The gray and decayed old building exuded a damp and moldy stench. From time to time, snakes and rats darted across the floor. If one looked carefully, they could see a child lying in the corner.
The surroundings were deathly quiet.
Vera Warde was covered with a filthy, tattered blanket. Pieces of cement had fallen from the ceiling, and the exposed steel bars gave the entire place the illusion that it could collapse at any time.
Drip—
A drop of muddy, foul water landed on her face.
"…"
Without even opening her eyes, Vera rolled to the innermost part of the corner, avoiding the dripping water above, and continued sleeping.
At four in the morning, the alarm clock in the corner suddenly rang. Vera reached out and pressed it.
Crack—
One of the alarm clock's legs broke.
She woke instantly, rubbed her messy, bird's‑nest‑like hair, and picked up the alarm clock along with its broken leg to inspect it. Luckily, it could still be repaired.
Vera folded the blanket into a small bundle and piled it in the least dirty corner. Then she went to a heap of scrap metal beside her, fished out a large sack, and walked out of the abandoned building.
She was going to scavenge.
A month ago, Vera had gone from being a well‑off senior engineer to a seven‑year‑old orphan who ate literally anything she could find.
When she first woke up in this world, a huge rat had been squatting beside her face, ready to bite.
The child who originally lived here had died from a fever.
When she woke again, she had become Engineer Vera Warde.
The memories of that child still filled her mind.
That girl had been picked up and raised by a mute old man who also lived near the junkyard. Not long ago, the old man passed away, leaving her alone.
The place she had lived was soon occupied by others, and with nowhere else to go, she had found this nearly collapsed building for shelter.
Every day she scavenged for food at the nearby junkyard—but hunger and a sudden high fever eventually took the child's life.
Vera, however, was an adult.
It took her only one night to accept this absurd reality.
The next day, she went back to the junkyard to dig for food again.
Because if she didn't eat, she would die.
Over the past month, Vera had built a tricycle out of collected scrap metal. She put the large old sack in the back and rode toward the dump. The garbage trucks usually unloaded at two in the morning; she went at four to avoid the adults.
Around the junkyard lived hundreds of people surviving off garbage. Adults rummaged first.
Orphans like her came last—otherwise, if they found something valuable, the adults would rob them or even beat them to death.
And scavenging after sunrise was dangerous too—the stench of the dump would become unbearable, and accidents were more frequent.
When she arrived at the junkyard, as expected, there weren't many people left. The new pile of trash had already been rummaged through; finding any edible scraps was difficult.
Vera forced herself to stay calm, took a deep breath—
and gagged. "Ugh—damn it. Forgot this is a dumpster."
Dragging the big bag behind her, she stepped carefully into the pile, making sure not to sink in.
People sometimes fell into the heaps and suffocated to death—she had seen one just a few days ago.
Most metal that could be recycled was already taken by adults. Vera crouched on top of the trash mound, turning pieces over slowly. Whenever she found something interesting, she tossed it into her sack and, for a moment, forgot her hunger.
At one spot, she discovered a shattered test tube with a bit of pink liquid still in it. Sniffing it, her eyes lit up.
Nutrient solution!
She immediately tipped the tube over her mouth. After a long wait, that one drop of liquid slid down the inner wall.
It was nutrient solution—strawberry‑flavored.
The dizzy emptiness of hunger faded just a little.
Nutrient solution was a good thing—just a tiny amount could fill her stomach.
If only she could find even half a tube, she wouldn't go hungry for a day.
Just as she had that thought, a strong light shone down from above. Vera looked up—garbage trucks.
Strange. They usually came around two a.m. It was already past four. Why were they back?
Before she could think further, another truck appeared over the dump. She hurriedly dragged her sack and raced downhill. Garbage trucks never cared if people were below—they just dumped everything. Every year, someone got crushed and died.
When she hid at the edge of the dump, she saw them clearly: five garbage trucks circling above, alongside a smaller aircraft.
From the aircraft's front window flashed a constant white light. The frequency reminded Vera of cameras used by the media in her former world.
The next moment, the five trucks opened their bottom panels. Countless large crates tumbled down into the dump. The small aircraft's light flickered even faster.
After finishing, the trucks and the aircraft flew away together.
Vera waited a while before quickly climbing up, eager to see what was inside those crates.
She didn't even need to look—she could already smell it. Nutrient solution!
One of the crates at the bottom had broken open upon impact, and the sweet scent of nutrient liquid now mingled with the dump's stench, forming a strangely alluring, foul aroma.
Vera pulled a handmade flashlight from her pocket, shone it on the crates, tore open a seal—and gasped.
They were all brand‑new nutrient solutions.
One crate, two crates, three crates—every box she opened held the same thing.
It looked like defective goods being destroyed.
She didn't know what was wrong with them, but that didn't matter. Vera immediately hugged a crate, stuffed it into her sack, and kept going until she had filled three large bags. She dragged them to her tricycle, stacked the boxes neatly, then pushed the bike into a thicket to hide it before running back to the dump.
She repeated the process again and again.
By the third trip, others had started to arrive—scavengers drawn by the smell. They cracked open tubes and drank immediately.
"It's real nutrient solution! Delicious!"
"Hurry, grab more!"
Vera kept carrying boxes. Dizzy with hunger, she drank two tubes, warmth spreading through her stomach until the sharp pain of hunger faded.
She didn't drink more. She kept working until her tricycle could hold no more, then pushed it away, heading home.
It was… a lot.
As the creaky tricycle rattled along, Vera clenched her teeth. She had to find a way to make it electric someday, but so far she hadn't found the right parts. The power system in this world was quite different from what she knew before, and all she had were the child's fragmented memories of scavenging with the old man.
When she finally returned to the abandoned building, she carefully carried the boxes inside—twelve in total—and stacked them neatly against the wall.
Her heart filled with satisfaction.
At last, she wouldn't go hungry.
This past month, hunger had dulled even her thinking. Every waking thought had been about food.
Vera's suffering was worse than the child's. The original girl had never known what good food tasted like; Vera, in her previous life, had known countless delicious meals. When hunger struck, her mind filled with memories of food—making her even hungrier. She'd had to give herself countless pep talks just to eat garbage that first time.
After resting for a while, she decided to return to the dump for more nutrient solution.
Five full truckloads were no small amount. Even with all the scavengers there, it wouldn't be gone fast. For once, the dump felt strangely harmonious—everyone too busy hauling boxes to fight.
Vera made four more trips. Ignoring the harsh sunlight, she worked from dawn till dusk, hauling forty‑eight crates in total, stuffing her pockets with loose tubes.
That night, she gave herself a feast: one fruit‑flavored and one vegetable‑flavored nutrient drink. The hunger that had haunted her for weeks finally vanished.
She repaired the broken leg of her alarm clock, then lay down and slept soundly.
At four a.m. the next morning, the alarm rang again. Vera got up, feeling much stronger, and prepared to head to the dump once more. This time, her goal wasn't just nutrient solution, but the newly dumped garbage from two a.m.
When she arrived, there were still plenty of people, but their attention stayed on the nutrient crates—no one bothered scavenging.
Vera only took three more boxes. As supplies dwindled, the adults began claiming their own sections and refused to let children near. She didn't argue. Instead, she went back to digging through the trash piles.
She wanted to find some useful materials to build things.
After more than an hour and with the sun rising, Vera finally got up and left, pedaling home on her rattling tricycle.
Back at the building, she crouched beside a wooden crate, ran her fingers across the rows of nutrient tubes, and felt like the richest person in the world.
She could even choose flavors now.
Picking a strawberry‑flavored tube, she drank carefully—just a small sip. It was delicious.
Even though she had dozens of boxes, she still needed to ration them out—at least until she found another way to survive.
Once she was full, Vera sorted through the rest of what she'd collected and then looked over her meager belongings. She decided to go out again.
When the old man was alive, he would collect recyclables and sell them in the city. In the child's memories, he often walked north to sell scrap metal there.
It had been a month. Now, with enough nutrient solution to keep her going, Vera wanted to visit the city herself.
She repaired her tricycle again, lubricated the chain and bearings with waste oil she found, and made sure everything would work for tomorrow's trip.
The next day, after washing herself as best she could, Vera pedaled north. She rode for nearly five hours before seeing the city.
No wonder the old man never took the child along—it was too far.
Catching her breath, she took out a tube of nutrient solution from her cloth bag, drank it, and continued onward, energy restored.
For the first time since coming to this world, Vera saw normal people again.
Except for the occasional floating vehicles in the sky and some near‑lifelike holographic ads by the road, the city didn't look much different from her old world.
"Recently, a batch of nutrient solutions from Universal Selection Company was found to be missing essential elements and has been recalled."
Hearing the news broadcast, Vera looked up. On a large hologram screen ahead, the anchor's voice continued as images flashed by.
They showed trucks dumping cargo—exactly the junkyard she had been scavenging in for the past month.
Vera raised an eyebrow. In one photo, she spotted herself—a tiny, dark figure in the corner, all skin and bones except for a pair of large, bright eyes.
She looked like… a little zombie.
Still, she learned something valuable from the report: the recalled nutrient solution lacked key nutrients but was otherwise harmless.
Right now, the only thing that mattered was eating. Nutrition or not—she couldn't afford to care.
While she kept watching the hologram, she failed to notice that people around her were starting to stare.
After all, a seven‑year‑old child riding a strange, rattling contraption made of scrap metal was a rare and curious sight.