Chapter 158-I Clean Up Garbage in a Wasteland World
Chapter 158 Kill the VIP (XIII)
Dignified Queen Club.
Late night was business hours. Song Zhizhang was searching for Lin Xiaofeng.
After Zhu Ning left, Lin Xiaofeng had taken off her red hat. She absolutely did not want to be seen, so even Song Zhizhang couldn't find her.
Song Zhizhang sat in the empty living room, surrounded by pitch darkness. Lin Xiaofeng hadn't even turned on the lights.
Song Zhizhang contacted her through his Sub-Brain: "Are you okay?"
Lin Xiaofeng's Sub-Brain was also transparent, and this form of communication made her feel safe.
Lin Xiaofeng was curled up in a corner behind the curtain where no one could see her. Half a meter away sat the ski gear Zhu Ning had bought—she'd picked out a set of Protective Suits for Lin Xiaofeng.
Just yesterday, the two of them had been skiing together.
Lin Xiaofeng saw Song Zhizhang's message and replied with an "I'm fine," accompanied by a cute bunny emoji.
Song Zhizhang knew Lin Xiaofeng was sensible. She would never say she needed company. She'd been forced to grow up too fast. After Zhu Ning's departure, she'd become profoundly silent.
Song Zhizhang: "Can I sit here?"
He didn't offer words of comfort or claim Zhu Ning would definitely win.
He was just as anxious as Lin Xiaofeng, with no heart to open the club. He simply wanted to be in the same space with her. Zhu Ning had gone to kill Bao Ruiming. The pressure on Lin Xiaofeng must have been immense. He felt a child this young needed companionship.
Song Zhizhang wouldn't disturb her. He would just sit there quietly.
After a while, Lin Xiaofeng replied: "Okay."
And so the two of them fell silent. Lin Xiaofeng shut off her Sub-Brain and buried her chin against her knees.
Lin Xiaofeng closed her eyes. It felt as if she wasn't in Dignified Queen Club at all, but still in the Mechanical Oceanarium. It was like a nightmare she had never woken from.
The seawater had been so cold. Lin Xiaofeng had waded through floating corpses, checking each body in the waterlogged ruins one by one.
She'd turned one over. The tentacles of the mechanical jellyfish protruding from Su Qingqing's chest were still twitching.
Lin Xiaofeng still remembered her reaction when she'd found Su Qingqing's body. The woman had been bloated from soaking in the water.
Now, when Lin Xiaofeng closed her eyes, Su Qingqing's face merged with Zhu Ning's. It was Zhu Ning's face.
The Mechanical Oceanarium incident wasn't over. Bao Ruiming clung to Lin Xiaofeng like a ghost, refusing to let her move forward.
If Zhu Ning died, her mind would truly shatter.
She couldn't accept it. Please—don't make her experience it a second time.
...
The Consciousness Cloud.
Bao Ruiming's legs bent. A normal person's legs snapped at the middle, folding into an exaggerated arc. Like a crab, he balanced on his tiptoes.
Sharp crab legs burst through Bao Ruiming's neat suit trousers. First two legs, then four, then eight.
The crab legs gleamed with a mechanical sheen. Standing up, he was eight meters tall, nearly scraping the Church ceiling. Simultaneously, his upper body writhed continuously.
Beneath his suit vest, flesh bulged and pulsed. His aged face contorted, swelling. Worms squirmed beneath the skin. His eyeballs burst and regenerated. When he opened his mouth, countless octopus tentacles wriggled inside.
In the blink of an eye, Bao Ruiming had transformed from a white-haired old professor into a monster—mechanical crab below, octopus tentacles above.
Nor was that all. Everything around them was changing. Black lines multiplied inside the Church. The Congregants came back to life. The Idol Zhu Ning had smashed reassembled and resurrected.
The place had been restored to the state Zhu Ning first encountered.
Bao Ruiming's Contamination Zone had opened. He'd assimilated the entire Floating Sand Island.
Bao Ruiming's mind felt like countless threads straining against each other. Reason was fading. Only one thought remained—kill Zhu Ning.
He had to prove the absurdity of the Alpha experiment. Contaminants were the inevitable tide. His god had once bestowed power upon him.
Things had come this far. Kill Zhu Ning and everything could still succeed.
Kill Zhu Ning.
Bao Ruiming shuddered on his eight legs. The tentacles in his mouth elongated ceaselessly, lashing like blades toward Zhu Ning's heart. As he moved, the red-robed Congregants moved in unison, surging toward their target like a tidal wave.
Inside a Contamination Zone, all Contaminants shared a collective awareness. They would become one.
Zhu Ning stood in the center of the Church. Data streamed through her eyes, which blazed like twin flames of ice-blue fire.
She was attempting to manipulate data—just as she had tried to manipulate metal when she'd first gained Metal Manipulation. First a coin, then a wall, then an entire Hive.
Now Zhu Ning was attempting to manipulate data. She could rewrite everything.
For Zhu Ning, this was a solipsistic world. She was her own god, capable of conjuring anything—including monsters like Bao Ruiming.
A person suddenly granted the power of a god couldn't adapt instantly. Imagination was limited. So her first instinct was to conjure a blade.
A one-meter blade. It fit well in her hand and cut with terrific speed.
The charging Congregants collided with the blade's edge. As it carved through them, there was no blood—only strings of cold data.
This was what a truly unfair contest of powers looked like. Opening a Contamination Zone in the Consciousness Cloud was like running a virus-infected program—still nothing but strings of data.
Bao Ruiming's move was a final, desperate gambit—and a show of loyalty to his faith.
He should die for his cause.
Congregants crashed into Zhu Ning one after another like wheat before a scythe, snapping in half and toppling row by row. One Congregant charged, and her wrist dipped—the long blade drove upward through his jaw and out through his skull.
This was a pure slaughter game.
Obstacles abounded, but Zhu Ning paid the others no mind. Her eyes had locked onto Bao Ruiming.
This was a Contamination Zone, and Bao Ruiming was its source. She didn't even need to search for him.
Bao Ruiming was Lin Xiaofeng's enemy. Zhu Ning had promised to avenge Lin Xiaofeng. Once Bao Ruiming was dead, Lin Xiaofeng would become Zhu Ning's employee.
From then on, Lin Xiaofeng wouldn't need to think about anything. She wouldn't have to be tormented by endless nightmares. All she'd need to do was work for Zhu Ning.
Zhu Ning charged toward Bao Ruiming. Neither of them had time to spare. Zhu Ning knew Liu Niannian had bought her time, and that time had to be limited.
She had to complete her mission quickly. Kill Bao Ruiming. This was the shortest mission the System had ever issued her.
Kill Bao Ruiming.
Just five characters. Zhu Ning's brows drew tight, the blue data in her eyes on the verge of overflowing.
She had only just learned to use this skill. It was her first time reigning as master of a world. She sprinted through the Church, severing the tentacles that lunged at her.
Bao Ruiming attacked with murderous intent. Tentacles rained down in unison, regrowing instantly when cut. Behind her, Congregants clawed at her feet.
The blade in Zhu Ning's hand moved faster and faster. Inside the Church, she and Bao Ruiming clashed at dizzying speed—a blur almost impossible to follow.
She was her own god.
Zhu Ning closed in on Bao Ruiming. The crab legs were harder to deal with than the tentacles—mechanical and brutally hard, like some ancient creature's exoskeleton.
The first slash merely struck sparks. Bao Ruiming's eight legs whipped rapidly, like guillotine blades on a scaffold.
At eight meters tall, his sharp legs stabbing downward was like a child jabbing a pencil at an ant on the ground.
Zhu Ning dodged among them. A mechanical leg grazed her cheek, drawing blood.
She was her own god.
Zhu Ning slipped past the mechanical legs as if threading through a mechanical forest. Ahead, a gap opened between two of them.
She leapt. The long blade in her hand extended instantly—from one meter to four. She gripped it at the center, razor-sharp edges on both ends.
She was her own god.
The blade slashed through Bao Ruiming's body, tracing a keen line across his waist. Before he could react—his mechanical legs still moving, his tentacles still writhing—
When a person is severed abruptly, the nerves simply can't respond. Just as on ancient battlefields, a decapitated soldier might keep walking. A second later, Bao Ruiming's upper body slid free.
Tentacles and mechanical legs separated completely.
Bao Ruiming hadn't even had time to struggle before Zhu Ning had cleaved him in two.
His upper body crashed to the ground like a slab of rotten meat.
Zhu Ning gasped for breath. She had never experienced a "battle" like this—it was like playing an exhilarating game.
Her abdomen was still wounded. The gash in her back remained. Blood ran down her cheek. But she felt none of it.
Her blood—or rather, her data stream—was boiling, driven by one absolute objective.
Kill Bao Ruiming.
Pressing the advantage was the most satisfying moment. He was in total rout. Whatever morale he'd scraped together would crumble in an instant.
Zhu Ning raised her blade. It slashed again and again, hacking Bao Ruiming's tentacles to pieces.
The dead Congregants and Bao Ruiming's severed limbs were ground apart by a data storm, dissolving into strings of code—like cold, fluttering leaves, or a blizzard composed of data fragments.
The battle ended with shocking swiftness. Bao Ruiming had assumed that opening his Contamination Zone at the end would buy him a few more seconds—that he could drag Zhu Ning down with him, hold out until Creation Technology activated its final protocol.
He could have taken Zhu Ning with him in mutual destruction.
But no. He couldn't make Zhu Ning die before him.
Only Bao Ruiming's upper half remained. His suit was long since shredded; only a few rags dangled from his tentacles.
Anyone would have taken him for a monster. He was nothing but a head. Everything below the chest had been severed. His mouth hung open, broken tentacles squirming inside.
Bao Ruiming stared up at the Church ceiling. His severed tentacles suddenly moved. Zhu Ning assumed he was marshaling one last counterattack.
Instead, Bao Ruiming went the other way. He looked up and saw where his god resided, and even now, he struggled to crawl toward it.
Tentacles squirmed, dragging a single head forward, leaving a trail of blood on the ground—like a hideous worm that had been crushed to pulp.
Bao Ruiming gazed up at the Idol. He was a devout follower, crawling on his belly.
God.
God looked down at him with no trace of joy or sorrow. Bao Ruiming had lost, but his cause had not. There was still a chance.
There was always still a chance.
Squelch—
A long blade pierced his heart. He looked down. The ice-blue blade still flickered with code. Blood mingled with rotten flesh and trickled slowly along the edge.
Zhu Ning stood right behind him. Her cold voice carried over. "What are you thinking about?"
What was he thinking? Why couldn't he find peace even before death?
"Don't tell me you're hoping to crawl back into your mother's arms." Zhu Ning mocked him. People like this were the strangest—suddenly craving their mothers right before they died.
Zhu Ning slowly twisted the blade. Inside the wound, Bao Ruiming's body was dissolving.
He was dying.
Zhu Ning's expression was blank as she regarded the Idol. A man like Bao Ruiming, able to gaze upon his faith in his final moments—that was far too comfortable for him.
Zhu Ning: "How about you think of Lin Xiaofeng instead?"
Lin Xiaofeng? Bao Ruiming hadn't spared her a single thought. She was a leading lady he'd used once and discarded—merely one act in his grand performance.
Discarded and done. Why should he think of Lin Xiaofeng before he died?
Zhu Ning: "You destroyed her."
Even an adult couldn't withstand this magnitude of psychological damage. The girl had endured it silently. Just because she never spoke of it didn't mean the scars weren't there.
Some things were like that—impossible to get past for a lifetime. The mere memory brought pain.
Bao Ruiming had planted that scar in Lin Xiaofeng. Zhu Ning and Lin Xiaofeng might need an entire lifetime to heal it.
Bao Ruiming—whether out of madness or something else—suddenly burst into laughter. "She's still alive?"
Everyone in the Mechanical Oceanarium had been wiped out. Under the Sanitation Center's supervision, nothing should have been taken out.
In theory, Lin Xiaofeng had died in the Mechanical Oceanarium.
Zhu Ning: "Tough luck—I've been raising her."
Bao Ruiming laughed—a twisted, distorted laugh. That was just as well. He would live forever in Lin Xiaofeng's mind, her eternal nightmare.
Lin Xiaofeng was Bao Ruiming's creation. As long as she lived, she was his legacy.
Zhu Ning paid no attention to his laughter. She would raise Lin Xiaofeng well.
Zhu Ning: "I've been wondering—how do you make someone like you feel real pain?"
Before entering the Consciousness Cloud, she had considered how to avenge Lin Xiaofeng. Bao Ruiming didn't fear death. He'd long since made peace with mortality.
A man like him would never repent. He might even relish the memories again and again, treating Lin Xiaofeng's suffering as a trophy.
Bao Ruiming pressed his forehead to the floor, sharp pain leaving him breathless. And still, he was laughing.
Suddenly, he felt an ice-cold hand settle over the back of his skull.
His head had become a sticky, grotesque mass with uneven bumps on the surface. Yet Zhu Ning placed her hand on the back of his head, and it reminded him of his mother stroking his head when he was little.
Zhu Ning had been right. At a time like this, people inexplicably thought of their mothers.
Bao Ruiming even craved the sensation.
But the tenderness lasted only an instant. Zhu Ning broke through his skull and began pushing into his brain.
Beneath Zhu Ning's palm lay Bao Ruiming's brain. Setting aside the wet, glistening cerebral matter—it was just a mass of data.
Zhu Ning: "I think making you betray everything would do nicely."
Before a false Idol, inside the Church Bao Ruiming himself had built, Zhu Ning would make him kneel here and spill everything he knew.
Zhu Ning wasn't trying to destroy Bao Ruiming's faith. She wanted him to remain absolutely convinced that his god could save the world—so convinced he'd sacrifice his life for it.
And then, at the very last step, force him to betray it with his own hands.
Bao Ruiming's laughter died as if a hand had seized his throat. His pupils contracted violently. Zhu Ning's words were a demon's whisper—the most vicious thing he'd ever heard. Zhu Ning was going to read his memories.
Zhu Ning would know everything.
He didn't fear death, but he could not destroy his own cause.
Bao Ruiming thrashed wildly, desperate to flee, but he had no strength left. His brain was clamped firmly in Zhu Ning's grip.
Under overwhelming force, Bao Ruiming was wrenched upward, forced to stare into the towering Idol's face.
He felt his brain crumbling into fragments, dissolving into a stream of data that poured into Zhu Ning's palm. Reading his memories took her barely a second.
Data scrolled through Zhu Ning's pupils. She had already connected to Bao Ruiming's brain. "Don't worry. It'll be quick."
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