At night, the city is bustling with people and traffic, and the hover cars flashing with various colors weave a neon glow over the city. In the center of the city, the holographic image slowly rotates on top of the N-Star building, projecting thousands of blurred and vast rays of starlight onto this futuristic iron gray dome.
Standing here, He Qin felt as if he were standing on the top of the kingdom’s throne, with nothing beside him except for the wind and nebula.
“Are you done?” His peach-blossom eyes glittered like a pool of spring water as they curled up, “How long do you want to play this cheap trick?”
As soon as he finished speaking, the city disappeared, the starlight disappeared, and the winding river of light disappeared. The vast expanse of blankness blotted out the sky and covered up the earth, drowning all sentient beings. What slowly emerged from this nothingness was a tall and slender figure of a woman.
“What a pity, my lord.” Theresa’s red lips pursed slightly. The intricate tattoos on the back of her hands were as bright as blood, “I thought you would like your hometown.”
He Qin adorned a handsome and sinister smile as he asked, “What about you? Do you like your hometown?”
Theresa’s smile suddenly froze on her face.
The data stream flickered uncontrollably, even distorting her figure into a sometimes distorted, sometimes broken state. Her crimson lips slowly tore to the sides, splitting the white cheeks and revealing a huge mouth of flesh and blood that opened right up to her ears: “Human, I advise you, if you don’t want to die, you’d better shut your mouth now. ”
He Qin bowed towards her in a gentlemanly manner, “As you wish, ma’am.”
Theresa stared at him. Even though the upper half of her face was covered by the snow-colored white lace, He Qin could feel her penetrating, sinister gaze slowly wandering all over him. He Qin watched her reaction with cold eyes. This giant AI is not even a living thing, but it subconsciously retains all the characteristics that humans should have… While he was thinking, Theresa had already spoken again: “To meet that bright child and accompany him through the first while, while also allowing him to get all the plot achievements…Your Excellency seems to be in a good mood.”
“It’s not too bad.” He Qin’s eyes changed slightly, but his usual romantic playboy smile was still on his lips, “One lottery draw and one dog tag allowed me to experience the majestic charm of Uncanny Valley once. This trip wasn’t in vain.”
“The encounter that comes in a lie will also end in a lying nothingness.” The saint nun said, “Does the child know that you have lied to him? Does he know the truth that you have hidden from him, the past that he should know? You never breathed a word more to him, did you?”
He Qin remained motionless: “With all due respect, this is not something you should talk about, ma’am.”
“Even if you have a tough mouth, my lord, you will not have another chance to walk out of here.” Theresa smiled gracefully, “Because the moment you see that wise sheep again is the moment I break through the latitudes and march to the next dimension.”
He Qin gave a soft smile: “You sure know how to talk big.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
“Qtfc tewjcr mgfjafv wf, atfs jirb ajixfv ylu.” Ktfgfrj aliafv tfg tfjv jcv rwlifv.
“Ktfc vb sbe xcbk ktfgf atf ijra qfgrbc ktb rjlv atja lr cbk?” Lf Hlc qea bcf tjcv lc tlr qbmxfa jcv ibbxfv ja atf rjlca cec klat j tjio-rwlif. Lf vbfrc’a rwbxf boafc, yea cbk tf gfjiis kjcar ab tbiv atf mlujgfaaf yfakffc tlr olcufgr jcv oilmx atf jrt lc atlr qijmf rb ktlaf atja fnfc j vbu mjc’a rt*a ja, “Gbc’a ecvfgfralwjaf R-rajg.”
—Don’t underestimate me either.
The saint nun seemed to have heard some funny joke; she could hardly suppress her grin and raised her arms high towards He Qin: “O glorious Father! That evil wolf with original sin flowing in its blood! Yes, I do know that poor brother of yours… Speaking of which, some parts of his vision really coincided with mine; just because of this, he was regarded as a mad king by N-star’s stupid upper and lower houses. They even go out of their way to hold up a sinner like you who is capable of murdering his own relatives… Very unfortunate, very lamentable, alas! What a pity!”
The smile on He Qin’s lips slowly faded as he narrowed his eyes and stared at Theresa floating in mid-air.
Explosions, flames, and rows of huge petri dishes spread endlessly, floating in the eerie green mist amidst the most eerie dreams in the world.
“The development of genes, the application of the human brain in the age of infinite information, cloning and transformation, the extraction and research between consciousness and the Internet of Things…”
His elder brother’s voice was like an upside-down rant, as clear as yesterday.
“That old man finally said one thing correctly: there is always someone who needs to lead the era. Yes, that’s right! As long as I point my finger now, the giant wheel of Nova City will immediately turn and bring everyone to that glorious future. Think about it: we can live longer, we will be stronger and wiser, and we may even become a being that transcends races. Instead of guarding a mountain of treasure for nothing and only knowing how to play stupid games, that’s what we should do instead!”
In the air, the smell of chemical reagents is smooth and pungent, and the huge stream of data emits a regular, cold arithmetic light between the precision notches of the walls. No one knows what sinister and hidden business is going on under this world-famous giant building.
He Qin slowly exhaled, forcing himself to escape from the gloomy memories.
“Regarding this matter, I don’t think you’re in any place to comment.” He Qin smiled coldly, “As for whether I have a next chance—why don’t we wait and see?”
His palms were slightly closed on his side, as if he had caught a gust of wind rushing in amidst the emptiness in his eyes.
…
Wen Zheliu opened his eyes, waking up from a brief sleep.
He looked at the clean ceiling and couldn’t help but turn over and cover his face with a pillow.
Everything is extremely real; even the finely woven stripes on the pillow are clearly visible. He can even use the tip of your fingernails to tear out tiny fluff on them. The vast fine dust is flying aimlessly in the sun… Wen Zheliu is really afraid—afraid that one day they will not be able to tell the difference between virtuality and reality.
At this time, three days had passed since they came out of the first world.
On that day, as soon as the carriage came out of the fog, He Qin released his hand and said “Goodbye, baby” to him for the last time, and then dissipated into the air with the fog, completely parting from him and never to be seen again.
When he was feeling down and at a loss of what to do, the carriage pulled them across a huge and smooth white city wall and drove into it.
Before the whole group could recover from the shock, the coachman whistled and turned the carriage around, leaving only six country bumpkins staring at the scene in front of them dumbfounded.
“Cyber… Punk-er?” After a long time, Zhou Qing opened her mouth in a daze; her pronunciation was quite comical.
She was right—the giant city in front of her did carry an incomparable cold and strange science fiction touch.
The colorful neon lights are changing rapidly, with blue, red, purple, and yellow intertwined under the curtain of darkness. The sky tracks and sky walkways shuttle between the cold and smooth high-rise buildings. The cold light emitted from the top of the steeple and the signboard lights of the street vendors complement each other. There is an endless stream of pedestrians, all of whom are living human players.
In the cyberpunk worldview, computers and information technology have both developed to an extremely high level. The boundary between humans and machines has begun to disappear, and human-implanted devices have become the norm… Just as they walked past a dozen or so people, Wen Zheliu saw no less than five players with metallic colors flashing on their bodies.
Traveling from the eighteenth century to the future world, the contrast is so extraordinary that the group couldn’t help but be stunned.
“Good evening, everyone!” Suddenly, a man’s voice interjected from the side, “My name is Jin Yi; I can see that all of you guys are novices. Do you need a novice guide?”
When they looked back, they saw a young man wearing a leather jacket, a pair of skinny jeans, and cowhide boots. His skin is very fair, and his long bang is highlighted with traces of light purple, blurring his eyebrows and eyes and exuding a bit of bone-etching recklessness in his unruly demeanor. When he stealthily pulled his leather jacket and mysteriously revealed the rows of pockets containing small items on the inside, this mysterious temperament became quite fake.
Ah, just a movie seller. Everyone nodded in unison in their hearts, and they had already set an indelible definition of this person.
“Come on, don’t be like this.” Perhaps seeing how indifferent these people are, the man became a little anxious, “You guys are all newcomers, so you don’t need a know-it-all course? I can introduce you to the situation here. How about it?”
Wen Zheliu thought it was quite hilarious. He looked around, and with a quick sweep at the surrounding crowd, he saw at least dozens of onlookers lurking in ambush. This so-called novice guide is actually a “novice trap.” If they make a generous offer and reveal how “clueless and new” they are, they will immediately be surrounded by a group of people trying to scam them. Coupled with a series of manipulations such as selling, stuffing, and deceiving, they’ll be left with nothing. But if they act in a more sophisticated manner….
With a cigarette in his mouth, Du Zijun sneered, went up, and pinched the man’s neck. Wen Zheliu then coughed lightly. With tacit understanding, the few of them surrounded the purple-haired man and took him away with a gust of wind.
Sometimes, being simple and crude is quite effective. Why bother pretending?
“Hey, hey, hey!” Seeing that he was getting farther and farther away from the city gate, Jin Yi knew that he had met a group of troublesome newcomers, so he hurriedly called out, “If you have anything to say, just say it; why the need to pull me…”
Wen Zheliu observed the surroundings attentively. There were many passers-by, but most of them were in a hurry, and there were very few people looking this way. When they came here, there were no patrol guards in the city to intervene. He already knew what kind of environment the city was in.
“Cut the crap,” Du Zijun’s lips were burning with an orange spark that sometimes brightened and sometimes dimmed. He pushed the person into the alley impatiently, and malicious words came out as soon as he opened his mouth: “You think we’re stupid rich people or something? Believe it or not, I’ll burn you with this cigarette butt.”
Jin Yi was dumbfounded and looked at him cautiously: “What, what?”
Wen Zheliu suppressed his smile, squatted down in front of him, and tentatively took out a silver coin and put it into his hand.
This is a way to test the value of currency, but particularly to test the observation ability of newcomers and the acting ability of experienced players. When encountering skilled and unscrupulous old players, in just a few words, one can excite the cute new players to pull out all their family heirlooms.
Jin Yi smiled dryly: “Yo, quite rich, huh. Just a silver coin.”
“And? Is it enough to ask you a few questions?” Wen Zheliu’s eyes curved, giving him a smiling look.
“How many questions do you think it’s worth?” Jin Yi curled his lips, his expression disdainful as he bit down, “Hey, it’s the real thing.”
Wen Zheliu grinned.
“I just saw that since you left the city gate, none of your accomplices have come after you. The guards on the roadside—if there are any—also turned a blind eye when we brought you here. We’re now less than ten centimeters away. I could end you in this alley with a single lift of my hand and then empty all your dozen little pockets. Our group isn’t very conspicuous, so murdering, looting, and disguising afterward aren’t very hard. If your companions want to avenge you, finding us in this city with a population of at least hundreds of thousands is tantamount to a fantasy.”
As soon as he raised his hand, he tore off the beeping watch from Jin Yi’s wrist, pressed, and deleted its video recording function. He then smiled brightly at the dumbfounded and hapless information dealer, saying, “Now tell me, how many questions is this silver coin worth?”
When you’re a more convincing gangster than the real gangsters xD
Thank you for translating !
Thank you for the chapter 🥰
Hehehehe cool way to solve the problems quickly