It’s said to be a body transfer, but it doesn’t seem like it; called a soul transfer, yet all the surgical scars on my body match up perfectly.
Apart from these, the system has many other interfaces, but only the task, character, forum, and backpack interfaces are active. Subsequent buildings, skill trees, lottery, and tech development are all grayed out, seemingly unavailable. You can view them but not interact.
Lin Miao noticed a yellow marker flashing in the task bar. He quickly opened it and found a completed main quest listed inside.
[Office System Installation] [Completed]
[Congratulations on completing the first step of the long march to building an office. The road ahead is tough. Here’s your task reward: a newbie gift package.]
[I’m fine, thank you, and you?]
This little thing can talk?
And even respond to me?
Things suddenly started to get abstract.
But anyway, this is his capital for survival; he doesn’t want to end up like that poor guy who was shot in the street and had his body parts dismantled by gangs. Just from the information online, it’s clear that gangs run rampant in Night City, black markets are ubiquitous, and ordinary people live in constant fear. The choice is obvious in front of him.
A tiny life has no value to be exploited or deceived; its only bargaining chip is its life, and even that is cheap.
Lin Miao’s brain immediately filtered out the four words "tough road ahead" and promptly accepted the reward, opened the backpack, and saw a gift box package in a series of slots. His mind moved, opening the package.
[Old Unified Pistol*1, Magazine*5]
[Lightweight Bulletproof Lining*1]
[Intermediate Random Exchange Coupon*1]
The backpack suddenly had many more items, but what caught Lin Miao’s attention was the gun named Unified Pistol.
What man doesn’t love guns?
He just thought for a moment and took it out. A pistol, which looked like it had history, appeared in his hand. Overall, it didn’t look much different from the handguns Lin Miao had seen in films and TV shows, a bit like the USP45, just slightly larger.
Holding the gun, he made a few poses; it felt pretty good.
Lin Miao had some experience with guns because of business on the southwestern border. Every year when he went to Southeast Asia, he would spend some time enjoying himself at the local training camps with pistols, rifles, and sniper rifles.
A magazine holds twelve bullets, with the gun’s inscription reading [.45ACP rounds], a shot from such a gun could definitely blow off an ordinary person’s skull.
After enjoying that, he looked at the other items.
The 3000 Euro Credits seemed to have gone straight into his online bank account, but the next second, he only had 1500 left because 1500 was deducted for rent. Truly capitalism surpasses my speed any day.
The bulletproof lining was made of Kevlar fiber, with the conspicuous logo of New United States Military Technology Company printed on it.
It fit quite well on the body, not bulky at all, and couldn’t be seen under a jacket.
However, Lin Miao wasn’t in the mood to try out the spear against the shield trick right now.
He then looked at the two remaining items, a chip and an exchange coupon.
He took out the former, inserted it into the side brain chip interface, and transferred the files to the computer; he still wasn’t used to looking at things in his head.
But opening that folder, what was inside nearly made Lin Miao’s eyes pop out of their sockets.
It wasn’t some technical document or installation package, some predecessor’s message, nor was it some hidden network URL, but an online forum!
It was an internet forum!
And it was from the internet of Lin Miao’s past life; he was too familiar with these things. NuGA, Tieba, QQ, RedEye, Mop, all that, because before he passed away, those forums were still discussing whether the sheep stood or not. Regardless of the sheep’s status, Gou Dong was definitely doomed.
But before browsing the forums, he had to use the last gift, that random exchange coupon. After all, what’s the use of browsing a forum? Can you ask them if they have any experience in time traveling?
He never indulged in lotteries because he knew he didn’t have that luck. Just the word "random" was enough to lower Lin Miao’s expectations. After all, it was a newbie gift; what good stuff could it bring out? Also, judging from the lottery tab on the system interface, he’d have to deal with it frequently in future.
With a mentality that even a whiteboard item would be fine, he used the exchange coupon.
But after a flash of golden light and the self-imagined voice-over in Lin Miao’s head "Wow! Golden Legend!" the stuff that exploded out still popped his eyeballs.
It was even more ridiculous than the forum contents in the USB stick.
[Intermediate Food Exchange Coupon: 500KG Sealed Packaged Frozen Chicken*1]
And 500 freaking kilograms!
Lin Miao ground his teeth in anger, so furious he almost exploded. The good mood of having just obtained a pistol and discovered the forum was completely destroyed by this, and now he only wanted to chop off a chunk of frozen chicken wing to slit the system’s throat, then say to it:
"I don’t eat chicken (Cao Shaolin laughs)."
PS: The protagonist’s original world is also Earth but isn’t real; it can be regarded as a similar alternate reality to 2077, without Polish donkeys or Blizzard, nor Paradox or GW companies involved in games. It has cyberpunk-related culture, but no Cyberpunk 2077, StarCraft, 40K, and the like games and their related cultural works.