Pushing open the door and walking into the lounge, Feng Xue found that the interior was not as crude as he had imagined. Soft sofas were arranged throughout the room, and along the walls stood automatic vending machines rarely seen in the slums, filled with all manner of drinks—any random bottle of which would cost an ordinary worker a month’s wages.
The coffee table in the center was lined with rows of ports. If one was not afraid of viruses and the like, they could connect to the Net through them and kill time. At the moment, there was another “guest” in the room, leaning listlessly against a single-seat sofa, a data cable plugged into the port by his ear. Only after Feng Xue closed the door did he slightly raise his head, as if waiting for something.
Seeing him like this, Feng Xue quickly understood. He shook out the hooded cloak in his hand and covered himself with it entirely. Only then did the man lower his gaze. Without any visible movement from him, the coffee table suddenly opened like the lid of a coffin, revealing a platform large enough for three to five people to stand on.
Feng Xue had long since learned about this from the materials. He immediately stepped onto the platform. Accompanied by the faint vibration of machinery in motion, the platform beneath his feet began to descend slowly.
Once the platform came to a steady stop, the wall in front of him unfolded. Dim light, carrying the stale odor unique to enclosed spaces, poured in. Feng Xue swept his gaze around, stepped out of the elevator, and walked forward while sizing up this black market.
This underground space was not particularly large, barely the size of a mid-sized stadium. It was not like the black markets in novels and comics from his previous life, with all kinds of stalls spread out everywhere. Instead, on both sides of streets that ran in straight, orderly lines and were at most four meters wide, storefronts were neatly arranged one after another. These shops were all identical, with the same size and specifications; only their signboards revealed any slight differences.
Figures shrouded in hooded cloaks moved in and out of the various shops, yet the place was terrifyingly quiet, adding a further sense of deathly stillness to this already dim underground space.
The five-hundred-point entrance fee had not been spent for nothing. This black cloak did not merely conceal one’s figure and appearance; it was made of materials capable of absorbing common detection methods such as infrared and electromagnetic waves (Note ①). Coupled with the deliberately dim environment, it could basically ensure the confidentiality of one’s identity.
As the area with the most frequent interaction between the garbage zone and the upper levels, the black market was naturally filled with all sorts of people. Among those draped in black robes, there might be corporate dogs taking private jobs, street gangs making purchases, middlemen from the building districts placing orders, or even black gloves from the lawless zones of the tower districts coming to stock up.
Of course, the majority were still those adventurers who risked their lives out in the wilds.
It sounded a little like a term from a fantasy novel, but in this cyber world, aside from its level of technology, there did not seem to be much difference from a fantasy world.
Adventurers hunted mutant beasts, gathered minerals, and searched for relics of pre-civilization ruins, thereby obtaining all kinds of resources. It was worth mentioning that among these resources, many were controlled goods whose circulation was expressly prohibited by law. It was precisely because of this that the black market had soil in which to exist. But if one truly dared to dig deeper, one would still find the tendrils of the Gelian military and the major corporations.
Shop signs passed before Feng Xue’s eyes one after another. In the black market, different forces would leave different emblems on their signboards according to their business scope, scale of power, and asset strength, making it easier for those in the know to identify them. Old Jiang’s materials also contained records on how to distinguish such information.
After turning past three intersections, Feng Xue’s gaze focused on a signboard with a golden cup drawn in the lower left corner and a star mark in the upper right. The golden cup indicated that the shop had ample capital; the star mark indicated that they refused no visitors. Simply put, it was a general store that could swallow anything. As for the shop name, which might change once every couple of days, it was not particularly important.
After confirming that there were no other details on the signboard, Feng Xue walked into the shop. Unlike Old Jiang’s prosthetic clinic, which doubled as a scrap-buying operation, the interior of this shop was rather simple and clean. High-strength resin glass separated the inside from the outside. Behind the window sat a shopkeeper who looked to be in his fifties, his eyes unfocused as if he were browsing the Net.
Seeing Feng Xue come in, he did not raise his head and simply said with those unfocused eyes:
“Buying or selling?”
Feng Xue wasted no words. He placed the suitcase in his hand onto the platform before the window with a soft thud, opened the lid, and revealed the five neatly arranged pairs inside.
“Selling goods. Three-star, general-purpose arm prosthetics. Five pairs.”
Hearing that they were only three-star prosthetics, the shopkeeper did not show any look of disdain, but his movements clearly became somewhat sluggish. He slowly raised the window and picked up one arm. The moment he handled it, however, his brows immediately furrowed.
Complex data flashed through his cybernetic eyes. Suppressing his emotions, the shopkeeper fetched prosthetic benchmarking software, connected it, and tested the data. Then he said:
“The craftsmanship is decent. Standard three-star level. But it’s only standard merchandise, with no additional functional modules.” The man put down the arm, his tone flat. “Common goods like this aren’t lacking on the black market. Eight hundred per pair.”
Feng Xue raised a brow and said with a smile, “The armor on this thing is at least three times that of prosthetics of the same level, and its weight is even ten percent lower. You call that common goods?”
Hearing this, the shopkeeper frowned, then relaxed his expression again. This was precisely what puzzled him. In his eyes, the most striking thing about this prosthetic was its contradiction. First of all, its core framework was visibly short on materials: the chip was thinner than normal, the skeleton was hollow and porous, and even the muscle bundles were much finer than usual.
But the armor on this thing had been stacked to the extreme. Basically all the space freed up by that scant framework had been used to stuff in armor plates. Yet the design was remarkably well done, not affecting mobility in the slightest.
If that were all, then it would merely be a well-designed but not particularly useful low-end three-star prosthetic. Eight hundred points might not be a high price, but it would still match black-market rates.
The real problem was that the actual mass of this thing was only one-third of the mass he had estimated!
He had already tested it with various devices and confirmed that none of those armor plates were lacking in material. They were proper D9-strength composite armor plates. Yet once he plugged them into the formula and calculated, he discovered that this thing had somehow lost two-thirds of its mass for no reason at all.
He had quoted eight hundred to gamble that this customer did not know the trick behind it. But since the other party had pointed it out, he could no longer play dumb. Thinking of the unknown technology that might be contained within, he put on a smiling face and said:
“So that’s how it is. This one was blind and failed to see it. How much does the guest intend to sell them for?”
Feng Xue naturally knew he was talking nonsense, but he did not take issue with it. He merely named a price:
“Two thousand per pair.”
“Impossible! That price is enough to get a brand-new pair of Dayan goods!” The shopkeeper refused decisively, but he truly did want the items, so he added, “Even if the technology in your prosthetics is special, in the end, only the armor is relatively strong. Aside from that, they’re still low-end three-star level. Judging by you, you don’t intend to disclose the origin of the goods either. Even if I buy them back to dismantle and study the technology, I’ll have to bear the risk. How about this: I’ll pay the highest price for low-end three-star goods—twelve hundred per pair.”
“Deal.” Feng Xue knew this price was about right, so he did not continue bargaining. He accepted the anonymous chip card the other party handed over, scanned it with his terminal, and after confirming that it indeed contained six thousand points, he decisively topped up the system. Only then did he suddenly ask:
“Do you have any Muke crystals above S24?”
As soon as these words came out, the shopkeeper, who was in the middle of putting away the five pairs of prosthetics, froze. His expression also became strange. Only after a moment did he shake his head and say:
“Forget my small shop—not even if I had them would I dare sell them to a new customer like you.”
Shielding does not mean something is useful. This material can ensure that the other party cannot use technological equipment to penetrate the fabric and confirm characteristics such as your figure or gait, but if it is used in combat or war, that is a different matter. Because it absorbs rather than turns invisible. Under wide-area detection technology, a person is actually quite inconspicuous, relatively speaking. But once you put this on, it is equivalent to a blank spot suddenly appearing within the detection range. Would that not be plainly telling others that there is something wrong here?
The same applies to assassination, and the same applies to entering and leaving formal occasions. If you wear this thing, everyone will know your intentions are impure. Unless you are the kind of unparalleled assassin who can slaughter your way from the entrance straight to the target, then calmly withdraw afterward, in which case you truly would need this to conceal your face. Nie Zheng was just missing one of these.
But experts of that sort are obviously big shots that every faction would want to recruit. Therefore, the black market does not worry about this thing spreading and circulating, and other forces likewise do not care.