The border of New Babylon was a monumental mountain range built from neon tubes, discarded prosthetics, expired nutrient paste packaging, and countless tons of e-waste.

  This was the District 99 Waste Processing Plant.

  The air hung heavy with the acrid scent of burnt plastic mixed with the cloying sweetness of rotting organic matter. Massive mechanical claws screamed overhead like vultures, hauling in fresh garbage from the Upper Sector and mercilessly dumping it into this forgotten corner of the world.

  John Doe pulled his hoodie tight—the one still stained with sewer muck—and trudged through the trash, slipping and sliding with every step.

  His skull was still buzzing—the lingering hangover from Tang Monk’s chanting. Now, whenever he tried to think about anything complex related to "money," his brain would automatically autoplay a remix of the Great Compassion Mantra.

  "Dammit... I just wanted a quiet place to lay low for a couple of days."

  John kicked the head of a discarded simulacrum doll, sending it flying.

  Since the burnout of the Black Gold server, while he had made a name for himself on the streets, he had also thoroughly landed on the Guild’s blacklist. District 13 was crawling with plainclothes informants, so he had no choice but to take this "cleaning job" on the edge of the city to let the heat die down—and earn some living expenses while he was at it.

  The mission description was simple: [Neutralize the noise source in Sector 4 of the landfill. Reward: 300 New Bucks.]

  "Noise?" John paused.

  In a garbage dump filled with mechanical roaring and the hiss of electricity, what noise could possibly be more ear-piercing than the ambient sound?

  But he heard it soon enough.

  It wasn't noise.

  It was piano music.

  Intermittent, shrill, broken, yet possessing a heartbreaking elegance. It sounded like Chopin’s fingers dancing on rusty blades, every note dripping with blood.

  John followed the sound, climbing up a hillock made of stacked, discarded servers.

  In a depression within the valley of trash, he saw the "noise source."

  It was an old grand piano with only half its keys remaining, its shell completely carbonized, strings exposed to the elements.

  And sitting before the piano was a translucent, ashen ghost.

  He wore a tuxedo that was fashionable in a bygone era but now looked like a clown suit, his bowtie askew. His fingers were long and slender, but the tips were worn away, revealing stark white bone—even in his spiritual form.

  He was playing. But every note he struck, the moment it floated into the air, was shredded by the surrounding cacophony of industrial noise, like a newborn butterfly sucked into a ventilation fan.

  John whipped out his Yin-Yang iPad and opened [Spirit Vision].

  [Target: Soul of an Nameless Artist]

  [Cause of Death: Starvation / Despair / Suicide.]

  [Obsession: Stolen Works.]

  [Note: Signed a "Total Copyright Transfer Agreement" while alive. Post-mortem, his works were remixed by AI into viral hits. The subject received zero royalties.]

  "Contracts again..." John looked at the note, his stomach churning.

  He remembered the contract he almost signed in his dream, the student loans, and the vampire clauses that permeated every inch of this city.

  "Master," John whispered to the tablet, his voice trembling with suppressed rage. "Why? Why do these big corporations dare to rob people in broad daylight? Aren't they afraid of the law? Aren't they afraid someone will flip the table like I did?"

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  The screen lit up, and the figure of Daoist Singularity floated into view.

  He wasn't cracking seeds or cracking jokes like usual. He was sitting amidst a pile of ancient books, a red pen in his hand, circling something. Hearing John's question, he pushed up his sunglasses, his eyes cold as ice.

  "The law?"

  Singularity scoffed, his voice dripping with the weariness of someone who had seen through the world.

  "Disciple, do you think those adhesion contracts are targeting geniuses? No, that’s survivor bias."

  "Think about it. In this world, how many people think they have talent, but what they actually write, paint, or compose... is worthless trash?"

  John paused. "A lot, I guess..."

  "The vast majority. 99.99%." Singularity extended a finger and drew a circle in the air. "For capital, this is a simple probability problem."

  "They cast a massive net, signing a million creators. They know perfectly well that nine hundred ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety of them are mediocrities, or even garbage. The content these people produce has zero commercial value. Even if the company takes all the rights, it’s just waste data taking up hard drive space. There are no disputes, and no costs, because no one steals trash, and no one sues over trash."

  Singularity paused, his gaze piercing through the screen to look at the ghost playing the piano in the landfill.

  "But... that 99.99% of trash exists to hide the 0.01% of diamonds."

  "When out of those million people, a true genius suddenly pops up—an artist like this ghost here—the company has already trapped him with that bottomless net meant for the trash."

  "At that point, the genius wants to resist? Too late. The contract is a standard template; the clauses are industry convention. You want to sue? The company’s legal department is bigger than your fan base."

  "They are betting on that 'one in a million.' Using the lowest cost to harvest that 0.01% probability. As for the remaining nine hundred ninety-nine thousand denominators? They are just sandbags used to shut everyone else up."

  John listened, his hands and feet turning cold.

  This was "cast a wide net, catch the big fish."

  They defaulted everyone to 'trash,' so they treated everyone like trash. And when a genius actually appeared, he had already been processed as garbage.

  "Also," Grace’s small head popped out from the corner of the screen. Her expression was grim, holding a ball of analyzing data streams. "Boss, what's scarier is... even if he is a genius, he can't survive."

  "Why?"

  "Because of the Algorithm." Grace pointed at the ghost. "Listen to his song."

  John listened carefully. The tune was complex, obscure, filled with painful tension and structural beauty. It made his chest feel tight, bringing tears to his eyes.

  "The music... it's good," John said.

  "Good, but not 'satisfying'," Grace shook her head. "In the current big data algorithm, the completion rate for this kind of song is 0%."

  "The current system rewards 'Tittytainment'. It rewards a 3-second hook, a 15-second plot twist, the kind of electronic drugs that require no brain power, only sensory stimulation."

  Grace pulled up a chart showing the trending list of New Babylon's streaming platforms.

  Rank 1 was a 10-second AI-generated remix of a cat meowing, paired with footage of big-breasted women twerking. Views: 3 Billion.

  And the ghost's song, buried in the corner of the database... Views: 3.

  "See that?" Singularity added coldly. "The algorithm is bloodthirsty. It doesn't need art; it only needs 'retention rates.' Art requires pain, it requires thinking, it requires patience. And these... are poisons that drive users away."

  "The system is systematically killing art."

  "It has tamed humanity into Pavlov's dogs that only respond to high-frequency stimuli. As soon as the bell rings (a push notification), they salivate (hit like). As for things like Beethoven or Mozart that require you to sit there and listen quietly for an hour..."

  Singularity pointed at the mountains of trash covering the landscape.

  "...they get thrown here."

  John looked at the ghost.

  He was still playing.

  Even though there was no audience. Even though the keys were broken. Even though his fingers were worn away.

  But he couldn't stop. Because that was the only thing left in his soul.

  The surrounding waste processing machines roared with deafening noise, drowning out the faint piano music. A few passing scavengers even picked up stones and threw them at him, annoyed by the noise distracting them from picking trash.

  "Stop playing! It gives me a headache!" one scavenger cursed. "Play something banger! Rock! Heavy Metal!"

  The ghost shrank back, the light in his eyes fading.

  He stopped his hands.

  That dead silence was more terrifying than any noise.

  "He's fading," Grace whispered. "His heart is dead. In this era, no one wants to listen to his pain."

  John clenched his fist.

  He wasn't an artist; he was a roughneck. But he knew quality from trash.

  "Master." John spoke to the tablet. "You said earlier that the system rewards cheap dopamine hits and punishes art that carries pain."

  "Correct."

  "Then what if..." John looked up at the mountain of electronic waste, a glimmer of madness flashing in his eyes. "What if I give this world a dose of... heart-wrenching, ear-shattering, 'Real Art' that the algorithm absolutely cannot filter out?"

  Singularity paused for a moment, then pushed up his sunglasses, the corner of his mouth curling into a fanatical grin.

  "Then you need someone with a loud enough voice."

  "Loud enough to drown out this world full of trash noise."

  John took a deep breath and strode toward the broken piano.

  He didn't know music.

  But he knew who did.

  In this world, there was one man who couldn't hear the noise, nor the applause.

  He only heard the roar of Fate choking him by the throat.

  John's finger hovered over the [Summon] button.

  "Since you don't want to listen..." John glared coldly at the glittering Upper Sector in the distance. "Then I'll force you to listen."

  [Message from Singularity]

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