Chapter 126-I Clean Up Garbage in a Wasteland World
Chapter 126 The Company You Can't Leave (IV)
Blood splattered everywhere.
Zhu Ning's first reaction was to look toward the sound. Brightness stood there with a gun, barrel still smoking. Cardboard Box fell where she stood, her skull blown open.
Over a hundred Sheep-Heads sat in the conference room. No one made a sound. No one screamed. No one showed any sign of surprise—as if this happened every week.
This really did happen every week.
The bottom performer at the Performance Review Meeting gets killed.
Brightness holstered the gun, clapped his hands, and addressed the silent room: "Let's give Cardboard Box a round of applause. Thank her for her contributions."
Applause erupted. The Sheep-Heads clapped in perfect unison, like machine-pressed cookies stamped from the same mold.
Zhu Ning noticed that a few Sheep-Heads were trembling. They were scared, but they still clapped.
Even their fear couldn't overcome the collective momentum.
Brightness turned to Zhu Ning and spoke warmly: "This is a very sacred moment. Toilet Paper—since it's your first Performance Review Meeting, I'll personally assign you a task."
Zhu Ning was on high alert: "What task?"
"Take Cardboard Box to the Cold Storage Freezer on Floor B2," Brightness said. "Toilet Paper, you must understand—every company has its rules. Those who fail to meet the standard must pay the price. If we all slacked off, the company would collapse."
His words sounded irrefutable. As if Cardboard Box had deserved it.
Brightness: "The Cold Storage Freezer is in the basement. You can find it yourself. This is also a test for you."
The implication: if Zhu Ning couldn't even handle this, she wasn't fit for the company either.
Brightness left with the Sheep-Heads. Zhu Ning was the only one remaining in the conference room, along with Cardboard Box's body.
Zhu Ning crouched down. Cardboard Box lay face-up, eyes still open. The light in those eyes had gone out, leaving only blank, sheep-like rectangular pupils.
Was she a Contaminant? Or was she human?
Zhu Ning couldn't tell. Contaminants inside a Contamination Zone obeyed the Zone's logic; humans who entered also had to follow it.
If the original poster from the dead post was here, they'd be going through the same thing.
Zhu Ning examined Cardboard Box's body. Half her head was gone. Her suit was cheap—the kind a fresh graduate would buy. Looking at the clothes, Zhu Ning thought Cardboard Box might have been a newcomer too.
A newcomer who'd failed to deliver results. The bottom performer at the review meeting.
The conference room had a cleaning cart—as if prepared in advance. Zhu Ning loaded Cardboard Box's body onto it. The body was surprisingly light, practically weightless.
Before leaving, Zhu Ning paused to look at the ground. There should have been blood everywhere, yet the carpet was spotless. It had cleaned itself.
The ground had memory too—every day it returned to the exact same state.
Just like the Workstation.
......Cold Storage Freezer.
The map showed it was on Floor B2. Zhu Ning pushed the cart into the elevator. B2's button was already lit.
The elevator descended. The deeper it went, the colder it got. Zhu Ning could feel the temperature dropping through her Protective Suit.
Ding. The doors opened. A blast of frigid air hit her face.
She stepped out. B2 was dim, lit by a faint blue glow—the kind of cold light that made everything look like a mortuary.
Long corridors stretched in every direction. Unlike the brightly lit office floors above, this place was oppressively dark. The ceiling was low enough to feel claustrophobic.
Floor B2 was larger than Zhu Ning had expected. She navigated by the map. Wheels squeaked against the floor as she pushed the cart.
Along the way she passed a door marked "Mechanical Room." Inside, massive gears turned slowly—the building's power core. Pipes ran along the walls like blood vessels.
Further in was a door marked "Archives." Locked. Zhu Ning noted the location for later.
At the end of the corridor was a heavy steel door. A sign read: Cold Storage Freezer.
Zhu Ning pressed the handle. The door was freezing even through her gloves. She pushed it open.
White mist poured out. The temperature inside was at least negative thirty degrees. Zhu Ning's visor fogged up instantly.
She wiped her visor and stepped inside.
Then she froze.
Bodies. Dozens of them. Hanging from hooks on the ceiling like slabs of meat in a slaughterhouse.
They were all Sheep-Heads. All wearing suits or professional attire. Their ID Badges were still clipped to their chests. Frost had crystallized on their wool, giving them a silvery sheen.
Their rectangular pupils were frozen open. Every single one stared at the entrance—stared at Zhu Ning.
Zhu Ning sucked in a breath. The cold air stung her lungs.
So this was where the eliminated employees ended up.
She counted. At least forty bodies. If one was eliminated per week, that was nearly a year's worth.
But wait—the dead post author said they'd only been here ten days. And the author had mentioned a daily suicide. Were these all from the same ten days, repeated over and over?
Or had this been going on far longer than ten days?
Zhu Ning hung Cardboard Box alongside the others. The hook slid through the back of Cardboard Box's suit collar with a metallic clink.
Cardboard Box's body swayed gently. Her head lolled to one side. Even in death, the expression on her face was one of pleading.
Zhu Ning suddenly felt terrible. Among all these bodies, the freshest ones were near the door. The oldest ones, deep inside, had been frozen so long they were barely recognizable.
She walked deeper. The further she went, the more bodies there were. Some had been here so long their ID Badges had frozen over—she had to scrape off the ice to read the names.
Trash Can. Mop. Paper Clip. Stapler.
All object names. The worst names on the roster.
A pattern emerged. The eliminated employees weren't random—they were all people with the worst aliases. New hires who'd arrived last and gotten stuck with the leftover names.
The newest arrivals were always the most vulnerable. They didn't know the rules. They couldn't produce results fast enough. They ended up at the bottom of every review.
Just like Cardboard Box.
Just like Toilet Paper.
The realization hit Zhu Ning like ice water: she was next. If she couldn't become the top performer by next Monday, she'd be Brightness's next target.
She had one week.
Zhu Ning backed out of the Cold Storage Freezer. The steel door slammed shut behind her with a heavy boom that echoed through the basement.
She stood in the corridor, processing. The dead post's author had described being stuck in the same day. Maybe they'd lived through this Monday again and again.
Every Monday, a Performance Review Meeting. Every Monday, someone dies. Every Monday, the Workstation resets.
Was the person who jumped from the building one of these eliminated employees? Or someone who couldn't take it anymore and chose their own way out?
Zhu Ning needed more information. She headed for the Archives.
The door was locked, but locks meant nothing to someone with Metal Manipulation. She felt for the internal mechanism and clicked it open.
Inside were rows of filing cabinets. Zhu Ning pulled one open. Employee files.
She flipped through quickly. Each file contained an employee profile, performance records, and—for the terminated ones—a death certificate stamped with the company seal.
Cause of death was always the same: "Failure to meet performance standards."
Zhu Ning counted the death certificates. Over two hundred.
Two hundred employees eliminated through Performance Review Meetings. And the company kept hiring new ones to replace them.
An endless cycle of recruitment and elimination.
She dug deeper. Near the back of the cabinet was a different kind of file—not employee records, but project documents.
"Project Eternal Engine." Classified.
Zhu Ning opened it. The documents described a mechanical device designed to run perpetually without energy input. The blueprints were intricate—far beyond normal engineering.
Annotations in the margins read: "Requires living components." "Biological integration successful at 73%." "Employee material optimal when stress hormones are elevated."
Employee material.
Zhu Ning felt her stomach turn. The company wasn't just killing underperformers—it was harvesting them. The bodies in the Cold Storage Freezer weren't just stored. They were raw materials.
This company was literally running on its employees.
The Eternal Engine needed living components. Stressed, overworked employees produced the ideal biological material. The Performance Review Meetings weren't just discipline—they were a harvesting mechanism.
Maximize stress. Eliminate the weakest. Use the remains.
Now Zhu Ning understood why the building was still lit at night—why passers-by could hear typing even from abandoned ruins. The engine was still running. The employees were still being consumed.
She photographed everything she could with her helmet's recording function, then carefully returned the files.
On her way out of the Archives, she noticed something she'd missed earlier. A smaller door, half-hidden behind a filing cabinet. It was labeled: Rooftop Access—Employees Prohibited.
Company Rule #9: Employees are not permitted to enter the company rooftop.
Of course they'd ban rooftop access. If employees discovered the truth about the Eternal Engine, they might try to destroy it—or jump.
The dead post's author had mentioned someone jumping every day. If this was a loop, the same person might be jumping every single cycle.
Someone who'd discovered the truth and chose death over compliance.
Zhu Ning memorized the rooftop access location. She'd need to get up there eventually, but not yet. She needed a plan.
She returned to the office floor. The Sheep-Heads were typing away as if nothing had happened. Cardboard Box's Workstation was already occupied by someone new.
Fast. Ruthlessly efficient turnover.
Zhu Ning sat down at her Workstation. The two identical Steel Pens still lay side by side. She picked one up and turned it over in her fingers.
This pen was a clue. Two of the same pen meant time had folded. She'd picked up the pen before receiving it—which meant a future version of her had dropped it.
The voice telling her to run. The self behind the glass door. The pen. All evidence of a time loop.
This wasn't just any Contamination Zone. This was a Zone where time itself was contaminated.
Ding-dong—
The end-of-day chime rang. The Sheep-Heads stopped typing simultaneously and began filing out.
Zhu Ning followed the flow. Outside, it was still pitch black—the same fake night sky. Time here didn't follow real-world rules.
She stepped through the building's front doors. The offerings were still there—the dead rooster, the incense, the apples. Unchanged.
Then she heard it.
A whistling sound. Something falling from a great height.
BANG!
The impact shook the ground. Zhu Ning looked toward the sound. In front of Building 3, a body lay crumpled on the pavement.
Someone had jumped.
The Sheep-Heads walked past without looking. Not a single one broke stride. They streamed around the body like water flowing around a stone.
Zhu Ning was the only one who stopped.
The body was face-down. Suit. ID Badge. She couldn't see the name from this angle.
She crouched down and turned the Badge over.
Future.
The employee's alias was Future.
Author's Note
Short chapter today. I'll make up for it tomorrow. Hehe.
Someone asked me what the rooster hanging at the entrance means. It's an old folk custom. Since I was little I've seen people do it—hanging a rooster at the entrance is supposed to ward off evil spirits and suppress unclean things. This is an extremely superstitious practice, so please don't imitate it. The apples and incense are offerings.
The background lore of this story is: extremely advanced technology + Contaminants. Because the radiation came too suddenly, modern civilization was destroyed, and what was rebuilt was actually a mix of past and present—so things from different eras can all appear.
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