Cyber ​​Ghost Record

Chapter 106-104: Dawn

Two gunshots rang out in the distance.

The prey turned around at the sound and saw only a flock of startled birds flying overhead.

The two gunshots were too close together; they clearly didn't come from the same gun. There was more than one hunter. This gave him a sense of competition.

Competition means mutual interference. But this isn't exactly good news for him either. In the story of the snipe and the clam, no matter who wins between the snipe and the fisherman, the clam can't escape being eaten.

As darkness fell, the expanding shadows of the mountains, like a shroud, were being eagerly pulled aside by the birds—this was the feeling he had as he looked up at the scene. He felt that he was the corpse beneath that shroud, and though he had not yet found peace, it was only a matter of time.

But he still wanted to escape, driven not only by his instinctive will to survive, nor by wishful thinking. If the prey were easily shot, the hunter would not feel a sense of accomplishment, which would violate the hunting ground's operating principles. The hunting ground had many ways to make them comply with its operating principles, methods that were more effective than bullets.

The prey crouched low, parted the bushes, and tossed a few cranberries into his mouth. He hadn't had time to deliberately forage for food, so he wouldn't let any warmth slip by. Ten minutes earlier, he'd eaten a whole pine nut egg, the lingering sweet and pungent taste still lingering on his tongue. It was getting colder, and a rustling sound filled the air—the wind rustling through the leaves, but it sounded like frost was forming on the ground. Night was falling, and it would get even colder, but he still needed to find a swamp to bury himself in the mud.

This is a relatively traditional hunt, where hunters focus on a contest of physical strength, patience, and mental fortitude. They tend to use retro equipment and standardized methods to ensure the game's enjoyment. However, countless real-world examples demonstrate that very few can completely resist the temptation to cheat. Indeed, they often use the multimodal imaging mode of their prosthetic eyes, still relying on visible light for vision, but at night, they will switch to thermal imaging.

The prey knew his skin radiated a warmth incongruous with the environment; he was like a torch burning brightly in the darkness, instantly becoming a target for the hunter. "If only I had a suit of heat-insulating skin," the thought flashed through his mind. Heat-insulating skin wasn't actually heat-insulating; on the black market, it was a euphemism for a thermal imaging coating. Someone had done it before, replacing their entire body with heat-insulating skin to evade detection at the hunting grounds and survive the hunt. This was common knowledge, because the man was dumped on the street a few days later; his heat-insulating skin was gone, leaving him covered in a bright pinkish-red, lifeless body, like a skinned rabbit.

The scene was still vivid in his memory. His Adam's apple bobbed; besides fear, there was also hunger. If he had been given a rabbit, he would have swallowed it whole, skin and bones.

Just then he heard a rustling sound, something moving through the woods, about 500 meters away. He paused, startled. It wasn't a squirrel or a rabbit; they didn't move that fast. It must be a dog.

He has been discovered.

He crouched low, running on all fours. Simply running was futile; a man can't outrun a dog, and besides, the ground he trod would retain warmth, and his footprints would glow red. He needed to find a river or stream to have any chance of escaping his pursuers. But that was virtually impossible; he would be caught within a few hundred meters, and he heard no sound of flowing water nearby. He was finished.

Suddenly he hesitated and stopped, turning around and listening intently into the distance.

The dog chased in the other direction, pursuing other prey.

A non-human roar echoed from afar. It wasn't the sound of a dog; it could only belong to prey. It was hard to imagine a human making such a sound—a pure, animalistic howl devoid of any linguistic meaning. He heard screams, tearing, cries, whimpers…

He could picture the dog pouncing on its prey, muscles rippled beneath its glossy fur, its thick tongue lolling out, saliva dripping, spitting out a foul stench of coolant and blood. The prey, in turn, retaliated, tearing several electroactive polymers from the dog's body. He'd seen similar images—holographic posters used by the hunting grounds for publicity, where spurting blood in the darkness emitted a rich red glow, like fireworks celebrating a harvest.

He shivered violently, smelling the stench of decaying vegetation carried by the cold wind. He immediately rushed in that direction, his movements swift and agile, like a combination of an ape and a leopard.

Their bodies have been enhanced, and each part would be worth a fortune on the black market. Of course, they only have the right to use these bodies, as they are the private property of the hunting grounds. In a sense, having this right to use them is also a kind of "honor."

He heard that when the hunting grounds first started operating, they used androids as prey, but business was slow. For customers, hunting real-world androids wasn't more realistic than hunting NPCs in a virtual world. So the hunting grounds brought in some undocumented immigrants, and business improved, but it was still lukewarm. The reason was that most of these undocumented immigrants made a living as scavengers, and only a very small minority were mentally sound. Killing a fool in a primeval forest with outdated weapons didn't offer much of a sense of accomplishment. So now, every prey is a carefully selected elite, not too corrupted by inferior implants and contaminated data, physically healthy, and mentally sharp. Just the right amount of sharpness.

He kept thinking about other things, and after more than ten minutes, the shade of the fir forest disappeared, and several puddles appeared in front of him, soaked with moss and weeds.

It was dark, and there was no artificial moon. His heart pounded, and he saw some stars appear on the water's surface—not star reflections, but Venus appearing in his eyes. His physical functions were strong, but so were his energy consumption. With almost no replenishment, he was now nearly at his limit.

He gasped for breath, and once his heartbeat had calmed down a bit, he half-lay down in the puddle, using his hands to bury himself in the wet peat, first his feet, then his legs. After burying his lower body, he lay down in the water and covered his upper body with handfuls of wet mud. Finally, he carefully inserted his hands into the mud, leaving only his eyes to observe the outside world. He had learned this method from the Pacific flat shark, which would bury itself in the mud and sand of the seabed. Its fins were wide, resembling wings, hence its nickname, "angel." He looked up at the sky above the trees, imagining himself growing wings, but the end of the darkness wasn't the boundless universe, but a simulated sky—there was no escape, no matter how many wings he had.

In a little over an hour, the sun will rise. Here, eight hours constitutes a complete cycle of day and night.

He felt increasingly cold, with only the faint breaths from his nostrils providing warmth. He couldn't help but purse his lips, allowing him to feel the warmth even more clearly above his lips.

His ears were buried in the mud, and he could hear the faint flow of water. His lost body heat caused the gas in the stagnant water to be released, and tiny bubbles rose and burst. He could also hear the activity of aquatic insects, and the sounds on the ground became exceptionally clear. He could distinguish that just a dozen meters away, a rabbit was quietly moving through the bushes.

He heard the occasional sound of footsteps in the far distance, and the sound of dogs running. After a while, gunshots rang out, followed by two more. The two hunters were still competing; they might be betting on something, perhaps their prey was their stake.

He carefully discerned the sounds, pondering what they were doing. This pondering gradually evolved into fantasy; he imagined the hunters wandering aimlessly through the forest like headless flies, then arguing and killing each other, an idea that gave him a great sense of satisfaction.

A wounded hunter happened to pass by, and the hunter snatched his gun, instantly switching roles from hunter to prey. He followed the hunter at a leisurely distance, noticing the hunter also hiding in the mud, but feigning ignorance, he deliberately lingered nearby, waiting for the man to finally emerge so he could shoot him in the head. No, that's not good. He thought, "I'll wound his leg first." He imagined the hunter limping away and couldn't help but let out a cold laugh.

He continued to fantasize like this. At first, he was very cold, but after a while, his senses began to go numb, and he even felt a little warm. He knew this was a warning sign, but he still couldn't help but fall into a daze, half-awake and half-asleep.

His previous fantasies played out over and over in his mind; sometimes he became a hunter, sometimes he was pounced on by a dog. And once, he was a crow, who slipped out of the ventilation system of the simulated sky and saw the city's neon lights again.

He continued to fly upwards, passing the palaces and temples at the highest point of the city, and transformed into a thousand-year-old crane, soaring into the sky, and then crashing headfirst into some kind of barrier.

In an instant, he fell.

He kept falling. He landed back in the cold darkness, a hunting rifle slung over his shoulder, before him a swamp.

A red glow flickered in and out of the muddy water.

It was the hunter, hiding in the mud, but his breathing exposed him to thermal imaging.

Without hesitation, he picked up his gun and shot the hunter dead in the mud. Then he walked over, wiped away the mud, and revealed the hunter's face.

The face was strangely familiar. He thought for a moment before recognizing it as his own. Then he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the puddle—a stranger.

He was the one who got beaten to death.

He suddenly opened his eyes and came to his senses.

A figure stood not far away, carrying a hunting rifle, his figure shrouded in a black hunting jacket, quietly observing him.

He had been discovered, but felt no fear. His mind and senses were numb; all he wanted now was for it all to end quickly. He sat up in the mud, staring stiffly at the figure opposite him.

Strangely, the newcomer did not fire a shot; he simply turned around and faced the direction from which the newcomer had come.

A dog darted out of the woods, baring its teeth and growling at the man. Immediately afterward, another figure emerged from the woods, his features quite distinctive: white fur and pink skin.

“This is my prey,” said the man in the black jacket.

"Why didn't you shoot?" the albino asked.

"I don't like being disturbed."

“It wasn’t me bothering you,” the albinist shook his head. “You’ve been targeting me all night. You’ve been interfering with me.” He smiled. “I don’t understand. If you hold a grudge against me, why don’t you just say so? How about this, let’s get straight to the point, like this?” He raised his gun and pointed it at the other man.

The moment he raised his gun, the other person also raised his gun.

The two men pulled the triggers almost simultaneously, but no shots were fired.

"Bang..." The albinism imitated the sound of a gunshot, then burst into exaggerated laughter, "Don't panic, don't panic! The guns here have safety locks, they'll recognize you..."

"boom!"

The gunshot rang out, interrupting the laughter.

A bullet struck the head of the android dog at his feet, sparks and pale blue arcs of electricity exploding outwards. The shot triggered a secondary explosion of its neural constrictor; the android dog twitched and struggled a few times before going still.

The man in the black hunting jacket lowered his gun, looked at the albinism patient, pulled the bolt, and loaded a new bullet.

The albino's expression stiffened for a moment. He squatted down, stroked the bionic dog's mane, and examined its wounds.

“I was just joking, Mr. Su.”

“I’m just testing the security lock you mentioned,” the man in the black jacket said coldly.

“Okay.” The albino stared intently at the black jacket, picked up the bionic dog, and gently stroked its mane, but his tone remained calm. “I understand, Mr. Su. This time, my arrangements were not thorough enough.” He paused slightly when he said “Mr. Su,” as if trying to memorize the name.

The prey watched as the albino patient left with the dog.

The hunters were fighting amongst themselves, just as he had imagined, yet not quite. But the prey didn't care who the winner was; he stared blankly at the gun in the black jacket's hand, who turned to look at him. The prey's lips moved slightly; he didn't want to speak, only silently urging. Hurry up, he thought.

"Let's go, it's almost dawn." The man in the black jacket didn't fire; he simply nodded, a gesture that seemed like a polite greeting, before turning and leaving.

The prey remained sluggishly seated in the swamp, oblivious to the hunter's intentions. He stared blankly at the hunter's retreating figure for a long while, until it disappeared into the woods.

The morning breeze carried the scent of dew through the fir forest. He raised his stiff neck and saw the pale red dawn just beginning to break through the horizon.

Its daybreak.

(End of this chapter)