Feng Xue paid no mind at all to Big-Titty Bro’s cry of alarm. With a backhanded shot, he fired into that front-mounted armor that looked exceedingly soft—only for the blast of buckshot to cause no substantial damage.
“As expected, Perfect Companion only replaces texture and tactile feedback. It doesn’t affect the original performance!”
In truth, this doubt had lingered in Feng Xue’s mind ever since he finished modifying Lika. As for why he hadn’t tested it...
What a joke. Lika was his precious baby! And one he didn’t even have blueprints for! With skin that tender and dewy, if her defensive performance really had dropped, where was Feng Xue supposed to find suitable materials to repair it?
But now, this Big-Titty Bro had helped clear up his doubts. Not only had he helped Feng Xue test what effect his golden finger could exert in actual combat, he had also helped confirm the true value of the Perfect Companion entry!
As expected of an orange entry!
Giving Big-Titty Bro no time for nonsense, Feng Xue abruptly reached out and, at point-blank range, fired an Army-Breaker buckshot round straight at the cybernetic eye, completely blasting apart that head filled with confusion and terror.
Seeing their boss lose his head in the blink of an eye, the underlings had no time to ponder their boss’s suddenly mutated front-mounted armor and immediately scattered like birds and beasts. Feng Xue, meanwhile, bent down and began stripping materials from Big-Titty Bro’s body.
“So this is how it’s structured... A quasi-non-Newtonian fluid. It hardens when subjected to impacts beyond a certain threshold, and the interior is layered, buffering layer by layer to disperse and weaken the impact without affecting the internal organs. This kind of structure... All right, unless I really turn into a fleshy Maitreya, I probably won’t have much use for it.”
Feng Xue removed that large piece of frontal armor. Although it had been distorted by his golden finger, its rating remained at three stars. Still, Feng Xue was a little worried that his golden finger wouldn’t recognize something that had been modified.
“The arms are three-star too, but they’re engineering prosthetics. Their agility is mediocre. Tsk, and one of them’s been damaged by flesh-and-blood source energy. It won’t be easy to fix. I’d better not use that move recklessly in the future...”
After removing the most valuable components from this bro’s body, Feng Xue’s load instantly shot up to twenty kilograms. But considering the rewards from the previous three side missions, he had no intention of throwing them away before finding other three-star prosthetics.
Although the gains from this battle were average, he had tested out the special applications of the stealth-breaking strike and his golden finger, so it wasn’t a loss. Seeing that no one seemed likely to come looking for trouble for a while, Feng Xue simply swaggered around openly. Searching for trash that might contain entries was secondary; his main goal was to see whether he could lure over any death-seekers...
...
After completing the installation of the plugins for his frontal cortex and cerebellum, Feng Xue’s ability to perform multi-threaded control made a qualitative leap. While he controlled John’s new body to search for targets on the battlefield, his stand-in also left the prosthetic shop and headed for the gray-market channel.
“Doctor Feng, you’re here? The goods you wanted have arrived. Take a look and see if you can use them!”
Listening to the boss’s greeting, Feng Xue did not say anything like, “I can rest easy when you handle things.” Instead, he inspected the prosthetics one by one, and a hint of disappointment inevitably appeared on his face.
“The performance is all right, but these are all rebadged goods, aren’t they? Which small factory made the knockoffs? The precision’s a bit lacking.”
“Sharp eyes!” The boss had only met Feng Xue a few times. Although he had entertained the thought of testing him, out of consideration for Old Jiang, he had not actually given him inferior goods. Now that the kid saw through it at a glance, he felt somewhat relieved that he hadn’t tried to be too clever. After offering a word of praise, he explained:
“Since you’ve come to me for goods, you can’t exactly expect original, genuine products, can you? The molds are a little rough, but this factory’s quality control is still decent. At the very least, they have ninety percent of the original’s performance...”
“That’s not wrong.” Feng Xue couldn’t very well say that he hadn’t felt any entries on them, so he could only place his hopes on imitating them after fully understanding the blueprints. He took out his chip and paid. But just as he stepped out the door, his movements nearly went out of shape.
Almost on autopilot, he carried several prosthetics toward the prosthetic clinic. Aside from maintaining John as he darted about the scrapyard, the majority of his consciousness had focused on Kong Wu—
Or rather, on the identity of John that Kong Wu was currently wearing.
“This target isn’t simple...” John looked at the new menu Paul had provided. Compared with the previous ones, this menu was clearly several degrees more luxurious. It wasn’t just the exterior that had changed; the format inside had changed as well.
If the previous ones were like menus from a fly-infested hole-in-the-wall, with a dozen dishes written on a single page, then this one was like a menu from a restaurant in Shanghai, with only a single dish per page. Correspondingly, not only did it come with pictures and introductions, even the prices were extremely “beautiful.”
On the previous lists, the highest was only a few thousand. In this menu, the cheapest one started at twenty thousand.
“Killing one would be enough to cover my rent for a year.” John flipped through the menu. Seeing that he looked like he was going to read through them one by one, Paul still added:
“For orders you’re not taking, don’t memorize them.”
“I get it, I get it. Otherwise, if someone dies, things could get troublesome, right? Relax. For work worth tens of thousands, I can still understand what matters.”
Although he said that, Paul could not see the slightest awe on John’s face. Out of a bit of consideration for sustainable development, he lightly tapped the bar counter. Without looking at John’s expression, he merely stated:
“These jobs are different from the ones before. If you don’t want people targeting you, it’s best not to leave a mark anymore. As for proof... for targets of this level, as long as they’re dead, that’s enough.”
Since he dared to openly act as a middleman here, naturally he was not afraid of people coming after him... But the fact that he was not afraid did not mean he would help the people under him resolve their troubles. If it were something like getting caught by the cops while hijacking a shipment, he could still use his connections. But the jobs this kid took were all killings. Basically, by the time he learned you’d been retaliated against, it would already be too late to fish you out.
Hearing him say that, John suddenly paused and said:
“I get what you mean. But I came here to make a name for myself. If I don’t even dare leave my name after killing a few small fry, how am I supposed to become a legend?”
As he spoke, John even seemed to act out of spite, slapping his hand directly onto a photograph—
“Him, then!”
Paul glanced at the menu. To avoid John acting on impulse, he still confirmed, “You’re sure? This guy is a minor leader of the Skeleton Iron Society!”
“What? You can’t afford to offend him?” John raised an eyebrow. Paul smiled and said:
“If I couldn’t afford to offend him, he wouldn’t be appearing here. I’m afraid you can’t afford to offend him.”
“No such thing. As long as you don’t refuse to pay up after I’m done.” John spread his hands, took out his terminal, and signaled for Paul to send over the information.
Seeing this, Paul stopped trying to persuade him. As he sent the detailed information, he said:
“As long as you enter this tavern, I can protect you. But my rent isn’t cheap.”
“I get what you mean.” John snapped his fingers, picked up his terminal, and tucked it back into his pocket. “I’ll get it done within a week!”
People always used to say Gotham City had simple and honest folkways, but only after I looked up materials for writing a cyberpunk world did I finally understand that Gotham truly deserves the words “simple and honest folkways.”
Gotham’s population is comparable to New York’s, but the number of violent deaths each year is only a little over two hundred. After Batman became active, it dropped to just over one hundred according to annual data. It looks like a lot in the comics because there are many parallel worlds, but for a single timeline, this is the official data. That means that aside from super-criminals, ordinary shootings are actually extremely rare—so rare that it’s a little abnormal for the Great West.
Second, because Gotham has Wayne Enterprises, ordinary people can afford insurance. And since the insurance company is also Batman’s property, there won’t be all kinds of buck-passing either. If Batman blows up a street, there’s a fund to pay compensation. You won’t end up with something like your newly bought car getting thrown out and smashed by the Hulk, along with a house that still has decades of mortgage left on it.
In addition, all of Gotham’s enterprises are monopolized by Wayne. Problems like overpriced tap water or mandatory lawn-trimming don’t exist, because the lawn-care company is his too. Batman alone can solve the problem of the kill line.
And judging from the behavior of Gotham’s various villains, Gotham’s medical standards and infrastructure are both quite good—also thanks to Wayne Group—so teachers in schools probably won’t die for stopping students from selling weed either. After all, Batman is there.
It can be said that if not for the Court of Owls and that thing called Dionesium, Gotham would be more livable than anywhere in America. Even with Dionesium included, it’s still more livable than most places.
Batman, Gotham—I wronged you in the past. How is Batman inactive? He’s clearly been holding up a Western utopia all by himself!