Players Invade Cyberpunk

Chapter 1177 - 382: Who Decides Good and Evil

No matter what the cause, reason, process, or outcome of the event, these two days are perhaps the most stable days Night City has seen since it was established.According to Brother Ni and others’ speculations, the degree of influence on individuals mainly varies depending on the distance from the statue and the extent of their exoskeleton.

Apart from the Vortex Gang, the sex dolls from various clubs are also deeply affected, almost all of them running away.

But surprisingly, regarding the departure of sex dolls from the clubs, both the club owners and the clients strongly approve and support it, as if completely forgetting their roles as patrons.

Only Taiping Continent and the Stone Ridge Mountain Industrial Zone are minimally affected due to the absence of statues.

In this way, the citizens of Night City suddenly experienced a reduction in their life pressures.

Although the change in behavioral logic has caused conflicts and contradictions between the divisions and headquarters of Night City’s corporations, the time has been short, so these haven’t manifested yet.

For Lin Miao, these are also the happiest days he’s experienced this entire year.

But he doesn’t feel happy at all.

How could he possibly miss something that even the players can notice?

He sensed the anomaly even earlier than the Exchange Coupon.

Because the city council’s members suddenly righteously refused Lin Miao’s bribery.

At the time, Lin Miao thought this guy was dissatisfied with the amount and wanted to raise the price, but the other party stated he wasn’t interested in money and cared more about the livelihood and security environment of Night City’s citizens.

Lin Miao almost thought the sun was rising from the west, and after watching the sun for a long time, he confirmed he wasn’t dreaming.

Only after multiple interactions did he confirm someone was stirring things up behind the scenes, and that person was Blue Eyes and Ye Corporation.

Should he stop them?

Forget the players, even Lin Miao was deeply conflicted, caught in a dilemma.

That’s why, even knowing this, he didn’t have the system issue tasks to the players.

Because if looking at the current situation, Lin Miao, Horizon Corporation, and the lower-tier populace will become the biggest beneficiaries.

On this issue, Lin Miao finds no answers.

He sits cross-legged in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, overlooking the street view of Night City, and vaguely sees that familiar yet unfamiliar face on the glass.

"You bastard..."

As Lin Miao gritted his teeth in his mind,

Squeak—

The office door was pushed open.

Like a cold breeze, it blew by Lin Miao’s side.

"You were looking for me?"

Lucy playfully leaned over Lin Miao’s shoulder from behind, her hands wrapping around his neck, soft and cool like boneless skin.

Lin Miao picked up a file from his feet and handed it backward.

"Yes, I wanted to show you something, it’s some intelligence about Europe sent by Karelinna and the French siblings."

Lucy lost interest, sliding off Lin Miao’s back, casually taking the file and starting to browse.

Initially, she browsed indifferently, as European matters were not her responsibility, and she had no sentiments for that place.

Soon, her fingers slowed down, staring at the data and photos on the pages, her pupils trembling, showing great surprise.

"How dare they..."

"Why wouldn’t they dare? What in this world is there that they wouldn’t dare to do?"

Lin Miao’s tone was flat, unbearably cold.

The file stated that to get ahead in Human Brain Array research, France and the Soviet Union completed a transaction with Zeta Technology and started, covertly or overtly, harvesting living human brains.

In less than a month, thousands of brains from France and the Soviet Union had been forcibly removed from their bodies for experiments.

This was just what they encountered. In places they didn’t reach, like the UK, Germany, Japan...

Who knows what the real death toll is.

Essentially, they were mostly capturing homeless people on the streets and members of the Wandering Tribe outside the city because their disappearance wouldn’t attract much attention.

But such numbers can’t satisfy the corporations’ appetites, as it’s equivalent to a new round of technological revolution; the demand for computing in modern industrialization is substantial.

One hundred thousand?

Two hundred thousand?

Even a million would be just a drop in the bucket.

Lin Miao has calculated that to completely replace the current industrial computing network, at least a figure in the eight or even nine-digit range of heads would be needed.

That’s how many people would have to die.

Lucy read with icy hands and feet, and the mood for banter with Lin Miao disappeared, unable to calm down for a long time, saying apprehensively,

"We must find a way to stop these companies from this damn Human Brain Array plan. Are they insane, agreeing to develop and promote this monstrous thing?"

"It’s unstoppable."

Lin Miao shook his head.

"This is an excellent opportunity to eliminate the vagrant AI; they wouldn’t give it up even if the sky were to fall."

He closed his eyes, feeling more annoyed than ever.

Time after time.

It’s always like this.

No matter how many things he does, how hard he tries to change the situation, it’s always a drop in the ocean, causing only minimal impact or even having the opposite effect.

He recycled the mountains of waste outside the city and cleaned the garbage within Night City, yet the corporations and city council started collecting garbage recycling tax from the citizens.

After determining Lin Miao could profit from it, they wanted to extort money from him, even filing a lawsuit on the grounds that the garbage produced by the company belonged to the company’s property, and Lin Miao recycling it constituted theft of corporate assets.

The city council also suspended subsidies, claiming illegal profits, yet continued collecting garbage recycling tax from the citizens.

The result was citizens feared throwing trash away, piling it in their homes or attempting to avoid municipal staff by dumping it in sewers or other places, causing immense difficulties for the recovery workers.