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

The mayor's voice echoed through the cold air via loudspeaker, each word wrapped in a layer of feigned warmth.

He had just finished a speech about community, hope, and resilience, which drew a sparse round of applause from journalists and a select few “citizen representatives.”

Lin Zheng stood beside Professor Finch, recording everything.

Beyond the cordon, the driven-out "Nightmare Fuel" ghosts stared with empty eyes at this stage that did not belong to them.

"Now is the time to reap the rewards."

Finch said in a low voice, his tone filled with anticipation.

With an exaggerated gesture from the mayor, the back door of the truck bearing the "Hope Foundation" logo was opened.

The distribution of supplies has officially begun.

A procession, fueled by hunger and anticipation, slowly took shape under the cold gaze of the guards.

Most of the people at the front of the line had received advance notice and were relatively well-dressed; they were the extras in this performance.

Their faces beamed with just the right amount of gratitude as they accepted the heavy cardboard box in front of the camera, which contained beautifully packaged frozen turkeys and canned goods.

Flashes of light went off one after another, capturing each smiling face.

However, when the camera's focus shifted elsewhere, the real test began for the second half of the team.

Two guards in black uniforms, wearing thick rubber gloves, stood expressionless in front of the supply distribution point; they were the "filters" Finch had mentioned.

A man with tangled hair and a strong smell of alcohol staggered forward.

"Hey, give me some food, God bless you..." he mumbled indistinctly.

Without even looking at him, one of the guards reached out and precisely pulled a flat metal flask from the inside pocket of his tattered overcoat.

"Does not meet the standards."

The guard delivered the verdict in a flat tone and casually tossed the wine jug into the nearby trash can.

"Hey! That's me..." the man tried to argue, but another guard stepped forward and pressed the end of his baton against his chest.

"roll."

One word, cold and heavy.

The man sobered up halfway in an instant. Looking into the guard's emotionless eyes, he ultimately chose to back down, cursing as he disappeared into the alleyway.

Finch gently touched Lin Zheng's arm.

"See that? The first screening."

"We cannot allow invalid emotions to contaminate the sample."

"A brain immersed in alcohol numbness cannot generate the dramatic potential energy difference from hope to despair that we need."

"He's been completely drained; now he's just waste that needs physical cleaning."

The next one was a gaunt woman, her child clinging tightly to her clothes.

The guards roughly patted and searched her body, their rubber gloves rubbing against the dirty fabric with a sickeningly sticky sound.

The woman obediently endured it, her eyes fixed solely on the desire for food.

"pass."

The guard waved his hand impatiently.

But when it was her turn to collect them, the beautifully packaged turkeys were gone.

Instead, there were boxes of unmarked, tan-colored paper packages.

The staff member stuffed a paper package into her arms. She quickly thanked them and hurriedly left with her child, afraid that this unexpected favor would slip away.

As the group advanced, the turkeys completely disappeared, and everyone was left with only these mysterious paper packets.

A homeless man who received the paper package couldn't wait to walk to the side and tear open the packaging.

Inside were dark brown, sausage-like things.

He almost greedily stuffed the whole thing into his mouth and chewed it vigorously.

The next second, his face turned a deep purplish-red, his body arched violently, and he gagged and coughed in pain.

The rough texture of that stuff irritated his throat, like sandpaper rubbing against his fragile esophagus that hadn't eaten in a long time.

"Bran sausage".

Finch's voice rang out again; he was a dutiful tour guide, introducing the sights before the tourists.

"A masterpiece designed by liberal leftists and petty bourgeois."

"Extremely low cost, extremely high satiety."

"It contains almost no useful nutrients, is difficult for the human body to digest, and its fiber can cause severe intestinal reactions."

But that's not important.

"The important thing is that it can give them the most primal sense of hope of 'being full'."

"Let them savor the 'gift' of the day on every hungry night, only to be pulled back to reality by the cramps in their stomachs."

"Considering the physical exertion they expended to get here, the energy they expended queuing in the cold wind, and the energy required to digest this stuff, they are actually at a net loss today."

"A perfect energy cycle trap."

Finch's lips curled into a satisfied smile.

"There is no more beautiful example than dying in despair amidst a hopeful feeling of fullness."

Lin Zheng watched the coughing man and ate the food he had finally managed to get.

Just then, a muffled groan and several heavy thuds came from the alleyway not far away.

A man who had just received the last turkey and was beaming with joy was dragged into the darkness by two tall, dark figures.

His hopes were swallowed up by a more primal despair before he could even leave a single block.

"Hope shattered in an instant, brilliant!"

The stage spotlight moved again.

The mayor walked down the stage in a friendly manner, weaved through the crowd, and accurately located a target.

Lin Zheng's heart sank.

is her.

That single mother who once pleaded desperately for baby formula for her child in Pastor Dunbar's refuge.

Today, she specially changed into a faded but still relatively clean shirt, and her thin face carried a hint of timid anticipation.

"My friend, you are the pride of our great city!"

The mayor spoke in his infectious voice, warmly taking her hand.

Cameras immediately swarmed around.

"A wonderful mother raising her child alone!"

"A future US president might be in your arms!"

The mayor looked exaggeratedly at the child in her arms with wide, innocent eyes.

A flush of excitement rose on the mother's cheeks, and her eyes instantly filled with tears.

She thanked the mayor, the government, and the country incoherently.

"We will help you; we will never abandon anyone who is trying to make a living."

The mayor made a solemn promise to the camera.

An assistant in a suit handed over a document and a folder at just the right moment.

"Come on, ma'am, this is the standard procedure for applying for assistance. Just sign here, and we'll arrange new accommodation and a child development fund for you right away."

The assistant's tone was gentle, much like Father Dunbar's words of comfort to her.

Overwhelmed by this sudden happiness, the mother didn't even look at the words on the document. With trembling hands, she signed her name in the designated place.

The flashbulbs went off again, capturing this heartwarming moment.

"A perfect script."

Finch whispered a sigh of praise in Lin Zheng's ear.

"Look, hope has been pushed to its peak, and her emotional output at this moment is the highest in the room."

Lin Zheng stared intently at the document.

"What is that document actually?"

He forced his voice to remain steady because he instinctively sensed something was wrong.

Professor Finch had been waiting for him to ask this question, and a knowing smile appeared on his face.

"Agreement on Voluntary Waiver of Child Custody and Socialized Support".

Finch pronounced the title slowly and deliberately, as he recited a poem.

"A beautiful, meticulous, and flawless legal document."

"According to the agreement, she will be sent to our partner institution for 'rehabilitation treatment' due to 'temporary mental stress caused by poverty'."

"It could be a private mental hospital or a state misdemeanor prison, where the work is very helpful for 'recovery'."

"And her child, this 'future president,' will become the guardian of the state government."

"Soon, he will be adopted by a loving foster family."

Finch snapped his fingers, separating the two acts of this story.

"This family receives a substantial monthly subsidy from the government until the child turns eighteen."

"As long as the child is still alive during this period, subsidies will be provided."

"Of course, the day the subsidies stop, he will be kicked out of his home and have to fend for himself."

"A brand new 'Nightmare Fuel' was born, perfectly completing the closed loop of class reproduction."

"We have squeezed out all hope in the present while reserving a future of despair."

"Not a single bit is wasted."

Lin Zheng felt like his blood was about to freeze.

He looked at the mother who was still thanking him with tears in her eyes. She didn't know that she had just pushed her child into another hell and signed a life sentence for herself.

"This is the ideal state."

Finch's voice was filled with a kind of religious fervor, and his hands, waving without regard for etiquette, were just like that man's.

He opened his arms and embraced the scene before him, a scene composed of lies and pain.

"The old methods were too crude, letting 'Nightmare Fuel' fend for itself, only taking its flesh and blood, evaporating its remaining value in chaos and violence—that was a shameful waste!"

"What the ideal state aims to do is to transform every effort, every dream, every tear, and every heartbreak into the energy that drives society forward!"

"We give them benefits and hope, and then through clever institutional design, we take it all back and leave them in debt."

"This repeated tug-of-war can continuously extract the highest quality emotional and rational value from them."

"Doing this can greatly reduce the consumption of 'sleepwalkers' and maintain the stability of the entire pyramid."

"This is a necessary sacrifice to save the majority, Lin."

Finch looked intently at him. "You have to understand, at this level, they can no longer be called human beings."

"They are resources, they are numbers, they are the cost of keeping the system running."

Sam!

Lin Zheng recalled the image of Sam before his death: a man torturing him without killing him directly.

The man once said to Sam, "And you, your dreams, your efforts, you could have been a better sacrifice, instead of just low-energy fuel and chemical residue like your brother."

So that's how it is; we've connected now.

Just as Finch was expounding his cold, logically consistent theory, a small commotion broke out in the crowd.

A little girl who looked only seven or eight years old, because of hunger, secretly took an extra bran sausage from the box where they were distributing it, intending to hide it in her clothes and bring it to her younger brother who couldn't come.

Her movements were keenly observed by a guard.

The guard strode over and lifted her up like a kitten.

"Thief!"

He roared rudely.

The girl trembled with fear, and the bran sausage she was holding fell to the ground.

She didn't cry; she just looked at the guard with disproportionately large eyes, filled with fear and stubbornness.

The guard sneered, raised his foot, which was clad in heavy combat boots, and stomped down hard.

The sausage, along with a puddle of mud on the ground, was crushed to pieces.

The girl stared blankly at the mess on the ground.

Her body began to tremble uncontrollably, her lips quivered, but she couldn't make a sound.

Then, a sharp, almost inhuman wail shattered the feigned harmony of the scene.

The cry was like an ice pick, instantly piercing Lin Zheng's brain.

His ability was passively triggered at that moment.

There were no chaotic fragments of memory, no bloody scenes of death.

This time, he "read" an emotion that was pure to the extreme.

That was not the "despair" that Finch described in quantification.

It was something harder and colder.

It was like a piece of black crystal, instantly solidifying deep within the girl's young heart.

hatred.

A burning, piercing hatred that could freeze everything.

In that instant, Lin Zheng actually felt a sliver of absurd hope amidst this extreme negativity.

The charity event ended abruptly amidst chaos.

The crowd gradually dispersed, leaving behind a mess and trampled hopes.

Lin Zheng watched as the mother, who had just signed the agreement, was gently helped by a "social worker" towards a white van without any markings. She still had that dreamlike, happy yet bewildered smile on her face.

He glanced again at the homeless men wrestling over a bran sausage that had fallen to the ground.

A hand gently patted his shoulder.

"Did you see that?"

Professor Finch's voice rang in his ears, tinged with a satisfied smile.

"What a rich variety of emotional samples."

"Let's go, it's time to submit your 'thesis proposal'."

Professor Finch walked gracefully ahead, so satisfied that he even hummed a little tune.

"Screw the thesis proposal! Ever since I started working on my thesis, my advisor has never asked me to do this. I don't know how!" Lin Zheng's pent-up anger roared in his heart, starting with "fm" and ending with "tm".

Damn this world.

Damn it, what an ideal world.

Damn it.