93 Exploration
◎It’s not certain who will perish first, me or the world◎
"Fifteen million?!"
Zhu Ning felt that there must be something wrong with her eyes or ears. The bill Song Zhizhang handed her was a number she didn't recognize.
She was sitting at the dining table thinking about Lao Yang and Liu Sheng. Zhu Ning just recalled a memory about the garbage dump, a garbage dump as big as a mountain. Zhu Ning stretched out her hand and someone grabbed her hand. She was picked up by two scavengers.
Lao Yang and Liu Sheng may be the nurturers of her world and the ones who saved her.
The Zhu Ning in the memory was younger, perhaps only seven or eight years old, still in child form. Does this memory belong to the original owner or Zhu Ning? Could it be that Zhu Ning had already traveled through time, but had lost some of her memories?
Zhu Ning shook his head, unable to figure it out. His life experience was more complicated than he had imagined. Perhaps he would understand more about his past after finding Liu Sheng. However, Lao Yang and Liu Sheng were both defective products with short lifespans. They also lived in a garbage dump. So much time had passed, and he wondered if they were still alive.
If it is a defective product, it is likely dead.
If they are still alive, where can we find them? In such a vast sea of people, searching for two small people is like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Zhu Ning was lost in thought and didn't notice Song Zhizhang pushing the door open and coming in.
Then the store manager handed her a paper bill. The bill was very long, even longer than toilet paper. It hung from the table and piled up at her feet, carefully listing the things that Zhu Ning had broken.
Zhu Ning kept flipping through the pages until she saw the number: 15 million Singapore dollars. She instantly forgot about Lao Yang and Liu Sheng and was left with complete shock.
What a scam?
Song Zhizhang sat across from her, his chin in his hand, and smiled gently, "Miss Zhu, you've destroyed an entire wall of my wine collection. Today's customers will all get a free meal, plus some compensation to appease the rich woman, and store renovation costs. This price is very fair."
The bill was surprisingly clearly written, with every item listed. This was a duck shop that specialized in serving wealthy women. The wine cabinets were filled with valuable wines, some of which were stored here by wealthy women and are no longer available. Even some of the crystal glasses were worth a fortune.
Including today's sales of the Queen's Store, all were paid for by Zhu Ning.
Zhu Ning: “…”
Well, after she entered the wasteland world, she has been suffering from the impact of her concept of money. She initially went to work in a cleaning company just to repay the monthly rent of 1,800 Singapore dollars. Thinking of this, she is simply unpretentious.
Ding Dong, 15 million Singapore dollars were withdrawn from the deputy brain. Zhu Ning's small treasury was in danger, and almost half of it had been taken away.
Zhu Ning didn't even feel any pain after paying the money, because it was an online transaction and it felt like she had spent nothing.
It can be said that with her financial management ability, she will soon squander all her family fortune and become a pauper again.
After paying the bill, Zhu Ning opened another bottle of nutritional supplement. Now the table was full of empty bottles of nutritional supplements. While drinking the nutritional supplements, her eyes fell on Song Zhizhang's chin. There were still clear fingerprints on his jaws.
Song Zhizhang was very busy today. After taking Lin Xiaofeng to sleep, he went upstairs to deal with the follow-up. Now he has just finished counting his losses and he comes to collect the debt from me.
He returned to his usual state, and the aura he exuded was very relaxed, like a cunning little fox who was always calculating against others.
Zhu Ning asked, "Is your jaw okay?"
Song Zhizhang touched it and said, "It's okay."
He is not really a delicate flower.
Maybe because he had been rubbing his neck, when Song Zhizhang moved, Zhu Ning saw a little bit of skin exposed under his turtleneck sweater. It was just a small piece, but Zhu Ning saw it.
Song Zhizhang's skin was very pale, with scattered scars on it, which were very conspicuous in contrast, and looked like they were left after a burn.
Is this why Song Zhizhang wears a turtleneck sweater? With the development of technology, scar removal technology is very mature and almost no traces will be left. Zhu Ning has no interest in scar removal, so he has kept it.
So what was Song Zhizhang doing?
Was he going to keep the scar as a memento, or was it impossible to remove it, or was it a wound that would never heal? Was Song Zhizhang already seriously injured and dying?
Song Zhizhang's movement lasted only a moment and soon disappeared. The turtleneck sweater covered his neck tightly again. Zhu Ning thought about it and didn't ask. It was Song Zhizhang's private matter. He didn't say it because he didn't want to mention it.
Compared to this, Zhu Ning was more interested in the earrings on his earlobes.
"Why are you loyal to Prometheus?" Zhu Ning asked. She wanted to know what Song Zhizhang was thinking.
Song Zhizhang smiled and corrected: "It's not that I'm loyal to him, I'm just helping him."
There is a difference here. Song Zhizhang is not Prometheus's subordinate in the true sense. He has always been free.
Zhu Ning asked: "Then why did you help him?"
Song Zhizhang looked solemnly into Zhu Ning's eyes, "Because he painted a beautiful world for me."
A beautiful world without pollutants.
No one in the world will collapse into pollutants, and no one with superpowers will become alienated and lose their sanity. If it is really possible as Prometheus said, he is willing to help.
ha?
Let’s build a beautiful new home together?
Prometheus, like the system, is good at painting a rosy picture for people. This pie is big and round and looks beautiful. It would have been even better if Zhu Ning hadn't made the pie.
Song Zhizhang noticed Zhu Ning's mood and asked, "You don't like him?"
Zhu Ning: "No one will like it."
He is like a riddle man, who never appears from beginning to end, predicts your destiny, and controls your life. Even Zhu Ning's rare direct contact with Prometheus did not leave a good impression.
Song Zhizhang responded without refutation. It was very normal for humans to feel disgusted with artificial intelligence. After all, they were completely different creatures, especially since this thing could take over a person's body.
Some people speculate that Prometheus is a pollutant. If Prometheus is really polluted, it is a combination of pollution and machinery.
Song Zhizhang: "But you are becoming like him."
Zhu Ning frowned. Regardless of whether she had evolved or been mutated, the blue data stream flowing in her pupils showed that her body was man-made, like a high-speed computer.
Are Zhu Ning and Prometheus the same kind?
She felt a chill at the thought. Could Prometheus be another test subject for the immortality drug industry? Did he have a body?
Song Zhizhang asked, "Have you ever explored your own abilities?"
Although Zhu Ning didn't say what he was doing and Song Zhizhang didn't ask any more questions, a pollution area was almost formed here at that time, and the initial pollution concentration data was Class A.
Zhu Ning, like Song Zhizhang and Lin Xiaofeng, all experienced a mental breakdown and then regained order.
How much energy they can generate in this process will become the cornerstone of their abilities later on.
What is Zhu Ning's ability?
Zhu Ning frowned, feeling a data network forming in front of his eyes, like the scale of a photo editing software, like a huge data network that instantly covered the entire room.
Song Zhizhang in front of her was cut by data blocks. After the data bars in her eyes rolled, the living people in the room would be automatically locked, and the sofa, coffee table and bar in the living room were all circled in an instant, just like playing a shooting game.
If she wanted to have a gunfight here, she wouldn't need to lock onto the enemy specifically; she could kill him in an instant.
She built a data palace in her mind, and the memories inside were categorized and carefully arranged.
When Zhu Ning was thinking just now, he clearly felt that his thinking speed had accelerated. The moment he thought of something, a picture would appear in his mind, which was very intuitive.
She guessed that she had some photographic memory instinct, and as long as there was enough storage space, everything she saw would be stored in her mind.
Her brain must be similar to a real computer. If she had enough computing power, could she make big data predictions, just like Prometheus?
"Some people's abilities are directed towards super-physical transformation," Song Zhizhang said. "Some people at this stage become incredibly close to computers, possessing photographic memories and the ability to store memories."
Although there are many different kinds of superpowers nowadays, some of them can be deduced from similar ones.
Song Zhizhang: "You can try to get in touch with the mechanized transformation of your body. You don't have to be really mechanized. Just open a port on your body and access their chips. Your body should be able to connect to different chips and gain different abilities."
The Zhuning main unit will be very similar to a smart terminal, capable of upgrading software and hardware.
Zhu Ning frowned. Song Zhizhang's reaction to what he said was very normal. He probably didn't know that Zhu Ning was an experimental subject.
Or maybe they know about it, but don't care. Their local citizens are more accepting of these things. They have seen too many human species and there are artificial humans running around everywhere, so they won't be surprised.
But could she access other chips? That would be a whole other world for her.
Moreover, her abnormality today was not recorded in the system and was not on the panel, which proved that this was her basic ability, but it had just been activated and was not even a talent.
This is an ability she has naturally, just like ordinary people can eat and walk, but it is still difficult for her to accept that she is not made of flesh and blood.
Song Zhizhang asked, "Where are those black things?"
Song Zhizhang just saw black mucus flowing through Zhu Ning's body, as if some other creature was living there.
Zhu Ning didn't feel the need to avoid Song Zhizhang. This man already knew what he should know, and what he shouldn't know, he would probably discover on his own later, so there was no need to hide it.
Zhu Ning: "In my body."
Song Zhizhang frowned when he heard this, "In the body?"
"Well," Zhu Ning tried to describe it, "it should be in my flesh and blood."
Every bone, every gap, every cell, they have long since become one with me.
Zhu Ning truly felt that he was a fusion of mechanical data and biology. The data stream in his eyes represented technology, and the aliens on his body represented the biological part. Zhu Ning's mental value was used to maintain balance.
Zhu Ning: "I have to suppress it. I guess it's an alien species."
Alien species? Song Zhizhang knew about alien species, but weren't they only found outside the Great Wall? Did Zhu Ning encounter one during his trip? That proved that the pollution in Area 103 was already as severe as that outside the Great Wall.
And can alien species coexist with humans?
Zhu Ning's situation was far beyond Song Zhizhang's understanding. He had never seen someone like Zhu Ning, but he had never seen Lin Xiaofeng before. What type of creature was Lin Xiaofeng?
The world is evolving faster than Song Zhizhang imagined, and the only laws humans have figured out are no longer suitable for existing phenomena.
The top group of evolved humans are breaking the rules summarized the day before every day, and there are countless possibilities in them.
There are countless possibilities in Zhu Ning.
Song Zhizhang tried to sort out the information he had. "You're very different. You're like... a combination of pollutants and machinery."
He spoke these words carefully. Machinery and pollutants were subtly and perfectly combined in her body, neither part could be more nor less.
The machinery and pollutants must be kept in balance, otherwise Zhu Ning's body will fall apart, but she seems to have no such reaction at all.
Especially after this experience, Zhu Ning became stronger. In other words, she was standing at a new starting point.
Her future was not something Song Zhizhang could understand.
Song Zhizhang lowered his eyes at this thought. He had already predicted that Zhu Ning's future would be far, far away. Not just from District 103, but perhaps even beyond the walls. The Noble Queen's Inn was just a temporary haven for her; there was no place for her.
Song Zhizhang's eyelashes were very long, and when they drooped, they looked like a feather fan covering his face, making it difficult to discern his specific emotions. Zhu Ning sensed that he seemed to have suddenly become very depressed and asked, "Am I going to die or something?"
Song Zhizhang blinked, then raised his head and looked at Zhu Ning seriously: "No, your future will be very good. You are the most perfectly integrated person I have ever seen."
Zhu Ning yawned. Song Zhizhang's words sounded like a fortune teller. He sat across from her like a mysterious master, calculating and then saying, "You'll be fine."
Zhu Ning said indifferently, "My life span is not long."
Song Zhizhang was stunned. It was the first time he heard Zhu Ning talk about his lifespan.
Zhu Ning continued, "It's a defective product. It won't last long."
Zhu Ning underwent two physical examinations at the cleaning center, and the relevant data were the same both times. Her organs only have one year left to live. I don’t know if she is feeling better now, but given the extent to which she was being hunted, she might die before her body dies naturally.
Song Zhizhang was like a stargazer who had just discovered the brightest star. Many people had not noticed her, only Song Zhizhang saw her. Before Song Zhizhang had time to look up at her, he learned that this star would soon fall.
Zhu Ning: "Why do you all have such expressions? There's still a year left."
Song Zhizhang totally didn't understand why Zhu Ning was so optimistic, but Zhu Ning really felt that this matter was not that bad. It was not that she was optimistic and happy for no reason.
Probably because I read a lot of crappy things about the wasteland world and also read the words in Gao Yingcheng's notebook.
The end of the world is coming, and you and I are all ants.
To be honest, if the end of the world comes, the lifespan of this wasteland world may not be as long as Zhu Ning.
Zhu Ning: "It's not certain who will be destroyed first, me or the world."
Song Zhizhang: “…”
Good... pragmatic idea.
But it makes sense. Half of the people in this world think this way. The world may fall at any time, so some people seize the time to enjoy life, while others are taking black dreams and living a life of drunkenness. People have given up struggling.
Song Zhizhang: "Maybe you are now considered a sixth-class citizen."
Zhu Ning asked: "What are the criteria for judging sixth-class citizens?"
Song Zhizhang was stunned by Zhu Ning's question. The so-called sixth-class citizens were to distinguish themselves from the other five. They possessed some special abilities and then registered official identities. At the same time, they also had to register their special abilities to facilitate unified management and avoid panic.
But if you don’t register officially, it doesn’t matter what class of citizen you are.
Zhu Ning no longer cares about it. Don't categorize yourself, and don't fit into the scope defined by the official.
Zhu Ning: "Thank you for helping me."
Zhu Ning was sincere. Song Zhizhang was gentler and more reliable than she thought, and could clean up any mess. Although he was very close to Prometheus, he might have helped Zhu Ning because of Prometheus's orders.
But Zhu Ning still thanked him.
Song Zhizhang was stunned by this sentence. Zhu Ning was really... someone who wanted people to get close to him.
Song Zhizhang stopped thinking about wishing Ning a long life and asked, "What did you do after you regained your sanity?"
Song Zhizhang was busy for a long time. When he turned around, Zhu Ning was already sitting cross-legged at the dining table, thinking about something. She seemed to have no need to rest at all and was thinking alone.
Although Zhu Ning was very close to Song Zhizhang, there were some secrets that he couldn't share with him. "It's hard to say."
Song Zhizhang was stunned, then laughed. It was this sentence again.
Before, Song Zhizhang asked Zhu Ning what he was doing at the hot pot restaurant, and Zhu Ning replied that it was hard to say. Later, Zhu Ning asked him if he knew about Yongsheng Pharmaceutical, and Song Zhizhang replied that it was hard to say.
Now this sentence appears for the third time.
Song Zhizhang changed the question: "Have you found any useful clues?"
Zhu Ning thought about the mountain cat's response and found it very interesting. The mountain cat said: "I will come to find you."
Zhu Ning had said before that she had many clues in her hands, like a pile of threads scattered in front of her, and she decided to follow up on whichever one showed promise.
Now that a line has been moved, Zhu Ning doesn't need to do anything. He just needs to wait there, like a bait in a trap, waiting for the prey to come to him.
However, in the process, she needs to ensure that she will not be killed by her prey.
Zhu Ning felt much better when he thought of this. "I found it."
Song Zhizhang could feel Zhu Ning's emotions. The suppressed and desperate atmosphere had completely dissipated from the room. Zhu Ning was now very calm, as if he could face any challenge.
She has experienced the worst and known the most unacceptable truth, so the future will only be better, not worse than yesterday.
"I wish you good luck." Song Zhizhang said to Zhu Ning.
The author has something to say:
Ningning is going to take the initiative!
Thank you to the little angels who voted for me or provided nutrient solution between 2022-10-18 11:19:07 and 2022-10-19 11:49:45~
Thanks to the little angels who cast mines: Oh wow 3; South Wind Effect, Jiang Yuci, and the song I listened to recently - Love Hard, Love Hard 1;
Thanks to the little angels who irrigated the nutrient solution: Amo 178 bottles; Taoyao 150 bottles; Nian Shao Cheng Kuai Yi 65 bottles; Xueli Circle 60 bottles; Huang Huang Hu Hu 50 bottles; 3X1314, Black Cat Sheriff, Xiaoxiu Yutang Waving 20 bottles; Sufficient Sugar, Teriyaki Cheeseburger 16 bottles; 51739659 15 bottles; Wuhu Ali, Are the Leaves Green?, Li Zi, A Little Monster, Bai Zhou, MWMWM, Miramichi, Aqi, 22508206, Salted Fish Xiaochen, Kun Kun, Netizen No. 1, Shu Yu 10 bottles; Dong Siyeye, Fu Sheng Ru Meng Yun Sheng, Yan Xi, Jiulan, Jiang Yu Ci 5 bottles; hhbjyffvhjjg 3 bottles; Don't Step on My Shoes 2 bottles; La, Hey Hey, The Song I Listened to Recently - Hard Love, Black Cat, In, Wei Rui, Liuli 1 bottle;
Thank you very much for your support. I will continue to work hard!
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