Chapter 132-I Clean Up Garbage in a Wasteland World

Chapter 132 The Company You Can't Leave (X)

Once she clearly understood that the Contamination Zone's method was to induce suicide, the vortex in the sky actually stopped. It was as if it had met some form of psychic resistance—black thorns sprouted along the vortex's edges.

That was how psychic suggestion worked. Once you found the logic, the fear disappeared.

Zhu Ning felt her mind growing clearer as she spoke, like a dragonfly trapped in a spider's web that had finally found a way to break free.

"Let's bring it back to you." Zhu Ning continued: "You came in last place in the performance review two weeks in a row. You were close to becoming a full employee but couldn't make the cut. The company kept denying you. For an entire year, you could only remain a probationary employee."

Zhu Ning's voice was gentle, not the least bit aggressive. She was simply telling a story—as if it had once happened to her. "You finally earned the Outstanding Employee award. You thought you could finally breathe easy, and they did reward you—granting you access to the Core Energy. But you didn't know at the time that you were a lab rat. You thought it was a test."

"The employees who handled it alongside you quickly developed health problems. At first it was minor—just a bit of coughing, a cold. Then came the coughing up blood, the organ damage. The company kept reassuring you. You all obediently stayed and received treatment at the company. But your colleagues died one after another."

"You were terrified, because everyone you knew was dead—yet you were still alive. The company thought you were different. You carried some kind of antibody. They saw the hope of the future in you."

While Zhu Ning spoke, Wang Qinqian remained silent. Her hands on the wheelchair tightened, knuckles turning white.

Zhu Ning paused, feeling the story was unbearably cruel. "You were forced to undergo treatment. You thought you'd recover quickly, but you didn't. They kept delaying your treatment. As your condition slowly worsened, you lost the ability to move. You could only lie there at their mercy."

"Eventually you couldn't take it anymore. You found your chance and made it to the rooftop. Maybe someone kind-hearted couldn't stand watching any longer and helped you up. You jumped. What I experienced was your memory—just without the final step."

All Zhu Ning had to do was jump, and she'd have lived through the whole thing.

Saying all this, Zhu Ning could feel Wang Qinqian's pain—because she'd experienced it firsthand. She'd watched helplessly as the bottom performer at the review meeting was shot dead. If the Contamination Zone was the manifestation of someone's inner turmoil, then for Wang Qinqian at the time, ranking last in the performance review was equivalent to death.

Zhu Ning felt a stone pressing down on her heart. She was completely in sync with Wang Qinqian—indistinguishable from one another.

This Contamination Zone operated on psychic contamination. Even knowing all this, Zhu Ning still couldn't control herself, because the experience had cut too deep.

Zhu Ning had always maintained a clear boundary when dealing with Contaminants. Zhu Ning was human; the thing across from her was a Contaminant.

Like an exorcist—exorcists don't sympathize with vengeful ghosts, because most ghosts harm people. Zhu Ning had always thought of herself as an exorcist in a high-tech society. But now, for the first time, she questioned her profession.

Was Wang Qinqian a vengeful ghost?

Wang Qinqian stood motionless, her grip on the wheelchair tightening and loosening.

She breathed deeply. Zhu Ning could feel her chest rising and falling, as if suppressing some great pain.

"What's your real name?" Wang Qinqian asked.

"Zhu Ning."

Zhu Ning gave her real name. She hadn't actually signed the employment contract earlier, so Wang Qinqian had missed the chance to learn Zhu Ning's true name.

"Hello, Zhu Ning." Wang Qinqian's reaction was strange. She truly was the strangest Contamination Source Zhu Ning had ever encountered. Her emotions were remarkably stable. Even after having the truth unearthed, she showed not a flicker of violent emotion.

Wang Qinqian maintained her posture standing behind Zhu Ning, as if they really were good colleagues—or friends. As if she'd simply brought a coworker up to the rooftop for some fresh air.

"Zhu Ning," Wang Qinqian asked. "Have you ever been poor?"

Zhu Ning frowned slightly. In her previous life, Zhu Yao's income had been enough for a normal upbringing—not wealthy, but certainly not poor.

As for this life, Zhu Ning didn't know if she'd experienced it. The original owner was a Fifth-Class Citizen, so she would have been poor—but Zhu Ning had no memory of that period.

Wang Qinqian: "I'm a Fifth-Class Citizen, a Defective. I was abandoned near a Garbage Dump. Raised by a Mechanical Mother."

Wang Qinqian was telling Zhu Ning about her past. "The Federation ensured I could barely complete my education, but I knew that to find a better job I had to get a graduate degree. At the same time, my body needed large amounts of medication to sustain itself. So no matter how hard I worked all those years, I could never close the gap on my debt."

Wang Qinqian shared the same background as the original Zhu Ning. They were both children who'd grown up at the Garbage Dump. If Zhu Ning hadn't been selected by the Fire Seed Club and later entered the Sanitation Center, Wang Qinqian's trajectory would have been the normal growth path for an ordinary Fifth-Class Citizen.

"Do you know the maximum range of warmth? You probably don't." Wang Qinqian sank into her own emotions, speaking to herself: "It's forty centimeters. That year I was studying for the graduate entrance exam. I was truly broke—couldn't afford the electricity bill at all. Winters in District 103 are freezing. That winter, all I had was a forty-centimeter heating pad. When I was cold, I'd curl up right against the pad. That was the farthest reach of my warmth—forty centimeters."

She gestured as she spoke, spreading her arms, then gazing at the empty space she'd outlined.

Wang Qinqian had folded herself up, pressing as close to the heat source as possible, not daring to leave her blankets. Forty centimeters. Beyond that distance, all she could touch was frigid air.

Wang Qinqian: "I believed the future would be better. I followed the proper steps—studied hard, got into a good university, worked hard for the graduate exam to land a better job. I was lucky. After graduating, I really did join the company I'd dreamed of. Hengsheng was the best company in District 103. The pay was high. I calculated that if I could become a full employee, it would only take five years to pay off all my debt."

"Once the debt was cleared, I wanted to buy a small apartment and live my own life. I believed the future would be better."

Wang Qinqian's voice was steady. She bit down hard on the word future. "Then I joined the company. Three months of probation. One year where you can't leave. Monthly performance reviews. If you ranked last consecutively, you'd be eliminated—transferred, suppressed, salary cut, constantly denied."

The sole measure of an employee's worth: performance.

She could feel the distance and coldness between colleagues. Someone who consistently ranked last could never become a full employee. Once the one-year term was up, she'd have to leave.

The full-time employees didn't even look at you as one of their own. They'd dump the most impossible clients on you, trapping you in a death spiral.

The Cardboard Box that Zhu Ning had seen huddled in the corner was real. She'd folded herself under the desk, as if after enduring crushing pressure, she'd finally found a corner to catch her breath for a moment.

All her venting was silent, buried beneath seemingly calm waters—just like the scratch marks on the back of the Workstation.

"The supervisor could scream at you whenever he pleased. In front of over a hundred employees, he could trample your dignity without a second thought. Your colleagues were all competitors. They'd size you up and evaluate you. If they decided you wouldn't last, they wouldn't even bother getting close to you."

"Everyone called me by my codename—Cardboard Box." Wang Qinqian could recall it with her eyes closed. "'Cardboard Box, handle this file.' 'Why are you last in performance again?' 'Can you even do this job?' 'Look at this garbage you drew!' 'Have this report to me tonight.' 'Go apologize to the client'......"

"I heard those words over and over. Funny thing is—in all my time at the company, nobody except HR knew my real name. I was a codename. Cardboard Box."

She couldn't even earn a pleasant-sounding codename. She was just an object. Even if Cardboard Box resigned, the codename would be taken by a new graduate. Countless people were waiting to become the next Cardboard Box.

Wang Qinqian: "But I thought life could go on. The one-year commitment locked me in—I couldn't look for other options. So I figured I might as well spend the year working my hardest. Maybe I could win Outstanding Employee just once? Isn't that what the books all say—hard work pays off?"

So she worked harder than ever, finally breaking through. But what awaited her was a nightmare.

The kind you could never wake up from.

"You got one thing wrong," Wang Qinqian looked up at the vortex in the sky, her composure remarkably calm. "I didn't die when I jumped."

"They modified my body. I jumped from this height, but my brain was still intact."

For the first time, Wang Qinqian could tell someone about her past. She touched her own forehead, almost confused—was this really her brain?

"They picked up my shattered flesh and bones, found my brain, and pieced me back together."

She had leapt, believing everything would end. But she could only watch helplessly as they carefully collected her remains, retrieved her broken bones, and forcibly saved her.

The downside of highly advanced technology far exceeded Zhu Ning's imagination.

A person couldn't even commit suicide. Wang Qinqian couldn't decide her own life or death.

Wang Qinqian: "Do you know what happened to the person who helped me get to the rooftop?"

Wang Qinqian's situation at the time was the same as Zhu Ning's now—they both needed a helper to get to the rooftop.

Wang Qinqian paused. "She was the colleague assigned to care for me. A good person. Always smiling. I told her I wanted to go to the rooftop for some fresh air, and she said sure. She was the best person I'd ever met. She got past everyone and brought me to the rooftop. I've always been grateful to her. Her real name was Lin Fen."

Wang Qinqian paused again at this point, as if savoring the name. Lin Fen. The only person who had helped her—whose real name was Lin Fen. Not some object's codename.

Wang Qinqian would never forget. Even now, she held it close to her heart.

Wang Qinqian's steady tone finally cracked for a moment. She gave a bitter smile. "After that, Lin Fen was arrested for intentional homicide. The company said she had pushed me off."

Zhu Ning froze, thinking she'd misheard.

Lin Fen had kindly brought Wang Qinqian to the rooftop for fresh air. She hadn't known Wang Qinqian intended to kill herself. She'd simply wanted to help her relax.

But the surveillance cameras had captured everything. There was evidence showing Lin Fen escorting her into the elevator. Motive for murder was also established—they claimed Lin Fen was a corporate spy who'd come to destroy core confidential files.

They even questioned Wang Qinqian. Wang Qinqian desperately wanted to object, to say it wasn't like that—that Lin Fen had nothing to do with it.

But she discovered she was nothing more than a brain now. She couldn't even open her mouth to speak. All she could do was watch helplessly as Lin Fen was arrested.

Company leadership said: "Don't worry. We will protect you. We won't let anyone hurt you."

"Your safety will be guaranteed by us."

"We will cure you."

Wang Qinqian was powerless to resist, because her voice had been sealed. What does it mean to be weak? The weak don't even get the chance to speak.

The strong say you need to live, so you must live. The strong say you're resilient, so you must be resilient.

Everyone loudly praised the company's conduct—a corporation with a conscience, safeguarding employee welfare, and so on. Endless flowers, applause, and praise flooded in, and Wang Qinqian could only lie in her hospital bed watching it all unfold.

Camera flashes kept firing. Her photo appeared on the PR wall.

She was locked back in the Medical Department. Security grew ever tighter. Every day, countless people came to take photos with her.

But there would never be another Lin Fen.

Every colleague who looked at her was looking at gold. They'd staked everything they had on her.

In the end, her mind shattered completely. She fell and became a Contaminant.

Everyone who entered the Contamination Zone would be subjected to psychic suggestion. In the end, unable to bear the weight, they would all choose to end their lives by jumping.

Because Wang Qinqian was forever trapped in that day.

"I've seen Demon Hunters. They wanted to find a Contamination Source inside this world. If the so-called Contamination Source is the origin of the collapse—then I suppose that's me."

Wang Qinqian's voice was crystal clear, as if delivering a work report to Zhu Ning.

Wang Qinqian walked around to face Zhu Ning and knelt before her—like a colleague who had truly come to care for her.

Zhu Ning was a Demon Hunter. Wang Qinqian was a Contaminant. Yet between them there was no hostility—only sympathy and understanding.

After all these years, Wang Qinqian had finally found another person to talk to. She looked at Zhu Ning. The black helmet was like a mirror, reflecting her own image.

An unremarkable-looking woman, wearing black-framed glasses, with a shy smile.

No distinguishing features. The kind who'd vanish in a crowd.

"I envy you," Wang Qinqian said. "Many Demon Hunters have entered this Contamination Zone. You're my favorite kind of person."

From the very first day Zhu Ning had come to work, Wang Qinqian had been sitting in the corner, secretly watching her.

Among a flock of pure white sheep, Zhu Ning was the only black one. She was the one who refused to follow the rules. She became the "black sheep"—she fired a shot at the ceiling during the Performance Review Meeting, shrouding the conference room in blood.

She rejected the system, so she destroyed it.

Maybe it was because Zhu Ning had the confidence, or maybe there was something inherently unhinged in her nature. But the way she behaved made Wang Qinqian deeply envious.

No need to think about anything. Just be a genuine force of violence.

Break the rules. Break everything. Eliminate the competition. Force Brightness to present her a blood-soaked Outstanding Employee award.

She'd obtained through brute force the very thing Wang Qinqian had desperately dreamed of.

All along, Wang Qinqian had felt trapped on a predetermined track—study hard, get into graduate school, work hard, pay off debt.

The adults all said the same thing: It'll pay off. This path leads to a future.

She chose to follow the rules. But when the rules themselves were broken, it was like being stuck in a flawed system—whether you complied or not was utterly irrelevant. Destruction came so easily.

She envied Zhu Ning's ability to brazenly paint a bloody smile on her own helmet—as if mocking the entire world.

The world had already gone mad, so Zhu Ning would simply be madder.

Wang Qinqian: "Do you know what it means to be unable to live or die? It means you can't die while you're alive—and even after death, you still can't die."

Wang Qinqian didn't want to continue anymore. She kept falling back into this day in an endless loop, as if some force kept pulling her in.

Inside this Contamination Zone, she repeatedly experienced death—jumping to her death, being killed by Brightness, being killed by other Demon Hunters.

But she could not die.

Maybe Zhu Ning could do it. Maybe Zhu Ning could set her free for good.

"The loop doesn't exist for you, but it does for me. I'm constantly being reset." Wang Qinqian produced something.

It was a gun. She'd taken it from Zhu Ning's backpack.

Wang Qinqian placed the gun in Zhu Ning's hand. For the first time, Zhu Ning found the weapon scalding—her instinct was to pull her hand back, but Wang Qinqian held it firmly in place.

Zhu Ning's stamina was too low to resist. Wang Qinqian guided Zhu Ning's finger onto the trigger.

The dark muzzle pointed at Wang Qinqian's forehead. Wang Qinqian asked softly: "Can you kill me?"

Like a true black sheep. Be a real villain. Kill me.

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