Cyber ​​Ghost Record

Chapter 69, Section Sixty-Eight: Dead Water
The cigarette butt flew out of the underpass, blown askew by the wind from the tall buildings. Suger remained in the throwing posture, watching the cigarette butt land below the trash can and roll twice. The medication was taking effect; a long-lost sense of calm soothed the chaotic impulses in his neurons. This made his mind blank, even creating the illusion that he was simply going home from get off work, having just stepped out of the subway exit.

He stood there in a daze for a few seconds before picking up the cigarette butt and throwing it in the trash can. He went to a vending machine and bought a can of drink, just a simple electrolyte supplement, lacking any flavoring and as bland as salt water. After he drank it all down and threw the can away, Chiba Ryoko turned back to look in the direction of the underground clinic and said, "Two more courses of treatment, four thousand two, you don't have much money left."

Su Ge wiped his mouth with his finger, looked down, pushed open the aluminum medicine box lid in his hand with his thumb, closed it again, and repeated the action.

"This medicine is quite effective."

"It may soon become useless."

Ryoko Chiba withdrew her gaze and looked at Suger.

Sug understood what she meant. He put the medicine box in his pocket and walked through the narrow alley between the buildings. The walls were piled with red and white turnover boxes and garbage bags, and the gaps in the paving stones were filled with sewage that looked like electrolyte.

"I've been trying my best to avoid trouble."

“You don’t cause trouble, you just go to places where there is trouble everywhere. Floatosis is not a rare disease, but it’s different for you. You can’t go to the hospital, and you’re not the kind of person who can follow medical advice.”

"What happened last night was just an accident."

Su Ge instinctively refuted her, but he knew it was just self-deception. Even without last night's events, he hadn't stopped practicing his abilities over the past two weeks. Connecting to the Gu Diao, miniature robots, and remote monitoring devices—these actions undoubtedly involved receiving external neural data, a major contributing factor to his worsening condition. He had to follow medical advice, but to investigate Jiang Ning's whereabouts, find his organization, and guard against enemies, he also needed to strengthen his control over his abilities. This was an unsolvable contradiction; he could only selectively ignore this objective fact to convince himself to continue down the path of despair.

Ryoko Chiba simply shrugged. Behind the barbed wire between the buildings, a vacuum railcar passed through mid-air and headed down to the street, which was dozens of meters below.

“The current treatment is just delaying things. In fact, Ruan Qiuheng’s suggestion is worth considering.”

I can't trust her.

"Therefore, you need a private doctor."

"A private doctor?" Suger smiled wryly, a sudden irritation rising in his heart. Without realizing it, he opened the medicine box again. In the past, he hadn't had the habit of taking a pill all the time. He paused for a moment, then put the medicine box back. Overuse of medication was far more harmful than smoking.

"Where am I supposed to get hundreds of millions? Rob a bank?"

As soon as he said those words, a series of unfounded associations flashed through his mind. In this era, currency was based on computing power; what he might be robbing from a bank wasn't gold, but servers. He imagined himself stuffing servers into the trunk of his car and escaping amidst a hail of drones and hovercars. He found it absurd, yet he realized he was actually contemplating robbing a bank. He genuinely had criminal urges; it wasn't entirely a joke.

“It’s not impossible.” Chiba Ryoko turned her head, her eyelashes fluttering, and glanced at Suger. “This should be easier than hacking into the Security Bureau.”

Suger did not answer; the main force behind the intrusion into the Security Bureau was that black cat, but he did not intend to reveal it.

“Actually, as long as you change your mindset, many problems will no longer be problems for you,” Ryoko Chiba said. “At least, money won’t be.”

Suger understood her meaning. In the eyes of this enigmatic figure lurking in the dark web, he was bound by his moral compass. Indeed, if he wanted to commit crimes, even the most basic ones—robbery and theft—he could quickly amass his first fortune. But that crossed his bottom line. He hadn't entered the swamp to sink; one day he would cross it.

“I heard there are dozens of monsters who escaped from prison,” Chiba Ryoko said again. “You brought me out, but there must be others.”

"What's wrong?" Su Ge didn't tell her that the Void Realm Mandala was currently hidden in Feng Yu's electromagnetic shielding room. Chiba Ryoko stopped.

“Even the lowest-ranking digital life has a price starting at seven figures.”

Her voice has a texture like the vibrato of a metallic string, soft yet cold and hard.

Digital life has existed for two hundred years. Admittedly, those monsters that illegally upload consciousness do not have human rights under the law, but in the current ethical view, they are still intelligent life.

“I’m not a human trafficker.” Su Ge sized her up. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll sell you off too?”

A cryptic smile appeared on Chiba Ryoko's lips, and Su Ge had a feeling that his response was the answer she wanted.

"Then let's try another method, or you can release them, but of course, you'll have to pay a ransom."

Suger was somewhat tempted; it was indeed a good idea. The Void Realm Mandala was a hot potato, but if handled well, he could get a large sum of money and get rid of a big problem.

But these monsters, including Shen Ke, are all criminals. Su Ge can't forget the general who almost made him jump to his death.

Even the National Security Bureau has a complicated process of dealing with evil spirits, including imprisonment, purification rituals, and trials. He doesn't think he can bear the responsibility of letting a tiger return to the mountains.

“There’s no need to complicate things,” Suger said.

Chiba Ryoko seemed to see through Suger's true thoughts. She looked up, her gaze piercing through the gaps between the tall buildings to reach the soaring eaves of the city. She then glanced at the street outside the alley, where several zombie-like water ghosts walked past the ramen shop's signboard.

"If you ask me, sometimes you have to be a little messy. Sometimes, when you see the water is clear and fish are swimming around, you realize how dirty it is underneath."

Socrates found himself unable to refute that statement.

“Even if you keep them locked up,” Chiba Ryoko said, looking at Suger, “many digital life backups will activate if they don’t receive an ‘inactivation command’ for a long time. That’s no different from letting them go.”

Suger realized he needed to devise a proper way to deal with the Void Realm Mandala as soon as possible, and time was running out. He took a deep breath, and his head started throbbing again. In his daze, he seemed to see some mental images: gods and Buddhas looking down on the mortal world, while countless demons and monsters roamed through the rainy night.

In mid-air, a pearl dove was captured by a cleaner drone, and a few bloody feathers fell into a puddle by the wall.

The few lines of poetry he had read before hibernation surfaced in his mind like foam on water:

This is a stagnant, hopeless ditch; beauty is nowhere to be found here.

Let ugliness cultivate the land and see what kind of world it creates.

Note: The poem at the end of the chapter is from Wen Yiduo's "Dead Water".

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(End of this chapter)