A will? Old Jiang actually left something like this?
An indescribable bitterness and absurdity welled up in Feng Xue's heart. He took a deep breath, forced himself to calm down, and after a brief hesitation, finally gave the order—
"Play it."
The store's projection system activated automatically. Rays of light intertwined in the air, sketching out Old Jiang's familiar figure. He still had that slovenly appearance, wearing a grease-stained white coat with the messy workshop as his backdrop. Only, in the projection, his face lacked its usual bantering expression. Instead, there was a rare serenity, and even... a hint of relief?
"Yo, kid, if you're seeing this, it means this old man really kicked the bucket this time."
In the projection, Old Jiang sat beside the workbench, his tone surprisingly calm.
"In our line of work, especially in a hellhole like Gelian, accidents are bound to happen. I recorded this thing just to keep up with the trends; who would've thought I'd actually end up using it!"
At this point, Old Jiang's tone shifted, and his speaking pace suddenly quickened:
"Long story short, after you finish watching this will, go to 'Two Gold Bars' immediately and find 'Xie Miao.' If you don't know the way, ask the AI. When you see him, ask directly, 'Can Old Jiang's shop still open?' If he says no problem, then this shop and everything in it is yours. Manage it well and keep the business running—don't waste the skills I taught you. As for the paperwork, just have Xie Miao handle it for you. That guy is greedy, sure, but his professional integrity is trustworthy."
At this, Old Jiang in the image suddenly paused, his gaze turning sharp. "But if he says no, then don't hesitate. Take everything you can carry and run! Get as far away as possible. Of course, before you leave, don't forget to destroy every single thing that can store data!"
Feng Xue, listening to Old Jiang's grave tone, nodded subconsciously. But the words from Old Jiang in the projection continued:
"Besides that..."
Having said these four words, Old Jiang's tone suddenly became somewhat awkward. He hesitated for a moment before sighing and saying,
"If—if you get the chance to return to Dayan in the future, and my corpse is still around, help me take the access pod back. Just find a place with beautiful mountains and clear waters to bury it. Consider it a leaf returning to its roots."
At this, he suddenly waved his hand, seemingly unwilling to discuss the topic further. He merely said in a seemingly casual manner:
"As for the other prosthetics... my prosthetic lock is the kind I taught you. Don't waste them!"
At this, Old Jiang waved his hand again, looking impatient as he said:
"Alright, that's all. Hurry up and find Xie Miao. Don't delay!"
As the words fell, the projection flickered and abruptly vanished. The room returned to dead silence. Only the AI's cold electronic voice rang out once more:
"Will playback complete. Per the agreement, shop management authority has been transferred to user 'Feng Xue.'"
Feng Xue stood in place, taking a deep breath to suppress the surging anger, grief, confusion, and fear in his chest. Gritting his teeth, he grabbed the tools from the counter and walked toward Old Jiang's corpse.
Old Jiang's will was clear: every additional second he stayed brought another ounce of danger. But precisely because of this, he had to remove the access pod—this was the old man's only request, and he had to do it well no matter what!
Old Jiang's level of prosthetic modification was very high. While it wasn't to the extent that you couldn't scrape together two liang of flesh like Adam Smasher, from head to toe, he was all mechanical interfaces. Whether it was cracking open the skull or the back, it wouldn't take more than ten seconds.
He entered a set of keys. The old man's face immediately unfolded along the metal seams. Feng Xue deftly removed the access pod. Yet the instant the prosthetic touched his hands, Feng Xue's expression froze slightly.
It wasn't because of the collection prompt from his cheat ability, but because—
"[Purple Mansion]? This damn thing is a five-star military-grade prosthetic!"
If five-star civilian prosthetics were toys for the wealthy upper class, then five-star military ones were true national treasures. Only Dayan and Gelian in the entire world could produce them in small batches, and even then, production was limited by rare materials. Not to mention, this prosthetic was an access pod—the rarest category among all prosthetics!
To put it another way, aside from not being a one-of-a-kind item, its value was almost comparable to the legendary six-star prosthetics!
"Just who was Old Jiang? How did he have something this high-end?" Feng Xue looked at this prosthetic that he had only ever seen in data files, feeling utterly absurd. With Old Jiang's technical skill and a hacker god-tier item like this in his possession, he should have been virtually invincible on the network level. Yet he had died in a small place like this... No, it was precisely because this was a small place where people couldn't even afford to install wireless interfaces that there was someone capable of killing him!
Forcefully exhaling the fleeting greed and the depression in his chest, Feng Xue pulled several pieces of specialized fiber from the counter to wrap up the access pod. He then stuffed it into a small box and stored it close to his body. With the thought that since the skull was already open anyway, he might as well pull out Old Jiang's frontal cortical plugin while he was at it.
"Another entry? Old Jiang had quite a few good things on him!" Feng Xue looked at the seemingly "mediocre" three-star plugin. He didn't continue dismantling Old Jiang's corpse. Instead, he moved the body behind the counter, locked the shop door, and then made his way toward "Two Gold Bars"...
As for whether to look for this Xie Miao, Feng Xue hesitated for less than three seconds before making his decision. Whenever deciding whether or not to do something, one only needed to consider the worst possible outcome.
And for this matter, there were only two worst-case scenarios: either Old Jiang had faked his death to set a trap, or Xie Miao was the mastermind who had gotten Old Jiang killed.
If it was the former, Old Jiang had no reason to use something like [Purple Mansion]—a prosthetic that could serve as a national treasure even in a small nation—as bait. At the very least, Feng Xue felt that his current self absolutely wasn't worth that.
As for the latter... Xie Miao was someone he had met a few times. It wasn't that acquaintances were trustworthy, but rather that if Xie Miao had truly been involved, there was no way Feng Xue—who had been in the shop the whole time—would have escaped calamity.
Eliminating these two possibilities, and not knowing the exact risks, it was better to find someone who might know the situation than to flee like a headless fly through a completely unfamiliar city.
It was rather laughable. Having transmigrated several months ago, this was still Feng Xue's first time venturing far from the small shop. Today was Garbage Day. The residents of the Rust District were either at work or at the dump at this hour. He didn't encounter many people along the way. After running for about ten minutes like this, a storefront bearing a pawnshop sign appeared before his eyes.
"Isn't this Old Jiang's apprentice? What's up?"
Seeing Feng Xue, a middle-aged man who looked to be in his forties, with a high nose and deep-set eyes, wearing a cheap suit, walked to the door. Feng Xue had also crossed paths with this man a few times at Old Jiang's shop. It was precisely the Xie Miao that Old Jiang had mentioned.
"Can Old Jiang's shop still open?"
Just as Old Jiang had instructed, Feng Xue didn't waste any words and cut straight to the point. Hearing this question, Xie Miao's complexion changed dramatically. He quickly opened the shop door and said:
"Come in first... Never mind, you probably don't feel safe. Just wait here. I'll have an answer in five minutes, tops!"