The Decaying Dream of America: I Assemble Corpses and Confront Madness

The rain in Emerald Dream City carried the rusty smell of technological waste and the salty tang of the ocean.

Ever since that same cold, rainy night in Seattle when Lin Zheng rescued those street children, he has become a regular at the city's charitable aid events.

When children speak of the future in their untainted, childlike voices, they always carry an innocent understanding of the world that makes people want to protect them and find healing in their pure smiles.

It's not just protecting children; helping those in need also makes him feel much better.

He needs to use this behavior to restore his sanity, not only because of the reduced rationality after experiencing visual terror, but also to correct the machine-like rationality after multiple "mental recalibrations".

He feared that he would cease to be a "human being," becoming a non-human spouting madness below and a projection of some ancient will above.

So every week he would go with an imam named Abdul to distribute supplies at temporary shelters in the slums.

Lin Zheng was not religious, but he believed in this old man with a white beard, and he believed in those who shared his beliefs.

In the dim light of the shelter, the imam told him that God did not stipulate that only believers could receive warmth. A bowl of hot mutton soup and a freshly baked flatbread could help many people get through a night when the sun cannot be seen.

It was here that he met those programmers who had just been laid off from Silicon Valley.

The leader was named John Teller.

They were once middle-class, but overnight, due to illness or a minor accident, they became unable to work and received no paychecks, thus triggering the harsh social cleansing mechanism.

The kill line.

It has another name in American society: ALICE line.

This refers to families with limited assets and income but who are employed.

Although these families' income is above the official poverty line, they have very little left after deducting basic living expenses, putting them in a very vulnerable economic situation.

It actually has a poetic prototype: Alice in Wonderland.

In *Through the Looking-Glass*, the Queen of Hearts tells Alice, "In our land, you have to keep running just to stay in the same place. If you want to go somewhere else, you have to run at least twice as fast!"

Reflecting on the current situation in the United States, it is like the middle class climbing on a series of collapsing cliffs, watching as the cliffs of each layer collapse and fall into the abyss below, while desperately trying to climb upwards in fear. Just when they find stability and catch their breath, the cliff collapses again. They run, keep running, because stopping means falling, falling into the abyss, and dying.

The middle class can fall from their original class at any time and become homeless people queuing for food at relief centers, and could fall into the abyss at any moment.

Their clothes didn't suggest they had been homeless for a long time, and Lin Zheng quickly became acquainted with them after chatting for a while. He couldn't help but sigh as he listened to their stories.

The law of this true jungle society is survival of the fittest. Indecent behavior, inappropriate clothing, lack of work ethic, and low consumption levels are all seen as signs of "weakness."

They are constantly assessing their own and others' value and "credit," and once labeled as "weak," they are immediately cut off and fall from grace.

After a few years of wandering the streets, they will end up in the hands of Lin Zheng and his group of corpse collectors and assemblers, where they will be sold for their last remaining value.

Lin Zheng told them that he needed someone to remotely help him hack into an office system.

He didn't have more money to help them with things like renting a place, but he had extra aid available.

Food, water, tents, and a few thick winter clothes that the imam had brought over.

For former elites who have just begun their nomadic journey and know nothing about the rules of survival in the city's underground, these things are more tangible than an empty promise.

But Lin Zheng could see their fate almost immediately.

Having fallen from the middle class, they cannot immediately accept the gap between a happy family and homelessness on the streets. Their self-perception and fantasies remain in a beautiful bubble, but the hardships and indifference of reality will burst the bubble.

They will most likely fall into self-pity, and then suffer a mental breakdown. Without physical pain, they will start seeking illusory pleasure.

First came the leaves, then the pills, then the powder, and finally the injection, ending with opening a window.

The ending is death.

But now they are needed by Lin Zheng, and perhaps they also have the opportunity to be noticed by the "American Dream".

Maybe.

Under the leadership of "Shadow", the group quickly formed a temporary team.

"Finch has very high system privileges; it's embedded in the university's main server, like an iron turtle."

The shadowy voice came through an encrypted channel, accompanied by static.

"But every system has backdoors, especially academic networks, which always leave some forgotten ports for the sake of 'convenience'."

Lin Zheng pressed his temples, which were still throbbing, his mind a jumble of images: Finch's perfect smiling face and the madness of the collective experiments.

He had to act.

At midnight, Miskatonic University is a silent cemetery.

To avoid being exposed, Lin Zheng used the Shadow Mirror to swipe a fake card made from the "research assistant's" access card and opened the lab door.

"They're inside."

He spoke softly into the miniature microphone.

"Don't go through the main corridor, turn left and go into the storage room. The ventilation duct monitoring there has a three-second delay loop, and Shadow is handling it."

The instructions came through the headphones.

He followed the instructions and walked through the darkness, the air filled with the smell of disinfectant mixed with the musty odor of old paper.

Professor Finch's office is on the top floor, with a superb view overlooking most of the university town.

"There are security cameras at the entrance, and I have already overwritten the physical camera footage with a looping video."

With a soft "click," the shadow unlocked the electronic lock.

The office was pitch black, with only the computer screen emitting a faint, cold light.

A peculiar smell immediately enveloped him.

The scent of mint and sandalwood is cool and restrained, yet it carries a pervasive and aggressive quality.

Lin Zheng sat down in front of Finch's computer and put on a miniature data reader.

"Connection initiated. There are three layers of firewall. The first layer is the regular college firewall, which has already been bypassed."

"The second layer is a dynamic password that changes every thirty seconds. I need you to enter the random code I give you on the keyboard at the same time."

"The third layer... Damn it, it's biometrics, no, what the hell is this!?"

The shadowy voice sounded panicked.

Lin Zheng did not answer.

When he looked at the computer screen, he sensed the presence of a third "firewall".

What is manifested in the form of code contains a strange, penetrating energy core.

A surge of spiritual energy probed into his consciousness.

It began to examine his state, analyze his emotions, and deconstruct his thoughts.

An invisible barrier set up by Professor Finch, an automatically operating mental court.

Lin Zheng saw a hallucination.

He saw his home in a second-tier city in China, where his parents were arguing about his tuition fees for studying abroad; he saw the scene of his first "gunfight" building, facing the corpse of a child, his stomach churning; he saw the cold, rainy night in Emerald Dream City, and the homeless huddled in corners, shivering.

These memories were precisely extracted, magnified, and distorted into weapons used against him.

A voice whispered in his mind: "Give up. Everything you've done is meaningless. You're just a loser, an escapist, a coward who can't even save himself."

"I will save you, I will train you, and I will lead you to new heights in scientific research."

The abyss was calling him home.

Any intruder will break down under this mental dissection, their mind will fall into chaos, and they will ultimately become a butterfly nailed to a specimen board.

Lin Zheng's body began to tremble, and blood started flowing uncontrollably from his nose again.

But he did not break down.

He had long since grown accustomed to this pain.

He had already witnessed a deeper kind of suffering.

He gave up resisting and instead actively embraced that spiritual force, fully revealing the hellish vision he had witnessed in the "collective emotional contagion" experiment.

Josh Vick's agonizing screams as his sanity was stripped away, the students' frenzied cries of guided emotion, and the Gundams' silent desolation in this hell on earth.

He channeled his anger, born of sympathy and pity, into a scalpel of equal sharpness and stabbed back fiercely.

Red and blue lights flashed continuously on the computer screen, eventually giving way to the normal white light that indicates the start of the operating system.

The shadow's voice was filled with shock and ecstasy.

"He sees you as one of his own! Quick! Download the data!"

The illusion before Lin Zheng's eyes vanished instantly, and a data access window popped up on the computer screen.

He inserted the USB drive and opened Shadow's homemade gadget.

He found an encrypted folder labeled "Optimized Sample Observation Records".

Opening it reveals countless subfolders named after students.

Josh Vick's name was prominently listed.

There was no experimental data inside, only Professor Finch's "processing records" written in an absolutely rational style.

"...Sample number JV-07, on November 6th, under the dual stimulation of 'hope injection' and 'anxiety amplification,' generated excessive 'faith potential energy.' However, its underlying logic exhibited a stubborn rejection reaction and could not be completely assimilated by the model. On November 7th, 'ultimate optimization' was performed, successfully extracting 1.7 grams of high-purity 'rationality crystals.' The sample's spiritual body has dissipated, and its biological indicators have disappeared."

"Processed."

This is not just a record of experimental failures, but also a well-organized murder report and a list of spoils.

The progress bar for the homemade gadget is moving slowly.

Just as the data transfer was about to complete, his gaze was drawn to a newly created folder at the very bottom of the list.

The folder was named using the initials of his name in pinyin – LZ.

He clicked on it almost as if possessed.

There is only one text file inside.

Sample number LZ-01, a native of Dongxia, has experience in the gray industry and has witnessed, dissected, and sutured a large number of corpses.

The mental barrier is exceptionally strong, capable of withstanding mental pollution far exceeding the threshold while maintaining the stability of the core logic.

In the "collective emotional contagion" experiment, it demonstrated extremely strong mental resistance; its mental fluctuations could even interfere with my "field".

What is most rare is that his spiritual core contains an extremely high level of empathy, an inefficient emotion, which coexists perfectly with his tenacious rationality.

A perfect sample like never before seen.

The next step will be to guide them into the "individual optimization" process and observe the efficiency of their "empathy" and "rationality" transformation under extreme pressure.

The date on the document is today.

Lin Zheng felt a chill rise from his spine and instantly spread throughout his limbs.

He is not a hunter.

He was merely someone who thought he had stumbled into a trap, unaware that he was already the most anticipated specimen in the center of the trap.

Professor Finch had been observing him from the very beginning, and even...admiring him.

The notification sound indicating that the data transfer was complete startled him awake.

At the moment he stole the evidence, he was also "seen" by Professor Finch.

He was locked, marked, and defined as a "perfect sample".

Walk through the empty corridor and down the stairs.

He was no longer an anonymous investigator, but the next test subject to be sent to the operating table in this insane dissection experiment.

The morning mist, carrying dampness and the earthy smell of grass and trees, enveloped the campus of Miskatonic University.

The cool air stung his bleeding nose and brought a brief moment of clarity to his muddled mind.

But he could clearly feel a chilling sense of being watched. Countless invisible eyes in the darkness were coldly watching him, this frantic fugitive, from the depths of every Gothic building and from behind every oak tree shrouded in mist.

He found a secluded corner, a blind spot for surveillance cameras.

He took out an encrypted phone and sent the data from the USB drive to Shadow and Evelyn through a multi-layered virtual network.

A few minutes later, my phone vibrated, and the screen displayed Evelyn's message, "Received."

This is not the end, but the beginning of something more dangerous.

He gazed at the gradually brightening skyline, where the skyscrapers of the Kingsport financial district resembled rows of enormous tombstones, standing in the grey morning light.

He reached into his pocket and gripped tightly the crystallized sanity formed from a portion of Josh Vick's brain tissue, which he had found among Josh Vick's belongings.

He is now a living, breathing "work" being sacrificed before that ancient object buried deep underground, about to become the next "sample" to be harvested.

Professor Finch's perfect smile, tinged with a hint of scientific inquiry and anticipation, flashed through his mind.

This expectation sent chills down Lin Zheng's spine more than any direct threat.

"Damn, this old man didn't fall for my looks, he fell for my brains."

Lin Zheng was spouting nonsense to comfort himself.