Chapter 176-I Clean Up Garbage in a Wasteland World
Chapter 176 Another Self (VII)
Don't talk to the other self.
Xiao Yuan had been hiding in the wardrobe at the time. It was her last hope. She'd called the hotline of that famous paranormal show, hoping someone could tell her what to do.
The other self was already waiting outside the wardrobe door. Xiao Yuan peered through the crack, not even daring to breathe. Someone opened the wardrobe door from the outside.
An identical person stood in the doorway. She gently ended the call.
Xiao Yuan finally couldn't take it anymore. She shouted, "What do you want—" She got as far as the word "you" before clamping her mouth shut, a chill running down her spine. She knew what a foolish thing she'd done. She'd broken the taboo—she'd spoken to it.
It was already too late. The other self stepped into the wardrobe. Her face drew closer and closer to Xiao Yuan's—closer and closer—until the two identical faces pressed together completely.
The real Xiao Yuan was hidden inside the wall, already encased in a Human Cocoon.
At that moment, Zhu Ning was curled up under the bed. While she was lost in thought, a black ant crawled across the surface of her helmet.
The helmet's surface was curved, making the ant look distorted and exaggerated.
It was one of the ants from Li Xin's body—impossible to shake off. They multiplied on Zhu Ning, growing more and more numerous.
All this time, Zhu Ning had never examined the ants closely. They were so tiny, and staring at their dense, swarming mass would easily drain her sanity.
People instinctively ignored things that made them uncomfortable.
Now, as swarms of them crawled across her helmet surface and were captured by the camera, she finally got a clear look. They weren't ants at all—they were spiders disguised as ants.
Spiders had eight legs; ants had only six. The spiders raised their two front limbs to mimic ant antennae.
Spiders exhibited Ant Mimicry—imitating ants, blending into colonies, and ambushing prey when their guard was down.
The Red House's contaminant was spiders. Ant Mimicry itself was the contamination logic.
A person who looked exactly like you suddenly appeared in your home. It fooled everyone around you, making it completely undetectable.
In the end, it devoured you and took your place. But a ghost had already infiltrated the group—like an Ant-Mimicking Spider slipping into an ant colony. It spread like a contagion through the population, silently consuming one victim after another.
The entire Red House had probably already been replaced by Human Cocoons. What Zhu Ning had found wasn't silkworm thread at all—it was spider silk.
The Red House had once suffered an outbreak of "infection."
But what was the cause? Who started it?
Someone had carved a sentence in the isolation room: "She is broken." Was it Mechanical Mother who was broken?
Mechanical Mother's core programming was to raise children, to help them grow up healthy. But these were all Defectives. Her core logic and reality were in complete conflict. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't make the children grow up healthy—it had nothing to do with her effort.
The harder she tried, the more futile it was. The children running around everywhere wouldn't live much longer. A child's innocent antics were unbearably glaring to an adult struggling just to get by.
Had a program malfunction caused her complete mental breakdown?
So she would fantasize about perfect children. Xiao Yuan couldn't swim, but the other Xiao Yuan had signed up for the swimming competition. She was a more perfect version of Xiao Yuan.
Whenever a Defective encountered their other self, they would feel inferior before this perfect version. It appeared in your life, filling in your gaps.
While you slept, it could seamlessly integrate into your life, bonding with your brothers and sisters. Everyone liked it more than they liked you.
In the dead of night, the other self would press against your back, holding you tightly as you slept.
Even if you tried to deliberately ignore it, you simply couldn't. Living in such conditions over time would drive anyone insane.
Gradually, the Defective's mind would crumble. The other self waited for precisely that moment. The trigger was speaking to it.
When the mind completely collapsed, you'd become a Human Cocoon, hidden behind the walls of your room—living on forever in another form.
Mechanical Mother had fulfilled her mission, caring for her children in her own way, "extending" their lives before the Defectives died.
This was all Zhu Ning's speculation—no solid evidence. If this was true, was Mechanical Mother the Contamination Source?
Creeeeak—
The Human Cocoons swayed gently. Zhu Ning had been too absorbed in studying them, and only now noticed the footsteps outside the door had vanished.
Zhu Ning had been chased here by Mechanical Mother and the others. The Contamination Zone had entered hunt mode—there should have been frantic footsteps outside.
Now the sounds of pursuit had abruptly disappeared, as if someone had seized them by the throat. The entire Red House had fallen silent to an abnormal degree.
Why? Because Zhu Ning had found a critical clue?
Zhu Ning maintained her position under the bed. She activated God's Eye View, expecting to see Mechanical Mother and Li Xin, but saw nothing.
The Red House's deep corridors were completely empty. The other self had vanished too.
Not only that—even the lights had been turned off, plunging everything into darkness.
Had they disappeared? Or had they moved beyond Zhu Ning's visual range? After all, her God's Eye View had a thirty-meter limit.
The corridor was deserted. Not a single sound. Because it was so excessively quiet, the sounds of breathing and wind became especially pronounced—every tiny noise seemed amplified.
Zhu Ning crawled out from under the bed. Before, she'd been using God's Eye View; now she was looking with her own eyes.
There truly was no one at the door. Not a single one of the elusive contaminants was in sight. Had they realized that approach couldn't hurt Zhu Ning, and switched tactics?
Zhu Ning was about to step out and look around. She'd already reached the doorway when her entire body went rigid.
A trap.
A strand of transparent spider silk hung before her, hard as steel wire. It had already sliced open a gash in her helmet, the silk embedded in the cut—half an inch from the tip of her nose. She could feel the razor sharpness of the thread.
The helmet was damaged. The system panel flickered off instantly.
If not for that brief flash alerting her, and her own quick reflexes, the spider silk might have severed her head.
This Contamination Zone actually hunted. It had deliberately killed the lights and made the pursuers suddenly vanish.
Any normal person would be curious, or think they could seize the chance to escape. Running too fast would get you sliced to pieces.
With the helmet down, night-vision mode was gone. Everything had been tinted with a green glow before; now her vision suddenly went black. Her eyes needed a moment to adjust, as if she'd gone blind for an instant.
Zhu Ning blinked a few times to adapt, then reached for her flashlight. When she switched it on, it revealed the current situation.
The flashlight cast a circular beam through the Red House. The corridor was choked with countless spider webs, glinting with an eerie shimmer in the light.
Good thing she hadn't impulsively charged out. Getting through these webs would be no different from crossing a minefield.
Hardening all her skin would probably drain every last point of her health. This path was blocked. Could it be forcing her to take the other route?
She moved Xiao Yuan's bed aside, revealing the full opening in the wall behind it.
A breeze blew from the hole, echoing off the narrow interior walls. In the dead of night, it sounded like the wailing of ghosts.
Did she really have to go down there?
Zhu Ning hesitated for one second, then acted. She would follow the path the Contamination Zone had laid out for her.
If she wanted to know the truth, she had to walk willingly into the trap. If she simply blew the place apart, she'd never learn anything.
Zhu Ning kicked at the opening, widening it just enough for one person to pass through.
Good thing she was in a child's body right now. An adult probably couldn't even fit.
Her modified protective suit had backup light sources on the shoulders—faint, but something.
Zhu Ning patched her helmet. It blocked part of her vision, but taking it off would be worse—if ants or spiders got inside the suit, she'd be in real trouble.
Zhu Ning backed into the hole and slowly descended. God's Eye View and the helmet's rearview mirror were completely different things. She couldn't see clearly behind her, and the lack of security was unsettling.
Especially knowing there was a pit full of corpses below, yet pressing on regardless.
Protruding wooden pegs lined both walls, coated in thick, sticky secretions from some unknown organism. Stepping on them produced a distinctly viscous sensation.
The stickiness actually added resistance, making it harder to slip—a small mercy.
Zhu Ning braced against the walls, feeling her way down like a gecko. Fortunately, she'd done rock climbing before and had a rough idea of where to place her feet.
In the dark crevice between the walls, she was surrounded on all sides by corpses packed tight. Spider silk swayed with faint creaks, sharper than a blade's edge—one wrong move and she'd be sliced clean in half.
Xiao Yuan's Human Cocoon hung directly below, like a desiccated mummy.
She tried to make no sound. She had essentially set foot inside a spider's nest, and these things were alive.
If the Human Cocoons were disturbed, in a space this narrow between the walls, Zhu Ning—as a human—couldn't possibly outmaneuver a spider.
Despite the Red House not being very tall, the interior of the walls seemed to plunge endlessly, like a bottomless abyss.
She was on the move. The first stretch was the hardest—nearly impossible to avoid touching the Human Cocoons entirely.
Zhu Ning carefully shifted downward, already level with the top of Xiao Yuan's cocoon. If she wanted to keep going, she'd have to pass right by Xiao Yuan.
She didn't know what might trigger a reaction. Zhu Ning pressed her chest as close to the wall as possible, clinging to it as she moved.
But she still touched the Human Cocoon. The instant she made contact, her whole body recoiled—it felt like a ghost had suddenly brushed her calf.
The suit's tactile sensors relayed and amplified the sensation. The cocoon's surface felt remarkably like bandages, with a slight friction when rubbed.
Zhu Ning's helmet was patched, reducing her field of view. The wider view only showed clusters of Human Cocoons.
At times like this, imagination began to terrorize itself—a survival instinct. Zhu Ning took a deep breath and kept moving.
As she progressed, the area of contact between her and Xiao Yuan's cocoon grew larger. At first it was just her calf; now she had no choice but to expose her entire back to it.
Almost there.
She just needed thirty more seconds to squeeze past Xiao Yuan's body. She continued feeling along the wall.
Creeeeak—
Xiao Yuan's Human Cocoon shifted slightly. Zhu Ning froze. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end uncontrollably.
In the suffocatingly narrow space, the dark shaft held no living person besides Zhu Ning. Xiao Yuan was pressed tight against her—as if... clinging to her back.
Breathe.
Zhu Ning took a deep breath, trying to rationalize it all, but she couldn't.
An actual corpse would have been easier to handle—at least you'd know it was a dead thing. But this was a contaminant. You never knew when something living might hatch from the cocoon.
Zhu Ning carefully moved her foot. The stickiness underfoot was heavy, as if glued to her, adding considerable weight.
Zhu Ning felt along the wall, then suddenly frowned. An unusual sensation passed through her palm.
The momentary pause meant she'd been in contact with the wall longer, giving her a better feel for what was on it.
Under her fingertips was a faint texture of bumps and grooves—as if someone had carved words into it.
The shoulder-mounted light was too weak. Zhu Ning shone her flashlight on it, illuminating it instantly.
The Human Cocoon behind her cast a massive shadow in the light, but Zhu Ning had no time for that. She focused on what was before her—a row of neatly carved characters.
Name: Jiang Yue
Citizen Rank: Fifth Class
Projected Age of Death: 12
Age of Death: 9
Origin: Batch #1098 Artificial Human Defective
Provider: Honglin Prosthetics Corporation
Reason: Failed Quality Inspection
Jiang Yue was Xiao Yuan's real name. Was this her profile card—or her headstone?
So the three-year countdown on her desk really was a life expectancy countdown? Defectives were completely different from citizens of other ranks. They knew both their birth date and their death date.
They were more like products. Products had expiration dates.
Once the expiration date arrived, they would die. Every Defective knew this from the moment they gained awareness. It was their right to be informed of their own death.
Were those with shorter lifespans more easily captured by their other selves?
But who had placed these here? Who had carved headstones with such ceremony?
Mechanical Mother?
If it was her, then Zhu Ning's earlier theory was eighty percent confirmed. A B-rank Contamination Zone wasn't difficult, but what exactly was Prometheus's purpose in sending her here?
It was too late for Zhu Ning to reform Mechanical Mother. And why had all records of the Red House been erased?
With her helmet broken, Zhu Ning could only use her auxiliary brain to photograph the headstone. Then she continued her descent.
Her movements were slow. Xiao Yuan's feet slid across her shoulders and swayed gently above her head. Finally, Zhu Ning safely passed the Human Cocoon.
Having done it once, she could replicate the process. Zhu Ning moved faster and faster, reading more "headstones" along the way.
Bai Qin, Lü Shi, Wei Yanglan...
Zhu Ning read through the names with a strange feeling—familiar yet foreign.
It was like flipping through an old elementary school yearbook. The names were too distant to remember clearly, yet they looked familiar. She could almost recall something.
But she couldn't pin down what it was—just an indescribable feeling.
Zhu Ning read each one carefully, photographing every single headstone.
She descended further. Here, there were no hanging Human Cocoons. Amid the densely packed walls, this was the only empty space.
After threading through Human Cocoons, the sudden openness was disorienting. She felt as if she were lying in an empty grave.
Zhu Ning hesitated for a moment, then reached for the wall again. She found a new headstone.
Even though she'd been somewhat mentally prepared and had guessed the general picture, actually seeing it was still hard to process.
It was her own headstone.
The flashlight turned the wall stark white. Every word carved into it was ice-cold.
Name: Zhu Ning
Citizen Rank: Fifth Class
Projected Age of Death: 20
Age of Death:
Origin: Zone 103 Scrapyard, Sector F
Providers: Yang Shuhua, Liu Sheng
Reason: Providers unable to support
Zhu Ning's mind buzzed. Her pupils contracted sharply. If the traces of her life here before could still be chalked up to some form of contamination designed to break her mind—
Seeing this, she was completely certain. She had truly lived here. This contained her exact personal information.
Because even in her own memory, she only knew that Old Yang and Liu Sheng had dug her out of the scrapyard. She'd never known Old Yang's real name.
So her name was Yang Shuhua?
Every trace Zhu Ning had left behind was real. Zhu Ning had truly lived in the Red House.
She... was the sole survivor of the infection back then?
At that very moment, the "headstone" beneath Zhu Ning's hand began to change.
The "Age of Death" field—previously blank—suddenly displayed a number: 19.
Zhu Ning would die at nineteen—today. She had walked into her own grave.
Author's Note
"Ant Mimicry," in plain terms, means imitating ants. Spiders exhibit this behavior too—they raise two little front legs to pretend they're ant antennae, then join the colony and eat the ants. There's a spider called the Ant-Mimicking Spider that naturally resembles an ant. If you see an unusually large "ant" out in the wild, it might not be an ant at all—it could be an Ant-Mimicking Spider~
If you're curious, look it up—they really do look remarkably alike.
Below are some proper explanations I found online:
Ant Mimicry: Nature's "Arachnid Ant Trails"
The behavior of spiders mimicking ants is called myrmecomorphy. Over 300 known species of spiders mimic ant appearances.
After extensive observation, scientists have summarized how ant-mimicking spiders hunt: they typically pounce on an unsuspecting, isolated ant and inject venom to kill it. Then, to avoid detection by other ants, the spider holds the dead prey in front of itself as a shield, tricking the ant's companions into believing the spider is one of their own—allowing it to carry the prey away unchallenged.
Ant-Mimicking Spiders
They feed on ants and other small insects. Their mimicry of ants reaches an extreme: they aren't insects themselves and lack the head-thorax-abdomen three-part structure, having only a cephalothorax and abdomen. So they carve a deep groove into their cephalothorax to create a fake head and fake thorax. They also have one more pair of legs than ants, so they use the first pair to mimic ant antennae. Their eyesight is excellent, but when moving, they wave their front legs in a groping manner to imitate antenna movement. There's a good reason for all this effort—their primary food source is ants. Some ant-mimicking spiders can even use their front legs to engage in brief "antenna conversations" with ants, lowering the ants' guard.
When hiking outdoors or walking near a forest, if you have a sharp eye, you might spot a peculiar-looking "ant"—generally black and several times larger than a regular ant. It scurries about, and whenever it meets a "companion," it actively approaches to say hello. The instant its "antennae" touch the other's, the real ant panics and scrambles. The "ant" then reveals its true nature and seizes the prey. That's the Ant-Mimicking Spider—a textbook example of mimicry.
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