ICUGW Chapter 22

Chapter 22 - Metal Manipulation

Zhu Ning looked at the scars on her body in the mirror. Even strong healing agents could not remove the scars. If she wanted it to be removed, she would need to buy cosmetic medicines.

But why would she buy those? The scars caused by the guillotine can stay.

Zhu Ning stroked the shape of the scar on her right shoulder.

She was actually not sure whether she was contaminated. The protective suit was torn for about thirty seconds. She quickly patched it up, but contaminants may have already invaded inside within those thirty seconds.

Does she need a checkup? Should she go to the cleaning center tomorrow to apply for a physical examination?

But what if the test results show that she's a contaminant? Will she have to spend the rest of her life running away for safety?

Zhu Ning looked at the scar on her lower abdomen again. This scar was even more frightening. It was a vertical scar about ten centimeters long, like something stabbed her and the blade moved upwards. Until now, she still hadn't figured out the origin of the scar.

Zhu Ning turned away from the mirror and closed her eyes. This time, she learned a lot of information, but she was even more confused.

For example, how long has this underground organization connected by "grave posts" existed, and what is the significance of their existence?

What exactly does Prometheus want to do? And what is the Eternal Life Pharmaceutical?

Zhu Ning searched for Eternal Life Pharmaceutical on the web earlier, and the results quickly showed that it was a very powerful biological company that controlled more than half of the pharmaceutical industry in the Federation.

The medicines ordinary people use, including the powerful healing agent that Zhu Ning slpas on, were all from this company. There was a saying online: if you're from the Federation, you've definitely bought at least one product from the Eternal Life Pharmaceutical.

That is, unless, you have never been sick in your life.

The information about the pharmaceutical company on the web was very clean. So clean that it seemed unbelievable. Not a single negative posts about the company could be found on the entire web. All were just praises.

[Eternal Life Pharmaceuticals: Change your genes and create your future]

After watching a few promotional videos, even Zhu Ning can recite the company's slogan.

If Zhu Ning hadn't walked out of the hot pot restaurant herself and seen the side effects of the hot pot restaurant owner after taking the medicine, she would have almost believed it.

After the mission was completed, the system prompted her to find a key clue. The key clue was undoubtedly Eternal Life Pharmaceutical.

Was the person the original owner wanted to meet in the garbage room someone from Eternal Life Pharmaceutical?

Did the original owner want to change her defective genes and buy medicine? Was she involved in some experimental project like the hot pot restaurant owner?

But there was nothing related to Eternal Life Pharmaceutical in Zhu Ning's house. Unless, the house have already been "cleaned" by someone.

There was also that statement about the end of the world being near. What did it mean? Why were there words spoken by the fish man at the place where she died? Was her first mission arranged by someone?

It was as if there was a huge net in front of her, and Zhu Ning was in the center trapped in it. The net was getting tighter and tighter, but Zhu Ning didn't even know how many parties were behind the net.

Ding!

Her secondary brain rang. It was Liu Niannian.

Before Liu Niannian left, she added her as a friend. Zhu Ning said that she would look for her if there was any work in the future.

At first, she thought Liu Niannian might not be willing, so Zhu Ning left after finishing her work, leaving Liu Niannian alone waiting for her family at the entrance of the hot pot restaurant. Turns out the young lady was actually quite interested.

[Zhu Ning!]

As soon as she opened her secondary brain, she saw that Liu Niannian had sent her a cat face emoticon.

Zhu Ning: “…”

This girl seems to be in the same league with Li Nianchuan.

Zhu Ning searched for Liu Niannian's identity. There was no one with the surname Liu among the wealthy families in the Federation. She might have given a fake name, but the other party didn't want to say it, so Zhu Ning didn't ask any more questions.

[Are you home?] Zhu Ning asked.

Liu Niannian: [Yes, I'm safe! I was just scolded by my family.]

Liu Niannian sent another picture of a crying face of a kitten.

Zhu Ning thought about it for a moment. She didn't know how many people would be troubled if the eldest lady ran out. If it was her younger sister, she might have hung her up and beat her till she realizes her fault.

Liu Niannian, lying on the big bed in the mansion, had changed into princess pajamas. She was particularly enthusiastic with Zhu Ning. She had few friends and was surrounded by flatterers. It could even be said that Zhu Ning is her first friend.

She can enter a contaminated area and single-handedly eliminated it, while also doing the work of cleaners. Zhu Ning is her idol!

Liu Niannian was still trying to figure out how to talk to her idol when her brain suddenly lit up with a notification.

Her idol...transferred her one million dollars?

Attached to the transfer was a message: [Your salary.]

Liu Niannian, who had always transferred money to others: "?"

It was only 1 million, while the new dress she bought last week costed 5 million, but this seemed to be the first money she earned.

Her hard-earned money...

Liu Niannian thought for a moment and said, [Thank you, boss!]

Zhu Ning: [We can work together again if there's a chance.]

Very business-like.

Although Zhu Ning was feeling very painful now, she still has to settle the accounts. Liu Niannian contributed half of the effort in containing the contaminated spores this time.

She plans to cooperate with Liu Niannian for a long time in the future. If she were to start a company, Liu Niannian could be considered her her first employee. No, maybe her partner?

Moreover, Liu Niannian's family was very wealthy. There are a lot of exploitation opportunities she could smell. If she wants to expand her business, she must give the young lady her respective salary.

Seeing that Zhu Ning had no intentions of chatting with her, Liu Niannian took the initiative to ask, [What are you doing?]

Zhu Ning replied half-heartedly while searching: [Looking for information related to Eternal Life Pharmaceutical.]

Liu Niannian was silent for a moment, then asked, [Is it because of the hot pot restaurant?]

Zhu Ning: [Yes.]

Zhu Ning checked and went over and under, but there was still no information online, no medical malpractice postings about Eternal Life Pharmaceutical. The hot pot restaurant owner had indeed existed as a victim of Eternal Life Pharmaceutical, but there was no trace left.

There was no record of him on the entire Internet, and Zhu Ning didn't even know the name of the hot pot restaurant owner.

Zhu Ning: [I want to see if there are any other victims.]

This was definitely not a one-time medical accident, there must be others who were dragged down by the pharmaceutical.

On the other side of the screen, Liu Niannian was lost in thought while looking at her secondary brain.

Zhu Ning didn't pay much attention to whether Liu Niannian replied or not. After a while, Liu Niannian slowly sent a message: [Maybe I can help you.]

Zhu Ning: “?”

Before Zhu Ning could start typing, the other party continued, [I own shares in the company.]

Zhu Ning: [You have shares in the company?]

Liu Niannian: [Yes, it's my coming-of-age gift from my dad.]

Zhu Ning: “…”

As expected of a wealthy second generation. Zhu Ning was once again slapped with poverty. She would never be able to earn that much money in her lifetime.

The Eternal Life Pharmaceutical had a very impressive yearly profit, with annual turnover speculated to be hundreds of billions.

Liu Niannian should have no worries about food and clothing for the rest of her life, so why would she go court death and enter a contaminated area alone?

However, Liu Niannian's family must be very close to Eternal Life Pharmaceutical. After all, it was such a big company, and not everyone can just buy its shares.

She understood that Prometheus might have pushed this task because of Liu Niannian. The hot pot restaurant was secondary, and saving Liu Niannian was the most important thing.

Prometheus wanted Liu Niannian to owe her a favor.

Zhu Ning felt that she was being used. Prometheus used Zhu Ning, and Zhu Ning used Liu Niannian, but Liu Niannian seemed to be unaware of it.

Liu Niannian: [What type of information do you need?]

Zhu Ning: [Anything is fine. The more detailed the better.]

Liu Niannian paused and said, [But you have to wait for me for a while. I don't really know much about the company.]

Zhu Ning: “…”

'I understand, I completely understand.'

The rich second generation who was uneducated and unskilled once again slapped Zhu Ning who was filled with the scent of poverty.

Zhu Ning searched for Eternal Life Pharmaceutical's partner companies and their equity structure. It must be said that the privacy of the wasteland world was very good, especially the privacy of the rich.

With the technology so developed, information became transparent. The privacy of ordinary people was nonexistent, but the information of the wealthy were strictly protected. Just like earlier when Zhu Ning searched around but couldn't find anything about Liu Niannian.

Hah. As expected of the rich.

Zhu Ning turned off her secondary brain and prepared to study her newly acquired purification value and talent.

Her current purification value was 3,214. Without any hesitation, Zhu Ning converted all of it into health points.

[Health value exchange successful.

Current Health: 45]

It was a little higher than before, but it was still low compared to ordinary people. Not to mention that her items and skills also consume a lot of health points. It was simply not enough.

Zhu Ning opened the panel to study her newly acquired prop: The Pig man's Guillotine, which can kill a mission target once within 24 hours, never missing its kill.

If you look at the description carefully, it says that it was 100% effective, but it doesn't say that it will definitely kill the target. It may be 100% effective for contaminants below level C, but it's hard to say what the effect will be for contaminant above level C.

Moreover, there was a skill cooldown time and it can only be used once a day. It should only be used wisely in critical moments.

There was also a master key that can open any door. The description was much more honest: as long as it is a door, it could open it.

'Thief skills. Heh.'

The other primary talent was quite interesting: metal manipulation.

'Can I become Magneto?'

Zhu Ning sat cross-legged on the bed, eager to try out her new talent. Her hair was still wet from her shower, but she ignored the dripping water droplets and stared closely at the coin in her palm.

Thirty seconds passed, no response. A minute passed, no response. Two minutes passed, still no response.

It's useless.

Should she go find a teacher? Or seek help online? How can she get started with metal manipulation?

Zhu Ning wanted to go down and blow dry her hair first. She might get a cold if she keeps her hair wet. She let go of the coin and went to plug the hair dryer, but before she could reach the socket, her eyes widened.

The coin hung quietly in the air.

"..."

Zhu Ning moved her fingers, and the coin followed her fingertips, shifting a centimeter to the left. She shifted her finger to the right, and the coin followed, like a pet jellyfish floating in line with the movement of her finger.

Zhu Ning could feel something was different. She had built some kind of connection with the coin. It was a hard to explain feeling.

She had never cultivated the Dao before, but she guessed that this was the beginning of her journey to sealing the heavens.

She carefully manipulated the coin, and its speed continuously increased according to her thoughts.

'What about further away?'

With a click, the coin fell to the ground.

Sure enough, the limit was only one meter. Beyond one meter, the connection would be broken.

The coin was small and easy to control, but what about something larger than that?

The apartment where Zhu Ning lives in was a slum. The buildings were all made of metal. Right behind Zhu Ning's bed was a whole metal wall.

The wall was a high-tech piece of wasteland technology, made primarily of very cost-effective thick metal. But it was said that the material has some kind of metallic radiation, so it was quickly abandoned by wealthy areas. Even ordinary people no longer used it, so it was thrown to the garbage area and was now widely used in slums.

Zhu Ning knelt on the bed, her palms gently pressed against the metal wall with her eyes closed to concentrate.

The wall was quite large. If it collapsed, it could crush someone to death, so she decided to just test a small piece first.

If she was able to deform a small piece of metal under her palm, then it would already be a great achievement.

Zhu Ning took a deep breath and focused all her mental energy on her palm.

After she closed her eyes, she found that the structure of the world had changed. She was like a metal doctor, "taking the pulse" of a piece of metal.

Her perception continued to spread, sensing the composition of the wall and the gaps between each piece of metal. The gaps between the interlayers were fixed with tens of thousands of screws.

With her palm as the center, a vast net seemed to spread out, metal connecting to metal, wall to wall. Tentacles from the depths of her consciousness continued to spread, rapidly connecting like a neural network.

Zhu Ning carefully sensed the wall as if she was sensing life for the first time.

She could sense that strange connection, but what about trying to control it? Her fingertips curled slightly, and as she moved, the surface of the invisible neural network wrinkled, slowly pulling at the metal wall.

'Wait,' Zhu Ning frowned.

Wrong.

The entire hive had thirty-six floors, with sixty-nine households on each floor. The walls connecting each room were all interconnected with each other. As soon as Zhu Ning moved, the walls inside the hive began to vibrate, and by the time she reacted, it was too late.

With a loud bang, the walls of all 2,484 households in the hive suddenly resonated at the same frequency.

The dishes inside Zhu Ning's room were shaken, falling to the ground.

"An earthquake?!"

"Where the fuck would an earthquake come from in Area 103?"

"What's going on?"

Neighbors rushed to the corridor like bees shaken out, searching for the source.

Zhu Ning, the source, paled. She was staring at her palms and the wall in disbelief.

Even though she retracted her hand quickly , the wall in front of her was "crumpled" by her.

A solid metal wall looked like a crumpled bed sheet, and one could vaguely see the folds converging in one direction. Anyone looking at it could guess that there was once a hand controlling it.

Zhu Ning tried again with the coin one meter away, but no matter how hard she tried, the tiny coin didn't move at all.

So when she couldn't move the coin after one meter, the reason was not about her mental strength, but rather the rules restricting her. She needs to be within one meter from the metal object to control it.

The distance between the coin and Zhu Ning was more than one meter, but the distance between Zhu Ning and the entire hive was negative; she was inside the hive.

What a strange talent. She can only control metal within a distance of one meter, but within that one meter, as long as the metal is connected, it would be under Zhu Ning's absolute control.

There was no limit. Whether weight, height, or width, as long as it is metal, she can control it; she could uproot the entire hive if she wanted to.

Zhu Ning blinked and touched her nose. She felt like there was some sticky liquid dripping from it.

Oh.

Blood.

Her nose was dripping blood.

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The translator has something to say:

She had never cultivated the Dao before, but she guessed that this was the beginning of her journey to sealing the heavens. - a joke based on a popular webnovel I think?

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