The whole group was filled with old single-player game veterans, who’ve seen everything, and nobody believed what Ah Shui said. But the game’s CG really looked good, perhaps Ah Shui got a job at a major game company and released this to hype it up.
[Wildman Punch: Try it and die, don’t take my kidneys, my dad is counting on me to carry on the family line.]
As longtime QQ group friends who had played together often before, Li Peinuan still clicked the reservation button below the player out of loyalty.
The number of reservations jumped from 0 to 4.
Exiting the group chat, Lin Miao stretched lazily. He hadn’t even washed his face since waking up, eager to start chatting and recruiting people on the computer. He couldn’t help it, the time difference persisted even in this alternate world. Seeing the reservation number jump to 7 in just a few minutes, he figured there were plenty of lurkers around, but he didn’t plan to keep on chatting aimlessly as he had serious business to attend to.
Lin Miao had to meet a lady from the 2000s generation and couldn’t be late lest he leave a bad impression.
Though small, the apartment had everything; a small sunken circular sofa surrounding a stereo TV by the bed, along with a shower and an office desk nearby, a small storage room opposite—standard single dormitory.
After a quick shower and grooming his hair in front of the mirror, he carefully took out the secondhand suit he bought for 100 euros from the wardrobe, meticulously tidied up his look, and finally put on sunglasses, his lips curved into a disdainful sneer, embodying the quintessential company dog stereotype.
Forgot to mention, the lady Lin Miao was meeting was turning 69 this year, about to celebrate her 70th birthday next year. Her name was Wagako Ogata, a famous intermediary in Night City, bestowed with the nickname Westbrook’s mistress. Importantly, she’d been widowed many times—a sure sign of longing for romantic affection.
Speaking of age, Lin Miao was a decade older than her by birth year, yet 42 years younger in physical age.
Ahem... don’t get it wrong. Although Lin Miao looked young and handsome in the mirror, looks are the least important thing in Night City. He’s not interested in becoming a gigolo for an old woman, living off her. He’s just there to discuss a business deal.
Speaking of which, we need to rewind to a week ago when Lin Miao first awakened in this world.
He only remembered heavy drinking in the company’s client booth at the bar, eventually becoming too drunk to remember anything. When he woke up again, he was in a Night City he’d never heard of, and even the world itself was entirely different from what he knew.
The face was the same, the person identical, just in a different world.
The sound echoing in his ears was the noise of honking cars and cursing from the streets outside. There were even faint gunshots; Lin Miao, from a peaceful country, initially thought someone was setting off firecrackers. But when he got up and looked out the window, he vaguely saw corpses lying on the ground below—their heads blown open by bullets, blood everywhere, the killer long gone.
Passersby on the street merely walked far around, minding their own business as if accustomed to such scenes, some even stealthily approaching the body, planning to do something.
Seeing this, Lin Miao felt as if his heart was pulled out and placed in the wind outside a skyscraper, chilled and dried. Even the gentle breeze seemed to carry the smell of blood.
He quickly withdrew his head, closed the window, fearing the killer would put a bullet in it.
"Where on earth am I? Shooting people in the street—is this still my country? What are these buildings? Why are they in Japanese and English?"
After the initial stranger fear subsided, he carefully examined his room. He didn’t remember renting such a place and quickly found the key point—a computer on the desk in front!
Having a computer may mean there’s internet, and if there’s internet, he could quickly figure out which hellish place he had ended up in.
Pulling the chair and sitting down, he couldn’t wait to turn on the computer. After ten minutes of web browsing, Lin Miao got both good and bad news.
The good news was that the computer had no password lock and had internet, and he recognized all the words—Chinese everywhere, even forums.
But the bad news was the online content was peculiar, completely different from his impression of the internet.
The time in the bottom right corner was July 13, 2075, and the web browsing seemed limited to this city—it’s a local area network, not a wide-area internet. He couldn’t connect with people from other cities, and corporate websites and news dominated nearly all media columns.
Colorful advertisements cluttered every corner of the webpage, everyone hoarsely promoting their products, and all kinds of news had explosive headlines—raw and unrestrained, with all images and promotional lines aiming to grab immediate attention.
Some items appeared frequently and instantly grabbed Lin Miao’s sales instincts.
Night City, cybernetic implants, large corporations, hacker networks...
Plus, the emails were either blatant internet scams, ranging from "I am Qin Shi Huang, send money" to lottery wins, or reminders about rent and utilities, and a character named Old Captain selling secondhand cars.