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

The last loud noise from the next room wasn't from banging on the door, but from a muffled gunshot.

The sound was filtered by the wall, losing most of its sharpness, but gaining a heavier, more ominous quality.

Then, all fell silent. This silence was more terrifying than any of the previous noise.

It's a declaration. A declaration that the search has ended and the target has been located.

The last glimmer of hope in the classroom vanished completely with the gunshot and the ensuing deathly silence.

It's been exposed.

Only these three words remained in Lin Zheng's mind.

"We have to go." He barely made a sound, only mouthing the words to Smith beside him.

Smith's face was ashen. He glanced at the thin wooden door, then at Lin Zheng, and nodded heavily.

"Where to, Lin?" Sam's voice trembled but was firm; he trusted his best friend's judgment.

"Chemistry lab area." Lin Zheng's gaze swept past everyone and landed at the other end of the corridor.

That's the most complex part of the teaching building, with more rooms, more corners, and more obstacles to exploit.

Moreover, the chemistry lab contains various chemicals, strong acids, and flammable materials. In a desperate situation, these could all become weapons.

Smith immediately understood Lin Zheng's intention.

He didn't waste time trying to boost morale; he simply glanced at the few people still standing in the room.

"Those who can move, keep up." His voice was low, but carried an unquestionable tone of command.

"Keep quiet and walk close to the wall."

No one objected.

The instinct for survival overwhelmed all hesitation and fear.

Smith took the lead and gently pulled the latch on the classroom door, the hinges groaning almost inaudibly.

He pushed the door open a crack and peered in for a moment.

The corridor was deserted, and the stark white light from the emergency lights illuminated the ground so brightly that every speck of dust was clearly visible.

Smith made a gesture. Lin Zheng followed closely behind, and Sam and several other students also came out, their bodies pressed tightly against the cold wall, moving silently into the depths of the corridor.

The corridor seemed unusually long. The emptiness created a tremendous psychological pressure.

On both sides were rows of tightly closed classroom doors, standing silently.

Lin Zheng could feel the cold sweat on his back soaking through his shirt.

He dared not turn around, and could only force himself to stare at Smith's broad back, mechanically moving his legs.

Suddenly, a suppressed sob came from the back of the group. Lin Zheng's heart sank.

He turned around and saw a blonde girl, the same girl who had exclaimed earlier that he had injured the fat boy, slowly sliding to the ground against the wall.

Her body was like a lump of mud, her hands covering her face, her shoulders heaving violently, and desperate cries spilling from between her fingers, sounding particularly jarring in the deathly silent corridor.

Clearly, she couldn't withstand the immense and continuous psychological pressure and broke down.

"Hey!" Smith immediately turned around, trying to stop her.

But it was too late.

The cry was like a boulder thrown into stagnant water, creating ripples that were deadly.

Seeing that something was wrong, the students behind him immediately scattered and ran away.

Sam and Lin Zheng helped the girl up and followed Smith quickly forward.

At the corner at the end of the corridor, a black figure silently emerged.

The figure was not tall, wearing a dark hoodie, a mask, and holding a black, simple-looking semi-automatic rifle.

He didn't fire immediately; he just stood there.

A patient hunter watches his prey fall into his trap.

Time seemed to stand still at that moment.

The baby's cries stopped abruptly, replaced by a gurgling sound as if someone was being choked.

Fear is tangible, standing right in front of them.

The gunman slowly raised the muzzle of his gun. The dark muzzle was aimed at the girl who had collapsed to the ground.

The moment he saw the gun barrel raised, Lin Zheng's mind went blank. His body reacted before his mind could process it. He took a sudden step forward, using all his strength to tackle Smith and the terrified girl to the ground.

Almost at the same instant, a piercing gunshot rang out.

"Bang bang bang bang!" A long string of bullets flew past their heads with a sharp whistling sound and slammed into the wall behind them.

Concrete fragments and plaster powder rained down on their backs.

Lin Zheng felt a burning pain in his right arm, as if he had been severely burned by a red-hot iron.

He looked down and saw a deep gash across his upper arm, blood gushing out and quickly staining his sleeve red.

The air was instantly filled with the pungent smell of gunpowder and dust, drowning out everything else.

The surge of adrenaline dulled the pain somewhat, but the wound on his arm and the constant flow of blood kept him more alert than ever before.

They tumbled and rolled around in a disheveled manner, finally taking cover behind a load-bearing concrete pillar in the corridor.

Lin Zheng pressed his left hand firmly against his bleeding right arm; the warm, sticky sensation became the clearest reality at that moment.

Through the crack in the pillar, he saw the gunman stop and lower his weapon. Those eyes, hidden in the shadows, pierced through the billowing smoke and dust, fixed intently on the corner where they were hiding. They were being watched directly.

The gunman didn't immediately give chase. He simply stood there, about twenty meters away, quietly watching them.

This silent standoff is more suffocating than the continuous gunfire.

"What does he want to do?" Smith's voice was filled with suppressed anger and confusion.

"Cat catching mouse." Lin Zheng gritted his teeth and squeezed out a few words.

The pain in his arm began to become clearer, throbbing in waves. He could feel blood seeping from between his fingers, flowing down his arm, and dripping onto the cold ground.

"Why us?" The blonde girl who had been rescued huddled behind a pillar, her voice trembling uncontrollably. "What did we do wrong?"

"You did nothing wrong." A calm voice came from the other end of the corridor.

He was a gunman.

His voice wasn't loud, but it was exceptionally clear, echoing in the empty corridor.

"The world is wrong," he said as he slowly walked toward them.

His pace was neither fast nor slow, with the rifle hanging casually at his side, its muzzle pointing diagonally at the ground.

With each step he took, Lin Zheng's heart sank a little deeper.

"Look at you guys." The gunman stopped about ten meters away from them. "An Ivy League elite, a sophisticated upper-class person, a future Wall Street trader."

His gaze fell on Smith, then moved to Sam.

"A poor black man, I know you. You work hard at the docks carrying cargo, just to study and get a degree. I heard you even want to be a doctor or a lawyer. What a ridiculous fantasy."

"And another... exchange student?" His gaze shifted to Lin Zheng's direction. "He came here with his parents' life savings, chasing a dream that doesn't exist."

Lin Zheng's pupils contracted sharply. "I know you. I've investigated each and every one of you. Do you think that just because you're sitting in the same classroom, you're all the same kind of people?" The gunman chuckled, his laughter filled with pity and mockery.

"You are not."

"From the moment you were born, you have lived in two completely different Americas." Smith clenched his fist; he wanted to argue, but didn't know what to say.

"Do you know the theory of long-lived and short-lived species?" The gunman, like a patient teacher, began his lecture in this classroom of death.

"This isn't science fiction. This is reality."

"If a child is born into a wealthy family, with parents who are doctors, lawyers, and bankers, and everyone around him—his grandparents—lives to his eighties or nineties, what he sees from a young age is long-term planning, family trust, and investments spanning decades. His life expectancy is ninety years. His life is a long and arduous marathon."

The gunman took two steps forward, his gun still lowered.

"And another child was born into a poor family. His father spent his entire life inhaling dust in a factory and died of lung disease at the age of fifty. His mother worked three jobs—a fast-food restaurant, a supermarket, and a laundromat—and survived on painkillers. His friends either died in street shootouts or from fentanyl overdoses. The average lifespan of the people around him was forty-five years. His life expectancy was forty years. His life was a sprint of only one hundred meters."

"How can he make long-term plans? He doesn't even know where next week's rent is coming from, and he has to figure out where he'll get money for food tomorrow."

"All his decisions had to yield the greatest return in the shortest amount of time. So he dealt drugs, robbed people, did odd jobs, and bought lottery tickets. Because tomorrow was too far away for him."

The gunman's tone remained steady throughout, and his narration was complete, clearly indicating that he had given it considerable thought.

Lin Zheng had never heard these words so clearly before, but he felt them every day in the cracks of this country.

"You can't see the future in their faces."

"You're at the university," the gunman continued. "This is the last place where these two Americas meet. It's the last place where these two 'creatures' can smell each other's scent before they're completely separated."

"After graduation, your paths will diverge completely."

"The long-lived will enter Capitol Hill, Wall Street, and Silicon Valley. They will make the rules, design apps that will get the short-lived addicted, and sell the subprime loans that bankrupted them. They will enjoy private healthcare while voting to cut food stamps for the poor. They will live longer, healthier, and less human."

"And the short-lived species will return to where they came from. Or, they'll remain at the bottom of the city. They'll drive Uber, deliver food, work in Amazon warehouses, and be exploited to death by surveillance and algorithms. They'll continue to drink, do drugs, and kill each other in despair. Their children will repeat their fate. They'll die earlier and earlier, more and more painfully, and with less and less dignity."

"This is not a country." The gunman's voice held a hint of fanaticism. "This is a farm. A farm that uses the blood, flesh, and souls of most people to support the immortality of a tiny minority."

"You...we...in fact, we are no longer the same species. There is reproductive isolation and mental isolation between us."

Lin Zheng felt a wave of dizziness.

It wasn't because of blood loss, but because of the enormous impact of those words.

He laid bare the cruelest and bloodiest aspects of social reality to them with a cold, hard logic.

"So, you're going to kill us?" Smith finally roared, his voice hoarse with rage.

"Kill you?" The gunman shook his head. "No. I'm not killing."

"I am liberating."

His gaze swept over the trembling blonde girl and Sam, whose fists were clenched.

"For these 'short-lived' people, I am freeing them from decades of suffering and torment. No debt, no disease, no despair. A one-time settlement is an act of mercy, one they simply cannot comprehend now."

Then, his gaze turned to Smith.

"And for you 'immortals,' or 'immortal candidates'..." "I am teaching you the most important lesson. I am shattering your hypocritical, clean, and self-righteous shell. I am letting you see the true nature of this world before you die. I am letting you fall. This is a kind of fairness."

He raised his rifle, this time the muzzle no longer lowered. The dark muzzle was like a strange, emotionless eye, its gaze slowly shifting between the men.

"So, stop crying, miss," he said to the girl. "You should thank me."

"Don't be angry, you are the future elite," he told Smith. "You should reflect on this."

"Stop daydreaming, Black man," he told Sam. "You need to face reality."

"As for you..." His gun finally stopped in Lin Zheng's direction, watching the blood flowing from Lin Zheng and spreading across the ground. "A stranger struggling in the middle. You see two worlds, but in this country, neither belongs to you. A person like you will exhaust yourself in the most painful way."

"Let me help you."