Chapter 192-I Clean Up Garbage in a Wasteland World
Chapter 192 Departure
Huo Wenxi walked out of Zhu Ning's place. The Dignified Queen Club was essentially a Containment Department—contamination spores collected here were sold to the Sanitation Center, making it technically part of the Center.
She'd reviewed the files before coming. Song Zhizhang had been a Demon Hunter in the Second District. With his qualifications, he had no business being in District 103. His defensive ability was extremely rare.
Huo Wenxi lingered in the shop for a moment, originally intending to have a chat with Song Zhizhang. But she quickly abandoned the idea.
When Huo Wenxi pushed through the door, Zhuang Lin was waiting outside, standing in the snow. Seeing her, he pulled open the car door.
Huo Wenxi's expression didn't change. She simply lit a cigarette and studied Zhuang Lin.
Zhuang Lin felt a bit uneasy under her gaze. Huo Wenxi's eyes looked predatory. He asked: "What is it?"
Huo Wenxi exhaled smoke. "You're really not leaving?"
She'd just given Zhuang Lin's Travel Permit to Zhu Ning.
Zhuang Lin had expected a different question. He closed the car door, leaned against the vehicle, and gave a gentle smile. "Really not leaving."
If Zhuang Lin left, Huo Wenxi would be alone in District 103—far too dangerous.
Huo Wenxi said nothing, just smoked, thoughts unreadable.
Zhuang Lin asked: "Did you talk to Song Zhizhang?"
Huo Wenxi had come to the Dignified Queen Club with two purposes—meet Zhu Ning, and meet Song Zhizhang.
Huo Wenxi: "I didn't ask."
Zhu Ning's request was to send Song Zhizhang away. Huo Wenxi had hesitated briefly, then chosen emotion over logic.
Zhuang Lin couldn't leave. Zhu Ning's people could.
Zhuang Lin smiled. He wasn't surprised by this outcome. Huo Wenxi: "What are you smiling about?"
Zhuang Lin: "Thinking you're a good person."
Huo Wenxi: "You're insane."
"Let's go." Huo Wenxi finished her cigarette and was about to get in the car. That's when it happened.
In just those few steps, Huo Wenxi's feet suddenly stopped. The abruptness of it was unnatural—Zhuang Lin's first instinct was that someone was attacking.
But the attack didn't come from outside. It came from within Huo Wenxi's own body.
A chill crept up Huo Wenxi's spine. Her heartbeat suddenly accelerated.
Thump, thump-thump-thump—
She could hear her own heartbeat, each one louder than the last, contracting faster and faster.
Too fast. It was approaching the limits of human physiology.
Her eyes stabbed with pain. The injured one had always ached faintly, but now the pain intensified—as if countless needles were piercing outward from within.
Worse still, she could sense the contaminant below. The ground beneath her feet seemed to vanish in an instant—she was standing directly above the colossal thing.
The contaminant was looking at her.
Zhuang Lin watched her face go deathly pale and immediately moved toward her. The moment he touched Huo Wenxi, she seized his arm.
The force was enormous. Zhuang Lin could feel that Huo Wenxi was in a bad state—as though she were fighting something.
Two forces were clashing inside her body, locked in stalemate.
Huo Wenxi gripped Zhuang Lin's arm just to stay on her feet. Her injured right eye was spasming—as though what sat in the socket wasn't an eyeball at all, but a raw, bloody heart.
The eyeball was swelling. Like a living creature, it contracted and shifted, emitting a wet, viscous sound as it writhed.
Huo Wenxi pressed her hand over her right eye. A grotesque urge surged through her—to crush the eyeball, to push it back into her skull.
"Wenxi?" Someone was calling her. "Wenxi!"
She couldn't hear Zhuang Lin clearly. Frantic whispers filled her ears.
Suddenly she felt a sharp sting in her neck—like a needle puncturing a balloon stretched to its limit.
Pop—
She heard something burst. Countless images flashed before her eyes.
Cold liquid flowed down her neck into her body. It was a Mega Sanity Healer.
Her heartbeat slowed. The swollen right eye began to shrink, coiling into her eye socket like a worm.
The earth spread out beneath her feet once more, separating her from the contaminant. She could no longer sense it.
Huo Wenxi's vision was blurred. Even refocusing was an immense struggle. The first thing she saw was a vast expanse of snow.
After a moment, shapes gained definition—shops along the street, neon lights flickering in the distance, and Zhuang Lin before her.
He hadn't held on to the syringe properly. It dropped with a soft clatter into the snow.
Zhuang Lin's brow was furrowed, his face a mask of shock as he stared at Huo Wenxi.
Everything had happened too fast and too chaotically. Zhuang Lin didn't even know what had occurred—he'd acted on instinct, injecting her with a Mega Sanity Healer. It seemed to have been the right call.
But he couldn't be entirely sure, because Huo Wenxi's black eyepatch had slipped off, fully exposing her right eye.
Zhuang Lin had seen her injured eye before. It hadn't looked much different from a normal human eye—just blood pooling in the socket, which took two hours to stop. She'd lost vision in it permanently and become extremely photosensitive. Medical had recommended she wear an eyepatch and avoid light.
Now her right eye had changed. It was a blood-red eye—crimson fluid swirling in the socket like a vortex—and dead center was a slit of pitch-black vertical pupil.
That was not a human eye. It looked like a demon's eye, suddenly opened.
...
The Dignified Queen Club.
Zhu Ning stared at the Travel Permits in her hand for a long while. She only had three total. These things were priceless.
She thought briefly and arrived at her answer.
Zhu Ning put away the notebook on the table. She kept feeling the thing was eerie—with many secrets still undiscovered.
She didn't have time to study the notebook now. She'd dig into it after the District 103 situation was truly resolved—if it could be resolved at all.
She placed the notebook in the safe inside her bedroom closet. There was nowhere safer; this was the best she had.
With that done, Zhu Ning took the Travel Permits and went to find Song Zhizhang.
She wanted to send Song Zhizhang and Lin Xiaofeng away. Zhu Ning had once wanted to make Lin Xiaofeng her employee, but not now. She silently calculated—if she truly won, she'd take Lin Xiaofeng with her wherever she went.
If Zhu Ning failed, she wanted Lin Xiaofeng to survive.
Zhu Ning opened her door to find someone standing across the hall.
Song Zhizhang was leaning against the opposite wall, half his face in shadow. She had no idea how long he'd been waiting. Zhu Ning had noticed before—when Song Zhizhang wasn't speaking, from certain angles he looked profoundly lonely.
Like a fragile piece of art.
Zhu Ning raised an eyebrow. "What are you doing?"
Song Zhizhang: "Waiting for you."
His voice was especially soft—the kind that easily made people go weak. Zhu Ning admittedly had a soft spot for it. She asked: "Where's Xiaofeng?"
Song Zhizhang: "Upstairs."
Song Zhizhang paused, then asked: "What you told me this morning—is it happening?"
Today District 103 had descended into chaos. The Dignified Queen Club had only a handful of customers; the wealthy had already fled.
Negative news flooded the internet. A crisis seemed to be brewing. Song Zhizhang knew what Zhu Ning had said this morning was probably true.
Zhu Ning gave a soft "mm." "It's real."
She gave a rough summary of what was happening. Song Zhizhang listened in silence. When she finished, a deathly stillness settled.
As if death had already arrived, contaminating the very air.
Zhu Ning noticed Song Zhizhang didn't seem particularly afraid. Just as he'd said—he'd come to this forsaken district to wait for death.
Zhu Ning walked over and leaned against the wall beside him. Just like how Song Zhizhang had stood with her in the snow this morning while she zoned out.
From Song Zhizhang's vantage point, all she could see was her own front door. What was there to look at?
Zhu Ning asked: "You're not really planning to stay, are you?"
Song Zhizhang was silent.
Zhu Ning asked: "Did something happen to you?"
Judging by his reaction, he'd likely been through something brutal.
"If you don't tell me now, you won't get another chance." Zhu Ning had always been curious about what was under Song Zhizhang's turtleneck.
Song Zhizhang: "A man needs his secrets to be attractive."
That line again. Song Zhizhang was like an oyster shell—Zhu Ning wanted to pry him open by force.
For a stretch, neither spoke. Only the holographic male stripper in the corridor danced on, bathing the hallway in faint blue light.
"Zhu Ning," Song Zhizhang began. "I can stay and help you. My ability is—"
"I know what your ability is." Zhu Ning cut him off.
Song Zhizhang froze. Zhu Ning continued: "Prometheus chose you for a reason. The entire time I've been living in your shop, not a single person has come to bother me."
Zhu Ning had browsed the forums. People were calling her a new-age witch, a demon-person—they practically wanted to burn her at the stake.
Her living at the Dignified Queen Club wasn't exactly a watertight secret. Yet so far, not even a scout had shown up. That proved they were wary of this place.
Zhu Ning had seen Song Zhizhang's ability once. The scope had been very small—just wrapping around Lin Xiaofeng—but it was a fortress.
Song Zhizhang: "Then why?"
Prometheus had arranged him for exactly this moment. Zhu Ning should use him without hesitation. Song Zhizhang would willingly die for her.
Zhu Ning: "Because I want you to live."
Zhu Ning recalled their conversation—she'd asked "you're not going to die soon, are you?" and Song Zhizhang's answer had been that he could stay alive as long as he didn't overdo it.
So what counted as overdoing it? Overusing his ability?
Song Zhizhang's power very likely depleted with each use—using it would only rebound on himself.
Zhu Ning could easily imagine how others would "exploit" Song Zhizhang—forcing him to deploy his defense again and again, until every last drop of his life force was drained.
By Zhu Ning's count, the first eleven years belonged to the Initial Zhu Ning's life. She herself had only been in this world for two months. In those two months, Song Zhizhang had been good to her. She had genuinely lived under his protection.
Song Zhizhang didn't need to be an AI's puppet. Zhu Ning could win without using him.
Song Zhizhang suddenly didn't know what to say. No one had ever told him that before.
He'd heard plenty of sweet words. But not once had anyone said: I want you to live.
Just simply being alive was enough.
Zhu Ning: "Hand."
Song Zhizhang extended his hand. Zhu Ning placed a metal box in his palm—she'd been warming it in her hands. It carried the warmth of a person's body.
A Travel Permit.
Everything Zhu Ning said was real. The apocalypse was real. The Travel Permit was real.
She'd always been someone who did what she said.
Zhu Ning: "You promised—you'd take Lin Xiaofeng and leave. She needs someone to look after her."
Song Zhizhang suddenly felt the wafer-thin chip weigh as much as a mountain. He could barely hold it steady.
"Hey, look at me." Zhu Ning turned to look him in the eye. "You said you believe I'll win."
Song Zhizhang's gaze followed Zhu Ning like a moth drawn to light. He was suddenly at a loss for words. If Zhu Ning won, they would meet again.
Zhu Ning: "It's a deal. When this is all over, you tell me your secret."
Once the dust settled, she was absolutely peeling off that turtleneck. She had to see what was underneath.
Song Zhizhang: "When did I ever—"
Zhu Ning: "You just agreed. It's done."
Since when was this a forced transaction?
Zhu Ning: "I only have three permits though. The other two are spoken for. Tomorrow someone will leave with you—just have Xiaofeng go invisible for a bit."
Song Zhizhang blinked slowly before the realization hit. "You want her to sneak on without a ticket?"
Zhu Ning said matter-of-factly: "How is that sneaking on? Back where I'm from, kids ride the ferry for free."
Song Zhizhang: "..."
Zhu Ning: "Of course, if she can't pull it off, you'll just have to sacrifice your ticket for Xiaofeng."
Song Zhizhang: "..."
Thanks. He was touched. But only a little.
"I'm sure a little thing like this won't stump you." Zhu Ning gave Song Zhizhang a push. "Come on, let's go upstairs. See what Xiaofeng's up to."
Song Zhizhang let Zhu Ning push him along. Their bodies passed through the projection, scattering the holographic stripper.
The ground floor was empty. The staff had been given time off. It was the first time Zhu Ning had seen the shop this deserted at night.
They walked to the first floor, then continued up the stairs, all the way to the eighth floor, winding upward level by level.
Like two creatures emerging from the basement, climbing higher and higher. Finally they opened a door, and a red hat threw her arms around Zhu Ning.
Their movements were instinctively synchronized. Zhu Ning held Xiaofeng in her arms, feeling the girl's heartbeat. For the first time, she understood how the Initial Zhu Ning must have felt—when she'd decided to reboot and erase her individual consciousness, was this the emotion she'd carried?
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