Chapter 1

Luciano's wording was clear. He had come to settle scores.

Although I didn't turn traitor this early in the original, it didn't say he came after me over it, either...

Chu Zu thought back carefully.

But it was pretty strange when you thought about it logically. It was like the author forgot about me. I didn't even show up at his final showdown with Tangqi.

The readers asked about that too. The author answered in the

"author's note." Let me find it...

The system quickly looked it up.

"Found it—'He was confronted, but he didn't die. Maybe diarrhea held him up during the final battle'... Is the author brain-dead?!"

I'm not really going to have to follow that explanation, am I? Chu Zu's head began to ache.

"No!" the system said firmly. "'Anything not written in the main text is bullshit. He's just a novelist. What the hell does he know about Crown of Neon Light?' That's what a reader said, and I think it's worth taking into consideration."

Chu Zu: "..."

He should have observed Luciano's reaction immediately after changing his character setting, but Chu Zu had fainted at precisely the wrong time. After he woke up, everything he heard about Luciano's reaction was secondhand.

Coldhearted capitalist was only a general label. Chu Zu didn't know the finer details of Luciano's attitude.

And those finer details often determined life or death.

"If I really get killed, will I actually die, or can I go on contributing to the 'minor character correction project'?" Chu Zu asked tentatively.

"I didn't expect you to be so dedicated to your work..." The system was almost moved to tears. "You can only die at a plot point. A few days early or late won't matter; I can submit an explanation to the higher-ups for you. But dying more than two hundred chapters early won't do. You'll really die then!"

Chu Zu sighed. "Then I'll lay low."

The system could see how urgent the situation was and hurriedly ran through the possible plot developments. But no matter how it calculated, every path reeked of death.

It was true that Luciano was short on manpower, but what he lacked were people he could trust completely.

As an ambitious man whose power was expanding rapidly, having a time bomb at his side was far more deadly than not having enough people to do the work, especially when that bomb was powerful enough to blow Luciano to pieces.

It was beginning to sympathize with the readers who had cursed out Crown of Neon Light.

What the hell had the author written? He'd written whatever felt good without using his brain and called it a day. If they didn't curse him, who else would they curse?

The system flipped through its manual at lightning speed, trying to find a way out.

Aside from the six months spent learning to act, the system and its host hadn't actually worked together for long, but it liked Chu Zu very much.

He was good-tempered, didn't act recklessly, devoted all his actions to the mission, was efficient, and enjoyed himself while doing it. Where else could it find such a good host? After waiting so many years, it had only found this one novelist who had died suddenly.

The hovercar stopped at the gates of the Esposito residence. In that short time, the system actually managed to find something.

"Do you remember the compensation I mentioned before?" Seeing how urgent things were, the system spoke quickly. "We'll pay you credit points based on your mission rating. You can use them however you like to buy the goods you need from the credit shop."

"I remember."

"There's an item called Physics Divine Beast. It costs three thousand points, and you can use it!"

"I don't think I need a pet."

"Schrödinger's Cat," the system said. "Simply put, it's a fake-death drug. You'll enter a state of suspended death immediately after using it, and the effect lasts three hours."

Chu Zu: "..."

Chu Zu: "I'm a newbie. I don't have any credit points."

The system had already accounted for that and offered a solution.

"You can sell me," the system said. "Since I haven't had any results after binding with you, my current valuation is three thousand credit points, just enough. I won't be reclaimed until the mission ends. By then, you'll have enough credit points to buy me back!"

Chu Zu: "..."

In all his years, this was the first time he had seen a system teach someone how to exploit a bug.

Seeing no response from Chu Zu, the system grew anxious.

"According to my logs, I've been sold many times, and there have been quite a few times when I couldn't be bought back. The worst that can happen is that I'll sit in inventory for a few hundred years, waiting for the shop to refresh. Then I'll be initialized, loaded into the logs, and put back to work."

"But if you die, you'll really be dead!"

Surrounded by the others, Chu Zu walked into the Esposito main residence.

Unlike the homes of most upper-class people, the Esposito residence was a classic European-style building.

Special materials imitated marble, and it had everything from a symmetrical layout to colonnades, arches, triangular pediments, and geometric patterns.

The most common decorative motif was a double-headed ouroboros, with a sixteen-sided mechanical flower between the snake's two heads. It was the Esposito family crest.

As far as Chu Zu was concerned, this already counted as postmodernism as he knew it, yet in this highly developed world, it was still merely called "retro."

"You're a very talkative system, and sometimes your comments show a real lack of tact," he suddenly said in his mind.

The system said dryly, "...Have I been bothering you?"

"You'd go crazy if you couldn't talk for hundreds of years, wouldn't you?" Chu Zu said. "I actually quite like chatting with you. If I'd gotten a quiet system back then, I think it would've taken me a long time to get used to it."

Three characters appeared in Chu Zu's mind, typed haltingly by the system: QAQ

"I want to leave the decision to you," Chu Zu said softly. "If you think it's worth it and believe I can buy you back, then let's do it. If you don't want to, then we won't."

Static crackled. Just as the system was about to say something, Chu Zu added,

"I promise you, even without the item, I'll do my best to live until it's time for me to die."

Chu Zu climbed the stairs to the second floor, where Luciano's office stood right in front of him. Only as he opened the door did the system send him a series of notifications.

"You have successfully sold the usage rights to your bound system."

"You have successfully purchased Physics Divine Beast."

"Physics Divine Beast instructions: you may use this item at any time to enter a state of suspended death for three hours. Please note that you should avoid suffering fatal injuries while the item is in effect."

"I'll do it," the system said quietly. "You said we're a team, and that we have the advantage. If we don't have one, then I should create one for you."

With his hand on the doorknob, Chu Zu said, "Okay," as his fingerprints and irises both passed verification.

Luciano sat at his desk. Nearly a hundred urgent matters awaiting his attention were stored in Jeeves's terminal. He told the butler to prioritize them first; he would look at them later.

He looked up to see the man in the white shirt standing before his desk.

Black hair, red eyes, an expression no different from usual, and a faint, unpleasant smell about him.

The smell of a garbage dump in the Lower District.

"Hankao, bring her in," Luciano said.

The man with half a prosthetic head turned and dragged someone in from the adjoining room.

It was Dai Xian, her hands and feet bound and her mouth sealed with magnetic tape.

She was thrown down at Chu Zu's feet.

"Speak."

As soon as Luciano gave the order, Hankao answered:

"According to the train conductor, she maliciously spread rumors about Esposito on the train. After getting off, she had close contact with the rebels, and we caught her on the spot. We also found the commemorative currency you gave Mr. Chu Zu on her."

Luciano's gaze shifted slightly, and the seal over Dai Xian's mouth was ripped off by force.

She lay on the floor, her head pulled up by her hair. Beneath her disheveled hair, her lips were covered in fresh cracks, and the half of her face that had been covered by the seal was smeared with blood.

The information broker's affected reserve on the train was long gone, and her eyes were filled with terror.

Hankao respectfully

placed the currency Chu Zu had paid Dai Xian in front of Luciano.

The currency had become crumpled, its surface covered in red and black fingerprints.

Luciano turned his chair, stood up, and walked over to Dai Xian.

"Haven't I been good to you, darling?"

Dai Xian cringed and instinctively tried to hide behind Chu Zu's legs, but Luciano stepped on her wrist.

She didn't dare scream, swallowing the sound with all her might.

"You gave me what I wanted, so I granted every request you made, didn't I?"

"We've trusted each other for so many years, so of course I can understand your difficulties. You should understand me too, shouldn't you?"

"But why did you have to let me find out you were betraying me?"

Luciano stood shoulder to shoulder with Chu Zu, his sighing voice seeming to travel into Chu Zu's ear along the bone.

"Why?"

His next words, however, were directed at Chu Zu.

"How interesting. Besides her, I found another traitor very close to me."

Luciano tilted his head, the ends of his golden hair falling onto Chu Zu's shoulder. His deep blue eyes, shadowed, dark and still, met Chu Zu's misty red ones at close range, his breath brushing Chu Zu's chin.

"Chu Zu."

Luciano had spoken that name countless times, usually followed by an order. Occasionally, it meant nothing at all; he simply wanted to hear a response.

Just like keeping a dog.

Go, bite him to death.

Good boy, come here.

Well done, Chu Zu.

Even if the master's orders were sometimes excessively harsh, no one could deny that his rewards were at least just as generous.

This was the first time he had spoken Chu Zu's name in a way that filled the listener with unbearable fear.

The atmosphere was so oppressive that everyone in the room found it hard to breathe.

"Tell me, how would I deal with a traitor?" he continued.

"You'd hand him over to me." Chu Zu paid no attention to the atmosphere and answered quietly.

Luciano's smile deepened as he stared at Chu Zu. "What would you do?"

"Kill him."

"How?"

No one knew when Chu Zu had made his move.

In the next instant, he had already pried away Hankao's thick arm, which was gripping Dai Xian.

His strength completely overpowered the mechanical prosthetic limb. His other hand reached across the man's chest and drew a modular gun from the holster at his waist.

The convenience of modular weapons lay in their interchangeable, customizable components.

This man's gun was equipped with trajectory correction, an electromagnetic launcher, and a suppressor module. Its solid metal ammunition had an extremely high muzzle velocity and penetrating power.

If Chu Zu wanted, even with a rough aim, he could make anyone in the room's head burst open in an instant, even that modified iron head.

The others around them exchanged glances, cold sweat pouring down their bodies, and immediately drew their weapons and aimed them at Chu Zu.

Chu Zu merely released the man's arm and returned to Luciano's side amid the tense standoff.

He hooked his finger around the trigger and used his palm to spin the gun halfway around, pointing the muzzle at himself.

Chu Zu held the gun out to Luciano.

"Use this," Chu Zu said.

"You're as blunt and brutal in your methods as ever," Luciano said quietly.

He took the gun, released the safety, and stepped back, extending his arm to aim the muzzle at Chu Zu.

"I'm not very familiar with killing people. Is this how it's done?"

Chu Zu answered, "Metal rounds have fairly strong recoil. Lower your arm a little more, then fire."

Luciano murmured an acknowledgment and adjusted his posture. He gently brushed the black hair away from Chu Zu's forehead with the muzzle, then aimed it squarely between the man's pale brows.

Without the slightest hesitation, he pulled the trigger!