A Superior Woman

The so-called bar street.

It was nothing more than a few ramshackle buildings in a valley of garbage, where scavengers could unwind.

Rumor had it that this had once been the site of the Pentagon belonging to a powerful European nation in the old era.

Of course, that Pentagon had long since been buried deep beneath the garbage.

In the distance, only a few skyscrapers that had once stood over a hundred stories tall barely poked their heads above the trash.

Several scavengers wandered slowly about, their backs hunched, wearing tattered protective suits covered in patches upon patches. Even the material of those suits seemed frail in the harsh environment.

People who spent their lives in Earth's garbage dump harbored complex, contradictory emotions.

Despair and helplessness.

Numbness and adaptation.

Reality and fantasy.

Loneliness and alienation.

Greed and a thirst for adventure.

Most adult men came to the bar street in their spare time for a glass of cheap alcohol contaminated with all manner of chemicals. What they sought was... fleeting pleasure and satisfaction.

A boy and a nanny robot draped in burlap appeared at the street corner.

They walked slowly toward the bar.

A shattered starship window by the roadside reflected his figure.

The boy's hair was long, covering his eyebrows and the corners of his eyes, and thick with dust.

He wore a dark blue scavenger cloak riddled with holes.

The cloak served two purposes: it marked him as a low-ranking scavenger, and if he became trapped deep in the garbage, its relatively conspicuous color could draw someone's attention and help rescuers find him.

Of course, there were no rescue teams in this world. Getting trapped meant waiting to die.

He wore black trousers and a jacket made of radiation-resistant material. To the naked eye, they looked much like the leather clothes of the old era, making him resemble a young cowboy.

He stopped and looked at the figure in a red dress across from the bar.

Hana was the most beautiful sight on the bar street.

She might even have been the most beautiful sight on all of Garbage Earth.

She sat on an abandoned fuel barrel, leaning against it lightly, her spotless white feet showing beneath her vivid red dress. Hana was beautiful, as though she did not belong to this world. As far as Cheng Qi knew, every man on this garbage planet liked her.

Cheng Qi passed by Hana.

Hana turned her head, her black curls swaying against her pale neck. Her long eyelashes fluttered as her beautiful eyes turned toward Cheng Qi.

A pale blue ring glimmered within her pupils, crystalline, mysterious, and magical.

It was the mark of superior genes.

After the Great Cosmic Era began, human gene modification technology had also come into its own.

Humanity had been divided into ranks according to the quality of their genes.

Like the other scavengers, Cheng Qi had ordinary genes. In other words, he was an ordinary human from the old era, which in this age made him little better than garbage.

Hana, however, had been born E-Level. Though she was only slightly stronger than an ordinary person, she was a brilliant, dazzling pearl on this garbage planet.

Anyone who had children with her stood a good chance of producing offspring whose genes evolved to a higher level, giving them an opportunity to leave this garbage planet behind forever.

Cheng Qi raised his head slightly.

In the distance, he saw a scavenger who had put on a cotton suit despite the risk of radiation. Clutching a bouquet of glowing plastic flowers, the man looked tense as he mustered all his courage and slowly approached Hana.

"Miss Hana, my family and I have saved up twenty-two thousand credit points..."

The man in the suit pressed his shriveled lips together and gazed ardently at the woman on the barrel. "I hope you and I could..."

"Everyone wants to get close to me. Everyone says they like me."

Hana's voice was clear and pure, her eyes like black crystal as she looked at the suited man.

"But no one respects my wishes. Perhaps my choice of a partner has never been about genetic standards, but about finding someone I truly like."

Hana remained polite, her face beautiful and her eyes captivating. "Having so many people approach me has become distressing. Promise me that from now on, you'll give me a comfortable amount of space. And please change into your protective suit as soon as possible."

The suited man's pupils trembled as he took a step back. He desperately wanted to say something, but no words would come.

Though he saw no disgust in Hana's eyes, he saw something far more painful and harder to accept. He was like a pebble dropped into the deep sea, unable to raise even a ripple. From this moment onward, Hana would not spare him another half second of her time.

Cheng Qi shook his head, then looked away and continued walking.

Hana's father was the leader of the Scavenger Alliance. No one could force her to do anything against her will.

Cheng Qi felt that Hana possessed not only excellent genes, but also her own values and perspective. In this filthy, chaotic environment, she preserved a world of her own within her heart, like a white lotus growing out of the mud.

"That dumbass kid's here."

Inside the bar, Luke Hyena secretly watched Cheng Qi, then cocked the Beam Pistol in his hand, which had been patched up countless times just to keep it barely capable of firing.

Then.

He told the seven henchmen behind him, "Get into position and cover every exit. Once that little piece of trash comes through the door, he won't be leaving!"

Cheng Qi pushed open the bar's front door.

A few dazed drinkers were scattered beneath the dim lights. One had already fallen beneath a table. He might have been asleep, or he might have been dead, since the side effects of some drinks here were comparable to poison.

Hyena was not in the main room. That was unusual, but Cheng Qi had expected it.

Behind him.

A vicious-looking brute slowly closed the bar's front door, then jerked his chin at Cheng Qi. "Hyena's waiting for you in the back room."

Cheng Qi walked slowly toward the back room. Two more vicious-looking brutes stood in the corridor along the way.

Hyena wanted to avoid prying eyes, then dispose of the body and erase all evidence.

Pushing open the back room's door, Cheng Qi finally saw Luke Hyena, sporting his yellow mohawk.

He sat behind a desk built from scrap metal, his feet crossed on its surface and a mold-spotted cigar clenched in his mouth.

All his teeth had been replaced with sharp black alloy. They pierced the cigar in his mouth, making him look especially menacing.

Luke Hyena first motioned for Cheng Qi to sit, then drew a fully charged Beam Pistol from inside his clothes.

Then he lightly tapped the desktop with his heel.

A white-haired old man slowly crawled out from behind the desk, his face covered in blood and his mouth torn open.

It was Old Lin, a close friend of Cheng Qi's grandfather before his death. Scavengers often went hungry, and Old Lin had helped Cheng Qi and his grandfather more than once. In other words, without Old Lin's help, Cheng Qi would never have survived to this day.

Hyena tilted his head up and glanced at the brute standing in the corner. Both of the man's arms had been converted into hydraulic mechanical limbs capable of unleashing astonishing force. He was also the toughest enforcer on the bar street.

An encirclement, a hostage, and a vicious enforcer.

All of it had been arranged for Cheng Qi.

Luke Hyena truly did not want even the slightest mishap.

"Haha, you're not going to try something like, 'I didn't bring the goods, so if you kill me, you get nothing,' are you?"

Luke Hyena gave a sinister laugh. "You little trash worm, I've got a few questions for you. Where did you..."

"Here. This pays off your loan."

Cheng Qi interrupted him, his expression calm as he slowly drew a piece of intermetallic compound from inside his clothes and set it on Hyena's desk.

Luke Hyena's eyes flashed. He determined the goods were genuine in an instant. "Well, well! You know what's good for you, kid!"

A gleam lit up Luke Hyena's face.

Cheng Qi smiled and took out another piece of metal, this one translucent and golden. "This is what I want to sell."

The cigar in Luke Hyena's mouth glowed with scarlet embers. Apart from the wisps of smoke, everything about him seemed frozen.

Finally coming to his senses, Hyena wiped his mouth and immediately picked up the alloy block Cheng Qi had set down. He hefted it, tapped it, bit it, and finally held it beneath his nose and sniffed hard, his voice trembling.

"It really is amorphous alloy... Holy shit, kid, you really know what's good for you!"

With a faint smile, Cheng Qi watched Hyena's reaction, then unhurriedly took out another piece of translucent golden metal and quietly placed it on the desk.

"Holy fucking shit!"

Hyena swallowed, his eyes shining brighter than the metal on the desk. "You've actually got two pieces of amorphous alloy!"

Cheng Qi simply carried on, taking out a third piece, a fourth, a fifth... and a sixth piece of amorphous alloy.

"Holy fucking shit, what the fuck?!"

Luke Hyena stared, biting clean through his cigar with a crunch. "You've got this much?!"

Then.

Hyena craned his neck to peer at Cheng Qi's breast pocket, making certain there was no more alloy inside.

A second later, the man was practically bursting with joy.

This dumbass kid brought everything he had in one go?

That saves me so much trouble. I was worried he'd hide the treasure and refuse to talk even if it killed him. Clearly, I worried for nothing!

Does he really think I'm going to buy it?

At this point, if I don't kill him, I'll be breaking my own fucking character!