ICUGW Chapter 23

Chapter 23 - Level 1 User

[System prompt: Please do not overuse your mental capacity. It may cause brain damage.]

Zhu Ning felt her temple throbbing as if a needle was piercing it repeatedly. Her sight was filled with black dots, spreading all over until she couldn't see anything. She endured it for a full minute before the pain subsided.

She regained her eyesight, but she still felt dizzy. After cleaning her nose, she stuffed two cotton balls in it, but they quickly got soaked. She had to change it fifteen times before the bleeding receded.

Her current symptoms were somewhat similar to those of Li Nianchuan, who was mentally polluted in her first mission. If she continued to use her skill recklessly like this, she would probably have to accompany Li Nianchuan in the hospital.

"What's going on? Was there someone with special abilities in our building?"

There were people walking around the corridor.

Another person replied: "Are you stupid? Do you think people with special abilities would come to live with us? They can become rich and famous just by selling their blood."

"But it's impossible for Area 103 to have earthquakes, y'know."

"It's an abnormal energy fluctuation. We really should be careful these days."

The two of them walked away while talking.

Zhu Ning: “…”

She blankly stared at her "masterpiece" and fell silent. She definitely couldn't tell Mother Wei about this...

There were two thousand households in the hive and if Mother Wei insists that she compensates the families....she would have to declare bankruptcy before she could even establish her company.

Zhu Ning only crumpled a wall in her house. To be honest, it looked pretty good, like a work of art.

'...My masterpiece!'

She brainwashed herself.

'As long as it looks good to me, then everything's fine...'

But Zhu Ning still had some headaches from her 'masterpiece'. Her head buzzed and she couldn't think clearly. Was she heading to the path of becoming a fool?

She thought about it and sent a message to Song Zhizhang: [What should I do if I have a headache?]

Zhu Ning and Song Zhizhang were both...doing illegal stuff, so it should be safe to find him. After all, they are "colleagues" in a sense.

Song Zhizhang must be quite free, as he replied to her message pretty quickly.

[Baby, what's wrong? Mental pollution? Did you overuse your mental energy?]

Song Zhizhang didn't wait for Zhu Ning to answer and replied to himself, [Forget it, I won't ask. It's just a problem with your brain anyway.]

[If it's convenient to go to the hospital, then go. But, hospitals are quite expensive. Don't say I didn't warn you.]

[If you're not treated by the cleaning center's medical department, it should cost around $10 million.]

Zhu Ning: “…”

She was just about to ask how much it would cost, but looking at the astronomical amount, she deleted her message silently.

This is just plain daylight robbery!

Who's responsible for setting medical expenses in the wasteland world? Should the poor just die?!

Zhu Ning: [Nevermind. I'm not seriously ill. I can hold on.]

Song Zhizhang: […]

Sister, there is no need to be so strong.

[If the situation isn't serious, take some medicine first. You should have received some medicine from the center. Look inside the box. There's a medication guide inside.]

Following the instructions, Zhu Ning rummaged through the suitcase and found a medicine box. Previously, Zhu Ning had only recognized powerful healing agents. Now, she saw that there were many other medicines in the box, including a mental healing agent.

She also noticed another thing. There was no logos of Eternal Life Pharmaceuticals in the medicine box. But there was a very strange symbol carved on it, like a snake wrapped around a flame.

Zhu Ning noticed that many items inside the box had this tiny symbol on them. Could this be the symbol of some cult founded by Prometheus?

Zhu Ning opened a bottle of mental healing potion and drank it, relieving her headache.

Song Zhizhang, maybe because he was someone in the service industry, was very considerate. He messaged her again, guessing that she must have taken the medicine.

[After taking the medicine, you should be able to recover in three or four days. If anything goes wrong, you must seek medical attention immediately.]

[If your headache persist, I suggest you go to the cleaning center for treatment.]

[I'll give you a tip: Next time you go on a mission, pretend to be contaminated. You can stay in the medical department for free.]

Zhu Ning, holding the mental healing agent in her mouth: "?"

Was he...speaking from experience?

Song Zhizhang sighed and said, [To tell you the truth, I can't afford to go to the hospital either.]

Zhu Ning remembered that Song Zhizhang was a duck shop owner. His business should be lucrative, yet he still doesn't dare seek medical treatment at a private hospital?

[A colleague of mine here has a tattoo on his arm: Kindhearted person, if you see me faint on the streets, please don't send me to the hospital. Leave me alone, thank you.]

Song Zhizhang said earnestly: [If you don't mind, you can also get a tattoo. This way, you won't be sent to the hospital without money to get out.]

Zhu Ning: […]

'Thank you for your advice. Let me consider it first.'

This should be a very practical survival skill in the wasteland world. She decided to have it memorized in her mind. In the future, before fainting, she would remember to shout loudly: "Don’t send me to the hospital, I can die!"

After drinking the mental healing potion, Zhu Ning's mind cleared up considerably. Her high mental value helped with releasing the energy needed for her skill, but her body wouldn't be able to take the toll if she used her skill for long periods of time.

She'd better be cautious with metal manipulation.

Zhu Ning used another bottle of mental healing agent and opened the cleaning center forum. As soon as she clicked in, the screen was filled with fireworks:

[Congratulations on completing the task of eliminating the hot pot restaurant!]

There was a slight delay before a grey envelope popped up in the middle of the page.

After opening the gray envelope, there is another forum. The page is in the simplest black and white style, and its name is:

[Grave Post Fans Exchange Center]

Zhu Ning: “…”

It sounds like a forum for Shamate enthusiasts, and Zhu Ning has become one of the new Shamates.

[Please enter your username]

Zhu Ning thought about it and filled in the name:

[The Sweetest Girl in the Universe]

After registration, a LV1 icon was displayed after her ID name.

'A Level 1 user ?'

There was also an option to choose between a Witcher or Cleaner icon; you can choose both if you want, and you can also choose neither. However, most people would usually list themselves as either Cleaner or Witcher on their homepages; after all, everyone has their specialties.

After the successful registration, there was an additional team button next to it.

'Does this mean that you can invite people to form a team when entering contaminated areas?'

To some extent, the ecosystem of the page was very similar to a bounty hunter organization.

Zhu Ning began to browse the new forum.

The news of Zhu Ning's elimination of the hot pot restaurant was synced to the forum homepage, and the entire site flashed with a notification:

[The man-eating hot pot restaurant has been eliminated by a new user, 'The Sweetest Girl in the Universe.']

Zhu Ning was startled when she saw the words "new user". She wondered if there were other new employees that joined the company recently. Otherwise, her identity would definitely be exposed.

But if you think about it carefully, the new users probably refers to people who received and completed a grave post for the first time, not that they joined the cleaning center recently, right?

But she didn't expect that the reaction of the employees were still quite big.

[A new user? A new user is already clearing in a Class C contaminated area right from the start? Are newbies so awesome now?]

[My first one was a Class E.]

[Who? A Cleaner or a Witcher?]

[We don't allow vest-stripping here, so don't ask.]

[This sweet girl has a promising future. I want to team up with her!]

[Even if you want to team up with her, she may not want to team up with you.]

The atmosphere in the forum was pretty good. People don't seem inclined to expose other people's identities. After all, if you expose someone else's identity today, you may be the one exposed the next day. If your identity was exposed, there's a high risk of your life being in danger.

The hot pot restaurant was just a Class C contaminated area, so not many people were interested. Soon they move on to talking about the real boss.

It was said that a user eliminated a Class S contaminated area by themselves today. The ID was Bobcat and the user level was 11.

There were a lot of discussions regarding this, but no one even knows the gender of Bobcat. They only know that they were a Witcher who only accepts tasks of Class A and above.

The Bobcat eliminated the S-level contaminated area and selected two teams of cleaners to cooperate, which meant that the cleaners were left to contain the contaminated spores.

But this was normal. Most Witchers wouldn't want to do the dirty work of sweeping up garbage. Many people below the post sent out team invitations, but this aloof Bobcat ignored them.

Zhu Ning watched the real boss go offline, then she also closed the forum page.

Fang Ying granted her a seven-day vacation. She spent one day taking private work, and the remaining six days lying around at home.

After the hot pot restaurant experience, Zhu Ning didn't want to move at all. She didn't want to think about the truth behind the original owner's death, nor the Eternal Life Pharmaceutical.

Zhu Ning was tired, so she decided to become a salted fish once again.

…

Six days later, Zhu Ning received a notice from Fang Ying that she should go to the center for training.

Li Nianchuan happened to be discharged from the hospital on the same day, so Xu Meng and Zhu Ning went to the medical department to pick him up.

Zhu Ning also wanted to come to the medical department to check it out first, so that she could see if the medical resources can really be exploited later on as Song Zhizhang said.

The medical inpatient department was on the 70th floor.

Zhu Ning entered the cleaning center again, and the feeling was different from the first time. Not long ago, she was still a new employee, feeling novel when she saw the cleaning center building. Now the building looks very familiar to her.

She has only been here once, but it feels like she has worked here for five years.

Sure enough, working drains the soul.

Even worse was the fact that she was working two jobs!

As soon as Zhu Ning walked inside, she felt a lot of people looking at her and whispering to each other. Zhu Ning didn't know many people at the cleaning center, so she had no idea why they were looking and decided to just ignore them.

Xu Meng was waiting for her at the entrance. He spotted Zhu Ning from a distance wearing casual clothes: a gray T-shirt, black jeans, a high ponytail, and a bunch of bright red roses in her arms.

Zhu Ning had long legs, and from a distance, it would be the first thing someone would notice. It was clearly the same person, and her outfit wasn't anything special, but perhaps it was Xu Meng's illusion; Zhu Ning seemed to have changed a lot, and she stood out in the crowd.

It’s definitely not because of her outstanding appearance. In an era where beauty can be mass-produced, beauty was worthless. She stands out because of her temperament and the calmness she exudes.

She looked like someone who has experienced a lot of ups and downs, not like a 19-year-old girl at all.

Xu Meng asked, "Are you going to propose to Li Nianchuan with the flowers in your arms?"

"..." Zhu Ning: "He asked me to give him a discharge gift."

Xu Meng's eye twitched, totally confused about what young people were thinking nowadays.

They were waiting at the entrance of the medical department and soon saw Li Nianchuan coming out with a numb and dull look on his face.

Zhu Ning whispered to Xu Meng, "Why does he look like that? Do you think he hasn't recovered from the mental pollution yet?"

Zhu Ning was actually very curious about how mental pollution was treated. Will the person be the same as a normal person after recovery?

Xu Meng: "No way. I read his discharge report and confirmed that he's back to normal."

When Li Nianchuan came reached them, Zhu Ning stuffed the rose into his arms and said, "Although I can't give you wings on fire, I still brought you flowers on fire."

Li Nianchuan: "..."

It was fine if Zhu Ning didn't talk, but because she did, Li Nianchuan wanted to die. He had just regained his energy today and took a look at his chat history and the video of his behavior taken by the doctor.

When he saw the video of him and Zhu Ning eliminating a Class D contaminated area posted on the forum, he felt quite proud. What a show! He'd never seen anything like it before!

When he saw himself saying that he was Zhu Ning's puppy and saw that the video had been played over 100,000 times, he wanted to hit his head against the wall or be contaminated again. The Li family really couldn't afford to lose face like this.

Xu Meng saw his embarrassment and consoled him: "The bonus was quite large this time."

Speaking of this, Li Nianchuan finally breathed a sigh of relief. Fortunately, he had money.

Thanks to Zhu Ning, the reward for killing contaminants was split equally with her. Li Nianchuan earned more than 600,000, which was the most he had ever earned from a mission.

Li Nianchuan: "I want to use this money to live in seclusion in the mountains."

He wants to retire right now.

"Don't say that," Zhu Ning consoled him. "Besides, there are no mountains and forests anymore. If you want to see them, you'll have to go outside the walls and fight the monsters swarming all over. It's better to stay here."

Li Nianchuan: "..."

Let him die.

Li Nianchuan struggled for a moment. Now that things have come to this, maybe he should just go live on a different planet...

Xu Meng coughed lightly: "Have you received the training news?"

Li Nianchuan responded sullenly, feeling even more depressed as he had to go for training right after being discharged from the hospital.

Xu Meng: "We'll go to the 45th floor for training at 1:30 pm. The three of us will still be in a group."

Li Nianchuan, holding the bouquet, froze for a moment. He asked in shock, "What do you mean we're still in the same group? Zhu Ning, you didn't become a Witcher? Why are you still a Cleaner?"

---

The translator has something to say:

Shamate enthusiasts - in Chinese internet slang, its referring to a subculture of flashy, exaggerated, colorfully dyed hair or spiked hairstyles, eccentric clothing, and rebellious attitude. It's pretty much mocked because of how "weird" and tacky it is.

Vest-stripping - Something like removing someone's disguise. In this context, its trying to find someone's offline identity behind the screen.

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