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

The leaden sky was like an overturned dye vat, with blood slowly flowing through the cracks.

Deep in the sky, through gaps in the leaden clouds, twisted, blood-red lightning bolts, seemingly writhing like living creatures, occasionally tore through the air, casting brief flashes of light onto the ravaged city. A putrid, acrid dampness permeated the air, mingling with the metallic stench that filled his nostrils.

Lin Zheng's body was crushed as if by a heavy object, sinking deep into the cracked asphalt road.

He struggled, his fingertips digging into the cold asphalt fragments, trying to support himself. Lin Zheng tried to adjust his position, but felt a tooth-grinding grinding sound from every bone, as if an invisible hand was slowly twisting his spine to break. On the cracked asphalt road, there was a sticky, foul-smelling green liquid, the "blood" of some collapsed building.

But the sudden appearance of the mental guardians, their towering figures like moving mountains, pinned him to the ground. These large, bloated mental guardians were not physical entities, yet they were more oppressive than any physical form. Their skin was composed of countless writhing, mutually devouring muscle fibers and rusted metal plates, their joints spewing out a pungent steam. Each of their feet was like a steamroller, mercilessly crushing his struggling desires.

The muscles trembled, each attempt to exert force bringing a tearing, excruciating pain. It wasn't just simple physical pain; it felt more like an electric current directly acting on the nerve endings. The pain wasn't merely physiological; it pierced the deepest layers of the nerves, like countless tiny steel needles simultaneously penetrating, accompanied by the illusion of the soul being slowly peeled away.

His "intuition"—the ability to discern the essence within the cracks of flesh and machinery—was utterly blinded at this moment. Normally, he could see through appearances to any complex mechanical structure, understanding its workings; he could perceive the inner rhythms of living beings and predict their course of action. But now, this insight was severed, as if a giant sponge had been forcibly inserted into his brain, absorbing all meaningful information.

The guards before him were twisted aggregates of flesh and metal, devoid of any discernible structural lines. They were nothing but chaos, obstructing all his perception. To him, the guards were chaotic, undecipherable symbols, utterly illogical, plunging him into unprecedented anxiety and fear. He desperately sought their weakness, but neither sight, hearing, nor even the faint air currents he sensed on his skin offered any useful clues. This blind struggle filled him with more despair than mere pain.

Lin Zheng felt as if his eyes were shrouded in a thick, invisible mist, and the lines of the world became blurred and chaotic in front of him.

He couldn't see the energy flow in the monsters' blood vessels, nor hear the distorted vibrations in their bones. Those once clear, geometrically defined energy flow lines, those hidden force field equilibrium points within their biological tissues, had now become chaotic, scattered specks. All his analysis modules were spinning idly, overheating, yet unable to output any valuable data. His brain was sounding the alarm, but he couldn't pinpoint the danger.

His sensory system was like a short-circuited machine, leaving only a buzzing noise. This was not simply a loss of senses, but the complete deprivation of his core cognitive and judgment abilities. He had become a hunter who had lost his hound, trapped in a labyrinth full of traps, each exit leading to deeper darkness.

Each attack from the guards was accompanied by a violent backlash on Lin Zheng's mind. This force was like an invisible hammer, directly striking his soul. His sanity was rapidly depleting, like a leaky hourglass. Each impact took away a piece of his clear self, pushing him to the edge of chaos.

The surrounding city became even more distorted with his mental turmoil. Skyscrapers resembled softened candles, writhing tumors sprouted from the walls, and lampposts twisted into pretzel-like bones. This was not merely a visual hallucination, but a projection of reality eroded by a dream. Every object around him seemed to mock his powerlessness and naivety.

Those tangible inner demons are his deepest fears and self-doubts.

A "new Lin Zheng," pieced together from flesh and rust, stood before him. His deformed face, with its sunken eye sockets gleaming with a crimson light, seemed to be the embodiment of the countless pains he had witnessed. This "new Lin Zheng" let out a hoarse growl, each syllable piercing his nerves with precision. "Look, this is your final form, a blood-stained monster." A chilling smile appeared on the distorted face of the "new Lin Zheng," like a gaping wound. "You think you can escape? The death you created, the blood on your hands, will be your eternal mark!" Every word was like a sharp icicle, piercing Lin Zheng's heart. The air was thick with the smell of formaldehyde and corroded metal he had inhaled countless times—the nightmares of his dissection table, the evidence of his crimes while assembling Gundams.

Another guard, composed of sharp limbs and writhing entrails, swung its massive arms, sending up a stench of decay. Each of its attacks carried a chilling mockery, as if reminding him of the sins of being a "Gundam" assembler. "Your hands are already stained with impurity," another inner demon whispered in a twisted voice. Then, a body made of broken gears... A monster composed of nerve bundles and still-pulsating, semi-mechanized organs lunged at him, its segmented limbs scraping and screeching. "You once called yourself a creator, but all you've created is destruction!" Its voice, like the shrill cry of a malfunctioning machine, pierced Lin Zheng's eardrums. Those inner demons surrounded him; they no longer simply attacked, but rather subjected him to verbal torture, revealing the deepest, most hidden wounds within his heart. They knew everything he knew, as if a magnified version of his self-judgment.

Lin Zheng was knocked down, then mercilessly pulled up. The physical pain was bearable, but what he felt was a relentless mental crushing. Every breath felt like lead, his lungs burning with a piercing pain. This filled him with an indescribable despair.

The voice of "Alistair Finch" echoed in his consciousness, like a cold blade repeatedly slicing through his nerves. "Look how insignificant and incompetent you are," Finch's voice was filled with contempt. Finch's voice, like an omniscient observer, coldly analyzed every weakness, every failure. "Your struggles are merely fuel. Your pain is the inspiration for my art." It wasn't an angry accusation, but a calm judgment of a failed attempt. Lin Zheng could feel his spirit churning like it was being thrown into a blender, yet he had to try to unravel the logic behind Finch's words. He tried to find even the slightest flaw, the faintest glimmer of hope, in those cold, hard words.

Lin Zheng forced his thoughts to focus on Finch's voice. The voice was steady and rational, without a trace of tremor, yet it was more despairing than any roar. It was as if it were judging a substandard experimental subject.

He clenched his teeth, his tongue tasting blood—the blood from his own teeth grinding his lips raw. He couldn't fall, at least not like this. His lungs felt like they were filled with molten lead, each breath bringing a searing pain. Yet, deep within Lin Zheng's consciousness, the primal urge to survive flickered stubbornly like a flame. He endured the excruciating pain in his head, trying to refocus his scattered thoughts, though it was like lighting a match in a storm.

He gasped for breath, trying to muster a sliver of mental strength. It was a desperate instinct, not a carefully considered strategy. He wasn't unaware of the difficulty of resistance, but the indomitable will within him, crushed to its limit, unexpectedly unleashed a potential for rebellion. This wasn't just about survival; it was about defending the last inviolable territory within his heart.

The surrounding light dimmed further, as if a massive shadow had descended. Deep within the city, the air was as heavy as lead, each breath accompanied by a violent sense of oppression. The damp, earthy smell mingled with the stench of rotting blood, assaulting his senses.

Under a violent mental shock, Lin Zheng's body nearly collapsed. His thoughts were also on the verge of dissipation, his vision blurred, and all he could hear was a high-pitched tinnitus. The intense dizziness made him lose his sense of direction, and his stomach churned.

However, in that fleeting moment of blurred consciousness, a clear thought flashed through his mind. The way these inner demons attacked, their energy flow, didn't seem to originate from themselves. Each impact carried a certain programmatic precision, lacking the chaos and randomness of a living organism. Each roar, each attack of those inner demons, was like a strictly coded instruction, lacking the randomness and change of biological instinct. Their anger was programmed, their pain was pre-set. This wasn't malice originating from life itself, but rather some kind of meticulously designed, precisely executed program module. Lin Zheng's engineer's intuition was fully awakened; although suppressed, it still subconsciously sounded an alarm: this wasn't a creation of nature's dream, but a cage woven with code.

It was more like the transmission was happening through an external, sophisticated logical loop. He struggled to raise his hand, his fingertips trembling as he reached out towards the invisible oppressive force.

He felt as if he had touched a cold, invisible wall. The touch of this wall was so familiar that it sent chills down his spine. When his fingertips touched that invisible wall, a strange resonance pierced through his body. It wasn't cold; it was more like a feeling of complete isolation, a pure and inorganic existence.

It wasn't cold, but it exuded a data-driven sense of alienation. Its presence was overwhelming, yet devoid of any physical meaning. He sensed a strange structure, neither metal nor flesh, but a barrier more abstract than either, constructed from pure chains of logic. This barrier wasn't meant to block, but to distort, to reshape his perception. This sent a chill down his spine, for this 'engineering' quality resonated strangely with his own thought process. It was as if he were touching a mirror evolved from his own inner laws, yet maliciously distorted.

His muscles were twitching, sweat mixed with dirt and blood streaming down his forehead, stinging his eyes. The acrid smell of burning metal and rusting metal in the air was all too familiar to him during his work. Countless fragments and images flashed through his mind at high speed, like a malfunctioning projector. There was the fear of his first autopsy. There was the tedium of spending entire nights poring over materials in the university library. There was the formaldehyde smell emanating from the dismembered bodies in the "Gundam" assembly area.

He concentrated all his remaining mental energy on that invisible suppressive force, like an overloaded processor trying to force an incompatible program to run.

As his mind deepened, he "saw" something. Not with his eyes, but with a more direct, sensory "insight." In his "inner vision," those circuits were like bioluminescent bodies, flickering in the darkness of his mind, as complex as billions of neuronal connections, yet possessing a cold, mechanical precision.

Beneath the surface of the dream, a complex and intricate network of mental shielding circuits woven by Professor Finch shimmered faintly. These circuits, like a vast, invisible net, tightly locked the most crucial "truth" module deep within Lin Zheng's memory. Their crisscrossing nature wasn't meant to brutally destroy, but rather to subtly rewrite, redirecting his core abilities into nothingness. He felt his thinking being forcibly twisted, unable to extract the essential principles from the chaos—this was the root cause of his suppressed "intuition."

They severed the core connection of his "intuition," rendering him unable to categorize the chaos. This was a technique, not mere violence. The web Finch wove was not meant to restrict him, but rather to induce him into flawed calculations, directing all his perceptions toward a fabricated truth.

Lin Zheng suddenly understood. Finch wasn't fighting against his abilities themselves, but rather "formatting" his perception. He wasn't trying to destroy his talent, but to control its operation. This "formatting" was more terrifying than any physical destruction because it altered the very foundation of his cognition. The abilities he once relied on for survival and understanding the world were now being used as tools to limit himself. This realization chilled him to the bone. Finch hadn't killed him; he was taming him, transforming his soul into a submissive, harmless vessel. It was the most sophisticated form of manipulation, turning the power of genius into shackles that imprisoned him.

It was like installing a crippled version of an operating system on a top-of-the-line computer. This epiphany, like a lightning bolt piercing the darkness, allowed him to see the true nature of Finch's manipulation. This wasn't divine power; it was precise and ruthless engineering.

"Oh? You discovered it?" Finch's voice rang in his ears again, tinged with unexpected surprise. "Truly worthy of my 'masterpiece'." Professor Finch's voice sounded exceptionally pleased. His tone carried a condescending admiration, as if he weren't speaking to an enemy, but rather appreciating his own work of art. Finch's voice became clearer, as if speaking directly into his mind, each word carrying a deadly allure. "You see the structure, but you can't touch the foundation. You touch the edge of truth, yet you remain trapped within my framework. How pathetic, my Lin Zheng." The pleasure in that tone was like a cat toying with its captured mouse. It filled Lin Zheng with extreme humiliation and ignited a deeper anger within him. The more Finch affirmed and scorned him, the more Lin Zheng understood that to break free from this control, he had to tear it all apart with even more extreme methods.

"But do you think that simply 'seeing clearly' can change anything?" Finch's voice instantly turned cold again. His words were full of mockery of Lin Zheng's futile struggle, an irresistible declaration of the insignificance of the individual.

Lin Zheng realized that to regain his "intuition," he had to tear apart the "memory firewall" meticulously woven by Finch. This force began to ferment from the depths of his consciousness; he felt his veins throbbing, emitting a low rumble. This tearing force, like a red-hot iron, burned fiercely deep within his spirit. This was not just a fight against Finch, but a fight against the "self" reshaped by Finch. He could clearly feel the boundary between consciousness and unconsciousness blurring, and those repressed fears and struggles hidden deep within his soul being forcibly pulled out.

This would be a form of spiritual self-harm, an offense against his own consciousness. Every cell trembled, every nerve ending emitted a painful wail. He knew that once he took this step, he would no longer be the Lin Zheng he once was; he might pay an unimaginable price, or even go completely insane.

He saw himself as a "Gundam" to be repaired, and Finch's firewall as the necrotic part that needed to be removed.

He gazed at the spiritual guardians, their forms twisting and shifting before his eyes, yet in his eyes burned a calm honed by despair. The guardians' forms remained terrifying, but their stylized essence was clearly visible. The writhing flesh, the sharp claws—to him, they were now merely Finch's brushstrokes, false images adorning the canvas. He had to tear open the canvas to touch the reality behind the frame.

He was no longer afraid of their deformities, for they were merely the embodiment of the program. He knew he had to do it. He regulated his breathing to its most steady state, and with an iron will, etched the belief that he must break through it into his heart.

He forcibly ignored the silent screams of those pained faces, the grotesque trees dripping with blood and flesh. They were merely the backdrop of Finch's dream, not the real threat.

When Lin Zheng's fingertips touched that invisible wall, he felt a chilling familiarity. It was as if this barrier was built with some kind of rule he himself had once constructed. That familiarity didn't come from some technological blueprint, but from an inexplicable resonance deep within his soul. This barrier seemed to be a boundary he had unconsciously set up to protect himself from external shocks, or perhaps as a form of self-punishment. At this moment, Finch had merely used and distorted it, turning it into a cage that imprisoned him. This introspective, self-examination pain far surpassed any external attack.

It wasn't a matter of technical rules, but rather the logic of self-preservation deep within him. In that fleeting moment of "understanding," he glimpsed countless eyes coldly watching him from behind that wall. He forced his way through that barrier of logic, and in the shattered illusion, those gazes were as clear as if they had been etched into his memory. They were like silent verdicts, recounting his failure and guilt.

These eyes were cold and numb, devoid of any emotion, yet carrying a sense of judgment. Among them, one pair of eyes bore a striking resemblance to his long-deceased mother. But what devastated him most were those familiar eyes. His mother's eyes, which should have been the warmest and most compassionate gaze in the world, were now like cold glass beads, devoid of any life, only a deathly indifference, and a suffocating, almost judgmental, despair.

That wasn't a loving gaze, but rather an endless numbness and a kind of inexplicable disappointment. That disappointment was like a heavy hammer blow, shattering the last, pure memory he held deep within his heart for his mother.

This sudden insight sent a chill down his spine, and an indescribable fear gripped him. This illusion shattered his last line of defense, making him question everything he had ever believed in. If even his most precious memories were corrupted, how much truth remained in the world he knew, his past, and his self? Finch had not only attacked his present but also altered his past, plunging him into utter nothingness.

He knew this wasn't just a trick by Finch; he couldn't even fully trust his own memories.