Cyber ​​Ghost Record

Chapter 113-112: Chess Pieces
Shewei Street, east of Zhiyuan Building.

Suger stepped out of the dark alley and looked around at his surroundings from behind the railing of the overpass. Suddenly, he felt a familiar sense of vicissitude. This feeling had appeared before when he was practicing mind anchoring. At that time, he used his vision to visualize the Gobi Desert and perceived something unchanging amidst the traces of time.

The name Shravasti flashed through Su Ge's mind. The Buddha had resided in that land for twenty-four rainy seasons, but it failed to become an eternal Pure Land. Centuries ago, Xuanzang arrived in Shravasti on his westward journey, only to find it a desolate ruin. A thousand years later, a Buddhist kingdom of the same name was built in the Yuanmingyuan Garden, but its prosperity lasted only a century before it was looted by the Anglo-French allied forces, leaving only shards of porcelain and broken glass in the mud.

Sog surveyed the neighborhood before him. The streetlights rested on Sumeru pedestals, and lions and white elephants stood at the bridgehead. He looked toward the Zhiyuan Building, where dragons and peacocks on the building's exterior walls flew toward a distant aerial platform, and guardian deities hovered above lotus-flame roof tiles.

Suger withdrew his gaze and looked down. The sign of the video store on the street corner was lit up with purple light. These stores sold holograms and usually also ran illegal printing businesses. A few meters away, there were advertisements for bars, dental clinics, prosthetic body recycling, and restaurants. A hospital sat in the dim light.

"It's right there, the nearest drug distribution point for the Deer Valley Group," Sisheng said. "This is the most I can take you here."

"Are they guarding the area nearby?" Su Ge looked out over the block but didn't see a single person.

Si Sheng nodded. "Previously, the Lugu Group distributed medicine to many people on the street. Later, someone came to their door and took back all the medicine that everyone had received. Now they are guarding the medicine distribution point."

“What if someone takes the medicine but we don’t pay them?” Sug asked.

“Then this person has to leave something else behind.” Yi Sheng subconsciously touched his left eye, his most valuable prosthetic body.

Suger looked at the hospital from afar. Inside the glass window of the video store, someone was watching a movie in an old-fashioned holographic pod. There was also someone keeping watch at the entrance of the bar, and there were probably more people hiding in the building.

"Do you believe me?" Su Ge turned to look at Si Sheng.

Si Sheng paused for a moment, then didn't answer. In the basement of the hunting grounds, he had an intuition that this man was trustworthy, and more importantly, he knew he wasn't worth being fooled, but the question was too abrupt for him.

“If you trust me, go and get some medicine,” Sog said. “Don’t pay.”

“Uh, I…” Sisheng opened his mouth, then swallowed back his words of refusal. “They won’t let me go.”

"It's alright, I'll keep an eye on things, don't worry." Su Ge patted Si Sheng on the shoulder.

The instant his eyes met Su Ge's, Si Sheng felt a flutter in his chest again. This man was trustworthy; he was absolutely certain of that. He didn't notice a fleeting glimpse of green, like the reflection of lamplight, passing through the man's eyes.

"I see."

Si Sheng took a deep breath and walked towards the steps beside the overpass.

Shen Ke watched the short figure disappear below the steps, then gazed intently at Su Ge.

"He actually trusts you so much, wow, he has quite the charisma."

“He had no choice.” Socrates gazed at the street corner. “I just hope he doesn’t feel like he was forced.”

"Didn't you feel anything?" Shen Ke said. "The way you looked at him just now, I felt a little...familiar." She emphasized the word "familiar."

"What do you mean?"

"Just like how I look at my 'chang' (a type of shaman)."

Su Ge paused for a moment, looking at the steps at the end of the overpass. Si Sheng had already left. He then looked at Shen Ke.

"Did you tamper with it just now?"

“I didn’t,” she said.

Suger frowned and shook his head.

“I’m different from you. I don’t want anything from him. I just want to help him.”

“Of course, I didn’t mean to harm them.” Shen Ke chuckled. “We’re all the same.”

A gust of wind blew from the high-rise building, causing her short, titanium-white hair to flutter in the darkness.

……

As Si Sheng entered the hospital, advertisements for various forms of bio-modification were playing in the corridor.

The coating on the surface of a deeply modified human was wiped away, revealing healthy and radiant skin. On the other side, a poster displayed a cross-section of a thigh, every nerve and blood vessel clearly visible, used to compare its advantages and disadvantages with a servo-motor-like prosthetic leg next to it.

Si Sheng pushed open the door to the service center, where there was a window for dispensing medicine.

The moment he entered, some advertisements were forcibly projected onto his brain and his AI eyes. He saw the Lugu Group's vision for improving the health of the lower classes in Yingchuan, and several recruitment notices for experimental volunteers. These things made him freeze for half a second. He came to his senses, walked to the window, and put his left hand in. A probe pierced his biological tissue.

Half a second later, something in the window stamped a purple mark on his arm with protein dye.

A yellow light illuminated the screen above the window. Ten seconds later, a small box of opioid analgesics, a small vial of viral immunosuppressants, and accompanying antibiotics rose from under the table. Si Sheng put away the medication, his gaze lingering a moment longer on the immunosuppressant. This drug was cultivated using HIV-like pathogens and could comprehensively suppress the immune system. The risks were manageable; just one dose would significantly improve the body's compatibility with the implant, the only cost being the additional antibiotics.

He took his medicine and left the hospital without paying anything. Sisheng felt a little unreal; free healthcare was a right reserved for citizens, and now he had actually received his medicine for free, just like a regular citizen. He looked up at the tall buildings, and for a moment he had the illusion that he had become one of them.

A loud clatter came from ahead, snapping Si Sheng out of his daze. Someone had kicked a crushed aluminum can into a trash can at the bar entrance. Si Sheng lowered his head, quickened his pace, and hurried away from the hospital, silently praying that no one would see him. That way, he wouldn't break his promise to Su Ge, nor would he get into trouble.

"Over there!" A voice called from the side or behind.

Si Sheng paused, then turned around to look.

A figure emerged from the alleyway: "What's going on? Don't you know the rules?" He walked a few steps to Sisheng. "Where's the medicine, huh?"

Si Sheng clenched his fist, concealing the two-thousand-yuan light pulse chip in his palm. He had agreed to come and collect the medicine, hoping to avoid being discovered. If he were caught, the two thousand yuan was his backup plan. But now, clutching the two thousand yuan, he didn't want to give it up.

"If you don't have the medicine, give me the money." The man groped in the pocket of Yisheng's coat and took out the medicine he had just taken out. "Pay me the money to buy the medicine..." Before he could finish speaking, Yisheng snatched the medicine back and remained silent.

The man had never expected to encounter resistance. He was stunned for a moment, then quickly came to his senses, sneered, and kicked Sisheng to the ground.

"You fucking..."

(End of this chapter)