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

The city's twisted veins pulsed before his eyes, its streets, like blood vessels, coiled into dizzying knots, its towering buildings like cursed limbs pointing towards a shattered sky. Every ray of light was polluted, refracting a mottled spectrum of lies and deception. Every shadow concealed unspoken despair, and every breath felt like inhaling the decaying stench of this false world. Lin Zheng's reason, like a string stretched to its limit, was on the verge of snapping in a gale, emitting a fine hum. This hum was no longer an alarm about to spiral out of control, but a prelude to an extreme, abnormal clarity. Pain surged within him, yet it also tempered his perception, allowing him to penetrate appearances and gaze into the deeper structure of the dream. The "truths" he had previously ignored or misunderstood now surged forth like a tidal wave, assaulting every corner of his brain.

His eyes gleamed with a chilling light, not from uncontrolled madness, but from the calm and insight born of desperation—a cruel clarity born from seeing through the essence of the world. This clarity was not a gift, but a sharpness honed by countless sufferings, allowing him to discern every crack beneath the surface of falsehood. In his eyes, Professor Finch's "mental guardians," who had once filled him with helplessness and despair, were no longer unattainable nightmare giants, no longer suffocating mental barriers, but rather massive, bloated, deformed aggregates pieced together from rotting flesh, scrap metal, and twisted geometric shapes, appearing fragmented and vulnerable, like cheap toys carelessly piled up by a tyrant.

They were not indestructible nightmare creations, but rather inferior products born from a mixture of Finch's twisted will and the despair of the oppressed—a pile of "rotten flesh Gundams" riddled with basic errors and design flaws. Finch's hasty and "efficient" directives resulted in their sheer numbers, like a rabble, but of poor quality. Each guard bore clearly visible "joints" and "weak circuits" in the mental realm. These fatal flaws, as bright, almost translucent structural lines, flashed clearly on his retina, as if deliberately illuminated to facilitate precise disassembly like a surgical operation. He saw how each piece of "rotten flesh" bonded to "metal," how each combination of "twisted geometry" created structural stress points—the blueprints of the dream world, now clearly visible.

He clenched his right hand in the air, his fingertips twitching slightly. A cold emptiness filled his palm, as if awaiting the most precise suture needle, awaiting that professional instinct deep within his soul—the ruthlessness and precision of a surgeon. He wasn't summoning a real scalpel, but an extension of consciousness, a manifestation of pure spiritual will. This ethereal blade was sharper than any real surgical instrument, capable of severing the veins of the soul, dissecting the structure of thought, and exposing the intangible nightmare to its utterly vulnerable nature. It was a strange tranquility, a power bestowed upon him on the edge of extreme madness.

He charged headlong into the path of one of the ten-meter-tall guards, a monster with a dog's head, a human body, and four grotesque arms, reeking of decay and blood. The deformed arm of this "Gundam" slammed down with a howling wind, the air groaning dully and nauseating in the dimension of consciousness, carrying the stench of death and rot, and the whispers of countless wronged souls. Lin Zheng didn't dodge; his body trembled slightly, not from fear, but from the instinctive warning of impending immense pain. His gaze locked onto the guard's bright, pulsating core weakness in its chest cavity, like a top pathologist seeing the source of a tumor, which he had to completely remove before it spread.

In an instant, his consciousness, like a blade, tore through the air, tracing an invisible arc before precisely piercing the twisted logical structure within the guard's chest. It was a fragile core pieced together from countless complex elements: the lingering, venomous fear left by the dead; the numbness and despair of his coworkers on the assembly line, the false hope instilled by the media and officials; and the life force squeezed to its limit and shattered. These negative emotions were cleverly woven by Finch into a seemingly solid yet extremely unstable whole, ready to crumble like a powder keg once touched. Lin Zheng could feel that the blade wasn't cutting through flesh and blood, but rather a foul-smelling dark energy; each cut was accompanied by a painful tremor of consciousness.

"boom--"

It wasn't a tremor in his eardrums, but a silent yet incredibly powerful explosion deep within his consciousness. From the point of penetration, the guard's body rapidly disintegrated as if infected by a virus. Rotting flesh peeled away, discarded metal parts shattered, and twisted geometric shapes, like melting ice, transformed into countless fragments of broken dreams and chaotic, highly toxic mental energy. This energy, like a black tide, backfired on Lin Zheng, assaulting every inch of his consciousness. Each impact brought violent mental spasms; his body trembled uncontrollably, his nails digging deep into his palms, yet he felt no real pain. The mental agony far exceeded the limits of his physical endurance, completely overwhelming his senses.

He clenched his teeth, his tongue tasting the metallic scent of blood mixed with formaldehyde—the smell of ruptured nasal lining from overworking his brain, the backlash from the overly close connection between his mental world and his physical body. He forced himself to "greedily" devour these fragments, like a starving beast treating poison as nectar. With each devouring, he could feel Finch's will resisting and crumbling, stripping away a part of his control over the dream. These were the core "components" of the guardian, the basic data Professor Finch used to manipulate this dream, and the very foundation that sustained its construction. Each devouring was like gnawing on Finch's flesh, giving him a deeper, more profound understanding of the workings of Finch's dream. The twisted chains of logic and emotional traps were laid bare before his eyes, as if the entire original code of the dream was being deciphered.

"Impossible! How could you dismantle my creation so quickly?!" Finch's voice rang in his mind like thunder, filled with unbelievable anger and a hint of barely concealed fear, making Lin Zheng's consciousness dizzy as if it were about to shatter.

"You're just a damned rat! A puppet I've been playing with! How dare you tear my lifeblood apart?! My creation! These guards, I forged them with the finest 'materials,' they embody billions of despair and hatred, they are my masterpiece!" His roar was filled with offended arrogance and an inability to accept reality, like a child witnessing the destruction of his block castle.

Lin Zheng ignored Finch's roar. He threw himself entirely into this silent mental slaughter, his consciousness like a master anatomist, wielding an invisible blade with precision and ruthlessness, each strike hitting its mark. In his vision, more weaknesses surfaced, like crops awaiting harvest. His consciousness transformed into a vast, yet overloaded, mental net, spread out deep within the distorted city, waiting to capture its next prey, waiting to utterly tear this false paradise apart. Every drop of blood in his veins burned for this revenge.

Another guard roared as it charged forward, its empty eyes radiating a ghostly light interwoven with resentment and numbness, carrying an instinctive hatred for the living and the sorrow of being enslaved. Its massive body was composed of countless twisted worker limbs and machine gears, each step exuding a heavy sense of oppression, attempting to crush Lin Zheng into finer spiritual dust with its enormous, bloated form. But Lin Zheng had already seen through its true nature—it was nothing more than a walking corpse under Finch's orders, all its "power" stemming from extracted and twisted despair, devoid of any autonomous soul.

Lin Zheng didn't choose to attack its core directly, because he had learned a more ingenious and efficient way to "disassemble" it. He chose to sever the "memory power node" connecting the right arm, where countless workers, crippled by overwork, were ruthlessly abandoned by the factory and ultimately died alone, accumulated resentment. This resentment was the source of power driving its mechanical arm, the foundation of its existence, bearing the forgotten pain and the deprived hope.

With a precise severance from the blade of consciousness, the guard's once unstoppable right arm plummeted, losing all support. The moment it touched the ground, it instantly dissolved into a pool of black, viscous fluid, emitting a nauseating stench, like countless rotting dreams crumbling within it. The guard's roar was laced with twisted agony, as if the bioelectricity within it was bursting out in chaos, arcs of electricity crisscrossing its metallic skeleton, foreshadowing utter collapse. This was not merely a physical breakdown, but the rapid disintegration of the very mental structure that constituted its existence.

Lin Zheng's body trembled violently, as if countless tiny insects were crawling beneath his skin. His mind teetered on the brink of breakthrough and collapse, every nerve screaming. He could feel the excruciating pain of his brain nerves being torn apart, as if someone was tightening a rough hemp rope around his brain, trying to grind his consciousness to pieces. But he didn't stop. Each breakdown consumed him, yet also strengthened him, constantly increasing his control over this dream world, like being reborn from the ashes.

He knew that the stability of this dream, meticulously constructed by Finch, was rapidly declining because of his retaliation. The surrounding city echoed his destruction, groaning in anguish. Streetlights overhead suddenly shattered, spewing black "sparks"; glass from skyscrapers dripped slowly and disgustingly like molten wax, revealing rusty internal structures; the ground cracked open with huge, bottomless fissures, revealing abyssal darkness, as if the very foundation of the dream was being peeled away bit by bit, layer upon layer of false appearances being stripped away.

Finch's voice grew increasingly anxious, transforming from initial rage into undisguised panic: "Stop! You madman! You're destroying everything I have! You're disrupting the balance! You don't know what you're doing! This entire dream is a perfect system that I painstakingly built!" His tone carried a hint of pleading and deep resentment, as if he had lost the most precious treasure in his life.

"How dare you touch my core! That's my research, the culmination of my years of hard work! That's my ideal world! It holds all my ambitions and visions, a pure world without conflict, completely under my control!" He roared hysterically, like a child who had been robbed of everything, with a kind of obsessive madness.

"An ideal state?" Lin Zheng sneered in his mind. He could feel his lips twitching, as if they had been frozen and then forcibly pulled open, his muscles stiff. The word sounded incredibly ridiculous and ironic to him, like using the most beautiful words to describe the most filthy scene. The despair of those billions of beings deconstructed, numbered, and stored by Finch, the cries of exploitation and oppression, were the most solid and bloodiest foundation of his so-called "ideal state," filled with stench, a hypocritical paradise built on corpses.

As the dream continued to collapse, he saw more light, clearer and more stable than ever before. It was no longer a blurry illusion, but a "monitoring room" composed of countless points of light and data streams, like a brainstem in the void, deeply embedded in the deepest part of the dream, its very core. It was no longer a fleeting illusion, but a tangible reality within his mental perception, within reach, where he could even feel the intricate energy pulses at work.

He could even vaguely make out one of the flickering points of light, which corresponded to a server number in the real world. It was a complex string of characters, carrying a cold, precise metallic feel, flashing with combinations of numbers and letters, like a coordinate in the real world, a position accurate to the millimeter. This number represented a real physical coordinate, the core hub through which Finch manipulated dreams in the real world, the source of all his power. It was the last straw he had grasped in the abyss.

This was the only hope he left for his allies outside, an "anchor" that could truly break Finch's prison, a bridge built in the void, connecting him with his comrades outside. Even if he was about to die, even if his consciousness was about to dissipate, this message had to be sent out, like a torch lit in the endless darkness, guiding the way.

He let out a low, hoarse roar, almost tearing his throat apart, each syllable filled with blood and exhaustion. The voice carried the despair of a dying beast, and the resolute determination to fight to the death—a roar of fury against fate, against Finch, against all falsehood. This roar was not merely due to physical pain, but rather a surging will from within to shatter all this falsehood and manipulation, a burning, life-affirming tenacity ignited in despair, his final struggle and cry as a "human being."

He had to persevere, even if it meant burning away his last shred of sanity and becoming a complete zombie, to ensure this crucial message was "anchored" and perceived by his allies. This was his final mission, the only resistance he could offer for the souls devoured by Finch. His spirit teetered on the edge of distortion and self-sacrifice, all for the sake of this moment's meaning.

"No... This is impossible... You're just a rat! You must disappear! You must! My dream, my creation, my life's work! You damned intruder, get out of here!" Finch's voice changed from initial rage to a hint of undisguised panic, then gradually faded away with a sharp and distorted wail, finally disappearing completely as if it had never existed, leaving only intense aftershocks in the mental space.

Lin Zheng knew that Finch's absolute control over his dream was crumbling, completely losing its balance, and might even have suffered severe damage due to the excessive depletion of the dream, temporarily severing its connection with this place. He had won this round, but the price was almost fatal; his consciousness was like a torn canvas, no longer able to bear a complete picture.

His consciousness, like a sandcastle repeatedly eroded by the tides, was fragmented and could no longer maintain its complete form. Each "deconstruction" cost him dearly in terms of reason, hollowing out his spirit. But he had no choice; he had to survive, or find a way to survive. He tried to "reformat" his mind, using the last vestiges of clarity to "recalibrate" his thoughts, searching for even a glimmer of light in the endless darkness, desperately trying to grasp at those fragments of memory that were about to dissipate.

He focused his mind, imagining himself holding an invisible scalpel, precisely cutting and arranging the skeleton of a "Gundam," attempting to combat the inner chaos with the order he knew best. He forcibly "sorted" the flood of chaotic information, trying to bring the disordered data flow into a logical framework he was familiar with, like a dying program desperately trying to reorganize its core code, rebinding scattered threads to avoid a complete collapse.

The pungent smell of formaldehyde in the port warehouse became incredibly clear on his mental level. It was no longer just a simple odor, but the smell of death, a harbinger of rebirth, a recurring cycle in his life. He recalled the twisted bodies he had pieced together, how he had realigned broken bones, how he had skillfully reconnected blood vessels and nerves, using every means possible to prolong life and restore his shattered body to wholeness.

He wanted to repair his shattered sanity in the same way, to stitch his broken consciousness back together, to bring those straying thoughts back under control, like reassembling a broken work of art. But this time, the situation was completely different. He was not facing external flesh and blood, but internal nothingness, a sea of ​​consciousness more elusive than death, as if he were trying to stitch up a non-existent wound.

Among all his clear fragments of memory, there appeared a strange, cold, and seemingly forcibly inserted "information"—an incomprehensible and unformatable foreign object. It was an ancient and obscure mark, belonging not to this dream, not to any of Finch's databases, not even to any civilization or time he knew. It was absolutely alien, an absolute intruder, carrying a grandeur and ominousness that transcended the mundane.

The mark was like a rusted ancient bronze coin, its surface engraved with unrecognizable, mysterious symbols, carrying the chill of earth and antiquity—a chill that penetrated to the bone, yet it also gave him a strange, primal familiarity, as if this mark had long been buried deep within his being. It silently called to him, pointing to a dark, profound void, as if inviting him to a place beyond dreams and reality, beyond life and death, an unknown realm where all laws would be rewritten, all causes and effects reshaped, a true beginning or end.

That force felt both familiar and strange to him, both threatening and fatally attractive. It was as if he had always been waiting for this call, waiting for an ending that could completely relieve all pain and put an end to all struggles, a true "end" or "beginning," a final destination that promised transcendence from everything.

His body, in the distorted center of the city, finally succumbed to the immense mental strain. He fell heavily to the ground, dust rising and quickly dissipating, as if even the dust itself was illusory. The surrounding scenery collapsed rapidly, huge cracks spreading before his eyes, revealing a bottomless void. Every particle trembled, and the entire world crumbled before him, shattering into pieces like fragile glass.

The crumbling city was rapidly dissipating, turning into endless black particles, utterly swallowed by darkness, leaving only a final glimmer of light in the void. Lin Zheng's eyes lost focus, yet reflected an unusual, frantic calm, as if he were about to step into a "reality" deeper than any dream, an ultimate destination he had never imagined, an abyss filled with unknown allure. He was already exhausted, but that mark had left an indelible mark on the depths of his spirit, like a burning branding iron, radiating an inextinguishable light.

It awaited him, silently devouring him, peeling away his soul and consciousness bit by bit in a gentle yet deadly way, reshaping them, inviting him to respond to that ancient invitation, to embrace that unpredictable destiny. This was his final act, and also the prologue to his new chapter. Lin Zheng completely lost consciousness, falling into the endless abyss pointed to by the mark. His body was completely buried by the collapsed fragments of the dream, leaving only a barely perceptible illusory fluctuation, proving that he had once struggled here.