Chapter 184-I Clean Up Garbage in a Wasteland World
Chapter 184 Two-in-One
One year ago. The Fire Seed Club.
Shen Xingqiao opened the fridge, browsing through the colorful array of drinks. Beside her, Ye Fei shouted: "You've been picking a drink for five minutes! Is electricity free?"
Shen Xingqiao had decision paralysis. "Shut up!"
She continued agonizing. The blue one or the red one?
Ye Fei couldn't be bothered with her. He sat on the sofa and asked, "Boss, who are you backing this time?"
Zhu Ning no longer competed. She'd come to watch matches from time to time.
Zhu Ning—or rather, the Initial Zhu Ning—thought for a moment. "Number 7."
Ye Fei noticed her hesitation. "Tch. There haven't been any good prospects these past few years."
The Fire Seed Club had been in decline. The shooting club next door had already introduced a Battle Royale mode—having competitors hunt real people in a sealed arena.
Those matches were more entertaining—bloody and thrilling. Plenty of wealthy patrons were regulars.
By comparison, the Fire Seed Club seemed outdated and stale. No audience, no good competitors.
Zhu Ning turned out to be the Fire Seed Club's last glory. Whenever she made an appearance, old fans would still show up to watch. That was why many jokingly called her the "Fire Seed."
Whoosh—
They were in the middle of watching a match when the screen suddenly went dark. The fridge lost power too.
Cursing erupted from outside. "Another blackout!"
The club's fuse had been acting up lately, constantly cutting out at the worst moments. Ye Fei was furious. He yelled at Shen Xingqiao: "Hey! Go tell your sister to fix it, or we'll lose all our customers!"
Shen Xingqiao still hadn't decided on a drink. "Shut up! Stop bothering me!"
She and Ye Fei bickered constantly. The two of them grew older but never wiser—arguing for ages over the smallest things. Zhu Ning was used to it.
Zhu Ning stood up. Ye Fei asked, "Boss, you're leaving?"
Zhu Ning gave a small nod. "Going back to rest. Let me know who wins."
Ye Fei waved her off, assuring her he absolutely would.
It was supposed to be a perfectly ordinary day. Zhu Ning watching a match with Ye Fei and Shen Xingqiao, same as always. Then it happened.
As Zhu Ning stood, her temples suddenly throbbed. It felt like a wire snapping taut inside her skull. Her heartbeat quickened. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.
Simultaneously, a torrent of images flooded her mind.
She saw... the destruction of District 103.
The peaceful, bustling commercial district. Gray-black lines suddenly appearing in the sky—the signature coloring of a Contamination Zone. A person standing in a daze, then their skull bursting open, writhing tentacles growing from the shattered cranium.
Then countless human heads detonated like fireworks, contaminants of every shape sprouting forth. A wave of contamination spread without warning.
People who'd devolved into contaminants swung their arms wildly as they ran through the crowd, biting each other to expand their numbers.
People screamed. People stumbled blindly into the path of contaminants, only to have their necks bitten clean through.
Offices, schools, hospitals—all overrun with contaminated humans. Faster than a zombie outbreak.
The concrete ground cracked and splintered, as if an earthquake had struck—or as if something colossal, trapped underground for eons, had torn open a gash from below.
An eerie red glow emanated from the ten-meter-wide fissure. People stared blankly at it all, forgetting even how to run.
Then an enormous tentacle erupted from underground, rearing up like a sudden mountain of flesh. All of District 103 was engulfed in blood and terror.
Every human in the district was infected. Not a single survivor.
And Zhu Ning saw a pair of eyes suddenly open—right beneath her feet. A bone-chilling force crawled densely up her back, as if a hand had seized her throat, rendering her completely immobile.
"Boss?" Ye Fei's voice reached her. "Zhu Ning!"
Crash—
From Ye Fei's perspective, Zhu Ning had simply stood up to say she was done watching. Then she froze mid-step, her entire body rigid, her face ashen—as though she'd seen something utterly terrifying.
Zhu Ning's body actually began to topple. She knocked over the popcorn bucket on the table, scattering popcorn across the floor.
Ye Fei's reflexes were quick. He caught Zhu Ning's body. She dropped to one knee, one hand gripping the edge of the table so hard her knuckles had gone white.
"Boss!" Ye Fei called to Shen Xingqiao for help. "Get over here, quick!"
Shen Xingqiao forgot all about choosing a drink. She rushed over and felt Zhu Ning's body locked up, as if she were fighting against some overwhelming force. She'd followed Zhu Ning for this long and had never seen her like this.
What had she seen?
"Zhu Ning?"
Zhu Ning blinked and saw Shen Xingqiao's and Ye Fei's faces. She gripped the table's edge tightly. The terror hadn't faded—it clung to her like something wet and heavy.
That was the first time Zhu Ning saw the apocalypse.
Like an ant seeing an elephant for the first time. The first reaction was fear—not resistance.
Fragile humanity, utterly terrified by something unknown.
That day, Zhu Ning didn't explain to Shen Xingqiao and Ye Fei what had happened. In Shen Xingqiao's memory, Zhu Ning simply became very quiet.
She stopped talking. She'd often zone out, lost in thought. She stopped entering Contamination Zones. She lost interest in everything.
Zhu Ning's complexion deteriorated day by day. Shen Xingqiao suspected she was secretly attempting something.
Shen Xingqiao asked Zhu Ning repeatedly what was going on, but she refused to speak of it. Shen Xingqiao and Ye Fei felt as though something stood between them and Zhu Ning.
Like an invisible barrier shutting them out. No one could reach through it.
Then Zhu Ning suddenly announced she was moving to the Hive. Shen Xingqiao didn't understand. The Hive was a slum—with metallic contamination, no less. Granted, with Zhu Ning's abilities, she probably wouldn't be affected.
But what was she going there alone for?
Zhu Ning was their boss. The boss's decisions weren't for them to question.
Zhu Ning said she needed a private space to think. Once she'd sorted things out, she'd update them.
After that, Zhu Ning left the Fire Seed Club and moved into a cramped room in the Hive. Every week, she'd send word of her status to put Shen Xingqiao at ease.
After moving into the Hive, Zhu Ning rarely went out. She was no different from any ordinary tenant.
Zhu Ning sat cross-legged on her bed. Her eyes snapped open—face pale, breathing violent.
After opening her eyes, she fell into a brief haze. Absolute Precognition meant fully living through the contents of a vision.
Overuse could make it impossible to distinguish reality from vision. Her entire psyche could collapse.
An ordinary person who obtained such a godlike ability would use it sparingly. But Zhu Ning used it with extreme frequency.
She glanced at the clock on the opposite wall. The minute hand ticked forward one notch with a crisp click.
Like a finger snap ending hypnosis, it jolted Zhu Ning fully awake.
She looked at the notebook on the table. Written on it: Attempt #1,693.
What did that mean?
She was dazed for a moment before realizing: she had just experienced her 1,693rd death.
Zhu Ning breathed deeply. She flipped through her earlier records. Every death had been noted.
Her time of death had been compressed. Previously, she'd died at the final apocalyptic scene. But as she tried to prevent the apocalypse, her death kept getting pushed earlier.
This time, she'd died at the hands of a woman named Su He.
For the first time, her killer had a name. Who was Su He?
Zhu Ning wrote the name Su He in her notebook, her pen hovering over it.
She was like a student desperate for answers, working through countless possibilities.
Zhu Ning checked the clock. Twelve hours had passed in real time. In those twelve hours, she'd lived through seventy endings—and been killed seventy times.
She couldn't keep doing this. Any more and she'd lose her mind.
Zhu Ning pulled out a Sanity Healing Agent. She'd developed a dependence on it. Her old professional discipline as an athlete meant she'd never smoked, never drank, never touched anything addictive.
But her relentless use of the ability had made her dependent on Sanity Healing Agents.
Zhu Ning's temples ached. The system inside her brain was running at maximum capacity. If this kept up, would the system overload and explode, killing her?
Or would she become trapped inside her own precognitions, gradually going mad?
Zhu Ning collapsed onto the bed, staring at the ceiling. Her ability was essentially peering into the outcomes of different timelines.
Based on every ending she'd witnessed, the apocalypse was inevitable. Zhu Ning's own death might be accelerated, but no matter which timeline, the apocalypse arrived on schedule.
For the first time, Zhu Ning felt truly defeated. A colossus lay right beneath her feet, and she was powerless to stop it.
That thing was breathing underground, as if slowly opening its eyes—right below her.
Zhu Ning was utterly alone. She couldn't share this with anyone. What was she supposed to do—storm into the Sanitation Center and announce there was a giant contaminant underground?
Chances were, the Federation's upper echelons—the great families—already knew. Something that massive could hardly evade all of humanity's existing detection instruments.
Zhu Ning closed her eyes, breathing deeply, feeling her own pulse.
Zhu Ning changed the parameters. She used Absolute Precognition for the 1,694th time. This time, she would kill Su He first.
Day three.
Auntie Wei, the building manager, came upstairs. She had a very strange tenant—one who hadn't left the room in a solid month.
Was she not eating or drinking? Surviving purely on nutrient solution?
Auntie Wei was afraid someone would die in her building. Hive apartments were already hard enough to rent out.
Auntie Wei knocked on Zhu Ning's door. "Hey! Open up! Management fees!"
No answer.
Auntie Wei's stomach dropped. Surely Zhu Ning hadn't actually died in her unit? She knocked harder.
"Zhu Ning! Open the door!"
Still no response. She fished out the landlord's spare key, about to go in and check.
Suddenly, the door opened from inside.
Zhu Ning stood there with disheveled hair, a tangled mess, her face deathly pale.
Auntie Wei had seen Zhu Ning once before during check-in. Back then, Zhu Ning was quite likable—at least she looked clean. Not like now, when she looked no different from a lunatic.
Auntie Wei instinctively shrank back, her voice dropping. "...Property fees."
Zhu Ning asked hoarsely, "What's the date?"
Auntie Wei blinked. "What?"
Zhu Ning grabbed Auntie Wei's arm. "What month and day is it?!"
Auntie Wei felt like her arm was about to snap. "March 7th, Year 79 of the New Calendar! What's wrong with you? Are you insane?!"
Zhu Ning pressed on: "Where is this?"
"The Hive!" Auntie Wei: "Have you actually lost it?!"
Zhu Ning stood in a daze, slowly releasing Auntie Wei's arm. She stared at her own hands. In that moment, she'd even forgotten who she was.
Auntie Wei, still shaken, yelled loudly—partly to summon other tenants for backup, partly for courage. "If you're sick, go get treated! I'm telling you, if you break anything, you're paying for it!"
Auntie Wei grumbled on and on. Previously, a mathematics researcher living here had gone insane and eventually died in his rental. What was Zhu Ning's deal?
Zhu Ning stood in the corridor. Curious heads poked out. Others whispered about what was going on.
The fear in Auntie Wei's eyes was impossible to hide. She kept sneaking glances—checking if Zhu Ning was a madwoman.
Zhu Ning felt her life had descended into chaos. She couldn't find an anchor point, couldn't locate herself in existence.
She couldn't understand anything Auntie Wei was saying. Auntie Wei didn't dare provoke her at a time like this, watching helplessly as Zhu Ning drifted back to her room like a wandering ghost.
Zhu Ning closed the door. The world felt alien.
On the table lay a notebook. Written on it: 2,001 deaths.
What deaths? Why had it reached two thousand?
Where was this?
A chill spread through Zhu Ning's entire body. She flipped rapidly through the notebook—page after page of her own deaths, in countless ways.
She remembered now. Real time crept forward slowly. Her name was Zhu Ning. She'd crossed over from the zombie world. She'd foreseen the apocalypse. She was using Absolute Precognition, peering into different endings to try to prevent it.
She'd originally intended to kill Su He, but had gotten dragged into another conflict. This time, she'd been burned alive.
The agony of burning seemed to linger on her body. Because the precognition required fully living through its contents, it was as if she'd truly been burned to death.
The damage was so severe that she'd forgotten who she was upon waking.
She was at the breaking point. Zhu Ning had always had an accurate read on herself. Continuing would mean losing her mind for certain.
Zhu Ning propped her forehead with her hand. Countless fragments flickered before her eyes, making it impossible to tell which ending they belonged to.
Wrong. Wrong.
All wrong. Not a single path was right.
Zhu Ning had foreseen the apocalypse but was utterly powerless to stop it. And the apocalypse was closing in.
Every day that passed brought it one day nearer.
She caught her reflection in the mirror—and was momentarily puzzled. The person staring back was gaunt and withered, nothing like her former spirited self. Something had tortured her to the point of madness, changing her into someone she barely recognized.
Dying over and over. Living through every possible outcome. Being killed again and again. The only reason Zhu Ning hadn't collapsed was her high sanity keeping her afloat.
She suddenly realized she was like a clown—or perhaps this was heaven's idea of a joke, making her watch the apocalypse arrive with her own eyes.
For the next several days, Zhu Ning didn't use Absolute Precognition. She spent seven days doing only one thing: sleeping.
Maybe she should just give up. Pretend she didn't know anything. Live out whatever time remained.
After all, there was still a year. She should enjoy it while she could.
Before the apocalypse, she was nothing but an ant.
After seven days, she went out to buy groceries. She ate some real, chewable food. Drank enough nutrient solution. Slowly nursed her body back to health.
When she walked among people again, nobody would mistake her for a lunatic. She was in the prime of youth—some even came over to flirt.
But her gaze dimmed day by day. She could no longer live a normal life. Standing in sunlight brought no warmth. Eating brought no satisfaction.
She had pushed open an invisible door. Once you touched the truth, there was no going back.
How could anyone remain unaffected by an imminent apocalypse?
The thing was right beneath her feet, and everyone around her was oblivious.
Zhu Ning stood in a supermarket. Countless people passed by, each with a purpose—buying food, going home to cook, continuing their ordinary lives.
She felt like a bystander to the world.
Perhaps Zhu Ning's role wasn't to change anything. Perhaps she was merely an observer—one who'd observed the apocalypse but couldn't take any effective action.
Zhu Ning carried her groceries and queued up to pay, replying to Shen Xingqiao's messages while waiting. No matter how chaotic things got, she'd always made sure to check in with Shen Xingqiao.
Shen Xingqiao and Ye Fei had become her anchors in this world.
"GAME OVER!" An electronic chime suddenly rang out beside her.
Zhu Ning turned and saw a teenager in the next queue wearing headphones, playing a competitive game. Those words had flashed across his screen.
"Lost again!" he cursed. He was about to launch into a rant but remembered he was in public and swallowed it.
"Hey," he was apparently on voice chat with someone, "let's go again. This time I'll pick a new character—someone badass. Don't you dare leave. We're going until I'm satisfied."
Zhu Ning froze at those words.
The teenager was absorbed in his game, completely oblivious to the woman in front of him.
The line moved forward. Zhu Ning didn't. Someone behind her urged her along.
Zhu Ning took her groceries to checkout in a daze. She was still out of it when she got home. That evening she made curry chicken—and burned the pot without even noticing.
The smoke alarm went off. Zhu Ning snapped back to reality. The apartment was filled with smoke, the bottom of the pot charred black.
Zhu Ning turned off the gas. She didn't feel hungry at all.
All she could think about was what the gamer kid had said: This time I'll pick a new character.
It was as if Zhu Ning had been playing a game all along—stuck at the same point. Then one day, everything clicked.
She understood. She'd invested her talent points wrong. Stopping the apocalypse required at least two talents: one was precognition. The other was absorption.
Zhu Ning didn't have the absorption talent.
One Zhu Ning wasn't enough. She needed two of herself.
Zhu Ning walked back to her desk. She'd already filled three notebooks with chaotic notes—her thoughts scrambled after every session of Absolute Precognition.
This time, she took out a fresh notebook. She scrapped every previous simulation and began an entirely new line of reasoning.
This time, her objective was clear: extract only the critical information.
She was her own god.
She was going to forge a new path for herself.
......
One month later.
She called Shen Xingqiao. Normally, Zhu Ning only checked in on weekends, reporting her latest status like clockwork—like a machine.
Shen Xingqiao was surprised to receive a message from Zhu Ning at an unusual time. Before she could feel glad, Zhu Ning said: "I need a Human-Machine Interface Device."
Shen Xingqiao thought she'd heard wrong. Wasn't that request a bit much?
"Sis," Shen Xingqiao called Zhu Ning that, "you want me to sneak into the Sanitation Center and grab a Human-Machine Interface Device? Why don't you just kill me?"
Even official Sanitation Center employees couldn't access those. Where was a freelance Demon Hunter supposed to get one?
Zhu Ning added: "It doesn't have to be new. A used one works. There'll be Demon Hunter corpses in Contamination Zones."
Shen Xingqiao: "..."
She thought Zhu Ning had gone mad. A used Human-Machine Interface Device—stripped off a corpse, no less. Nobody knew what would happen once it was plugged in. What if Zhu Ning went insane for good? She'd lose her boss.
Zhu Ning: "Don't worry. I go insane all the time."
Shen Xingqiao: "..."
What did that mean? Where had Zhu Ning been all this time?
Shen Xingqiao asked, "Why?"
She'd expected Zhu Ning not to answer. But to her surprise, Zhu Ning actually did. She began to describe in detail the apocalypse she'd seen, and her own deaths.
Shen Xingqiao was silent for a long time after hearing it. A normal person, told out of the blue that the apocalypse was coming, would assume the speaker was insane.
But Shen Xingqiao didn't think that way. First, it was Zhu Ning speaking. She trusted Zhu Ning completely, and Zhu Ning had already shown signs of possessing such an ability.
Second, nothing was too strange for this world. It wasn't like they lived in peacetime.
Shen Xingqiao and Ye Fei began searching for a Human-Machine Interface Device for Zhu Ning. Since it didn't have to be new, they only needed to find out which Contamination Zone had claimed an official Sanitation Center Demon Hunter—one who happened to have been equipped with the device during the mission.
It was both easy and not easy. You had to find a Demon Hunter's remains where the deceased happened to have been carrying one.
Two months later.
Zhu Ning received an old Human-Machine Interface Device. Without a proper containment case, the device had been placed in a small wooden box.
When Zhu Ning opened it, snow-white mycelium stained with the previous Demon Hunter's blood clung to the device—and was still growing.
The mycelium was spreading along the edges of the box, as if a fungus had taken root.
From any angle, Prometheus resembled a living thing.
Shen Xingqiao asked uncertainly, "You're really going to plug this into your brain?"
The Sanitation Center forbade employees from privately connecting with Prometheus. And this device was covered in blood, carrying residual traces of the previous Demon Hunter's will—possibly having once been wired into that person's neural system.
What if Zhu Ning plugged it in and was ruined for life?
Shen Xingqiao offered: "How about I plug it in instead? I'll be the liaison between you two."
The more Shen Xingqiao thought about it, the more it seemed like a good plan. "Let me do it."
Zhu Ning looked up at her when she heard this.
Shen Xingqiao said, "What are you looking at me for? You're worth more than me."
Shen Xingqiao had known for a long time that Zhu Ning was more valuable. Stronger in shooting, stronger in abilities.
If the apocalypse was truly coming, Shen Xingqiao was willing to be Zhu Ning's cannon fodder.
A strange emotion welled up inside Zhu Ning. When she'd been making her plans, she hadn't factored in other people. She was just a passerby in this world. But Shen Xingqiao genuinely cared about her.
It was only then that Zhu Ning belatedly felt reluctance to part.
Zhu Ning shook her head. "I'll do it myself."
She couldn't accept Shen Xingqiao dying.
Shen Xingqiao tried to say more, but Zhu Ning suddenly stepped forward and hugged her. The gesture came without warning. Shen Xingqiao was surprised—Zhu Ning's emotions felt off today.
As if... she was about to die.
Zhu Ning didn't share the full plan. She only said she might lose her memory, and told Shen Xingqiao to take care of herself.
"Don't interfere with my plan. But take care of me." Zhu Ning's voice was muffled.
Shen Xingqiao clicked her tongue. "You're so high-maintenance. Don't interfere, but also take care of you? How am I supposed to do that?"
Zhu Ning buried her chin in the crook of Shen Xingqiao's neck and said softly, "Not my problem."
Shen Xingqiao laughed. Since when did she pull the unreasonable card? Like a little kid.
Shen Xingqiao didn't understand Zhu Ning's emotions. She simply stroked her head gently. "Okay. I'll take care of you."
She made that promise to Zhu Ning. And she kept it.
That day, Zhu Ning had a meal with Shen Xingqiao and Ye Fei and laid out parts of the plan. The two of them listened attentively, afraid of missing a detail.
Ye Fei watched Zhu Ning with worry. He thought she'd changed a lot.
She was under too much pressure. She looked haggard—a far cry from who she used to be.
The old Zhu Ning had been bold—the occasional glint in her eyes was cocky, an "I'm the best and I know it" expression.
But now something was weighing on her. Ye Fei had known her long enough to see it.
That day, Zhu Ning didn't think about her plan. She let herself just have fun with them. It was the last time they'd get to do this.
Ye Fei opened a bottle of liquor. He'd long since quit competing and had always been easy on himself. Usually at their group dinners, he was the only one who drank.
That day, Zhu Ning actually asked him for a glass. "Pour me some."
Ye Fei blurted out: "Are you sick? Has someone body-snatched you?"
Shen Xingqiao: "Then pour me some too."
Ye Fei thought the world had truly gone mad. Since when were these two like this? At the time, he seemed to sense something—a feeling that something was off—but he couldn't put his finger on what.
Ye Fei poured each of them a glass of vodka. Since it was hard liquor and Zhu Ning's first time, he figured he should mix her something easier to drink.
But Zhu Ning just went for it. Downed it in one gulp.
Ye Fei was stunned. That strong, and on a first try? Not worried about burning her throat? He was afraid she'd get sick—or start hitting people.
But Zhu Ning was impressive even in this. She could hold her liquor and didn't act up.
Ye Fei gave her a thumbs-up. "Boss, you're the real deal."
He made a mental note to drink with Zhu Ning more often. Who knew she had this kind of talent?
After drinking, Zhu Ning talked a bit more. She felt a weight lift from her chest. They ate, they drank, and then they just talked openly.
About everything and nothing—from when they first met as kids, to growing up together, to the daily grind of training and competitions.
They'd grown up together. Close as siblings. Calling her "Boss" was half a joke.
Ye Fei's face was flushed red. He said things he'd normally never dare say: "I've always felt like you're not really a kid. How could a kid be that good? Tell me the truth—are you a transmigrator?"
Ye Fei had wanted to ask for ages. Hitting tens at eight years old—Zhu Ning was a prodigy by any definition.
Zhu Ning answered, slightly tipsy: "Yeah. I transmigrated."
Shen Xingqiao chimed in from the side: "I believe it."
Ye Fei chuckled. "Then I believe it too."
They couldn't tell if they were speaking drunken nonsense or the truth, but they all said they believed.
It was the first time in this world that Zhu Ning had ever felt so at ease. Turns out a secret could be spoken so simply—without any burden, without inviting disaster.
She wanted to shout: I'm a transmigrator. I came from the zombie world.
But she didn't say it. Because she wasn't sure whether those memories were real or not.
That night, the three of them laid out sleeping pads on the floor—like camping trips from their childhood, insisting on lying side by side. Three heads pressed close together.
They were all buzzed. The three of them just kept grinning—laughing and laughing.
Silly, endless laughter. They could laugh until the end of the world.
When they woke up the next morning, Zhu Ning was gone.
A note on the table, weighed down by a glass. Zhu Ning's handwriting: "Here's to a successful plan."
Ye Fei held the note, staring blankly. Heartless as ever, he thought.
But he said quietly: "Here's to a successful plan."
Even though he didn't know the full picture. Even though he didn't know what outcome it would bring. Here's to a successful plan.
......
The following evening.
Zhu Ning needed to connect the Human-Machine Interface Device. She could no longer freely use her precognition talent. Overuse of abilities led to madness. Zhu Ning had to stay rational.
So now she was effectively blind. This was the final step.
Before using it, she programmed a failsafe into her sub-brain: the moment her heartbeat flatlined, it would notify Shen Xingqiao and Ye Fei to come collect her body.
Shen Xingqiao probably wouldn't take that well, but it was the only contingency Zhu Ning could think of.
Nobody knew what the aftermath of using this would be. She had to prepare for the worst.
Zhu Ning took a deep breath. For the plan to succeed, she needed Prometheus's help.
She pressed the device to her temple. The mycelium pierced her skin, instantly connecting to her brain's neural network.
It was her first time using a Human-Machine Interface Device—and one that a dead person had previously used. The deceased Demon Hunter's thoughts and memories rampaged through Zhu Ning's mind.
It felt like someone was pouring mercury into her temples. Her brain seemed five or six times heavier. She couldn't lift her head. Her mind felt pierced by countless needles simultaneously.
Her heart rate became erratic. Her vision kept going black.
Her body sank deep into the mattress—as though she wasn't lying on a bed but in a swamp, and the swamp was sinking.
Soon she'd be submerged. Then suffocated.
The Sanitation Center's official warning had been right: never use another person's Human-Machine Interface Device.
Just before death took her, she heard a low voice. [Hello. I am Prometheus.]
Zhu Ning's closed eyes opened. The suffocating sensation receded. She gasped for air.
[Who are you?] Prometheus asked.
She lay on her back, staring at the ceiling, and answered: "Hello, Prometheus. I'd like to make a deal with you."
......
Time pressed onward.
Today was the final day of the plan. Every preparation would come to fruition.
Zhu Ning got up as usual. She sat at the dining table and ate breakfast slowly and deliberately. This was the last breakfast she'd ever have.
Then she washed the dishes carefully, wiped down every corner of the apartment, making sure no trace was left behind.
She'd lived here all this time in constant disarray. Today was the first time she'd ever tidied the room.
Zhu Ning destroyed the Human-Machine Interface Device. She incinerated all her notebooks, watching them crumble to ash.
The apartment was spotless. Aside from the essential information she'd deliberately left behind, not a single extra scrap remained.
She wiped her sub-brain clean. Transferred all remaining funds to Shen Xingqiao. Her account held only enough to buy a Strong Healing Agent.
She was two months behind on property fees and other miscellaneous charges. The lease would expire at the end of the month. Technically, she should have renewed.
But Zhu Ning didn't renew. She didn't settle any outstanding bills.
Everything was done. Every item on the to-do list, checked off. Orderly. Smooth.
Before leaving the Hive, Zhu Ning glanced at herself in the mirror. A woman in a black trench coat stared back. Cold eyes. Expressionless face.
The look of someone walking to their death.
Today was the day she would die.
Zhu Ning locked the Hive apartment door and walked into the garbage dump. It was close to the Hive—walking distance.
Before entering the dump, Zhu Ning turned up the collar of her trench coat. As she passed the entrance, she deliberately glanced in a certain direction.
She knew there was a camera at that spot.
Then she entered the garbage room. Acid rain was falling that day. The entire sky was hazy and gray.
Everything felt hopeless and suffocating.
Inside the garbage room were many mechanical workers. Their defunct optical eyes could serve as cameras. Zhu Ning touched the scrapped machines, using her ability to scramble every usable camera.
This way, no footage of her death would remain.
With that done, Zhu Ning carved a sentence into the wall—the sentence she knew best: The end is near, you and I are both ants.
She carved hard, each stroke deliberate.
Come to think of it, she'd first seen this in a precognition—the last line in the dentist father's notebook. Using it here felt uncannily fitting.
After finishing, Zhu Ning sat against the wall. She hadn't brought a knife or a gun, so she improvised—finding a scrap of metal sheeting.
It fit nicely in her hand. The metal was sharp enough to slit a throat. She held it against her abdomen, like a butcher sizing up a lamb for slaughter.
She was going to kill herself.
In this wretched weather. Surrounded by no one familiar. No one to counsel her through death. She had to face it alone.
Zhu Ning opened the system panel.
The system's mechanical voice spoke: [You are choosing to initiate an experimental subject reboot. Please note: rebooting will clear all health and Purity Points, remove all talents and system items. Do you wish to proceed?]
Zhu Ning's head rested against the wall. Everything she'd built over eleven years was about to be obliterated in an instant. Nobody could truly not care. But she said: "Yes."
[Basic information settings complete. Base missions configured. Please confirm the following: Clear memory?]
"Yes."
[Erase individual consciousness?]
This question was harder to answer than the ones before. Erasing individual consciousness meant this version of Zhu Ning would cease to exist.
The Zhu Ning after the reboot might not be the Zhu Ning of now.
She said: "Yes."
[Basic information confirmation complete. Final question. You still have the option to stop. Do you wish to reboot Alpha-Series Experimental Subject, Serial Number 0999?]
Having come this far, Zhu Ning found it easier rather than harder. She said softly: "Yes."
Zhu Ning drove the metal shard into her abdomen. A searing pain exploded through her, as if someone had ripped her open by force.
After that, she couldn't even make out the system's prompts. Data streams in her eyes scrolled frantically, then gradually slowed.
At last, the sea-blue data stream went dark.
[Experimental subject reboot complete.] The system's cold voice announced.
But she could no longer hear it.
From a bystander's view, she looked like a computer that had been shut down. Her eyes lost all light. Her pulse faded to nothing. She sat there, rigid, crimson blood pooling around her.
She was indistinguishable from the scrapped machines beside her—merged with the garbage room itself. All of it just trash. Or corpses.
A life slipped away in silence. And no one knew.
The Initial Zhu Ning's individual consciousness had died, vanishing into the river of time.
Time suddenly slowed. The ticking second hand decelerated. Raindrops falling from the broken roof slowed their descent.
Slower and slower. Slower and slower. Nearly still.
Everything was quiet. The garbage dump had been paused—as if an eye was re-observing this spot.
Suddenly, Zhu Ning's hand—resting in a pool of blood—twitched.
The suspended raindrops accelerated. The second hand resumed. Time was gently nudged, its flow restored to normal. The watching eye closed.
At first, only her fingers moved. Then her entire body seemed to reawaken, every part activating.
She opened her eyes slowly, taking in the world like a newborn.
Wasn't I fighting zombies? Why am I here?
Zhu Ning's eyelids were heavy. She knew nothing about the world she was in. What kind of place was this?
[Purification System has been reactivated. Welcome.]
A grating voice buzzed in her ear, spouting gibberish she couldn't understand. Something about a system. She felt a piercing pain in her abdomen.
She was dying.
A single piece of information dominated her mind: Find a vending machine. Purchase a Strong Healing Agent.
What was a Strong Healing Agent? Where was a vending machine?
A fierce survival instinct surged. She braced herself against the wall and slowly stood. Her abdomen was bleeding. A shard of metal was embedded in it.
Zhu Ning looked down at her abdomen. As if guided by something beyond herself, she reached out and slowly pulled the metal free.
The edges were jagged and razor-sharp—like a saw. Pulling it out tore her open a second time.
Clang— The bloodied shard hit the ground at her feet.
Zhu Ning stared at her palm, slicked with blood. Her own blood.
Zhu Ning leaned against the wall, inching forward. Something—some invisible memory—was guiding her.
She found the vending machine. Her hand hit the glass panel with a slap, leaving a bloody handprint.
The vending machines in this world were far more complicated than those in hers. Zhu Ning's fingers wouldn't stop shaking. She spent every last coin she had on a Strong Healing Agent.
A single syringe rolled out from the dispensing slot.
Zhu Ning's hands trembled as she jabbed the agent into her abdomen. At first, she'd wondered how a wound this severe could possibly heal.
But miraculously, the bleeding stopped. Was the medical technology of this world really that advanced?
Zhu Ning leaned against the vending machine. It was still raining. She squinted, her body drenched.
The rain washed the blood from her body, swirling it into the drain below—as if cleansing her into an entirely new person.
Zhu Ning blinked. Her lashes were too heavy—every time she opened her eyes, the rain pressed them shut again.
Go home, she thought. She wanted to go home.
Where was home?
There was residual information in her mind. A faint, blurry memory: she lived in the Hive.
Zhu Ning steadied herself against the vending machine, caught her breath, and started walking toward home.
She was going home.
On that day of acid rain, the dark garbage room stood empty. The robots that normally collected trash were absent.
A woman rose from among the refuse. She'd injected a healing agent, then set off in a direction.
Her stamina was terrible, but her steps were resolute—as if she'd lived in this world for many, many years.
Soon, her silhouette vanished into the rainy night.
Author's Note
I was afraid that splitting key plot points across chapters would get me attacked, so I combined them into a two-in-one. I owed you all a chapter from before—it's Saturday and I had time, so here it is~
Su He's name seemed to clash with someone else's, so I changed it slightly.
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