Chapter 1

In the dilapidated and gloomy building, a damp and moldy smell permeated the air, and snakes and rats occasionally darted by. Upon closer inspection, a child could be seen lying in a corner.

The surroundings were eerily quiet.

Wei San was covered with a dirty, tattered blanket. The ceiling, with its exposed rebar, gave the illusion that it could collapse at any moment.

‘Drip—’

A drop of muddy water fell on her face.

‘...’

Without opening her eyes, Wei San rolled to the farthest corner, avoiding the dripping water, and continued to sleep.

At four in the morning, the alarm clock in the corner suddenly rang, and Wei San reached out to turn it off.

‘Click—’

The alarm clock's leg broke.

She suddenly woke up, scratched her messy hair, and examined the broken alarm clock. Fortunately, it could still be repaired.

Wei San rolled up the blanket and piled it in a slightly cleaner corner. Then she rummaged through a pile of scrap metal and found a large bag, and walked out of the abandoned building.

She was going to collect garbage.

A month ago, Wei San, a well-fed senior engineer, had become a seven-year-old orphan who ate anything. When she woke up, a large rat was squatting beside her face, ready to gnaw on her.

The child had left due to a high fever and woke up as the engineer Wei San.

She had the child's memories. The child had been raised by a mute old man who lived near the garbage dump. The old man had recently died, leaving her alone. Her former home had been taken over by neighbors, and the child, at a loss, had found this dilapidated building to live in. She scavenged for food in the garbage dump every day, but hunger and a sudden high fever had taken her life.

Wei San, being an adult, spent a night accepting reality and continued scavenging in the garbage dump the next day.

If she didn't eat, she would starve to death.

Over the past month, Wei San had used the collected garbage and scrap metal to build a tricycle. She placed the large bag on the back and rode it, clattering along. The garbage truck dumped its load at two in the morning, and she went at four to avoid adults.

There were hundreds of people living near the garbage dump, all relying on it for survival. Adults scavenged first, and children without parents could only search last. If they found something valuable, it could be taken away, and they might even be beaten or killed. They couldn't wait until the sun came up to scavenge, as the smell of the garbage dump would be too overwhelming.

When she arrived at the garbage dump, there were indeed few people left. The new load of garbage had already been mostly scavenged, making it difficult to find any edible items.

Wei San calmed down and took a deep breath: "Ugh—"

Damn, she had forgotten this was a garbage dump.

She dragged the large bag into the pile of garbage, being careful not to sink. People often accidentally sank and suffocated to death.

Most of the recyclable metals had already been taken by adults. Wei San squatted on the mountain of garbage, slowly searching. When she found something interesting, she threw it into the bag, temporarily forgetting her hunger.

Wei San focused on one area and found a broken test tube with a drop of pink liquid at the bottom. She picked it up and sniffed it, her eyes lighting up—it was a nutrient solution!

She immediately raised it to her mouth and poured it in. After a while, the drop of nutrient solution finally slid down the side of the test tube.

Wei San savored it for a moment—it was strawberry-flavored nutrient solution.

The feeling of dizziness from hunger dissipated somewhat.

Nutrient solutions were good, filling, but unfortunately, there was only one drop.

If she could find half a bottle, she wouldn't have to go hungry for a day.

Just as she thought this, a beam of strong light shone down. Wei San looked up to see a garbage truck.

Strange, the garbage truck usually came at two in the morning. It was already past four, so why was there still a garbage truck?

Before Wei San could think more, another garbage truck appeared in the sky above the dump. She immediately dragged her bag down, as the garbage trucks didn't care if there were people below and would dump their loads directly, often killing people.

When Wei San hid by the edge of the dump, she saw that there were five garbage trucks circling above, with a small aircraft nearby.

The front window of the small aircraft was flashing white light, a frequency that reminded Wei San of cameras used by media in her world.

The next second, the five garbage trucks opened their bottom panels, and numerous large boxes fell into the dump. The light from the small aircraft flashed even more frequently.

After the garbage trucks finished dumping, they left with the small aircraft.

Wei San waited a moment before quickly climbing up to see what was in the boxes.

She didn't need to look; she could already smell it—it was the scent of nutrient solutions!

The boxes that had fallen from the garbage trucks had already been broken open, and the smell of nutrient solutions mixed with the stench of the dump, creating a peculiar aroma.

Wei San took out a flashlight from her pocket and shone it on the boxes. She pulled off the seals and gasped—inside were brand new nutrient solutions.

She opened several more boxes, and they all contained nutrient solutions.

This situation seemed like the destruction of problematic food.

Not knowing what was wrong with the nutrient solutions, Wei San immediately carried the intact boxes and stuffed them into her large bag. She managed to fit three large boxes, then dragged the bag to her tricycle, loaded the boxes onto it, and pushed the tricycle into the bushes to hide it. She then ran back to the dump and repeated the process, carrying more nutrient solutions to the tricycle. By the third trip, other scavengers had started to arrive and were fighting over the nutrient solutions.

They immediately broke open the bottles and poured the nutrient solutions into their mouths.

"It's really a nutrient solution! It's delicious!"

"Quick, quick, grab it!"

Wei San continued to carry nutrient solutions. When she felt dizzy from hunger, she drank two bottles, and her stomach felt warm, the pain from hunger slowly subsiding.

She didn't drink more and continued until the tricycle was full. Then she pushed it back to her home.

It was quite a lot.

Wei San gritted her teeth and rode the creaking tricycle back. She needed to find a way to make it electric, but she hadn't found the necessary parts in the dump yet. The energy sources in this world were very different from those in her world, and the child only had memories of scavenging with the old man.

Back at the abandoned building, Wei San slowly moved the nutrient solutions inside, a total of twelve boxes, which she neatly stacked against the wall, feeling satisfied.

Finally, she wouldn't have to go hungry anymore.

Over the past month, her hunger had slowed her thinking, and she had been preoccupied with finding food every day.

Wei San suffered more than the original child, who had never seen anything good. In her original world, there were countless delicious foods. When she was hungry, her mind was filled with thoughts of food, making her even hungrier. She had mentally prepared herself countless times to eat garbage.

After resting on the ground for a while, Wei San decided to go back to the dump to collect more nutrient solutions.

The five trucks of nutrient solutions were a significant amount, and even with all the people who lived off the dump, they couldn't finish it all. Therefore, the dump was unusually harmonious, with everyone busy collecting nutrient solutions.

Wei San made four trips, from dawn to dusk, bringing back a total of forty-eight boxes, with her pockets stuffed with loose nutrient solutions.

That night, she treated herself to a fruit-flavored and a vegetable-flavored nutrient solution, and the hunger that had plagued her for a month finally disappeared. She fixed the alarm clock's leg and then lay down to rest.

She slept until four the next morning, when the alarm clock rang again. Wei San got up, feeling much better, and prepared to go to the dump. This time, her goal wasn't just nutrient solutions but the garbage dumped at two in the morning.

When she arrived, there were still many people at the dump, but they were all focused on the nutrient solutions and not on the garbage.

This time, Wei San only carried three boxes, as the nutrient solutions were running out, and some adults had started to claim areas, preventing others from collecting. She gave up and went to scavenge for garbage instead.

She was looking for useful materials to make something.

After an hour of searching, with the sun about to rise, Wei San got up and left, riding her tricycle back.

Back at her home, Wei San squatted in front of a wooden box, her hand brushing over a row of nutrient solutions, feeling incredibly wealthy.

She could now choose the flavor of her nutrient solutions.

Wei San selected a strawberry-flavored nutrient solution and carefully took a small sip. It was delicious.

Although she had dozens of boxes of nutrient solutions, she still needed to be frugal, at least until she found a way to survive.

After filling her stomach, Wei San sorted the items in her bag and looked at all her possessions, deciding to go out for a while.

When the old man was alive, they could sell the scrap they collected. The child's memories included the old man often heading north to sell metal scrap in the city.

It had been a month, and with so many nutrient solutions to fill her stomach, Wei San wanted to go to the city.

She repaired her tricycle, using the oil she had collected from the dump to lubricate the chain and bearings, ensuring it would run smoothly the next day.

The next day, after cleaning herself up, Wei San pedaled the tricycle north. It took about five hours to see the city.

No wonder the old man didn't bring the child along; it was such a long distance.

She took a breath, took a nutrient solution from her cloth bag, and drank it to regain her strength before continuing.

This was Wei San's first time seeing relatively normal people in this world, aside from the occasional flying vehicles in the sky and the various realistic virtual ads on the roadside, which were almost identical to her world.

"Recently, a batch of nutrient solutions from Tongxuan Company was found to be lacking essential elements, making it ineffective for human consumption... It has been dealt with."

Wei San heard a news broadcast from a virtual screen to her right, which caught her attention. She looked up and saw several photos on the screen.

They were of the dump she had been to for the past month, with several garbage trucks continuously dumping.

Wei San raised an eyebrow. In one of the photos, she saw herself, a small, dark figure with only large eyes visible, the rest of her body pitifully thin.

—Like a little zombie.

However, from the information she had just learned, she understood one thing: the nutrient solutions lacked essential nutrients, making them ineffective but not harmful.

The most important thing now was to fill her stomach. As for nutrition, Wei San couldn't afford to be picky for the time being.

While Wei San was focused on the virtual screen, she didn't notice that people around her were frequently looking at her.

A seven-year-old child riding a strange, moving pile of scrap metal was a strange sight.