Chapter 199-I Clean Up Garbage in a Wasteland World
Chapter 199 Eternal Pharma Foundation (V)
Room 910.
Xu Meng searched separately from Zhu Ning. When closing the door, she'd hesitated too—but after seeing the cracked doors across the hall, she made a different choice from Zhu Ning. She shut hers completely.
Xu Meng inserted the Door Card. The room lights flickered briefly before fully illuminating.
A luxury suite. Slightly dated—a layer of yellowish film coated the expensive furniture.
At the entryway, Xu Meng found the same things: a cleaning schedule, meal delivery form, and laundry form.
Evidence showed this resident had also been living here long-term.
Drip—drop—
A faint dripping sound came from inside the room—like blood falling drop by drop onto the floor.
The sound came from the bathroom.
Xu Meng already had her gun out. She could move in complete silence. Cautiously, she pushed the bathroom door open—it creaked.
Empty. No one.
Xu Meng didn't lower her guard. Directly opposite the door was an oversized luxury bathtub—big enough for two people. Under normal circumstances, a Fifth-Class Citizen could never afford this kind of indulgence.
Beside the tub sat a low table. On it, a bottle of red wine and a wine glass—still half-full of red liquid. As if whoever poured it had set it down just moments ago.
Strange. If the resident had left, housekeeping should have cleaned up.
The glass hadn't been put away. Was the resident still here?
If still inside—where could they be hiding?
Xu Meng frowned. Beside the wine glass sat two medicine bottles. She picked them up for a closer look. No drug names—just a large uppercase "A" on one and "B" on the other.
The back of bottle B had a brief note: "If hallucinations occur, take this medication."
Hallucinations? What hallucinations?
Was this Eternal Pharma's medication? If B suppressed hallucinations, what did A do? Induce them?
Xu Meng couldn't make sense of it. She pocketed the bottles—she'd consult Dr. Fu when they regrouped.
After a quick search of the bathroom—nothing else suspicious—she was about to leave when she stopped.
She reached toward the mirror. Her fingers, wrapped in black protective gear, looked like leather gloves.
Xu Meng's fingertips swiped across the mirror's surface, leaving two streaks through the moisture.
It was so humid in here.
Like the damp "return-of-spring" season in southern regions—water condensing on ceilings, dripping steadily.
Leaving the bathroom, Xu Meng reexamined the room with this observation in mind. Sure enough—water stains edged the floral wallpaper too.
Xu Meng had grown up in District 103. For the local climate, this level of humidity was excessive.
She searched every corner of the room. Under the TV cabinet, her hand found something unusual.
She pulled it out—a miniature camera. The most revolting thing about hotels: hidden cameras for voyeurism.
These devices were endless in variety. Nearly impossible to guard against without professional equipment.
Who installed them? Some criminal ring, or did Eternal Pharma need to monitor their test subjects regularly?
Xu Meng leaned toward the latter. She swept the entire room and found six cameras total—comprehensive coverage from every angle.
Absolutely perverted. Xu Meng collected them. No memory cards inside—footage was likely stored in a dedicated surveillance room.
She opened the bedside drawer and found a notebook.
A medication log.
Normally, finding this log meant reading it carefully—clues in contamination zones could provide critical information.
But she didn't open it immediately. Instead she froze.
Feline creatures possessed a certain instinct—the most primal sense of danger.
Xu Meng carefully pocketed the log and turned around. Behind her was a window.
The luxury room's window was floor-to-ceiling glass—a single massive pane. Normally you'd see District 103's nightscape from here.
This was prime urban real estate. You could see the area near the Mechanical Oceanarium—beautiful and glittering at night.
But this hotel was now a contamination zone. The floor-to-ceiling window showed no scenic view—only black fog and the twitching gray-black lines characteristic of contaminated space.
The dark glass reflected Xu Meng's face. Blue curtains hung half-drawn. Nothing appeared abnormal.
Moisture had condensed on the glass—water trails running downward like lines of tears.
Xu Meng raised her gun and used the barrel to carefully part the curtain. Her movements were painfully slow—inch by inch.
Suddenly, she stopped. Behind the curtain, she saw an eye.
Someone was hiding behind the curtain.
...
Room 909, three minutes earlier.
Dr. Fu followed Zhu Ning's instructions to search the room. It was his first time in a contamination zone. His heart hammered. As a doctor, he'd never been this close to contaminants before.
Zhu Ning was in the living room. Dr. Fu could hear her flipping through pages—that sound was reassuring. Only a few steps away. If anything happened, she'd respond instantly.
Dr. Fu opened the wardrobe. Inside hung a bathrobe and two women's jackets.
He felt along the wardrobe's edges, afraid of missing a hidden compartment—and came away with wet fingers.
It was humid enough in here to grow mushrooms.
The wardrobe was clean. He checked the bed and both nightstands. Probably due to regular cleaning—barely any trash.
The hotel bed had no gap underneath. That left fewer places to check.
Dr. Fu thought for a moment. His eyes fell on the curtains. As a child playing hide-and-seek, he'd always loved hiding behind curtains.
His heart was racing—adrenaline from the stimulation making his hands tremble.
He checked beneath the curtains first. No pair of human feet peeking out. So whatever might be hiding there probably wasn't human.
Dr. Fu placed one hand on the curtain. Inexplicable dread welled up. He recalled the ghost he'd seen in the video earlier—when Zhu Ning entered the conference room, something inside had turned to look back.
That shadow was seared into his mind. Was the same kind of creature behind this curtain?
His hand shook, making the curtain tremble with it. He pulled it aside carefully, ready to call for Zhu Ning at any moment.
Swish—
The curtain opened fully. Empty. Nothing behind it.
Dr. Fu exhaled with relief. His heart still pounded—a survivor's reprieve. Nothing there after all. He'd scared himself.
That was how mental contamination worked. Before anything actually happened, human imagination alone could drive a person mad.
Dr. Fu shook his head, feeling like his brain might genuinely be malfunctioning. He let out a breath.
Nothing else in the room needed checking. But years of medical practice had made him more meticulous than most.
There were still tiny details—like crevices.
The wallpaper was peeling at the edges. What was behind it?
The bedroom floor was covered in thick carpet—footsteps partially swallowed. Then Dr. Fu noticed the carpet's curled edge.
Near the window side, one corner of the red checkered carpet had lifted.
Dr. Fu had watched detective shows. Many clues were things criminals inadvertently left on carpets.
Especially in the fibers—dirt and evidence loved to hide there.
After the curtain scare, Dr. Fu felt considerably braver. He carefully peeled back the carpet's edge.
The rug was heavier than expected—waterlogged, dense.
Dr. Fu thought it was a routine search. But when he lifted the carpet, he saw something that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
Someone was underneath.
Dr. Fu found himself staring directly into its eyes.
A person on all fours, pressed flat beneath the carpet. Its body was paper-thin, limbs elongated and skeletal—like a desiccated corpse drained of all blood. No—even thinner and more elongated than a mummy, its upper body rising slightly with the arc of the lifted carpet.
Its face was human. Deathly white. Vaguely female. Wet, lank hair hung down, dragging on the floor.
Most horrifying was its back. From the neck down, the human skin was replaced by black chitin.
Glossy. Smooth-surfaced. Gleaming with an oily sheen.
A cockroach's shell covered its back. And those human eyes stared directly at him.
Blood rushed to Dr. Fu's head. His entire body went numb. He seemed to hear rustling sounds—something crawling through the gaps in the walls.
Cockroaches. This was a Cockroach-Human.
There's a saying: if you find one cockroach in your home, there are probably ten thousand more.
In a massive old hotel like this—inside the walls, beneath carpet seams, in elevator shafts, in bathroom corners—these Cockroach-Humans were everywhere. Packed dense.
The most terrifying thing about a strange hotel wasn't ghosts—it was infestation.
The narrow cracks in the walls finally made sense. All those doors left ajar—they'd wondered what they were accommodating. Cockroach-Humans.
Gaps just wide enough for these creatures to pass through. The strange sounds from upstairs earlier—also them.
When they'd walked through the corridor, they'd heard something running on the floor above.
The Cockroach-Humans here had been waiting for prey all along. They'd been watched from the moment they entered!
Dense clusters of Cockroach-Humans peered from every corner, observing their every move. Rotting flesh was their food.
Dr. Fu's back slammed against the bed with a bang. He couldn't control the scream that tore from his throat.
Zhu Ning moved fast. When she arrived, she saw the scene—and even she, with all her experience, froze for a moment. Dr. Fu had been tackled to the ground by a massive Cockroach-Human.
He writhed like a madman, as if every second of contact meant death.
"AAAH—! Get off! GET OFF!" Dr. Fu screamed in hysterics. "GET AWAY FROM ME!"
Bang!
Zhu Ning fired immediately. A clean headshot.
Disgusting brown fluid gushed from the severed neck like an opened faucet, spraying all over Dr. Fu's head. The Cockroach-Human's movements stuttered—the massive impact force slowing it briefly.
Briefly. It only slowed. It didn't fully stop.
Only after firing did Zhu Ning remember—some cockroaches could still thrash after losing their heads. They could even survive for days.
That's why when killing cockroaches at home, you had to make sure they were completely dead. Flushing the body down the toilet might just result in it crawling back up.
The headless Cockroach-Human's spindly limbs kept moving. Blinded by the loss of its head, it writhed blindly atop Dr. Fu.
Dr. Fu's helmet visor was smeared with slime. His suit was sealed, but he was convinced it had gotten inside.
As if countless tiny cockroaches had invaded his suit and were crawling all over him.
"GET OFF! GET OFF!" Dr. Fu screamed himself hoarse, but the Cockroach-Human's elongated limbs clung to him—no amount of thrashing could break free.
This time Zhu Ning didn't fire again. She didn't use any abilities either.
She was afraid that rupturing the abdomen would release an Ootheca—hatching even more of these revolting things.
These creatures could reproduce. In contaminant form, if they could breed instantly, it would be catastrophic.
Dr. Fu had been scared senseless. He didn't know where he was or what he was doing—only screaming and thrashing.
Suddenly he felt his collar seize. Zhu Ning grabbed him by the scruff and wrenched him free, simultaneously kicking the Cockroach-Human off his body.
Dr. Fu's arms flailed wildly, desperately wiping at his helmet screen. The helmet's wiper activated, sweeping across his visor.
His entire body itched. Like a panicked cat, he lashed out indiscriminately.
Zhu Ning had no choice but to slap his left arm—the mental stabilizer's cold liquid injected into muscle. Only then did Dr. Fu gradually calm down.
He blinked blankly, seeing Zhu Ning before him.
Their screens were shared, so he could see her eyes. Her brows were pressed low.
Dr. Fu had watched many of Zhu Ning's videos—competitions, missions, all of them.
But this was his first time accompanying her in person. When Zhuang Lin had found him and asked if he was willing to enter a contamination zone with Zhu Ning, he'd hesitated briefly before agreeing.
He desperately wanted to know what was happening here. What the truth about these contaminants was.
But he hadn't even glimpsed the full truth—only caught a corner—and his spiritual value was already plummeting toward zero.
He wanted to leave immediately. But the contamination zone was sealed. Unless they found the contamination source, he couldn't go anywhere.
He couldn't lose his mind. He hadn't discovered the truth. He hadn't contributed anything. He couldn't break now.
Dr. Fu breathed deeply—his breathing so loud it echoed inside his helmet.
He glanced sideways at the floor. The decapitated Cockroach-Human's arms were broken off too—Zhu Ning had snapped them at the joints. Only the chitin shell remained intact.
Like this, it looked more like a giant insect with its head and limbs pulled off—somehow less terrifying.
"Don't make a sound." Zhu Ning's voice was barely a whisper.
Dr. Fu heard eerie sounds from the doorway. His face went white. Zhu Ning hadn't closed the door when she'd entered—it was still cracked open. Now other Cockroach-Humans were swarming toward them.
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