ICUGW Chapter 11

Chapter 11 The Truth About Death

When technology develops to a certain level, it is natural that artificial intelligence will appear in human society.

In this world, robots have self-awareness, the era of artificial intelligence has been fully opened, and the function of AIs are closer to big data deductions.

If all the data from a person's birth to death is controlled, algorithms can even be used to calculate the person's future development trajectory. When artificial intelligence develops to its peak, every human being will be nothing more than a string of code in its database.

Judging from some random novels Zhu Ning had read, artificial intelligence was always a super villain. Zhu Ning was not sure what position this Prometheus took. Could it be chaotic neutral?

'Why did "it" choose me? Is it related to the death of the original owner?'

Zhu Ning asked, "Can I resign?"

She'd already made enough money to live comfortably, so there was no need to deal with contaminants. She could tell there was a lot of tangled business here, with artificial intelligence and the juggling between the various departments at the cleaning center.

It might even be related to the original owner's death.

It's not very rational to jump into it after knowing it's actually a trap.

Fang Ying was stunned for a moment, obviously not expecting Zhu Ning to ask this question.

She quickly regained her smile and said, "That's fine. You'll have to follow the confidentiality procedures then."

Fang Ying said, "But I suggest you stay. With your current savings, you can only afford one injection of gene medicine. It won't be enough to last a full course of treatment."

For Zhu Ning, this is the best job. The salary is high and she's well suited to it. There is no reason for her to resign.

"We won't force you." Fang Ying said the last sentence, "We'll wait for your good news."

…

When Zhu Ning changed into her regular clothes and walked out of the cleaning center with the information in her arms, it was already sunset.

Information advertisement windows popped up on both sides of the road. A company called Chuangshi Technology was promoting uploading consciousness to an internal system, or what they call the "Cloud"; a dream paradise in the wasteland world.

The ads were quite annoying, and they even track and hover. Ordinary people don’t even have the right to avoid watching annoying ads.

The incinerator outside was still burning.

Garbage from all 260 areas of the Federation were sent to Area 103, and garbage trucks kept coming in an endless stream.

The incinerator in front was made in the shape of a huge robot, as tall as a hundred-story building. Standing below it gives the illusion of looking up at a giant.

It was said that this robot was originally used as a city defense robot during wartime, and after retirement, it was used to dispose garbage. The incinerator's flames burned day and night, like a beacon in the darkness, illuminating the area for hundreds of miles.

Zhu Ning looked at it for a while and had to say it was quite beautiful.

She was acutely aware that she had entered another world: a wasteland world composed of high technology and contaminants. This world seems to be developing rapidly, but in some unseen corners, it was barren and chaotic.

On one hand, there is order, on the other hand, there is chaos. Zhu Ning realized that she has never even seen the chaotic world outside the high walls....

Zhu Ning transferred the rent to Mother Wei and paid various bills. Her current balance was now 671,200 dollars.

After doing all this, Zhu Ning did not go home. She turned and went to another place, an abandoned garbage room.

This was the first place Zhu Ning saw after waking up. It was fifteen kilometers away from her home and had been abandoned. When Zhu Ning arrived, it was already dark.

The musty smell inside hit Zhu Ning squarely in the face. Her brows furrowed as she turned to her wrist. She didn't bring a flashlight, but she remembered that the employee bracelet Fang Ying gave her has some flashlight function. Sure enough, after pushing a few buttons, this thing could provide lighting.

A warm yellow light comes on, and she can even adjust whether it's low beam or high beam.

Zhu Ning took a quick look and saw a lot of scrap metal piled up inside, with dozens of abandoned robots lying in the corner. In her world, steel was recyclable and would definitely not be left to waste here. Scrap could be exchanged for food and other essential items.

But the scrap metal in the garbage room was piled up like a mountain.

Zhu Ning thought about the iron piece that was on her abdomen. It was irregularly shaped, about the size of a palm, and had jagged edges.

The person who killed her probably found a piece of iron here to kill her. The cause of death is easy to guess, but what about the motive?

The original owner was 19 years old, an ordinary mechanics graduate and a defective fifth-class citizen. She had no money, no resources, and no relatives. The only thing special about her was her mental value.

But Zhu Ning didn't know whether her high mental value was because the original owner already had it, or because Zhu Ning had a high spirit value and was merged to this body by the system.

Maybe someone cleaned the scene. There was no blood and no "murder weapon" around.

After she woke up, she found a vending machine a thousand meters away based on the original owner's memories and bought a shot of powerful healing agent.

Her memory was a little confused. She had too many things to deal with at the time. She had to accept that she had traveled through time and was close to death, and she also had to digest the fact that she had a system with her. She couldn't remember many details.

Zhu Ning sat at the place where she "died", trying to recall what happened that day.

She looked up and saw that the roof of the garbage room had been in disrepair for a long time and there was a hole on it.

She was lying under that hole that day.

It was raining acid, and the first thing she saw was the sky visible from the hole. The original owner was lying next to a pile of discarded steel, looking at the yellow sky, bleeding profusely, and waiting to die.

Zhu Ning sat for a while but couldn't think of anything. She felt that her actions were stupid. It was not like she had Sherlock Holmes' memory palace that could retrieve any memory.

Zhu Ning was about to stand up when she suddenly froze. There were a few drops of blood in the corner of the wall. She was still sitting down, and there are some things that she could only see from this angle.

At the corner between the scrap metal and the wall, there seemed to be a line of crooked, small characters. Zhu Ning was sitting down, while the original owner was lying down. So, her perspective should be from a lying position.

She bent down and carefully moved a piece of scrap iron. There was a sentence engraved on the mottled corner of the wall.

"The end...is approaching," Zhu Ning whispered, "You and I are both...ants?"

The end of the world is approaching, and you and I are all ants.

Zhu Ning's brain buzzed.

{ " T h e e n d o f t h e w o r l d i s c o m i n g , h a h a h a h a — "

"T h e e n d i s c o m i n g . "

" Y o u ' r e j u s t l i k e m e ."

" Y o u , y o u w i l l b e c o m e l i k e m e . . . t h e s a m e . . . t h e s a m e . . ." }

This was what the fish man said to her before it died. The fish man was half dead at the time, and insisted on crawling towards Zhu Ning to say some incomprehensible words to her.

At the time, Zhu Ning thought it was a form of mental pollution, but now it seems she was naive. A more elegant way to put the fish man's words is: "The end is near, and you and I are all ants."

It's understandable that the fish man would say it because it's a contaminant, but why is this sentence also in the place where the original owner died? What was the cause of her death?

Was she chosen because she was a defective product, had no social connections, and was just garbage thrown into Area 103?

If Zhu Ning hadn't traveled through time, the original owner's death here wouldn't even have been discovered. Even if someone had discovered her, they would have simply thrown her into the incinerator, and it wouldn't even have been reported in the news that day.

Her death would be very "clean".

Zhu Ning's first reaction was to open the employee wristband. She wanted to check the cleaning center's internal network.

Fang Ying said that her video was uploaded to the internal network. If the fish man said such weird words to her, there should be people discussing it in the forum. She was directed to the login page and needed an official employee ID.

Zhu Ning now has to join the Area103 Cleaning Center. Her survival principle has always been: if you can't beat them, then join them.

Without any hesitation, Zhu Ning immediately selected an option between the two jobs and simply filled out the employment information.

[Login successful.]

The employee's wristband automatically plays a mechanical sound:

[Congratulations on joining the company.]

Then there were some trivial onboarding procedures. Zhu Ning glanced through them, clicked off each one, and then entered the cleaning center's public forum.

The forum's top post was "Shocking! A new member's mental value during the probation period reached 1200! We have an S-class national treasure!"

Zhu Ning: “…”

The next post was: "Study materials for internal circulation only: The complete purification process of The Disappearance of Line 1's Last Train, Class D contaminated area"

Zhu Ning clicked on the video to watch. The video was a combination of her and Li Nianchuan's helmet perspectives. She fast-forwarded all the way to the scene where the fish man and herself were fighting on the subway tracks.

Zhu Ning's helmet was cracked, the camera was broken, and the radio picked up a lot of crackling static sounds. Then Zhu Ning kicked the fish man into the track, and the fish man was directly turned over on the ground track.

[ "T h e y t h i n k I ' m . . . h y p o c r i t i c a l a n d c a n ' t e n d u r e h a r d s h i p . "

"A m I b e i n g p r e t e n t i o u s ? "]

The next scene should be Zhu Ning standing in front of the platform holding a fire axe, and the fish man crawling towards her slowly, preparing to say something about the world ending.

But that's it. The next moment, a train approaches, and the fish man turns into a pile of rotten meat. The fish man dies, and the contaminated spores floated form it.

Zhu Ning watched it again and confirmed that there was no "the world is ending" part.

Zhu Ning was the person involved. If she didn't believe in her good memory, she would have thought it was just her imagination.

Edited?

Who did it? Prometheus? Is it helping her?

But why?

【Ding–】

There was a buzzing sound in Zhu Ning's mind.

[Congratulations on triggering the side quest:

Find the truth behind your death.

This is a long-term quest that can be completed in alongside other side quests. Success will result in generous rewards, while failure will reset your health.

Currently, the search is 5% complete.

Please keep up the good work.]

Zhu Ning: “…”

She shouldn't have come to the garbage room!

This damn system doesn’t reveal the mission rewards at all, so why does the health value reset to zero when the mission fails?

Zhu Ning discovered that the logic of this system was consistent with the logic of reality. Zhu Ning's "death" might be related to the reason why Prometheus chose her.

If someone wanted to kill her and found out that not only did she not die, but was also sent to a cleaning center instead, they would definitely try to kill her a second time.

Therefore, Zhu Ning must find the truth and take the initiative. Otherwise, if she was killed again, then she would really be dead. That's why the system told her that if the mission failed, her health points will be reset to zero.

Searching for clues requires entering the cleaning center and becoming a formal employee. This wasy, she can come into contact with Prometheus and the next contaminants.

Well, that’s great. She can go sweep garbage happily again.

Zhu Ning thought about it, and used her secondary brain to take a picture of the corner of the wall from every angle, fearing that she would miss any details. Then scraped off the sentence with a piece of iron.

Zhu Ning was "destroying the evidence" when she suddenly heard a slight noise outside.

Creak—

"Who?" Zhu Ning's first reaction was to pick up an iron rod.

'Could they be here to kill and silence the witness?'

A robot slowly emerged from outside the door. It was round and only half a person's height. It was frightened by Zhu Ning and walked out with its two robotic arms raised.

Zhu Ning: “…”

The robot didn't look very advanced, similar to the supermarket navigation robots of her era.

Zhu Ning put down the iron rod and asked, "Fifth-class citizen?"

The robot nodded.

As expected, Area103 is so dirty and messy that only defective products would appear here.

Zhu Ning: "Me too."

The robot had no voice function, so the light screen on its face displayed two words: "La Bao."

Is this its name?

Zhu Ning shamelessly said, "My name is Ning Bao."

The light screen on La Bao's face turned into a smiley face. It must have been a service robot, and it looked very happy. Zhu Ning suddenly thought of a question and asked, "Are you picking up trash around here?"

Its name is La Bao. It was probably developed as a garbage cleaning robot, but there may be some flaws in its development, so it was thrown here.

La Bao nodded.

Zhu Ning asked, "Have you seen anyone suspicious?"

La Bao: “You.”

"..." Zhu Ning: "Besides me?"

La Bao: “No.”

Yes, if the murderer came to kill people, they would definitely avoid people.

Zhu Ning asked, "Is there any surveillance nearby?"

La Bao: “No.”

This place is full of abandoned garbage rooms. They won't install such things. Zhu Ning didn't find any useful clues and was a little disappointed.

La Bao noticed that Zhu Ning was unhappy, and characters appeared on its screen: "But the machine has it."

"Hmm?" Zhu Ning became interested.

La Bao slowly typed a line of words on the screen: "Robot camera is turned on by default."

The standard feature of developed robots is its camera. The camera is the "eyes" of the robot. Even if the machine is scrapped, many of the robot's camera functions can still be used.

There's a mountain of garbage here, and some of the scraps were robots; their cameras might be on. The killer might have a deep understanding of murder, but not robots, otherwise they wouldn't have chosen the garbage room.

In other words, as long as the camera of a scrapped robot here was usable, it will record the entire process of the original owner's death.

Zhu Ning's eyes lit up and he asked, "Can you help me find it?"

La Bao: "No, that's too much."

There are mountains of garbage here. It will take at least two months to filter out the cameras that are still intact, export the data, and then analyze the useful ones.

Zhu Ning: “…”

"La Bao," Zhu Ning squatted opposite La Bao, looked at it at eye level with a smile on her face while holding an iron rod, "Would you like to do business?"

La Bao: “?”

---

The translator has something to say:

La Bao is such a cutie! Oh, just a fact: La Bao means "trash treasure" literally. So, Zhu Ning telling La Bao that her name is Ning Bao which translates to "Ning treasure," (the Ning from her name Zhu Ning is kind of like saying, "You're a trash treasure, while I'm THE treasure."

---

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