"After the Fourth Corporate War ended, a soldier named Mukai Kenji from Huang Ban was rewarded for his meritorious service to the company with the opportunity to be stationed in Warsaw, Poland. Here, this Neon Person met his wife, Shim, who was a member of the well-known local Polish hacker group ’Squad 404’."
"That foolish woman was so blinded by love that she naively believed that this Huang Ban soldier would love her as she loved him, even willing to give up everything from her past as a hacker to become a housewife."
"It took a long time for this couple to have a child...."
At this point, a hint of sadness appeared in Lucy’s eyes, and her tone began to grow heavy.
"The child inherited her mother’s hacker talent, with a father as an executive at the company and a mother as an elite hacker, she originally had a future envied by countless people...until that day, she accidentally hacked into her father’s computer and discovered the numerous crimes that Huang Ban soldier committed during the Fourth Corporate War..."
"The father who seemed tall and kind in her heart was, in fact, merely a beast kept by the company, organizing massacres, bombing public hospitals, poisoning water plants, dropping carcinogenic agents from planes over villages..."
"The originally happy family began to crack, and the child increasingly resisted her father and everything in this family, frequently running away from home and coming in contact with gangs...until that man one day couldn’t bear it any longer, he chose to tie up his daughter and send her to Huang Ban for hacker testing. Upon discovering her extraordinary hacker talents, he dispatched her, without hesitation, as an offering to the company..."
"From that day on, the endless nightmare for that girl began..."
Lucy closed her eyes in pain, as if she were recalling a relentlessly cruel past, where each day felt like hell.
She even stopped using the term ’girl’, instead she said directly,
"In Huang Ban’s underground facilities, we endured rigorous training with no concept of day or night. Those people commanded us to cross the Black Wall, searching for the heritage technologies they called the relics of the Old Net era. Every day, someone was discovered by rogue AI, and the data body caught felt like meat thrown into a shredder, torn to the most basic unit of information, disappearing completely, while the real-world body died alongside..."
"Every day, familiar children died, and unfamiliar ones were sent in; each day I wondered when it would be my turn...maybe dying would be better, dying would be freeing, but I’m afraid of dying, I’m really afraid I might actually die...so I can’t die, everyone else dies but I survive..."
"Just like a last escape, I ran a bit faster than anyone else...many people died, and only I escaped from Huang Ban..."
At this point, the can in Lucy’s hand was crushed flat, the brown soda burst out between her fair finger gaps like erupting magma, burning her body and soul.
"Every morning when I wake up, I ask myself—did you escape? Did you really escape?"
"If I really escaped, why is it still the same here? Why is Huang Ban and these big companies everywhere? Where exactly do I need to escape to leave this hell behind..."
Lin Miao then understood why Lucy could be so sure that the incident during the day was done by Military Science—what could be more familiar with Military Science than Huang Ban?
He also understood why Lucy seems to have a special attachment to the moon—it’s because it’s the outermost edge of the company’s influence zone, and just like the poster said—A New World....
After a brief silence, he suddenly laughed aloud.
"...Just saying this to me, aren’t you afraid I’ll walk the information back to Huang Ban for money? I’m quite greedy, be careful I might sell you out."
Lucy suddenly looked seriously at Lin Miao, staring at this outsider, much like herself.
"....." Faced with this sudden trust, Lin Miao found himself somewhat unprepared. He initially only admired Lucy’s hacking skills, later turning it into a longing born of attraction; Lucy suddenly conveyed genuine earnestness...it left him at a loss.
Lin Miao licked his lips, almost instinctively sensing that Lucy’s mood was unusual, as though she had discovered something...
But what could she have discovered?
Lucy hadn’t spent much of today interacting with the players, merely speaking a few words with Pandora, then guiding some hacker techniques....
The creations by the players are all under Lin Miao’s watch, with no secrets at all.
[System, what’s going on? Did I get exposed?]
[I prefer to call it hoisting chaos by your own petard, take a look for yourself...]
.....Lin Miao saw that the players indeed took the story he made up seriously, even keeping it in the archives, and Lucy saw it by chance.
[Damn...I just joked with the players, making up a story, how come someone took it seriously, and why didn’t you remind me?]
[It’s just a story you made up, not real secrets, originally meant for the players to see; do I have to clean up each lie you concoct? That would be too difficult, patching the flaws of lies only leads to more.]
Lin Miao took a deep breath, suppressing the inexplicable agitation within him.
"With you trusting me , if I say yes, you’d be very hurt, but to say no flat out would seem insincere...."
He picked up the napkin from the table, lifting Lucy’s hand stained by the soda, wiping away the brown soda and bubbles from her palm bit by bit.