Starting as a Mechanical Hunter

Chapter 354: Chapter 126: Punk Spirit, Hippie Spirit

With Qin Chunzi in command, the players felt as thrilled as weirdos meeting weirdos, having a great time.

They had never encountered an NPC who desperately assigns you tasks.

She would even motivate you, give you drugs, or flog you because the tasks couldn’t be completed.

The players were overjoyed!

As a result, peers were held down, tied up, and dragged away by over a dozen players in the streets, alleyways, and even public places.

Dragged into the laboratory for processing, experiments, and explosions.

The performance of each Moral Chip was tested out.

After ten biologists and ten neural editors were in place, reverse research on ’Moral Chips’ began to accelerate.

Corporate Will was overjoyed, as most people are either weird or not weird. In most cases, either of the siblings is dissatisfied.

But the appearance of players successfully satisfied their quirks.

Rarely are there so many people between weird and not weird.

After three days, the fallen players came back angry and then went out joyfully.

If you had mentioned the expansion pack earlier.

Thus, the team causing trouble grew day by day.

...

At this time, in a deserted prosthetic body shop, a small face was pressed tightly against the glass, nose squashed into a pig snout, staring intently at an ’Exceptional’ grade prosthetic, labeled with a large ’Do Not Touch’.

Xiao Yu stared for a whole hour.

After returning from Fucheng Island, Little Angel first worked for free for everyone in Red Rain Street for three days, tidying up the street.

Then on the fourth day, she finally had some free time and was ready to look for the Boss to continue working.

As a result, Gao Gong wasn’t around, only leaving a message saying he had some affairs to attend to recently, so she could do whatever she wanted.

Xiao Yu reflected on herself and discovered her favorite thing was actually fighting with people, no, upholding justice!

However, the security in Nightless City had changed dramatically.

Gangs disappeared overnight, and those who survived were all good citizens.

Not to mention illegal activities, there wasn’t even someone spitting on the ground.

Then Xiao Yu was completely at a loss for what to do.

Incidentally, Xiao Yu was implanted with a Moral Chip on her first day in the city.

Little Angel expressed, is this it? How come there is no feeling at all?

This straightforward girl’s self-moral standards were far beyond the demands of a Moral Chip.

Contentedly playing with the ’Power-enhanced Mechanical Arm’, she also chatted away with the Boss for quite a while, the social butterfly happily left.

”Xiaoyu?”

Xiao Yu turned around, ”Aunt Qin?”

Aunt Qinn was different from Xiao Yu’s impression; Aunt Qinn used to have a frowning, rushed appearance, but now she was all smiles and seemed to have gained some weight.

She still wore the standard legislator’s outfit, but had a small basket around her waist filled with fresh vegetables.

”Haven’t seen you in years, what are you doing now? Come, have a meal at my place!”

The mention of a meal made Xiao Yu’s eyes light up, and she immediately agreed without hesitation.

Aunt Qinn had a good relationship with her father; one had lost a husband, the other had lost a wife, Aunt Qinn had a disabled son, and her father had a daughter with a dysfunctioning brain. According to her father, the two were close like sharing a pair of pants.

Although Xiao Yu didn’t understand what sharing a pair of pants meant, she often saw the two lying on the same bed.

Every time Aunt Qinn came, she had to sleep on the sofa.

Later, for some unknown reason, her father and Aunt Qinn fell out, and the young girl rarely saw her again.

This chance encounter made Xiao Yu very happy.

Aunt Qinn took Xiao Yu to her home, located in the Upper Midtown District, which was much better than she remembered. It used to have murky air, mechanical eyeliners everywhere, and rough mechanical creations—hardly suitable for living.

But now, there were more skyscrapers, various airborne marketplaces, and the air was very fresh.

Aunt Qinn smiled kindly at Xiao Yu, who was looking around.

”After we eat, I’ll take you to have a good tour.”

Arriving at Aunt Qinn’s house, a cleaning robot had already opened the door, and in the hall, a boy whose limbs were fully replaced by prosthetic bodies was blankly sitting by the piano, lost in thought.

”Little Jie, look who’s here.”

The boy called Little Jie turned around, revealing a delicate face. Upon seeing Xiao Yu, his eyes lit up, ”Xiaoyu!!”

”Little Jie!?” Xiao Yu widened her eyes and said, ”Your legs don’t hurt anymore?”

In Xiao Yu’s memory, Little Jie suffered from the rare Mechanical Phantom Limb Syndrome.

Ordinary Phantom Limb Syndrome refers to sensing the presence of a limb after it has been amputated.

Typically, implanting a prosthetic body resolves this.

However, Mechanical Phantom Limb Syndrome is somewhat different. Their neural systems are special, making it impossible to install hand or foot prostheses. Once installed, it feels as if a mechanical body is shoved into the flesh, causing unbearable pain.

”Yes! They’re fine now, see!” Little Jie spun around quickly, smiling.

”That’s great! I always wanted to take you out to play but couldn’t since you couldn’t walk. Now we’ll have the chance!” Xiao Yu smiled, patting his shoulder, and said happily.

”Hmm!!”

Aunt Qinn smiled as she watched the scene, saying, ”You guys play, I’ll go make dinner.”

As soon as Aunt Qinn left, Xiaoyu’s eyes lit up and she said, ”Little Jie, what model of prosthetic body are you using? It looks so advanced! Can I borrow it to play? My mechanical body is terrible, and the boss won’t replace it for me.”

”Sure, but you still have a boss?” Little Jie asked curiously.

”Yes, food and lodging are covered, and they help me pay off my debts. It’s great, except they won’t help me get a new prosthetic body.”

Xiaoyu skillfully lifted Little Jie’s prosthetic leg, placed it on her thigh, and began to dismantle it.

”Uh-huh.”

”What’s the matter, did I hurt you?” Xiaoyu looked up and asked blankly.

Little Jie quickly waved his hands, a hint of blush flashing across his face.

”Blackwater Model 16, well-balanced with excellent ground grip,” Xiaoyu lightly leaped, walking agilely on the walls and ceiling with the mechanical toes, then softly landed with a crisp sound from the mechanical pivot.

Watching the other’s agile movements, Little Jie showed an envious expression.

”Not bad, not bad, hahaha, our prosthetic bodies are the same size!”

Little Jie wore Xiaoyu’s prosthetic body, revealing an embarrassed smile.

”Just the impact isn’t as good, not as strong as my previous Flaming Bird, but it suits you pretty well.”

”Time to eat, you two—”

Aunt Qinn came out of the kitchen and upon seeing the boys and girls swapping legs, showed a clearly astonished expression.

”Aunt Qinn, your choice of prosthetic is not bad. Little Jie has a gentle personality, so it suits this kind of stable-performance prosthetic.”

”Alright,” Aunt Qinn forced a smile, ”You’re all grown-ups, still playing around, hurry up and wash your hands for dinner.”

During dinner, it was inevitable that the conversation turned to Xiaoyu’s father.

”The fact is, relying on lone heroes truly can’t save society; only large corporations have the vast resources to accomplish such things.”

”Public welfare districts, nice-sounding, but who is willing to contribute, relying on one or two heroes?”

”Combining the needs of large corporations with the needs of this era, that’s the real future!”

”Moral chips are the future,” Aunt Qinn looked affectionately at Little Jie, ”Now it’s very peaceful, Nightless City is safe, kids like him can wander outside without worrying about encountering uncontrollable risks.”

”Aunt Qinn,” Xiaoyu raised her head seriously.

”What’s wrong?”

”The rice is not enough!”

...

After dinner, Aunt Qinn wanted to take Xiaoyu and Little Jie out for a walk, and they happened to encounter the neighbor next door, Mr. Hu, and her bionic daughter.

The bionic girl was very shy, but under the influence of Xiaoyu, the social butterfly, she soon warmed up.

”It’s still this era that’s nice,” Mr. Hu said, rubbing his belly with a laugh.

”Yeah, really nice,” Aunt Qinn also smiled at the playful kids.

Almost until evening, Xiaoyu hopped back home and as soon as she got back, she saw the mechanical armor soldier browsing the news.

Since this ancient being left Fucheng Island, he seemed to have become a shut-in at once.

”Grandpa, I brought you some food back!”

Since the mechanical armor soldier didn’t allow Xiaoyu to call him Grandpa, she changed the title, and this time, the mechanical armor soldier didn’t object.

The mechanical armor soldier nodded slightly; the news he watched was all technology-related, seemingly assessing the gap between ancient and modern technology.

And Xiaoyu was also used to it, first placing bundles of snacks and clothes on the ground, then picking up oil to start adjusting her Whiteboard prosthetic.

The clothes may be beautiful, and the snacks may be tasty, but what she loved most was still machinery!

”Hmm?”

When oiling the leg prosthetic, Xiaoyu suddenly paused, and then caressed the rough mechanical leg. The usually optimistic her had a strange look on her face.

A strong emotion surged into Xiaoyu’s mind through the prosthetic, making her uncomfortable and causing her to involuntarily bury her head in her knees.

The mechanical armor soldier paused his fingers, and the news stopped switching.

”Back then, during the No. 7 Destruction Form trials, there was a very peculiar ability, which was to perceive the emotions of machines.”

”We conducted many experiments, only to later confirm that those were not the emotions of the machines. Machines have no emotions; only people do. Or rather, what No. 7 perceived were the lingering emotions of those who once operated the machines.”

The mechanical armor soldier turned his head, his electronic voice calm.

”So, what did you feel?”

”Great pain.”

That’s what Xiaoyu said.

...

Every era has its own anger. If used in a good way, that anger can become the driving force for social reform, and if used wrongly, it can become the driving force for reforming the penal laws.

The anger in the Cyber Test Field can basically be summarized into two aspects: workplace and rules; conversely, punk and hippie.

Just like the two virtual personalities in Gao Gong’s hand.

Punk Spirit: Hidden within the aversion to corporations and resistance to authority is the spark of revolution.

Hippie Spirit: Toward a cynical attitude about oneself and disdain for rules, it’s, in short, a rebellion against social norms.