Editor: Elanor
Warning: This chapter contains mentions of drugs and drugging someone, and mentions of cannibalism. Proceed with caution.
Xia Tian sat in the passenger seat, flipping through the photos of the car’s owner on the car screen. The man had been having a great time with a group of naked men and women, and Xia Tian looked at them with relish.
Most of these people attending the banquet wouldn’t be fully awake until at least before noon tomorrow. He wondered if Bai Jingan had noticed the car owner before, and even before he hacked into the car, he knew that no one would notice them that night. And after that, even if someone were to check the records, it would be difficult to check the whereabouts of such a car.
He turned to look at Bai Jingan. The first time Xia Tian had seen Bai Jingan, he thought Bai Jingan was originally from the Upper City, probably because he didn’t look as anxious and distressed as the others. He looked detached and calm, like he knew exactly what was going to happen.
At that time, Xia Tian had thought that although the Upper World was inhabited by a bunch of perverts, there was no denying that sometimes they looked very handsome when they dressed well.
He looked at Bai Jingan again, but the man in the driver’s seat ignored his probing gaze, continuing to drive without any fluctuations. And even though Bai Jingan was driving a stolen car to dispose of a body, he looked ordinary and unimpressive. His eyelashes cast shadows on his face, his face was calm as ice, without even a hint of emotion.
The man drove the car around a corner and through a park, with a large green space stretching luxuriously.
Probably because he had vomited up everything he had eaten at the banquet in the bathroom earlier, Xia Tian felt hungry again. So he fished out a chocolate cupcake from his pocket.
He had always gone hungry when he was a child and hence when he grew up, he got into a habit of stuffing his pockets with snacks whenever he had the chance. The snacks made him feel safe for no reason.
Xia Tian rummaged through his pockets for some more marshmallows and cupcakes for a late-night snack, and decided to replenish his stock later when he returned back to the banquet; the organizers, being so rich, wouldn’t mind or miss the food for sure. He graciously handed one to Bai Jingan, who politely refused the snack.
Xia Tian leaned back comfortably in his seat to help with the digestion of the food. The trunk of the car had a suitcase containing the “gentleman”. Everything was very quiet and pleasant.
The car whizzed out of the city and the outside grew gradually empty and dilapidated. Bai Jingan turned a corner and the hover lane stretched downward towards the Lower City.
However, they didn’t travel to the Lower City, instead arrived at the transit area below the Upper World. There was a protein feed factory located here which turned the corpses into pure protein. This was then used for the Lower City’s fast growing meat animals as a feed. People in the Lower City sometimes ate this feed too, and this trend was now gaining momentum.
Except for inside the sunroom, no plants grew in the Lower City, and half of the limited food in the Lower City had to be supplied to the Upper City as a “technical service fee”. The crops in the Upper World were good, but they would never be supplied downwards. The easiest way to deal with the hunger was to feed the people in the “basement” with corpses.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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The interior of the protein feed factory was basically a scene from horror movies, so it was never show-cased on TV. However, as a resident of the Lower City, Xia Tian was very familiar with such places. There were a large number of corpses piled up here all year round, both of humans and animals, slowly pushed by machines onto the conveyor belt, and then into sealed machines.
No one knew what process was carried out inside, but when it came out, it came out as a fresh, clean, thick, milky white drink, with no shadow of its former appearance.
But he was very familiar with the process at the front desk in the lobby. There was a dirty receptionist robot that would buy the bodies at a low price; the whole process was automatic. The Lower City people would sometimes kill others to sell for a small fortune. They usually measured people with a “how many pounds” type of look, and it was normal for Xia Tian to know some such people.
He tried to drag Zhi Leng to the automatic scale, to weigh out the body and sell. Bai Jingan grabbed Zhi Leng’s legs, not letting it go and looked at Xia Tian sternly.
“The money from the sale will be enough for a good meal,” Xia Tian said.
“It will be recorded,” Bai Jingan said.
“I can erase the records,” Xia Tian said, “With a stealth program, this place is like your wife’s…” He swallowed a swear word that he used to say in the Lower City and said, “Uh, anyway, you can change it.”
Bai Jingan looked at him uncompromisingly, dragging the body inside. Xia Tian had no choice but to follow, and thought to himself, well, it wouldn’t have sold for much anyway, after all, Zhi Leng was on a weight loss program.
In the preparation area, the naked corpses were stacked up high and their clothes were taken off and put on the other side. These clothes were destroyed uniformly according to the regulations, but most of them were looted and sold to the black market.
Xia Tian had always found this place very creepy, after all this place was a place of no return; a final end point wherein a person’s whole life ended up into nothing but a pile of glistening white rubbish.
The former chief planner, Zhi Leng, looked no different from any dead body in the Lower City once they had stripped off his clothes and threw him into a pile of dead bodies. Looking at this scene, Xia Tian no longer felt this place was creepy but a good place, matching the former chief planner perfectly.
Xia Tian rummaged through Zhi Leng’s wallet, expertly taking the cash and tossing the rest onto the corpse. Then he noticed the ring and cufflinks weren’t that bad, so he knelt down to pick them up.
He felt an icy gaze on him, so he looked up to find Bai Jingan glaring at him viciously.
“What?” He said.
“I hope you have some basic common sense,” the man said coldly.
“Do you know how much this is worth?” Xia Tian said.
Even if Bai Jingan didn’t know, he certainly wasn’t interested. He stretched out his hand with a cold face, and Xia Tian butted heads against him for ten seconds before reluctantly handing over the gemstone. The man’s expression was a bit stirred up, so it was better not to argue with him.
Then, Bai Jingan picked up Zhi Leng’s clothes, blood-stained suitcase, and gems and dumped them into the incinerator. Xia Tian went to the pile of dead people’s clothes to look for anything of use that he could take back.
But the place had been looted, and only things that no one else would want, remained.
Among them was some nice clothing belonging to some unlucky person, covered with blood. The poor guy seemed to have been stabbed by a blunt knife around a dozen times before he died. The clothes had no recycling value. If someone took it, they would likely get into trouble.
Xia Tian felt that the way he killed Zhi Leng was the best way to take out any rich guy. This way the clothes wouldn’t get ruined and could be used again. It was a pity that they were all burned down mercilessly by Bai Jingan.
He continued to rummage through the pile, and finally only found a worn-out puppy button, which was worth recycling. He thought his little sister back home would love it. He had gone to jail, and after some unpleasant times, he landed into the Killing Show. He couldn’t even see her for one last time before he left the Lower City.
Judging from her IQ, it was difficult for Xia Tian to imagine how long she could survive in the darkness.
He felt a faint pang of pain and anxiety, though nothing was visible on his face; it was his usual relaxed and cheerful face.
He put the button in his pocket. He was used to this feeling.
Xia Tian had no idea as to why Bai Jingan would help him this time.
Of course, if something happened to him, it would cause trouble for Bai Jingan because he would then have to recruit new teammates for the next round, and improvise tactics and such, but those were all unknown factors. If what he was doing now was discovered, it would be considered as a collaborative murder and Bai Jingan would be ruined alongside Xia Tian.
He felt that even if he asked, Bai Jingan would most likely not pay attention to him, or just give some bland and useless answer —the kind that was clearly said, but didn’t contain any useful information. He seemed to be able to casually say two or three dozen of such replies.
However, he decided not to ask anything. What if Bai Jingan suddenly changed his mind after he asked?
It was like when you finally went to the Upper City and saw the sunlight spilling down, it was best to just let it continue to shine down on yourself instead of shouting needlessly, otherwise what could be done if it decided to react to the shouting and disappeared leaving you in the darkness again?
He had no idea what the other man was thinking, and could only guess that since he was a tactical planner, what he did to help Xia Tian was what he felt would have the most beneficial outcome.
And his own situation was so bad now that he would accept any help from anyone, no matter what the cost.
He didn’t find anything else worth recycling, but that was always the case with the factory.
Bai Jingan started the machine, burning the clothing and sending Zhi Leng’s body deep into the machine. No matter how powerful the man was, the machine quickly processed him, turning him into a fresh and clean form of protein.
Bai Jingan skillfully completed the set of destruction procedures before turning around and leaving. When he came to the side of the car, he locked the back door with a cold face and started the car, as if he was finally liberated from a boring drive he had to participate in.
“What about the assistant?” Xia Tian said.
“He’s at the party,” Bai Jingan said impatiently.
Bai Jingan drove the car all the way back to the hotel and parked it in its original spot. No one had noticed anything wrong.
After they slipped back to the dinner banquet, Xia Tian watched him walk into the lobby at a brisk pace as if he had never left; there was no sign that he had just dumped a body.
Bai Jingan smiled and greeted one of the planners, casually took a glass of champagne from the waiter and continued into the crowd. He then took two psychedelic pills (LSD) from the “candy box” on the table and put them in the glass.
—Soft drugs that resembled candies were placed everywhere at the banquet to ensure that the banquet remained upbeat.
Xia Tian watched with interest as Bai Jinagn pretended to take a glass and made a joke with one of the players that no one could remember, while slipping a green pill into the glass. By the time he walked into the middle of the hall, the entire glass of champagne was already a carnival.
Bai Jingan passed by Zhi Leng’s assistant with a distracted look—an hour ago, this man had gone to Xia Tian and asked him to go to the top floor suite. But at this moment, the man was drunk to the core, talking loudly with others, reaching out and gesturing to something.
Bai Jingan quietly handed the glass to him.
The assistant gulped it down and continued talking to people. It looked like he had no idea what he was talking about or what he was drinking. In a place like this, where everyone was reaching for a drink, eating, laughing and sleeping with someone, it was like they were living in a world without a future.
Xia Tian knew that the contents of the glass would give the assistant a very pleasant few hours, and by the next day, no one would be able to dig anything out from him.
He turned his head and took another sip of wine, smiling at a pretty girl next to him. Maybe he could find some company tonight.
The people of the Floating City lived in an endless game, without a care in the world, as long as they were having fun. And his crime quietly melted away into the wanton and luxurious lifestyle of the Upper World.
Thanks for the chapter ♥️♥️
Can’t wait for the next chapter ♥️♥️
“how many pounds” look, but an entirely different meaning.
Sorry, I accidentally replied to you.
Boss Bai is really too awesome.
Woahhhh why are the characters so cool!?!?!??! Thanks for the chapter!
Thank you for the chapter 🥰
Thanks for the chapter ❤️❤️❤️