finish up early, get out early."

Zhu Ning pulled her gaze back. Li Nianchuan had already entered work mode and reported: "A-Level mission. Contamination Zone approximately fifty thousand cubic meters. Contamination density at 210%. Total number of Contaminants not fully detected—current estimate is over 600, all deceased."

Zhu Ning was already very familiar with the data. There had once been over 600 Contaminants here. What had happened?

Even Li Nianchuan found the data puzzling. How could the total count not be fully detected?

Xu Meng also found it bizarre, but as squad captain, she was more composed than either of them: "Get to work."

Zhu Ning took out her collection tools. Nearby Cleaners all produced their equipment. Zhu Ning had felt like a cotton picker on her very first day as a Cleaner.

Now they were like a cotton-picking squad.

The dropper-like collection device touched a Contamination Spore, and the spore was instantly absorbed. Zhu Ning gained 1 Purity Point.

Strangely, Zhu Ning had done this hundreds if not thousands of times before, but this was the first time she felt like... she was hunting.

They were like people catching fireflies, or hunters killing some rare bird species found in nature.

Human hands were stained with blood. Once collected, the Contamination Spores seemed to lose their freedom.

They were... pitiable?

Zhu Ning frowned. Her thoughts felt too strange—these weren't thoughts that belonged to her.

Was this a characteristic of this area? Something that could confuse people?

Zhu Ning glanced around. Nobody else seemed to share this feeling. They all continued working normally.

Was it because the System in her brain was a Contaminant, making her more prone to empathizing with Contaminants?

Zhu Ning was here to fleece the system. That strange feeling flashed through her mind and was quickly overridden.

These were all Purity Points. The System in Zhu Ning's brain seemed to feed on this stuff.

Zhu Ning immediately entered "cotton-picking" mode.

The collection work proceeded in an orderly fashion. Both Xu Meng and Zhu Ning wanted Li Nianchuan to leave alive. The three of them occasionally checked on each other.

Li Nianchuan's sanity really had improved, it had to be said. This time he hadn't had a chip implanted, yet after half an hour of work, he showed no symptoms of Psychic Contamination whatsoever.

After an hour, Zhu Ning had collected 2,780 Contamination Spores. Her total Purity Points now stood at 7,834.

Making up for some of the Ant Nest's regrets.

Zhu Ning looked up. Only a handful of Contamination Spores remained. They'd brought enough Cleaners this time. Another hour and this mission should be wrapped up.

Zhu Ning had been keeping her eyes on Li Nianchuan the whole time. He showed no abnormalities whatsoever. Good—no reckless behavior, nothing unusual. They should be able to get home safely.

It wasn't just Zhu Ning thinking this. The Cleaners nearby shared the same sentiment: "Finally almost done. Let's get out of this godforsaken place."

This time, nine Cleaner squads had come—three members each, plus the three garrison escorts. Thirty people total.

Thirty people were hard to keep track of completely. The Cleaner closest to the well hadn't moved for two minutes.

This wasn't particularly alarming. After all, staying still was better than moving around recklessly. Collecting Contamination Spores was mentally taxing, and many people would take breaks.

Under high-intensity pressure, zoning out was perfectly understandable.

So at first, nobody noticed anything wrong with him.

A Cleaner stood at the edge of the well, staring blankly. But he wasn't looking at the well—he was looking at a small yellow flower beside it.

The little yellow flower was so delicate, swaying in the breeze. It made you want to reach out and touch it.

It was just a flower. Nothing strange about it. Surely touching it would be fine?

Inside District 103, flowers like this were rare. The city only had genetically cultivated artificial varieties. This was his first time seeing a natural wildflower.

He'd been staring for two minutes, but it felt like a lifetime.

His eyes held nothing but this flower. The yellow petals trembled in the breeze, as if inviting him.

He reached out with trembling fingers. He'd only meant to touch it, but for some reason, the instant he made contact, he changed his mind. He plucked the flower.

Squelch—

When the stem snapped, green sap splattered all over his hand.

The colleague nearest to him saw it and was about to warn him not to move recklessly, but it was already too late.

The little yellow flower was already lying in his palm.

The broken stem plunged into his palm, using his body as its new root system, and expanded at breakneck speed. In just one second, it grew to three times the size of a person.

Zhu Ning had been watching Li Nianchuan the entire time. Xu Meng's attention was also entirely on their own team.

Most of the Cleaners were somewhat fatigued. Every single person's first reaction was to freeze.

Zhu Ning heard the sound and glanced toward the scene. She couldn't see the person clearly—all she saw was a massive yellow flower suddenly sprouting into the air, like one of those inflatable tube men outside a supermarket suddenly standing upright.

The yellow flower looked completely harmless. Everyone simply gazed up at it.

In that instant, time seemed to deliberately slow down. Everything moved in slow motion.

No one even screamed or shouted.

The next moment, the yellow flower spread its petals wide—like a monster opening its jaws, revealing rows upon rows of densely packed teeth. It lunged downward.

Crunch—

They heard the sound of bone shattering, followed by an explosion of blood that splattered across the ground like rain.

The yellow flower had bitten off the man's head.

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