Chapter 150-I Clean Up Garbage in a Wasteland World
Chapter 150 Kill the VIP (V)
Bang!
Zhu Ning yanked Liu Niannian's arm with one hand and kicked a Human-Headed Fish square in the face. The head was far harder than she'd expected—nothing like a human skull at all, more like some bizarre organism.
The impact of the kick felt like slamming her foot into a rock. Her shin went numb.
What the hell was that hard?
Splash— the Human-Headed Fish crashed back into the water. Others were already gearing up to pounce. For the first time, Zhu Ning understood what it meant to have no weapons, no firearms, and no Abilities.
Was she really going to fistfight Human-Headed Fish? The first time it was Fishmen, the second time Merfolk, and now Human-Headed Fish. Why did she keep ending up at odds with fish?
"Captain." Zhu Ning called out to Xu Meng.
Xu Meng had already smashed through the glass door of a streetside shop. "Over here."
Liu Niannian didn't need urging. She followed Xu Meng into the shop immediately. Zhu Ning kicked away two more fish, then ducked inside.
The shop sat slightly higher. The water level hadn't reached it yet. Dozens of Human-Headed Fish could only crowd the steps outside, faces pressed against faces, their fish bodies writhing as they let out guttural roars.
The things looked part-human, part-fish. The palm-sized ones from earlier had been too small to see clearly, but now she could get a better look. They had expressions.
Some looked furious, some excited. One wore the somber face of an old man. There were young women's faces, faces wearing lipstick.
Truly grotesque. After staring long enough, Zhu Ning felt the boundary between human and animal dissolving. Was Bao Ruiming's mind really this twisted?
"Find weapons." Xu Meng's voice pulled Zhu Ning back to reality.
They needed something to defend themselves.
This was a fruit shop, filled with tropical fruit. Liu Niannian found a large knife on the fruit stand—unclear whether it was for watermelons or something else. It was about as long as a person's forearm.
Liu Niannian handed the knife to Zhu Ning. The thing was too unwieldy for her—she didn't know how to use it and would likely cut herself.
Zhu Ning gripped the handle and gave it an experimental heft, finding a comfortable hold.
Meanwhile, Xu Meng had already scavenged all the shop's knives. She'd fashioned a simple wrap, arranging the tools by size, and strapped it to her body. She glanced at it once—when the time came, she wouldn't need to think.
As expected of a professional. That level of combat readiness would probably take Zhu Ning years to match.
Liu Niannian knew her own limitations. She kept a small fruit knife for self-defense.
The rain intensified. Water was already pooling inside the fruit shop. The fish rain seemed to have stopped—outside, it was just a violent storm now.
There was no time to find Diving Suits, and even if they had them, swimming alongside all these Human-Headed Fish sounded indistinguishable from suicide.
In Liu Niannian's hallucination, she'd scooped out her own brain inside the church. That place was definitely suspicious.
Normal people would steer clear, but Zhu Ning's team was here to find Bao Ruiming. Wherever things were strangest, that's where they'd go.
They had to reach the church during its open hours.
The front door was clearly not an option. They immediately decided to head upward—to check the rooftop first.
The shop had a small loft. Many shopfronts were built this way—business on the first floor, living quarters above. Xu Meng took point, searching for a way to the roof. Zhu Ning, as always, covered the rear.
While watching for Human-Headed Fish below, Zhu Ning heard a scream from upstairs.
Liu Niannian was right in front of her. She assumed the vanguard Xu Meng had encountered some monster hiding in the loft. Then she saw Xu Meng wrestling with someone. Ten seconds later, Xu Meng had single-handedly ended the fight.
Her knife was at a man's throat. The man beneath the blade was middle-aged, his hair half-white, with gills on both sides of his ears—flapping open and shut in terror.
A local.
Zhu Ning's mind made the assessment: in this world, he'd be an ordinary person.
Zhu Ning flipped on the loft light, revealing a pale-faced man trembling uncontrollably.
Zhu Ning: "Sorry about that. We're just taking shelter here."
The man nodded frantically, eyes glued to the knives in their hands. To him, these three women were home invaders.
Xu Meng saw the man was no monster and released him, putting the knife away.
The man: "M-m-money's in the cabinet."
Zhu Ning: "We don't want money. Just sheltering from the rain."
The man exhaled. "Y-you're in danger out there."
He actually seemed to care about their safety. The islanders all seemed this way—warm, genuinely kind, as if they'd never suffered, radiating a strange, unsettling innocence. Zhu Ning asked: "So why are you here?"
The man: "I-I-I-I didn't make it home in time."
Without prompting, the man blurted out his story: "I fell asleep and woke up around eight. I couldn't get back, so I locked the door."
The explanation was disjointed, but Zhu Ning eventually pieced it together—the man was hiding here.
Everyone had to be home by eight. The townsfolk lived on higher ground, which was why the beachgoers had started evacuating right at dusk. Wang Shengli had also left after chatting with them for just a few minutes.
The locals knew the sky would rain. And rain fish.
Zhu Ning: "What happens after eight?"
The man: "A-after eight, it's their feeding time."
When he mentioned the Human-Headed Fish, the man seemed less afraid of them than of the three women.
Zhu Ning: "And you just let them eat?"
The man steadied himself. "Bad luck, that's all. I eat fish too."
Huh?
The locals really were strange. His tone suggested that being eaten by fish wasn't that big a deal.
Zhu Ning scanned the room. The fruit shop's second floor was a makeshift rest area—a rough bed built from wooden planks, a table beside it with an uncleared bowl and chopsticks. Zhu Ning's sharp eyes spotted a pile of fish bones.
The fish bones were heaped into an absurdly tall mound. No other dishes—just fish.
Zhu Ning was thoroughly confused. The man in front of her was a human with gills. The things outside were fish with human faces. And the table was piled with fish bones.
What did this mean? A food chain?
Big fish eat small fish, small fish eat shrimp. Zhu Ning felt like she'd stumbled into a bizarre oceanarium show.
She recalled how every islander they'd seen had been utterly relaxed, wearing the most natural smiles. Now she linked that with the man saying he'd be eaten.
But thinking it through, if you imagined this world as an ocean, the small fish lived carefree and content every day.
Maybe they only felt fear when isolated or at death's door—if they felt it at all. Zhu Ning had grown up watching nature documentaries, and it was genuinely hard to tell whether the fish in them were afraid.
Imagine it: the people of this world all believed they were alive. They were born with gills, ate fish caught from the sea, but obeyed a certain custom—be home before eight at night. Anyone caught outside became food for the Human-Headed Fish by default.
This world was rather... twisted.
Was this really Bao Ruiming's inner world?
Zhu Ning was now certain that they, too, were part of this food chain. If she hadn't known they were infiltrating "viruses," she'd have been tempted to check whether gills had sprouted on the sides of her own head.
The man asked: "Where are you trying to go?"
Zhu Ning: "The church."
The man muttered: "Only lunatics like going to the church."
While Zhu Ning was talking to him, Liu Niannian had been rummaging through the shop. No diving gear, but she found raincoats sold to tourists. She brought out three black rain ponchos.
All this time had passed, and the water was nearly at the second floor. Human-Headed Fish slammed against the wooden staircase with a bang-bang-bang.
Zhu Ning was already gripping the stairway railing. Before leaving, she asked: "You're not coming?"
The man was just an NPC, but Liu Niannian had said they believed they were real. Shouldn't a living person have a survival instinct?
The man stared into the darkness, locking eyes with one of the Human-Headed Fish. "I'm staying."
The man knew his fate. He would become food.
Bao Ruiming had constructed a world that was eerie yet harmonious. Every creature on the food chain accepted its role with equanimity. At certain moments, the line between human and fish vanished entirely.
Was Bao Ruiming continuing his experiments in here? If so, where was he?
What role did he play in this food chain?
Clang—
Xu Meng shoved open the rooftop door. The instant it opened, wind and rain blasted them in the face. Anyone going up there would struggle to keep their footing.
They'd prepared downstairs. The rooftop might have Human-Headed Fish too.
Sure enough, it did. The moment the Human-Headed Fish spotted them, they opened wide to bite. Liu Niannian still shuddered at the sight—the hand holding her knife trembled.
Xu Meng held a knife horizontally across her chest. The instant a Human-Headed Fish launched into the air, her hand rose and fell—a flash of cold steel.
Crack—
The Human-Headed Fish split at the neck. Head and tail parted ways. The tail twitched reflexively while the head rolled off the rooftop like a watermelon.
Xu Meng was deadly with a blade. The cut was clean and decisive—an ordinary watermelon knife wielded like a century-old weapon of war.
Xu Meng was in full slaughter mode. For the first time, Zhu Ning experienced what it was like to have a reliable teammate clearing the way while she just covered the rear. It saved her a ton of effort.
From this vantage point, half of the church's spire was visible. Zhu Ning's data analysis kicked in, rapidly plotting the shortest route.
They had no Diving Suits. The rain was still pouring. They needed to reach their destination before the rising water topped the roofs—that way they'd only have to deal with the creatures on the rooftops.
Zhu Ning and Xu Meng had worked well together at the Mechanical Oceanarium. This time, their coordination was even better.
From an outsider's perspective, all you'd see were three women in black raincoats darting across rooftops.
They moved like they'd been trained for this—like three butchers of the storm.
Xu Meng took point, killing at speed. Liu Niannian held the middle, trying not to slow them down. Zhu Ning brought up the rear, dispatching any lingering Human-Headed Fish.
In their wake: blood and severed limbs. Every Human-Headed Fish had been decapitated.
This was certainly abnormal enough to draw the Inspection Squad's attention before long.
Time was running out.
The rooftops connected in a continuous line. The route Zhu Ning planned was effective. By the end, the church steeple loomed right before them.
In the storm, the barnacles on the church walls now looked like raised goosebumps, or the skin of a toad.
Several Human-Headed Fish corpses were impaled on the church's spire—bloody and dripping, their blood mixing with rainwater, trickling down the eaves in a steady drip-drip-drip.
The doorway and windows emitted a dim glow, like a slumbering nightmare cracking open a golden eye.
The moment Liu Niannian saw the church, her face went white and her lips began to tremble. She heard it again—something calling to her.
Her brain was in agony. She felt like she was about to lose control.
Xu Meng felt uneasy too. A feline's instinct for self-preservation was screaming at her, buried warnings blazing through her blood.
Run!
Leave. Now.
After fighting their way here, Xu Meng was showing signs of fatigue. No Abilities, no firearms, trapped in a bizarre consciousness world—she could even feel her stamina draining away. This was not a good sign.
Beneath the raincoat where Zhu Ning couldn't see, Xu Meng's left leg was already wounded—bitten open by a Human-Headed Fish.
Zhu Ning silently stared down the church. Her mental state was unaffected. Instead, she had an intuition: Bao Ruiming was definitely in there.
In the world he'd created, there was a food chain—fish and human genetics intertwined. As the creator, Bao Ruiming would position himself where a god would be.
The clock on the church read 10:13 PM. Within the open hours.
If this weren't the Consciousness Cloud, she could have left Xu Meng or Liu Niannian outside to wait. But their current predicament offered no escape.
They were trapped inside Bao Ruiming's mind.
Xu Meng had already leapt down from the rooftop. The church sat on higher ground—no flooding here, but Human-Headed Fish from the sky still littered the lawn, gasping on the grass.
Soon enough, the church would be submerged too.
They reached the main entrance. All three were soaked through, hair plastered to foreheads, clothes drenched in icy rainwater.
Zhu Ning noticed Xu Meng's pallor and guessed she was injured. She'd been doing all the killing along the way—without a Protective Suit, wounds were inevitable.
Captains were always like that. They never told subordinates when they were hurt, for fear of affecting morale.
So Zhu Ning didn't ask in front of Liu Niannian.
This time, Zhu Ning took the lead. Without a word, she positioned herself in front of Xu Meng and knocked on the church door.
"Hello," Zhu Ning deliberately made her voice sound frightened—like a tourist caught in the Human-Headed Fish rain, seeking help. "Can we come in to take shelter?"
No one answered.
Zhu Ning exchanged a look with Xu Meng. She hid the watermelon knife beneath her black raincoat and carefully pushed the door open.
Creeeeak—
The church door swung open, revealing its interior. Two rows of pews were packed with people.
They wore crimson robes, hoods pulled over their heads—wide hoods with a pronounced peak.
Hands clasped together, they sat in dense rows, like some deep-sea organism. Zhu Ning's voice hadn't even disturbed them. They held their positions without a single head turning to look at the doorway.
Only Zhu Ning had spoken, and so her voice kept echoing through the church.
"Hello, can we come in to take shelter?"
"Hello, can we... come in to take shelter?"
"Hello..."
The first time, it sounded like an echo. But listen long enough and you'd realize it was something entirely different—it was Zhu Ning's voice, repeating the same words.
In shifting inflections—each iteration more terrified, more helpless. Like a small animal's desperate cry for help.
"Can we take shelter?"
Zhu Ning heard her own voice. But she hadn't opened her mouth.
BOOM—
Another clap of thunder roared outside. A flash of white lightning illuminated the entire church, casting shadows across every face.
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