The battle footage wasn’t difficult to obtain.

As long as the company was willing to devote resources, their network hackers would tenaciously dig out the information from the supposedly damaged surveillance probes in Cyberspace.

If the data existed, it was possible to recover it—this was what the company’s network hackers did most of the time.

It was either recovering current web traces or attempting to restore data from the old net era.

Lille had known this day would come, but he was also prepared for how to answer.

He pulled out the Yinglong directly, "You’re talking about this? Indeed, it’s quite useful."

"That batch of goods was lost in Atlanta."

Lille spread his hands, "I don’t care about that. If you want to buy it back, sure, but street rules, things bought from the black market don’t discuss origins."

"Which black market did you get it from?"

"No comment."

The person in the car frowned, just speaking about cooperation and now this?

Lille immediately added, "However, considering our good cooperative relationship, I can give you some clues—Dog Town."

"...The conditions have changed, take out that gun, I want the data inside, otherwise no deal."

"Fine—just don’t think of tampering with it, or you’ll suffer."

Lille handed over the gun generously.

He was not afraid at all.

All data inside the gun had been deleted and disrupted using a cross-dimensional data channel.

Data could be attempted to be restored, but when some of the data was calculated and processed in another world, you’d rack your brains out and still not be able to find it.

The result was that their hackers would furiously scratch their heads, no matter how they restored it, the data was distorted.

Lille’s nonchalance was not what the man had hoped for, but it was a possible scenario—

Maybe the gun really was something Lille picked up from the black market in Dog Town.

That would be a big problem—but everything had to wait until they went back to research before deciding.

The bodyguard brought the gun into the car and then returned it to Lille’s hands, all the while, the four people on Lille’s side were completely compliant.

The only one who knew the ins and outs, V, completely trusted Lille and felt no urgency. Jack and Cheson were completely unaware of what happened in Atlanta.

No problem—absolutely no issues were found.

"...Okay, that’s it, it’s Cheson, right? I will send the pickup location to you tomorrow."

After speaking, the bodyguards next to the car got in simultaneously like robots, and the vehicle sped away.

However, the person in the car who had been handling the conversation immediately made another call.

The call connected to network hackers in Kantao Company’s cooling pools—they were restoring the trio’s activity routes in Cyberspace.

But the result was...

"...The data we restored seems to have some issues... but we traced back to the name Dennis Burger King reactivating at Arasaka Academy.

He took adult education courses for technical experts and prosthetics surgeons with A-level licenses."

"Dual A-level?"

"Dual A-level, other information is still being restored, but..."

But it was quite difficult, a sentence they did not dare to say.

It was more than difficult, it was hellishly challenging.

For Kantao Company, which started with AI, to encounter insurmountable obstacles in using similar technology to restore data!

"So you found nothing—the anomaly only occurs with them?"

"Not only that, we also noticed similar problems occurring at multiple nodes in Saint Domingo, perhaps other areas of Night City have the same issue.

This is definitely new technology—the hacker is formidable, and it seems he’s still deep diving."

This meant they came up empty-handed.

The person in the car had a headache, but he didn’t make any physical moves and immediately made another call instead.

"Boss, we don’t have solid evidence to link these three to the incident in Atlanta."

"What else?"

"The skinny guy leading them used an Yinglong, one of the gun models was from the Atlanta goods, he claimed he bought it from Dog Town."

"How credible is that?"

"I think... the kid has some smarts, but he doesn’t seem to be the person from Atlanta.

I thought he’d take the opportunity to climb on board with us as a middleman, but he didn’t make such a request, instead, he wanted a Smart Ammo production line.

And he’s not doing it himself, he brought in an arms dealer.

I agreed to his terms, we can deepen our cooperation with that arms dealer, but by doing so, he actually benefits the least, still just a mercenary.

If he were the person from Atlanta, he would likely act as the middleman himself, taking all the benefits into his own hands."

Relationships are the most important.

Even though Lille is the one negotiating this deal now, within a year or two, the benefits Cheson receives would come from Kantao.

In case of a conflict of interest, it’s not certain that Cheson would side with Lille.

This didn’t seem like something a smart person would do—if the Atlanta incident wasn’t by Military Technology, it must have been done by an extremely shrewd individual.

That person managed to involve Military Technology, which still hasn’t disclosed any information, is as if swallowing a bitter pill in silence;

And from nowhere, dragged in a team of expert hackers to lay a trap for Military Technology, hogging all the advantages.

That was Atlanta—how many connections must one pull to achieve that? How much intel must one possess about the whole situation to accomplish such an effect?

However, all this was based on the speculation: that it was a team of hackers that hit Military Technology, not just one person.

"Dog Town... this complicates things. I’ll give you resources, continue investigating, if you can’t dismiss the suspicions about that Burger King guy, keep an eye on him.

"Si Anweisitan didn’t run into any problems, did they?"

"We got everything. The data on James’s side was a bit distorted, but the Type 5 replacements are even better than the theoretical values our engineers predicted."

"Finally, some good news. At least the R&D department can make progress now."

...

"We’re gonna be rich... rich..."

In the car, Cheson instantly turned into a greedy miser.

The three people in the car all showed expressions of disgust.

Cheson just thought these three didn’t understand—however, upon second thought, he felt Lille should understand.

Lille spoke with lackluster interest, "Just remember to distribute the dividends on time. If I die one day, you don’t have to transfer money to me, but as long as I’m alive, you have to remember this."

"Of course— but why are you like this, too? That’s Kantao we’re talking about!"

Kantao, a top-level enterprise from the East, one of the giants of Night City, its fields including robotics, small arms, prosthetics, and more, encompassing nearly all aspects of society.

In fact, the company started with AI.

During the old internet era, the CEO of Kantao seized the opportunity and became the most advanced AI supplier of that age.

Interestingly, Kantao’s origin site was also where Marvel World’s XMSC was located; the two companies were quite similar.

As the sole rising giant in Asia at the start of the 21st century, Kantao’s CEO withstood the influence of the wildly expanding Arasaka.

At that time, other Asian companies were either crushed or acquired by Arasaka or squeezed into other irrelevant fields; they ended up working for them as downstream enterprises.

Until 2023, when Arasaka was defeated by military technology in the Fourth Corporate War, Kantao’s CEO’s foresight was confirmed—Arasaka would lose.

Unfortunately, Kantao’s chance to take Arasaka’s place was ruined by a hacker named Bartmos.

In 2022, Bartmos triggered a data collapse on the internet. The data he released was absorbed by Kantao’s AI and all other active AIs on the net, leading to negative mutations in AIs.

The rogue AIs began attacking their creators, with Kantao, which had betted early on AI, suffering terribly—

Strictly speaking, it had nothing to do with Kantao that Bartmos was driven to death; it was all Arasaka’s doing.

But the data collapse crashed Kantao’s stock to rock bottom, and the CEO, unable to bear the pressure, chose suicide.

Then there was silence.

Until 2046, a former colonel surnamed Xu took over Kantao, moved the headquarters, and, with government support, completed an asset restructure.

Not just that, the former colonel also used some methods to excavate Kantao’s research results from the old internet era and released the A-22B Super Style Smart Pistol in 2050.

This pistol ended Kantao’s wasted years and broke Arasaka’s monopoly in the smart weapons field.

Although rumors suggested that the smart pistol’s aiming system came entirely from the blueprints of the "Yukimura," a smart pistol subcontracted in the old era for Arasaka, its affordable and reliable nature helped the Super Style gain a foothold in the budget smart pistol market.

After all, those buying firearms didn’t care about plagiarism, and Kantao itself, backed by a giant, didn’t care about accusations of copying.

With feedback from the market, an upgraded product followed—Kantao released the G-58 Dian Type Submachine Gun in 2058.

In appearance, this gun still bore the shadow of Arasaka’s "Xin Xuan" Smart Submachine Gun, but the same was true again—it was cheap, reliable, and even more ergonomically advanced.

The Dian Type Submachine Gun even displaced other competitors and became the exclusive firearm for trauma teams.

Finally, when Arasaka, which was being steadily driven back, consoled itself that it could focus on the high-end smart weapons sector, Kantao ended its reverse-engineering days.

In 2069, they released their high-end smart weapon: the L69 model Zhuo Style Smart Shotgun, also the market’s first smart shotgun.

How good was this shotgun? Even Arasaka’s contract killer Adam Hammer chose the Zhuo Style from Kantao. The Eight-star Gun was one of the custom murder weapons Kantao made for him.

Now Lille had one too—actually, four of them.

And so it went on until today, in 2076. Arasaka had still not developed a product to match the Zhuo Style.

Rising from reverse-engineering, Kantao finally defeated Arasaka, the big brother of Asia in the field of small arms, and joined the ranks of Arasaka and Tsunami Armory as the "Three Greats" of small weapons.

So you can imagine how thrilled Cheson was, realizing he’d truly latched onto this behemoth’s leg—even if it was just a hair on its leg.

Moreover, Kantao had a feature that, while not so great for other companies, was much liked by those like Cheson at the lower end of the industrial chain.

That was Kantao’s penchant for "borrowing" other companies’ products, then launching ones with better design and at lower prices, often outdoing the originals.

As a result, the vast Kantao-standard market became even broader, allowing suppliers at every stage of the supply chain a more stable business environment.

At this moment, Cheson was already dreaming of the day when Kantao would beat all its rivals...

If that happened, even just manufacturing bullets would guarantee him a carefree life!

Watching Cheson going crazy in the backseat, Lille sighed.

First it was Jack, now Cheson.

Can’t you just calm down a bit?

Looking at Cheson’s dancing and gesticulating, Lille, with one hand resting on the car window and supporting his face, said, "We’re friends now—I hope you’ll always be able to sit in our backseat, just like today, normal and proper."

Seemingly casual, these words hid Lille’s reminder to Cheson.

"Don’t worry—we’re bros. I come from the streets too, otherwise I wouldn ’t have gotten the sack.

How does that old Eastern saying go? Friends are your most reliable allies when you’re away from home..."

Lille didn’t respond but thought to himself:

I hope you remember that.

Perhaps he was too happy, but Cheson’s inherent Indian entertainment bloodline suddenly kicked in, and he leaned in to ask Lille this question:

"By the way, I heard Easterners all know martial arts. Do you know any?"

Lille gave him a cold look, while Jack and V shared a look reserved for the intellectually challenged:

Idiot.

"I heard that in Indian companies, they provide free cow urine. How does it taste?"

Cheson stopped talking.

Now it was Lille’s turn to look perplexed:

You don’t actually drink it, do you?