Chapter 159-I Clean Up Garbage in a Wasteland World
Chapter 159 Kill the VIP (Final)
Bao Ruiming stared at the Idol.
He wanted to run. He wanted to keep his mouth shut. But this was unlike any interrogation in the world—it had nothing to do with personal will. He couldn't do a thing, only lay his brain open for the other to browse.
A hand was roaming through his brain. All he felt was an icy chill.
That was no human. That was a monster—more monstrous than anyone Bao Ruiming had ever encountered.
Bao Ruiming convulsed uncontrollably, praying for the torture to end quickly. He was surrendering everything.
He had betrayed his god.
It took only one second. Zhu Ning browsed it as easily as scrolling through a phone. She saw Bao Ruiming's memories.
But human memory was an ocean—fragmented, with no linear structure. In those few seconds, chaotic images crashed into her all at once, leaving her dizzy.
Immersed within, she saw the real Floating Sand Island. Bao Ruiming had grown up there, then relocated behind the walls after the great radiation disaster.
Through Bao Ruiming's eyes, she witnessed history from the perspective of a nobody.
The wheel of history rolled on. Everyone was insignificant before it. A single Genetic Screening program had granted a monster privilege—he became a First-Class Citizen, and from that day forward held the power to crush others.
Zhu Ning sped up her search, trying to locate the specific files she needed within the sea of information—like hunting for the right folder on an unfamiliar computer.
Using the Mechanical Oceanarium as a lead—ten minutes before the incident.
Bao Ruiming was in his office. Below him swam marine creatures. The Mechanical Oceanarium had not yet been contaminated.
Bao Ruiming was on a call with a stranger. "Everything is prepared. I can guarantee the Sanitation Center will only notice me."
"Yes," Bao Ruiming said. "Rest assured."
Zhu Ning couldn't access Bao Ruiming's thoughts—she could only see images.
After hanging up, Bao Ruiming said: "Praise the great One."
The scene shifted to the inside of a Church. Bao Ruiming met a woman wearing a red trench coat with short hair. Even in Bao Ruiming's memory, Zhu Ning couldn't make out the woman's face. She could only sense her aura—frigid, forming a stark contrast with the fiery coat. She radiated a cold killing intent, as if all living things were ants before her, easily crushed with a pinch.
The woman said: "Plan unchanged. Nine days from now."
Then Bao Ruiming handed her an assassination list. They didn't discuss a location—as if Bao Ruiming already knew it by default.
Nine days?
Zhu Ning frowned and used that as a key thread to search deeper, rummaging through Bao Ruiming's subconscious.
Suddenly, her search halted.
An Idol.
Zhu Ning saw an Idol, buried deep within the fragments of Bao Ruiming's memory like a brand hammered into steel. And now it was smiling at her.
The instant she laid eyes on it, the Contaminant deep within her own mind contracted, as though resonating with the imprint in her brain. A sharp sting lanced through the depths of her consciousness.
At the same time, terror spread rapidly. Even as nothing but a mass of code, she could feel goosebumps prickling across her skin.
She seemed to hear frenzied whispers ringing inside her head, threatening to drive her mad.
Zhu Ning's sanity was high. Someone with lower sanity would likely have already lost their mind.
What was this? Anti-surveillance? Or a defense mechanism preventing his followers from betraying him?
Bao Ruiming's eyes rolled back. He convulsed violently. Zhu Ning sensed she had touched something forbidden. She opened her eyes, and the data in her pupils stopped flowing.
Bao Ruiming's brain had already seeped through Zhu Ning's fingers—utterly and completely reduced to fragments.
Bao Ruiming was dead.
...
Creation Technology. Underground server room.
The brain representing Bao Ruiming was growing wildly. Barnacles bloomed across its furrowed surface, stacking one atop another. Submerged in nutrient solution, viewed from outside the transparent glass tank, it looked like a demon opening countless eyes.
Liu Niannian had already seen it once inside the Consciousness Cloud. Sun Jie, on the other hand, was seeing it for the first time. Their line of work dealt more with code—this was his first encounter with a live contamination event.
The Contamination Level indicator beside them was exploding exponentially: 160%, 170%, 180%...
It finally settled on a number. Contamination Level: 190%.
Just barely meeting the threshold for an A-Level Contamination Zone. An A-Level Contamination Zone had formed on the Consciousness Cloud?
Only Liu Niannian, Sun Jie, and one of Lu Yao's assistants were present. No one else.
The three of them had witnessed a turning point in Creation Technology's history—no, more accurately, a turning point in human history.
From this day forward, the myth that Contaminants couldn't invade consciousness would be shattered. Bao Ruiming's brain was irrefutable proof that the Consciousness Cloud was no Eden.
Humanity's last unspoiled territory had been stained red. There was no shortcut left but to face Contaminants head-on.
Contaminants swelled inside the transparent tank. The setup looked like a fish tank—terrifyingly so, as if something might crawl out at any moment.
Sun Jie barely dared to breathe. As a witness to history, he didn't dare make a single decision, for fear of altering the future.
Liu Niannian's five-minute countdown had one and a half minutes left.
Time flowed differently inside the Consciousness Cloud. Liu Niannian had no idea what Zhu Ning was experiencing—she couldn't even notify her. Did Zhu Ning know her life was on a countdown?
It was Liu Niannian's first time playing this role. She held the power over Zhu Ning's life. All she had to do was press a button, and both Zhu Ning and Bao Ruiming would die.
Liu Niannian bore the weight in silence. Zhu Ning's life pressed down on her, nearly suffocating.
Suddenly, Liu Niannian frowned. Bao Ruiming's brain, submerged in the solution, continued to swell—like countless maggots writhing. Then the Barnacles on its surface began to disintegrate, and the brain gradually shrank.
Barnacles crackled and dropped off like a wax figure melting into a puddle of rotten flesh. From the shriveled brain, a single blood-red Contamination Spore crystallized out.
They were watching a microcosm. The tank-sized culture vessel was instantly filled with Contamination Spores—like witnessing some rare natural wonder.
Sun Jie thought he was seeing things. "P-purified?"
He uttered those three syllables with uncertainty. The Consciousness Cloud could form Contamination Zones—and apparently, a person could also purify them.
[Bao Ruiming's Consciousness Body has died.] The System's mechanical voice announced.
Since its founding, Creation Technology had lost its very first VIP Guest.
Sun Jie stared blankly at Liu Niannian. The situation was beyond bizarre. He'd expected her to spring into immediate action.
Instead, Liu Niannian simply fell silent. Her beautiful eyes reflected the blood-red of the Contamination Spores, as if stained with a layer of blood.
Sun Jie couldn't guess what Liu Niannian was thinking. In truth, he'd never understood anything the young heiress did.
After today, Liu Niannian would face the harshest punishment.
Liu Niannian stared fixedly at the culture vessel. What Sun Jie didn't understand was that in that instant, she wasn't thinking about punishment or how to explain herself. She had grasped the future.
Liu Niannian had negotiated five minutes from Lu Yao, but she'd had no certainty about what those five minutes would bring, nor that Zhu Ning would come back alive.
Now, for the first time, she truly understood what kind of monster Zhu Ning was.
Zhu Ning could enter the Consciousness Cloud and purify a Contamination Zone. She had killed Bao Ruiming—all within five minutes. Liu Niannian had no idea how she'd done it.
She'd initially assumed Zhu Ning was a psychic-type Ability User, then discovered she was metal-type. Now it was clear Zhu Ning was nothing like what she'd imagined.
It was precisely because Liu Niannian understood the Consciousness Cloud so well that she now experienced what it felt like for a higher-dimensional being to strike at a lower one.
What kind of boss had she found?
In theory, once Zhu Ning grew powerful enough, every Mainframe in Creation Technology would look to her like an unlocked vault. Killing Consciousness Cloud clients would be child's play.
Perhaps all it would take was a single thought, a single glance, to kill thousands upon thousands.
And right now, Liu Niannian held a unique privilege—she could decide Zhu Ning's life or death. No one else in the world would ever stand in this position.
Bao Ruiming was dead. Zhu Ning was trapped alone in the Consciousness Cloud. Liu Niannian's authority was no longer about killing Bao Ruiming—it was about killing Zhu Ning.
All she needed was a flick of her finger to end Zhu Ning.
The thought made her frown.
Twenty seconds on the countdown.
Sun Jie waited beside her. For some reason, he found Liu Niannian a little frightening. She hadn't done anything scary—and she looked so pure and innocent, like a sheltered little princess—but the blood of the Lu Family ran through her veins.
Everyone in the Lu Family was frightening.
Eighteen seconds.
Liu Niannian finally blinked. She'd seemed entranced before, and now she snapped back to herself.
She quickly activated the device, her fingers flying across the keyboard. "Get ready."
Liu Niannian was going to bring Zhu Ning out.
She felt as though she'd seized hold of the future.
...
After Bao Ruiming's death, the interior of the Consciousness Cloud began to collapse. Bao Ruiming himself had become a lump of rotten flesh.
No Contamination Spores leaked out, but the place was finished. Zhu Ning had to leave immediately.
The flickering text in the sky changed, forming into an arrow. Liu Niannian must have been guiding her.
Liu Niannian wanted Zhu Ning to walk into the sea.
There was no time to sift through Bao Ruiming's memories. Zhu Ning sprinted toward the Floating Sand Island beach. Seawater rose over her calves, and she turned to look back.
It was nighttime. A Meteor hung suspended in the sky. Beneath the apocalypse, a Church towered high.
Zhu Ning leaned backward, letting warm seawater envelop her completely. She was sinking—falling from one ocean into another.
The beach landing zone reeked of gunpowder. A mushroom cloud hung frozen as if someone had hit pause. Bullets hovered midair. Corpses lay strewn across the shore.
That was the Firewall, manually shut down.
Zhu Ning's body continued to sink. The water turned icy cold. She floated in the sea, with another ocean above her.
This was an ocean of consciousness.
The System's reward notification sounded in her ears, but she didn't listen closely. Consciousness was gradually slipping away.
She closed her eyes again. The water around her grew colder still—bone-piercingly cold.
Splash—
Zhu Ning felt someone cradling the back of her neck, swiftly removing her Chip slot. The oversized eye mask was pulled away.
She was lying in a bathtub filled with ice. Most of the ice had melted. Water sloshed over the sides as she moved.
She caught a familiar scent of tobacco.
She was dazed for several seconds, her mind crammed with Bao Ruiming's memories. Coming down from the Consciousness Cloud, a normal person needed time to readjust.
Her unfocused gaze sharpened. She made out the bathroom light—glaringly bright at that moment.
Then she saw Huo Wenxi's face. The tail end of her long braid had fallen into the tub, its tips soaked.
Huo Wenxi was supporting Zhu Ning's neck, lifting her from the bath. Not a flicker of surprise crossed her face—as if everything had gone exactly as she'd predicted.
Zhu Ning breathed in great gulps, finally inhaling real air. She realized she was out of the Consciousness Cloud—back in reality.
Reality wasn't much safer than the Consciousness Cloud. Sounds flooded her ears all at once, like a deaf person suddenly hearing again—momentarily overwhelming.
With her God's Eye View, Zhu Ning could see through the door. Outside was a gunfight. Zhuang Lin was fighting something.
Bao Ruiming had drawn up an assassination list. Zhu Ning had seen her own name on it. These must be the ones sent to kill her body.
She'd been lucky—she'd killed Bao Ruiming before they could kill her.
Choosing Huo Wenxi had indeed been the right call. Huo Wenxi had at least been able to protect her body.
Zhu Ning frowned, then snapped to attention and delivered her first piece of intelligence. "Someone is assassinating Sanitation Center employees."
She'd seen the complete list. Many on it were innocents. Tonight was a slaughter—they were being picked off one by one.
This wasn't the only location.
Remarkable intelligence. And that was only one piece of it. Huo Wenxi had guessed correctly—Zhu Ning would bring back the information she wanted.
Huo Wenxi memorized the names Zhu Ning recited, simultaneously issuing orders through her Sub-Brain. Zhu Ning had given her a head start.
Now it was Huo Wenxi's arena.
Zhu Ning stood up from the tub, dripping wet. Her legs felt weak, her vision was darkening, and her mind felt like a taut string about to snap. She probably needed more recovery time.
Huo Wenxi had a cigarette clamped in her mouth while she issued commands on her Sub-Brain at breakneck speed. "Can you fight? Get ready to run."
No sooner had Huo Wenxi finished speaking than the bathroom door was violently smashed open from outside. In the doorway stood a pitch-black monster.
Zhu Ning: "..."
Running for her life right off the bat?
Author's Note:
Happy New Year, everyone!
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