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

Lin Zheng's gaze was completely drawn to the colossal object in front of him, and he could no longer look away.

The massive mountain stood majestically and sickly before him, bathed in the dim halo of his flashlight.

It is neither a miracle of crustal uplift nor the accumulation of rocks over many years.

This is a bizarre giant peak made entirely of solidified, grayish-white fat and countless remnants of human society.

"Fat Mountain".

The air was thick with the stench of rancid grease, a smell that was no longer just a pungent odor. It had taken shape, thick and viscous like mist, seeping into Lin Zheng's nasal cavity with his breath and corroding his lungs.

The stench, sweet and putrid, mixed with the stench of death, assaulted his nostrils, leaving a sticky imprint on his tongue, throat, and even deep within every pore.

A poisonous fragrance, a mixture of death, desire, and oblivion, swirled around him, seemingly trying to melt and assimilate him.

The beam of Lin Zheng's flashlight moved slowly and weakly upwards along the surface of the mountain.

This is not just a garbage dump, nor is it simply an underground filth dump.

It is clearly a physical fossil, the final sediment of humanity's insatiable desires and its ruthless abandonment by society. It is a living altar built from the sins of collective unconsciousness.

Magnificent.

Nausea.

Beneath all the glamorous facades of human civilization, what ultimately settles out is a "great" spectacle that is so ugly, so real, and so oppressive.

This is no longer just physical garbage; it is a concrete manifestation of the end of a life cycle, an eternal, self-reproducing ecosystem made up of human waste.

This "mountain" made of waste and grease is not completely lifeless.

Lin Zheng's senses were amplified, and he noticed a slight but continuous undulation inside the mountain.

Each internal undulation was accompanied by a small amount of gas gushing out from the surface cracks, as if it were exhaling the breath of the abyss.

The gas emitted a low, drawn-out hissing sound.

It wasn't the sound of wind or water; it was more like a huge, painful groan, suppressed and filled with ominous premonitions.

It is clumsy and slow.

It is a colossal beast imprisoned deep underground, yet still struggling, groaning, and occasionally turning its body in a chaotic dream. It possesses a vague consciousness, a living monster nurtured by greed and abandonment.

It is the city's unconscious excrement, a forgotten nightmare, fermenting deep underground and brewing unknown mutations.

Faced with this magnificent filth, Lin Zheng felt as insignificant as dust, as if he could be swallowed up at any moment.

He struggled along a narrow path along the edge of the mountain.

This passage is less a road and more a crevice forcibly squeezed out by layers of grease and waste.

The walls were sticky and emitted a sweet, fishy smell.

The wet, solidified grease underfoot produced a sticky, sizzling sound as it rubbed against the ground.

Beside the passage was a bottomless, dark, underground stream of sewage.

The undercurrent was unfathomable, seemingly capable of swallowing all light. If one were to fall in carelessly, he would vanish completely into the city's corrupt abyss, his very existence becoming part of this filthy torrent.

The flashlight beam carefully swept across every inch of the mountainside.

As the light passed, it illuminated more "relics" that were forever sealed in grayish-white grease.

They were frozen, distorted, yet strangely preserved.

The beam of light lingered on a particularly jarring scene.

He saw the outline of a nearly complete, transparent corpse.

It was an amber-like transparent body, solidified deep within the mountain, like an insect sealed in resin.

An exquisite, grotesque work of art.

The person remained in a climbing posture, limbs twisted and stretched upwards, fingernails digging deep into solidified grease, the tips still bearing the arc of struggle.

The head was tilted back slightly, the face was blurry but the skin was transparent, but it was clear that it was a face distorted by immense pain and fear.

She was swept up by this sticky torrent, struggling with all her might to try and escape the inevitable downfall.

Ultimately, a new wave of grease and alkali relentlessly overwhelmed her completely.

Her body was thus frozen in the mountain forever, becoming part of this bizarre structure.

Her body, her existence, and her nameless cries were ultimately swallowed up and absorbed in this filthy way by this enormous underground tomb, a mass of excrement and despair.

Lin Zheng dragged his leaden legs forward, each step draining his already dwindling willpower and strength.

He tried to keep his breathing steady, attempting to force out the jumbled thoughts and images flooding his mind, telling himself that it was just a hallucination, just a long nightmare.

He finally managed to navigate around the bend in the mountain with great difficulty. His body was at its limit, and every nerve was sending out alarms, buzzing and throbbing.

A strange sound suddenly came to his ear, which made him alert and his adrenaline surged instantly.

It wasn't the natural echo of flowing water or gas, nor was it the inherent mechanical noise of a sewer.

It was a faint, intermittent conversation, which sounded particularly jarring in the empty underground environment.

The sound was faint and indistinct.

It emanated faintly from the deeper, darker passage ahead, carrying a vitality that did not belong to this place.

"Squeak squeak squeak—"

A large, dark, fat rat scurried past him. Its fur was jet black and glossy, and it was unusually large. It stopped, its scarlet eyes staring intently at Lin Zheng with a ferocity and provocation that was not of an animal's nature.

It raised its head and let out a few short cries.

It doesn't look like a rat; it looks more like a human.

He gripped the scalpel tightly, the cold handle creaking under his hand.

What strange things exist in this depths of death and decay, in this underground tomb that should only be filled with stench and deathly silence?

Lin Zheng pressed himself against the cold, sticky, greasy wall, suppressing his breathing to a minimum. His body became a shadow, silently stealthily moving towards the source of the ominous sound, each step filled with near-madness-like vigilance.

Something awaited him in the depths of darkness.