Chapter 156-I Clean Up Garbage in a Wasteland World
Chapter 156 Kill the VIP (XI)
Ninety years ago.
Humanity had not yet built the High Wall. People could still see deserts, forests—and the ocean.
Floating Sand Island was an ordinary seaside island. Its residents made their living by fishing. As a niche tourist destination, visitors came between May and October every year.
The island was small. Almost everyone knew each other, fully aware of one another's affairs. Nobody had any real worries.
Bao Ruiming was born on Floating Sand Island. By all logic, he should have lived out his days here like his ancestors before him. But he'd been sharp since childhood, and his family was already planning to send him to the county middle school in a few days.
Bao Ruiming's entire childhood was spent by the sea. People living inside the walls today probably couldn't even imagine the ocean. Standing at the shore, you felt how infinitely small you were—and from that came a profound sense of peace.
He loved collecting shells from the beach, watching razor clams burrow into the sand, and picking up stranded fish.
He was obsessed with the ocean. Left to his own devices, Bao Ruiming could spend an entire day and night at the beach.
His father joked, "Might as well turn into a fish and go back to the sea."
A neighbor asked, "Was your boy born into the wrong species?"
His elementary school teacher said, "He might grow up to be a marine biologist someday."
Bao Ruiming hadn't aspired to become a marine biologist. At the time, that felt impossibly distant. He simply loved the ocean.
There was a Church on Floating Sand Island. Every time Bao Ruiming passed it, he'd stop and stare for a while. He always kept his distance—the adults said it was terrifying inside.
They said it had been full of corpses during the war. They said people screamed inside. Bao Ruiming had never heard any of it—maybe they were just scaring children.
But that Church left an indelible mark in his mind, like a shadow. Even decades later, he could never forget it.
Back then, Bao Ruiming was like any other kid—doing stupid things, assuming he'd bumble through the rest of his life in blissful idiocy.
But disaster struck. When Bao Ruiming was ten, the television began broadcasting catastrophe reports.
Global radiation. Cause unknown. Contaminants ran rampant. Humanity was losing ground, territory by territory.
Faster than any zombie movie—first a city, then a province, then a country, then an entire continent.
The news was nothing but defeats. Every day brought word of new land lost. Every day, more people became Contaminants.
Humanity kept retreating. The safe zone shrank and shrank.
A shadow hung over Floating Sand Island. Those with means or advance warning had already fled. The remaining residents barricaded themselves indoors, not knowing when the contamination would reach them.
Bao Ruiming lost his chance to visit the beach. No one could be sure whether unknown Contaminants lurked in the depths. For safety's sake, all Bao Ruiming could do was press his face against the window and gaze at his ocean.
Bad news kept coming.
Unable to eradicate the contamination, humanity pooled every remaining global resource to establish what was now the Federation. Construction of survivor bases began—to preserve the human gene pool.
Soon it was Floating Sand Island's turn. In answer to the Federation's call, all surviving humans were to relocate behind the High Wall. Every resident of Floating Sand Island was to evacuate.
They had no choice but to abandon their homeland. The departure was frantic. The Relief Ship docked for only twenty minutes. When time was up, it would leave.
There was no time to pack. They grabbed only the barest necessities.
The ferry was crammed with refugees. Conditions were atrocious—people squeezed together, eating, sleeping, and relieving themselves in the same spot. The stench hit you the moment you boarded.
The instant they were aboard, the Relief Ship pulled away from the dock.
Bao Ruiming watched helplessly as the ship left the pier. Many people hadn't made it on. They stood on the dock, screaming for the ship to wait. Some even jumped into the sea, trying to swim after it. But the Relief Ship departed without mercy, not lingering a single extra minute.
They were abandoned completely.
From that day forward, it was a survival of the fittest. Bao Ruiming had won the first round—the chance to live.
Bao Ruiming kept his eyes on the receding dock. Not out of any attachment to those people—he simply couldn't bear to leave the island.
Only when the familiar coastline vanished entirely from view did Bao Ruiming look away and turn his attention to the ship.
In Bao Ruiming's world, this vessel was Noah's Ark.
His parents felt fortunate. They'd received the Federation's aid for free. But they were anxious about the future, with no idea where fate was steering them.
They sailed through open water for days, with nothing to orient themselves—not a single landmark.
On the third day, the ship docked. They reeked, without even a chance to wash, before being herded onto buses. Four more days of travel, and they finally saw the High Wall.
Humanity's survivor base. The High Wall was monumental—from a distance, it looked like a mountain, capped with a steel lid. Impenetrable walls sealing out the contamination beyond.
No contamination spores could drift inside.
This was Bao Ruiming's first sight of the High Wall. A ten-year-old boy standing at its base, feeling only oppression.
Gone was the ocean's vastness. This was just a wall—a sealed cage.
Their mother held Bao Ruiming and his younger brother close as she led them through the gates.
A new calendar began. Everything before was collectively referred to as the Old World.
They were the New World's first generation of citizens. From their children onward, people would take it for granted that humanity was meant to live behind walls.
In the early chaos, there was no order. Survivors lived in Federation Relief Stations. For the first three years, they performed the most menial labor.
Building the New World required reinforcing the High Wall. Steel demand was enormous. Bao Ruiming's entire family worked at the steel mill—his parents, once fishermen, now steelworkers.
They earned meager wages, enough for the cheapest food—potatoes, or flavorless ration packs.
The family of four crammed into a fifteen-square-meter room with bunk beds. Every sound carried. At night, Bao Ruiming drew the bed curtain shut. On the wall hung a photograph of the ocean.
Every night, he dreamed of Floating Sand Island. His home was lost forever.
Three years passed like this. In the third year, the Federation announced a universal self-rescue initiative. To maximize survival rates, they launched the Genetic Screening program.
Genes determined everything. Those with the best genetics became First-Class Citizens—the most fit to survive and the most capable of saving humanity.
Bao Ruiming's entire family underwent Genetic Screening. The results came quickly. By the screening's standards, Bao Ruiming qualified as a First-Class Citizen.
His parents and younger brother were classified as Defective.
Against all expectations, a boy from a tiny fishing village possessed flawless genes.
Later evidence proved it true. Academics came effortlessly—he could top the class without trying. His physical fitness was impressive too. In every metric, he trended toward the standard's definition of perfection.
He earned the right to enter the First District.
His parents begged the Federation to let his brother in too. "They're the same—why can't he go?"
His brother was rejected.
Strange, really. They were family, yet under Genetic Screening, they might as well have been different species.
The gap between people could be wider than the gap between people and dogs.
Bao Ruiming now faced a choice: stay with his parents in the lower tier, or enter the First District and enjoy the life of the elite.
Thank the Genetic Screening system—it had given an ordinary fisherman's son a second chance at birth.
By then, Bao Ruiming had witnessed the chaos and lawlessness firsthand. He craved knowledge, wealth, and social standing.
Young as he was, Bao Ruiming had already grasped the world's true nature.
First: the existing rules were laughable.
Second: only those who made the rules had any voice.
So Bao Ruiming made his choice without hesitation. He went to the First District. He would become one of those who wrote the rules.
As one of the Federation's first-generation First-Class Citizens, Bao Ruiming shouldered the duty of building human civilization. A stable and peaceful world had to be maintained. The flame of hope had to be kept alive.
Bao Ruiming entered the First District and became a member of the privileged class.
He completed his studies smoothly, graduating from the First Military District University.
His field of research was the ocean. As a First-Class Citizen, he held considerable authority. In those early days, humanity's study of contamination was still in its infancy. People hadn't given up exploring the world beyond the walls—or investigating the lost truths of the Old World.
When he was twenty-five, he learned that a Survey Team would be passing near Floating Sand Island.
He pulled strings. He ordered the Survey Team to visit Floating Sand Island, citing the retrieval of valuable marine specimens to aid ocean biology research.
In truth, Bao Ruiming simply wanted to see what Floating Sand Island looked like now.
He missed his home dearly.
The Survey Team returned. Sixteen had gone. Three came back. They hadn't retrieved any worthwhile marine specimens—but they'd brought back a single Barnacle shell.
That was the team's entire yield. Thirteen people had died so that Bao Ruiming could have one Barnacle shell.
Bao Ruiming could understand the resentment. At the time, the survivors looked at First-Class Citizens with something close to hatred.
By contrast, Bao Ruiming felt nothing. Looking back, he himself found it hard to comprehend. Without the Genetic Screening, Bao Ruiming would have been just another nobody from a fishing village—a steelworker at best inside the walls.
Someone who'd climbed from the bottom should have been able to empathize. But he felt nothing at all. Thirteen dead humans mattered less to him than thirteen dead fish.
Their value was too low. His value was too high.
It wasn't that Bao Ruiming thought himself superior. The existing rules had placed him in this position.
So this was privilege.
Back at the Relief Station, he used to wonder: did the privileged feel guilty? Did they suffer?
The answer was no. The moment you acquired privilege, you lost all such feelings. Every absurdity became normal.
The Defective found the rules unjust. The First-Class Citizens found them equally laughable.
Only the first generation of First-Class Citizens still had this capacity for reflection. Bao Ruiming had lived in both worlds—he could at least pause to think about it.
Later generations of First-Class Citizens wouldn't even reflect. They'd enjoy their inheritance with absolute peace of mind.
Social Darwinism. When everything was measured by maximum utility, human society was destined to turn out this way.
The Survey Team's Barnacle was useless. Bao Ruiming began studying the team's video recordings instead. He'd never left the High Wall and was deeply curious about the outside world.
He didn't realize he was about to open a door.
The Survey Team had filmed the current state of Floating Sand Island.
To Bao Ruiming's astonishment, the island looked almost the same as when he'd left. A warm, soft beach. A tall, looming Church.
The people who'd stayed behind on Floating Sand Island had evolved gills. They'd reproduced on the island, and every generation thereafter carried fish-like traits. They could walk on land and live in the sea.
Barnacles encrusted their houses, because the tide rose daily and they'd adapted to a flooded world.
The fish in the water had evolved too—developing human faces. Humans and fish had become intertwined, until it was impossible to tell whether they were Merfolk or Fishmen.
Humans ate fish. Human-Headed Fish ate humans. Outsiders who arrived were lured in, then assimilated into the food chain.
Every detail was perfect. Flawless, beyond reproach.
The Survey Team's deaths had meaning. At the cost of their lives, they'd shown Bao Ruiming a new world.
Bao Ruiming decided to upload his consciousness to the Cloud. Given the chance to build a world from code, he used the real Floating Sand Island as his template to create a virtual one.
Bao Ruiming couldn't create a food chain. The food chain already existed—that was the pinnacle of nature.
Nature's artistry surpassed all human technology.
When Bao Ruiming became one of the first-generation First-Class Citizens, he'd taken an oath: I will lead humanity toward a brighter future.
For the first half of his life, Bao Ruiming had believed that meant leading humanity's fight against the Contaminants. The first generation of First-Class Citizens had devoted themselves to that goal—creating artificial humans, mechanical beings, clones, and other tools.
Cars could fly. Genes could be rewritten. Technology leapt forward every decade. Life was better than before.
But humanity kept losing land. The tide was unstoppable.
It was only after watching the recordings that Bao Ruiming understood what that oath truly meant.
Couldn't humans coexist with Contaminants?
What if this was the true course of things? What if Floating Sand Island was humanity's future?
Nature would make its selection. Humans need only follow the natural order—let humanity and Contaminants merge.
He returned to the former Relief Station. The area had since been designated District 103—the Federation's dumping ground.
Living conditions were harsh. Bao Ruiming's parents had already passed away. His younger brother had died from metallic contamination.
Bao Ruiming hadn't even seen them one last time. After entering the First District, he'd never contacted them.
Bao Ruiming put down roots in District 103 and founded the Mechanical Oceanarium, dedicating himself to marine conservation.
Every day, he worked with aquatic life—conducting experiments with the creatures at his disposal. Progress was slow. He couldn't reproduce the Fishmen of Floating Sand Island.
No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't do it. The Transparent People project was the culmination of thirty years of painstaking research.
Compared to the forces of nature, one person was infinitely small. His research crawled along—it might take centuries and still not succeed.
Days passed. He turned forty.
By then, he'd resigned himself to the idea that this was all his life would amount to. He would never realize his grand ambition.
One day, while wandering the area, he came across an old Church—left over from before the Federation had requisitioned this land.
For one disorienting moment, Bao Ruiming thought he'd traveled back in time. He was on Floating Sand Island again. But a second look told him the two churches weren't the same—only very similar.
The same pointed steeple. The same eerie aura. A light coming on at night. Chanting from within.
Bao Ruiming had never set foot inside the Floating Sand Island Church. That day, he stood at the entrance for a long time, feeling an inexplicable pull.
Humans were always drawn to the same things.
Nobody in District 103 believed in gods or ghosts. The Church's interior was bare. The stained glass had gathered dust. The Idol sculptures inside had aged badly.
He didn't see any chanting Congregants, but a door leading to the basement glowed red.
That day, Bao Ruiming had only wandered in on a whim. He heard a voice. Something was calling to him...
It promised him power.
Bao Ruiming could hardly describe the feeling. He was like a long-lost child who had finally found his mother. He wept uncontrollably in the Church.
An outsider would have found the scene bizarre—a suited First-Class Citizen, kneeling in a Church, sobbing.
Praise the great One.
Bao Ruiming made his choice. He struck a bargain.
He would sacrifice his own brain—offer his body as a vessel—to resurrect the great deity.
On the day of the divine descent, District 103 would become Floating Sand Island.
Now, in another Church—inside his Consciousness Cloud—the Idol had been destroyed by Zhu Ning.
Zhu Ning's question stirred memories of his past. Even now, thinking of that day made his heart tremble.
But none of this was something Zhu Ning needed to know.
Zhu Ning had invaded his Consciousness Cloud. Zhu Ning would die first. Then Bao Ruiming could die without regret.
One last step. He would see her off.
Zhu Ning lay on the ground like a sacrificial offering. Half her face was covered in blood, her body soaking in a crimson pool. Blood beaded on her eyelashes.
Yet the gaze she turned on him was strange—a pair of utterly calm eyes. No fear. No questions. Cold as a machine.
From Bao Ruiming's vantage, Zhu Ning was, in fact, beautiful. She was the finest of sacrifices—wings broken, caged, yet refusing to show a single crack of vulnerability.
Bao Ruiming didn't waste any more words on Zhu Ning. He was an executioner carrying out his duty.
Squelch—
Without a moment's hesitation, the claw plunged into Zhu Ning's heart, pinning her to the ground. Zhu Ning's eyes went wide, but she didn't even cry out in pain.
For the future of humanity.
That was the oath Bao Ruiming had once taken. And he had fulfilled it.
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