As they spoke, Xie Miao’s cybernetic eye had already begun to flicker visibly, and even a wisp of white smoke rose from his body.
Feng Xue stood there at the doorway, his expression heavy. About three minutes later, Xie Miao opened his eyes again and, looking slightly relieved, said,
“No news. Just keep running the shop.”
“So what exactly is going on here?” Feng Xue let out a slight breath when he heard that answer, but the words “no news” only grated on him all the more.
“Not knowing is good news. It means Old Jiang’s death wasn’t something deliberately planned by some faction. Either it was an accident, or it was done by some big shot beyond the scope of my intelligence. If it’s the former, just be careful. If it’s the latter and they really intend to silence people, you definitely won’t be able to run anyway, so you might as well pretend it isn’t there.”
Xie Miao spread his hands, then changed the subject.
“On account of Old Jiang, I’ll help you get the shop’s paperwork sorted out. Consider it paying back the favor I owed him. If anything comes up in the future, you can come to me too, but when that time comes, we’ll settle accounts clearly.”
Hearing Xie Miao say this, Feng Xue frowned. After hesitating for a moment, he said,
“If I want to investigate the person who killed Doctor Jiang, how much would it cost?”
At Feng Xue’s question, Xie Miao raised an eyebrow, as if reassessing him. A few seconds later, his brow suddenly relaxed, and he said in a subtle tone,
“If you’re serious about looking into it, five hundred credit points as a deposit. If I can find anything, I’ll charge the balance according to the results. If I can’t, the deposit won’t be refunded.”
“Fine.” Feng Xue nodded without the slightest hesitation, took out a five-hundred-credit chip, and handed it to Xie Miao.
This was the credit chip he had bought directly from the marketplace after selling the pair of cyberware in the warehouse.
Xie Miao hadn’t expected the kid to pay so readily. He took the chip, swiped it with the card reader on his thumb, and immediately nodded.
“No problem. I’ll give you results within a month.”
At this point, Xie Miao seemed to remember something else and added,
“Remember to close the shop first. Don’t get involved in today’s garbage day. Since Old Jiang had you come over, he definitely left you a will, though I doubt there’ll be any liquid funds. After you go back, don’t worry about anything else for now. First, figure out the channels Old Jiang left behind. As for opening the shop, wait until I help you get the procedures done. As for the rest, that old man should have left instructions, so I won’t waste words. In short, make sure you can survive first, then think about what comes after.”
“Many thanks.” Feng Xue nodded and turned to leave “Two Gold Bars,” but he still returned to the shop as quickly as possible.
Calculating the time, the first batch of lucky ones from the garbage dump should be coming out around now. It would be best not to run into them.
He hung up the closed sign, pulled down the rolling shutter, and activated the security system. Only then did Feng Xue begin sorting through the shop’s supplies.
The valuable things in the shop could roughly be divided into three categories—
The first category was the finished cyberware placed on the shelves for appearances’ sake. Quite a few had been damaged when the security system activated earlier, but some were still intact. Their total value was probably a few thousand points, and they were basically all low-end three-star cyberware smuggled in from Da Yan.
The second category was the various data stored in the database, ranging from hardware maintenance to software programming, from virus removal to breaking through firewalls, and even Old Jiang’s written annotations and several petabytes’ worth of “study materials.” In Feng Xue’s eyes, this thing was practically the Nine Yin Manual of the cyberpunk world! What? The Nine Yin Manual didn’t have “study materials”? Dual cultivation! Those were dual cultivation techniques, understand?!
As for the third category, it consisted of a large quantity of raw materials and parts, including those damaged by the security system. Judging solely by the value of the materials, they were also worth a few thousand. But if Feng Xue could turn them into cyberware, they might be worth tens of thousands.
After roughly sorting these things out, Feng Xue finally began dealing with Old Jiang’s corpse. Although the old man had said not to waste the cyberware on his body, Feng Xue inspected it and found that aside from the access pod, only his pair of cybernetic eyes were high-end three-star. In the end, he simply didn’t remove them. He threw together a freezer and put the old man inside. He didn’t know whether Da Yan had such customs here, but as a transmigrator, he felt that a corpse was best kept as intact as possible. If he had the chance in the future, he would send the body, along with the access pod, back to Da Yan.
After taking care of all this, Feng Xue could finally be considered to have breathed a sigh of relief. He took out the frontal cortex plugin he had casually pulled out earlier.
This plugin was a synaptic signal optimization plugin commonly found on the market. Old Jiang hadn’t made any bizarre modifications to it either. After confirming that there was no special data inside, Feng Xue finally chose to record it.
The small plugin distorted and shattered in an instant, turning into a pile of useless dregs. Feng Xue’s eyes, however, suddenly widened, because in his field of vision was a flash of glaring crimson!
Entry: A Hymn of Loyalty
Type: Skill
Quality: Crimson Epic
Effect: Can only be bestowed upon head cyberware/plugins, such as the frontal cortex, cybernetic eyes, brain bridge, electronic brain, and so on. An item with this entry will gain a skill. Speak “A Hymn of Loyalty” to activate it. In cases where the target who hears these words possesses a hidden identity, the other party will respond with “Gladly shedding hot blood to write the annals of history,” and before obtaining information sufficient to overturn this conclusion, they will regard you as a comrade to whom they can entrust their life.
Note: This entry cannot be used for restaurant discounts.
……
“No, Master, what exactly did you do for a living?!”
Feng Xue’s eyes went wide as he stared at this red entry, whose prestige seemed even higher than a Golden Legend. His entire mind went blank.
How should he put it? At least judging from the knowledge he had come into contact with, there was no way a frontal cortex plugin should have a hypnotic effect like this, right? Or rather, even if this was actually a disguised hacker-type plugin, a mere three-star piece of cyberware couldn’t possibly drop a red entry whose rarity was obviously through the roof!
In that instant, Old Jiang’s various previous behaviors suddenly took on a mysterious hue, as though every seemingly reasonable action now carried some profound meaning behind it.
Feng Xue shook his head forcefully, forcibly suppressing these thoughts. With the old man’s almost miraculous technical skill, it would actually be normal if he had some hidden identity. That said, Feng Xue still reached out and pushed open the door to the old man’s room. Although his original intention was to sort through the old man’s belongings, that did not mean he wasn’t also hoping to see whether he could find something…
“All right, I found something, but it’s a little different from what I imagined.”
Feng Xue looked at the target marked “To Be Recorded” in the old man’s room, his face carrying a trace of awkwardness, because this thing was a companion-type bionic robot…
“I think I kind of understand where the old man got all those White Elephant Divine Oil bottles he used to hold ointment.”
Looking at this latest-model companion-type bionic robot from Rhine Life, Feng Xue struggled to maintain his expression. Inheriting the old man’s several petabytes’ worth of study materials was one thing, but this kind of thing, no matter how high-end it was, was still a secondhand item on the level of a cursed object!
“Master’s wife, you should go with Master!”
After confirming that there was no posthumous child of his master in the bionic robot’s artificial womb, Feng Xue decisively issued the recording command. As the command to confirm the recording was given, “Master’s wife” turned into a floor full of “ashes”…