How could I, lowly in the mire, be destined to meet a god like you?

Make your dream

A massive rubbish transfer station lies outside the dump. The transfer station is garrisoned by towering iron walls a hundred meters high, with hundreds of pipelines crisscrossing. Some spew out waste, while others lie motionless, with oily water dripping from their dark openings, slowly trickling down the columns of accumulated grime.

With just one day left, Zoe hurriedly crawled into an abandoned tunnel dug out by scavengers and sprinted towards the city.

As she ran, Zoe felt her nose twitch slightly.

“So that’s how human sense of smell works!” The code’s voice rang out, filled with curiosity and a fresh sense of wonder.

The foul stench hit her nostrils, nearly making Zoe vomit on the spot.

“……Don’t sniff, don’t sniff.” She hurriedly stopped him, covering her nose, “Did you, you, you never come here before?”

“I’ve been here before, and I also tried to leave, but back then, I was still a little mouse.”

In human eyes, rotten food, fermented slops, and rusted scrap are spurned. In a rat’s eyes, those are sumptuous dinners, divine dew, and the cherished nests.

Zoe paused for a moment, suddenly falling into a brief silence, but the code continued to chatter away with her.

“I’ve been through this transit hub before!”

“I went outside, just five kilometers away, and found the most beautiful Dream Tower of this underground city by the ditch!”

“The Tower of Dreams is truly beautiful, but the people there are really fierce. They chased me for several streets, so I had to retreat back to the junkyard.”

Zoe listened and suddenly recalled that there was indeed such a tower in the city. Its full name is “Make your dreams come true,” meaning “Realize your dreams.” It is perpetually projecting advertisements for the five major cities on the ground. It is the tallest landmark in the underground city and also the most bustling exchange. Zoe had once dreamed of setting up a stall there, shining shoes for three days.

Then she was caught by the patrol squad near the tower, her shoe-shining tools were confiscated, she sustained three broken ribs, and laid in bed for several days.

She was the same as her code.

He crawled out of the tunnel at the junkyard, thinking as he moved, his blood and stench merging into one, resembling a little rat emerging from a gutter.

“Make your dreams come true,” standing like a small triangle in the dark silhouette, casts neon lights that seem close yet distant, adding to the extravagance in the distance.

“You have 16 hours and 30 minutes left.” The MYDCT tower, with the code speaking again, impatiently urges on time.

The time Zoe has left to live.

“I’ll, uh, call my uncle first.” With the slum still three hours away, Zoe immediately dialed the call.

The communication device here is connected to the identity chip implanted in the human body, directly reaching the brain’s language center, allowing for cross-regional brainwave communication between humans.

But there was a prolonged blind signal on the com link.

Then “beep” went the sound.

Someone hung up the communication.

Zoe’s face turned pale as she redialed the number.

This time he switched to leaving a message.

“Uncle, it’s Zoe.” His message was as cautious as his words, “I’m going on a long trip recently and might not be able to take care of Xiaoshu for a while. I was wondering if you could take her in at your place for a while…”

After sending the message, there was a long period of silence with no response.

Zoe walked a bit further, unable to help but look up at the sky hidden beneath the earth’s surface.

"Uncle, actually I have already scheduled an appointment for my sister with a doctor from the Mechanical Engineering Institute. In half a year, she will be able to receive a new artificial spinal cord implant, and after the transplant, she will be able to walk like a normal person.” Zoe sent a message, “During my absence, I will leave some living expenses for my sister. You only need to take care of her for half a year. After the surgery, she will definitely repay you as well.”

This time, money was mentioned, and finally, from the quiet communication on the other end, the voice of a middle-aged man came through.

“How much is the living expense?”

“About, about 30 silver dollars.”

The silence across from him stretches on for a long time.

After a long pause, the man let out a slow sigh: “It’s not that your uncle doesn’t want to take care of you two kids; it’s just that your uncle’s life is really tight, and he has to save money to support your aunt and older cousin.”

“Money, money… money…” Hearing about money, Zoe’s voice quivered again, “I’ll definitely find a way to get the money, I’ll pay you in silver coins separately.”

“Alas! What can such a small amount of silver do! I am your uncle, and I should have taken care of you, too. But you’ll have to cover these costs first…”

Zoe slowly stopped, checked her electronic account, glanced at the final balance, and transferred the remaining money in full.

The other end of the communication finally emitted a satisfied tone before hanging up.

Zoe stood on the street, where a gust of wind arose, sweeping up discarded flyers from the ground and blowing the tattered and wet cloth on his body. There was a bone-chilling cold and loneliness.

“You’re really persistent with your sister.” The code eavesdropped on the entire conversation in his mind and couldn’t help but comment.

“I only have my sister left,” Zoe said, rubbing her face and forcing a smile. “She’s my only family. Before she got sick, she was beautiful and radiant. Don’t look at me like this—she was once selected to be part of the Info City Hacker Training Program. If you had seen her before, you would have liked her too.”

“Not necessarily. I’m code, not human.” The code muttered, “You only have 12 hours and 50 minutes left.”

Zoe: “……”

It took six hours to leave the landfill, and it would take another six hours to return to the slum. Zoe realized that he only had half a day left to say goodbye to his sister.

He no longer lingered and made his way to the slum district in the eastern outskirts of the underground city, just like he always did, arriving at this makeshift house built from discarded shipping containers.

But today, the area outside the prefab house looks a bit messy.

Zoe and her sister used to live in a container on the third level, usually using a ladder made of steel pipes to go up and down. But today, the ladder is crookedly lying to one side, and the container door has dents, as if someone had vandalized it.

Zoe stared blankly for a moment, then suddenly realized something and hurriedly opened her own door.

The room is empty, filled only with scattered debris and a disheveled bedding.

“Zoe, you’re finally back!” A young boy with yellow hair poked his head into the container.

“Sister, where is my sister…?” Zoe mumbled.

“The people from the Greenhand Brotherhood came here in the morning, and they took your sister away!” The yellow-haired boy scratched his head, picking a louse from his hair, “We all thought you wouldn’t come back…”

The Greenhand Brotherhood is an underground mercenary organization, responsible for activities such as trading information, arranging loans, hiring bodyguards, and various other illicit black-market industries.

In the morning, Zoe was forced by these people to collect debts, and her heart was dug out, weighed and sold to upper-class figures for their entertainment.

Subsequently, his corpse was discarded, and his sister was taken away.

Zoe’s body trembled again, shaking like a sieve. He stumbled and pushed the yellow-haired youth aside, running towards the Greenhand Brotherhood.

“Sister, my sister, you can’t die,” she shouted in her heart.

She ran faster than ever before, pushing aside all who stood in her way, and finally reached the outskirts of the Greenhand Brotherhood.

In front of the Greenhand Brotherhood’s headquarters, there is an open space that was once where they dissected Zoe.

But now on the ground, stained with blood for a long time, she saw a bow, quietly fallen there.

The bow isn’t delicate; it’s the kind a brother might create with a clumsy hand. And next to it sits a trash can.

A pale, mottled severed limb protruded from the bucket, surrounded by buzzing flies.

Zoe stood right outside the Greenhand Brotherhood, staring blankly at the bow and the hand.

She only prayed that her sister could survive.

Live longer than her at least.

This humble, mouse-like dream.

In the last six hours before the end of her life, a new round of the sun rose outside the underground city, lifting all hopes and dreams.

But at this point, Zoe’s dream was shattered.

The bloodstains and human tissues at the site filled Zoe’s eyes. She trembled, feeling a deeper despair than even the despair of being discarded like trash in a dumpsite.

Mortarfire echoed in the atmosphere, and the sound of human footsteps reverberated from the Greenhand Brotherhood base.

“The dog at the Chagus’ house actually sniffed out that this woman is sick. It’s so humiliating, these worthless things!”