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

As if to purify all filth, the pure white snow fell silently from the dark sky.

The suburban road winds its way uphill, and the snow begins to fall in a fine, dense pattern, sticking to the windshield and being pushed to the sides by the wipers.

Outside the car window, the city's hustle and bustle was gradually replaced by silence, with only a few abandoned gas stations and farmhouses occasionally flashing by.

Emilia sat beside Lin Zheng, humming an unknown, light tune, her warm breath gently brushing against his ear.

Jessica and Kevin chatted quietly in the front row, sharing their anticipation for the upcoming campsite and bonfire party.

Lin Zheng's gaze passed through the thin film of laughter and chatter, landing on the gradually blurring scene outside the car window.

Even when covered by the first snow, the sense of decay on the city's outskirts cannot completely conceal the underlying rot.

A few hours later, the night poured down like ink.

They parked their car at the edge of a forest area and set off on foot towards the pre-booked campsite.

Jessica Wong walked at the front of the group, wearing a bright red windbreaker that contrasted sharply with the pale snowscape.

Her gaze was drawn to a street corner half-covered by snow.

The halo of the streetlights barely penetrated the snow, illuminating a figure sitting in a wheelchair.

He was a homeless man, his body hunched over, his wildly growing hair covering his entire face, his head buried deep in his chest, and he was frozen solid.

However, he carefully held a small white flower in his hands, which emitted an almost holy light in the dim light.

That was the only thing about him that wasn't swallowed up by the night.

The scene was so poignant and beautiful that it touched Jessica's heart in that sudden moment.

"Oh my god...it's so beautiful." Jessica stopped in her tracks, her eyes filled with admiration.

Emilia followed her gaze and saw the scene as well, her expression instantly turning sorrowful.

She gently held Lin Zheng's hand, hoping to gain strength from him or to convey the same compassion.

Lin Zheng felt a slight tremor in his fingertips.

"Even when people are in dire straits, they are still willing to protect something weaker," Jessica said softly.

The statement itself is correct, but the way it is said sounds incredibly ironic.

"How about we give him some food and water?" Jessica Wong said, taking food out of her backpack, but she didn't move an inch.

Lin Zheng slowly walked towards the figure sitting in the wheelchair.

Because he had an extraordinary sensitivity to this deathly stillness.

Each step he took made a soft "crunch" on the thick snow, a sound amplified in the quiet night.

The students around him exchanged uneasy glances, feeling an invisible pressure.

Emilia followed closely behind him, her anxiety swirling between him and that figure.

When Lin Zheng was less than two steps away from the wheelchair, he stopped.

The air was filled with a sour and rotten smell, which was dispersed by the cold wind, but then strangely condensed again.

He reached out and gently touched the homeless man's shoulder.

The touch from my fingers wasn't the warmth of a living person, but a cold sensation.

Lin Zheng's heart sank, and he took out the gloves he always carried and put them on.

Using the dim light of his phone, he parted the pure white flower.

Beneath the petals, there was no soil, no flower stem, only tiny, wriggling maggots.

The homeless man's chest cavity had a huge hole in the center, and the maggots on his hand were a flower blooming in a deformed potted plant.

It seems they've finished eating their chest cavity and want to move on to another place.

Death takes root here, and lingers here forever.

Jessica let out a suppressed scream and almost fainted.

"What is this?! My God!" Jessica Wong exclaimed in a trembling voice.

"This is the beauty you see," Lin Zheng said coldly.

The other students also backed away, their faces pale, a mixture of fear and nausea shattering the tranquility.

Emilia grabbed Lin Zheng's arm, her whole body stiffening.

Her gaze was fixed on the horrifying "flesh and blood bonsai," her eyes brimming with tears of fear.

Lin Zheng stared at that face expressionlessly; his intuition was right.

He recognized the thing.

This is a "treated" work, a decorative item that was implanted into a living organism and then cultivated.

A bizarre flower that grows from flesh and blood, supported by bones, and nourished by the human body.

He could even discern traces of his chest cavity being deliberately hollowed out to implant "flowers".

This thing is called a "human flower".

It showcases "art," and an "aesthetic" that is distorted to the extreme. Anyone who can appreciate it must have some degree of human distortion.

Haha, nature's artistry is truly amazing.

Lin Zheng slowly raised his head and looked around.

He felt that reason was like a snowflake, its edges melting away rapidly.

Under Lin Zheng's powerful suppression, fear receded like a tide, replaced by an almost cold-blooded clarity.

Kevin Lee swallowed hard, pointed to another huddled figure in the snow not far away, and said in a broken voice, "There...there's another one there..."

It was a figure lying in the snow, its outline even more indistinct than that of the homeless man sitting in a wheelchair.

There was no sound; it just lay there quietly and silently.

Lin Zheng released Emilia's hand and slowly walked towards the figure.

Deep within him, a repressed professional instinct was awakening, and death, ironically, brought him a sense of peace.

Jessica and Kevin stood frozen in place, while Emilia bit her lip and followed Lin Zheng step by step.

Lin Zheng approached the huddled figure and carefully observed it using the light from his phone.

It was a young man, face down, his body curled up in a ball.

His face was covered with a layer of white stuff.

This white layer is neither snowflakes nor frost.

It is moving, wriggling subtly and densely.

Lin Zheng reached out and gently touched the white layer with his fingers.

At that moment, he clearly felt the touch coming from his fingertips.

He brushed aside the layer of white.

The fingertips scattered instantly, revealing a bloodied and mangled face beneath.

Those were countless maggots, plump and pale, greedily burrowing into the flesh that was not yet completely stiff.

Those wriggling white dots devoured the remaining warmth and absorbed the last of their nutrients.

They crave warmth and satiety just like their food.

They consume flesh and blood, and with them they consume everything contained within it, including the enhancers.

Their slender bodies, resembling long grains of rice, throbbed wildly due to the effects of the enhancer.

They are "ecstatic disco" dancing under the ecstasy of chemistry.

They...they became them...

"So it wasn't a flower after all? I must have been mistaken. Let's go quickly." Jessica said calmly and slowly backed away.

Kevin Lee, his face ashen, helped up his classmate who was vomiting uncontrollably.

Emilia couldn't help but let out a mournful cry. She hugged Lin Zheng tightly, buried her face in his chest, and her body trembled violently.

The romantic snow scene she had longed for was laid bare before her.

Lin Zheng's gaze passed over Emilia's head, and in the shadows of the night in the distance, he saw what appeared to be several similar figures.

They were all huddled together in the same way, blurred under the blanket of snow, silent works of art waiting to be discovered.

They are the snowscape of Emerald Dream City.