Chapter 123: Chapter 115: Unfortunate Turning Point

"Then, Biotechnology put a bounty on me, and the next day they burned down our house, and according to local law, they took my farm.

But it doesn’t matter—I guess the land wasn’t good for growing crops anyway."

Zig Q, "So you’re telling us your tale of woe—but forgive me for being blunt, paying your debts is only natural, why didn’t you use the house to settle the debt in the first place?"

Hector glanced at Zig Q, "It doesn’t matter anymore, the outcome was the same either way, I lost the land and joined the Wanderers.

I followed the Tribe all the way to Night City, and later when Taiping State began to rebuild, we secured a contract and started building houses there."

Zig Q, "I’m glad you got back on track, and I believe the audience thinks the same, what happened next?"

Hector, "Taiping State was a mess, the Tribe worked both as bodyguards and laborers, on and off for years, until later, when the Unification War broke out.

The army of New America smashed through Taiping State, we couldn’t stand against the war machines of Military Technology, and had to retreat.

But the developers fled, leaving behind a debt of 1.24 million in construction fees, and we didn’t receive a penny."

Zig Q, "That’s really unfortunate, but that’s war, the developers of Taiping State were victims too—"

Hector, "To hell with your victims, you freakish oddity, I’m fed up with your nonsense, I said, you just listen!"

He grabbed the old revolver as though it were loaded.

Officer Krasko nervously drew her weapon—

Even though Hector seemed more breathless than threatening, it still frightened her.

Zig Q was taken aback, and then said, "Wow, you really did scare me, but I still stick to my opinion, of course, you can continue speaking.

Our audience, their eyes are wide open."

"Wide open? That’s fucking hilarious, Night City is just a big drug den, your eyes are wide open, but your bodies are numb, squeezing yourselves into the prisons built by the developers, comforting yourselves as you mindlessly commute to and from work until a stray bullet from a street shootout kills you.

Or you take to the streets, stealing from one corpse, dabbling in drugs, then shooting some poor office worker dead.

Honestly, I don’t see how this is called Dream City?"

...

"Speaking of which, Biotechnology poisoned the land, right? It’s hard to grow crops on it unless it’s been genetically modified by Biotechnology."

"I don’t know about that, but I’ve already requested headquarters to send over the supplies."

"You don’t know, that’s quite amusing."

Lille smiled.

V also exclaimed, "This old man’s pretty unfortunate, but with his skills, why still farm and build houses? Honestly, I can’t understand."

"That’s why Night City is way crazier than the Wanderers in some ways."

On the surface, Lille was chatting, waiting for the goods to arrive, but in reality, he was multitasking, copying useful data from the intricate Biotechnology database.

But this time, he was actually doing three things at once—back in the Marvel World, he had already awakened Dr. Conners and was waiting to get firsthand data.

Koch asked cautiously, "So...you’re interested in the company’s core technology equipment?"

"You don’t need to worry about that, but as I said, you help me get the stuff here, and I’ll take care of the future for you."

"...Which side are you on? Moore Technology? Peizhuo Petrochemical? Or Su Petrochemical? Can you reveal it now?"

Lille shook his head slightly.

No kidding, he had no one backing him.

At this point, all you needed to do was keep your mouth shut and shake your head, even if there really was someone behind you, you couldn’t reveal it now.

DNA editing technology, Lille was not unfamiliar with this— in his original world, the effects of such technology were limited and regulated by a multitude of ethical experiment treaties, if you talk about using it on humans to create grotesque beings, that’s still far off.

Since World War II, the Cyberpunk world had floored the accelerator; massive wars, deaths, and unethically bounded experiments had spurred exponential technological growth.

This technology might not technically be much more advanced than what Lille was familiar with, but they were certainly very experienced with it, very proficient.

This could be seen from the fact that they had also discovered a decay algorithm similar to Dr. Conners’.

The technology isn’t perfect, then just find more subjects, with enough data, you can always derive a standard model.

Lille looked out the window—the clouds had covered the moon, it was cloudy tonight.

Koch had also prepared reasons for the mobilization of the machinery: The Nightingale Project faced significant risk of data leakage while also making a great breakthrough.

The Black Antelope Automobile Company was attacked, many Wanderers died, and in the autopsy of the bodies, they found technology breakthrough inspirations, necessitating urgent adjustments to the experiment.

A successful experiment could stabilize the clients at this critical juncture, suppress bad news about Wanderer deaths, and inspire confidence in investors.

Of course, whether they could deceive her into handing over the items depended on Koch’s cooperativeness.

Minutes later, Koch lifted her head, "The higher-ups have approved; the items will come down from Orbital City tomorrow."

Lille curiously touched his chin, "Don’t you need to submit a technical feasibility report, expert recommendations, anatomical data, and assessment documents or something?"

As these file names burst forth, Koch was momentarily stunned.

Isn’t this person a mercenary? How does he know so much?

"Actually, we have already prepared the adjustment plan, but haven’t had the chance to implement it yet. I’ll transfer the documents now."

"That’s good—"

Lille always felt something was off but couldn’t pinpoint it—Koch’s transmitted information had also passed his scrutiny; it was just as he had seen.

He looked at V and Jack, both of whom seemed normal and had not noticed anything unusual, occasionally glancing at the patrol troops by the glass.

Was he just being paranoid?

Koch became increasingly natural—this didn’t seem like a good sign.

Of course, this woman was after all the director of technology and development, so it was unlikely she was always flustered.

The group sat in the office like that, and Koch continued, "Now we’re all in the same boat. You can go back and wait for my signal."

Lille did not respond.

The unusual feeling made him uneasy; he had already quietly raised the power of the Si Anweisitan’s firewall and increased the speed of data mining.

The feeling was like half his consciousness had entered a deep dive state; an ordinary person probably wouldn’t be able to differentiate between reality and Cyberspace.

[File: Pain Killer Nerve Analgesic]

[File: Nightingale Project]

[File: Nightingale Project - Attachment]

File decryption.

Lille believed that if there was a problem, it would definitely be in these files—no hacker could perform a deep dive mining without a deep dive interface, except him.

This was an unexpected operation, only unexpected operations could reveal things he hadn’t noticed.

[Nightingale Project:]

[Summary: Pain Killer Nerve Analgesic has been proven, over long-term use, to cause progressive neurodegeneration in users.]

[However, this medication remains a top-seller annually, with major military contractors always ranking high on the buyers’ list.

Military Technology has observed these side effects and secretly reached an agreement with the company to develop a type of human augmentation technology that avoids these side effects and enhances neural functions.

The project will utilize the operational mechanism of Pain Killer Nerve Analgesic to analyze the role of protein hormones and electrical signals in the mechanism of "pain".

By modifying the human body at the DNA level, it will transform pain sensitivity into electromagnetic sensitivity, greatly enhancing human-machine interaction sensitivity and giving an edge in warfare.]

[Desirable traits have emerged: cells exhibit increased activity under electromagnetic stimulation, ATP synthesis accelerates...]

[Adverse traits have emerged: [Deleted]]

[More information: ....] 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

As Lille read this, his train of thought suddenly halted, linking several key words together.

The Nightingale Project is a DNA modification project...

Wouldn’t that mean the project itself requires specific equipment...

[Approved confidential experimental assets: DNA drug synthesis device HR-XX1 model.]

[Confidential recent emails:]

[Deleted: You now go home and reflect for a few days—don’t bother coming to the company.]

[Deleted: Just like that.]

The equipment he needed was right here—and Koch shouldn’t have been in the company!

She had already been abandoned by the company!

So what was this woman approving?

Jack, by the window, suddenly said, "Wow, a Scorpion-tailed Lion Floating Car; that thing is truly sleek... is this showing off again?"

"Damn it—Jack, get out of the way!"

Bang!