A Cool Figure, LED Lights, Formerly a Miner, a Runaway Graphics Card Girl

Muttering incessantly.

"No, that can't be. It should be impossible. This is just a coincidence. It's impossible..."

Su Xiao said nothing and merely quickened his pace.

A few minutes later, they arrived at the meeting place Max had mentioned.

When they saw the scene before them clearly, both of them were stunned.

This must once have been the last refuge of the city's forgotten underclass, abandoned by the city and society because of the ever-increasing poverty rate.

More than a dozen shabby tents stood beneath the overpass, enjoying the shade and comfort.

On one side of the camp was a sunlit hillside. When the weather was good, people could even climb up there to bask in the sun.

Despite being poor beyond measure,

the people gathered here and struggling to survive under such harsh conditions were still willing to help one another, and even accept other unfortunate people who came here.

At the center of the camp was also a chapel without walls.

A holy cross rested on a crude wooden table.

Seeing such a scene, your mind would naturally conjure up a picture like this:

--Whenever the day of worship came, people would gather before the holy cross, listening to and feeling the wisdom of the Lord.

Yet now.

This beautiful scene had been shattered.

The tents that could shelter people from the wind and rain had been overturned.

The holy cross had also been broken into several pieces.

The chapel at the center of the camp was engulfed in raging flames.

The bodies of the people and the priest burned in the blaze.

Max froze for a moment.

Then he dragged a charred corpse out of the fire.

"Is he the person who was supposed to contact you?"

Max nodded.

He put on his gloves and began examining the body.

After a careful search, Max

stood up again and sighed helplessly.

"The Neural Slots were destroyed, his cybernetic eyes were gouged out, and his brain suffered fundamental destruction that made data recovery impossible."

"Only the corporations could have done something this thorough."

Ordinary gang thugs would only kill people.

They would not clean things up so thoroughly.

Only corporate personnel knew that even the dead might still leak information.

That was why they had destroyed Esteban's Neural Slots and gouged out his cybernetic eyes.

They had even completely destroyed his brain.

All to prevent skilled hackers from digging anything out of it.

Unfortunately.

Max would never know

what Esteban had wanted to tell him.

"I can't stay here any longer, or I might throw up."

Max could not stand the smell of burning human flesh in the air.

Nor could he bear the sight of these people from the underclass, who had neither provoked nor offended anyone and had merely banded together for warmth, becoming firewood for a blazing bonfire.

And all of it was simply because Esteban had chosen this place as their meeting spot.

Arasaka had come to silence him and slaughtered them all.

"Do you want me to take you back?"

"No need. I'll call a car myself." Max had already walked some distance away, but as if he had remembered something, he turned and came back. "Oh right, this is your payment. If anything comes up next time, I'll contact you again."

After transferring the money to Su Xiao, Max finally hurried away without looking back.

After Max left, Su Xiao came to Esteban's corpse.

Just as Max had said,

Esteban's body had been destroyed beyond recognition.

Even if the most talented hacker in history, Lachie Bartmos, were resurrected,

there was absolutely no way he could extract even the slightest bit of data from Esteban's corpse.

Su Xiao placed Esteban's corpse back into the fire.

He hoped that Esteban and the people here could go to a better world after death.

Just as Su Xiao was preparing to leave as well,

a strange "coo-coo-coo" sound suddenly came from one of the boxes in the camp.

It was obviously not the sound of a pigeon.

It sounded more like the rumbling noise a stomach made when someone was hungry.

"Is there another survivor?"

Su Xiao activated the scanning mode of his Tactical Goggles.

However, he found nothing.

He was slightly taken aback.

Then he looked toward the box that had made the strange noise earlier.

He continued scanning.

There was still no reaction.

He understood.

Either the box had an anti-detection coating,

or the person hiding inside had installed an anti-detection jammer.

Considering that this was merely an ordinary miscellaneous storage box,

the latter possibility was more likely.

Su Xiao placed his left hand on the sword sheath.

He slowly walked over.

Without making a sound.

When he reached the box, he took a deep breath.

Then he suddenly flipped open the lid of the large storage box.

At almost the exact same moment, a golden ray of light pierced the darkness.

It shot toward Su Xiao's face.

Su Xiao tilted his head and dodged the Monofilament Wire flying straight at him.

Then he drew his sword and blocked to the side.

The Monofilament Wire wrapped around the crimson blade.

Sparks from the friction and collision fell like raindrops.

Neither side gave an inch.

Only then did Su Xiao notice that the person locked in this struggle with him was a white-haired girl.

The girl soon realized

that the struggle was unfavorable to her.

So she severed her connection with the Monofilament Wire herself.

She leaped out of the large storage box,

stepped on the scattered debris, and mounted Su Xiao.

Her legs clamped tightly around Su Xiao's neck.

She wanted to use inertia and the strength of her body to throw Su Xiao down.

The two of them crashed toward the ground at the same time.

But Su Xiao broke free of the girl's restraint. Instead, as they fell, he twisted her arms behind her back and pinned her to the ground.

She could not move.

The girl tried to struggle several times.

But all her efforts were futile.

Su Xiao held her firmly against the ground.

In the end, the girl seemed to accept her fate and closed her eyes.

Chapter 37: A Cool Figure, LED Lights, Formerly a Miner, a Runaway Graphics Card Girl

"I'm going to let you go now, but I hope you won't do anything rash, all right?"

The girl hesitated for a moment.

Then she slowly nodded.

Only then did Su Xiao rise from the girl and take several steps back.

The girl immediately got up as well, staring at Su Xiao with a guarded and wary expression.

She paid no attention to the dust and mud clinging to her hair, face, and body.

Su Xiao looked around.

"Who are you? Were you the one who killed the homeless people in this camp?"

The girl countered, "Wasn't it you?"

"Huh?!"

Su Xiao and the girl stared wide-eyed at each other.

After some communication, the two discovered that it had all been a misunderstanding.

Su Xiao had mistaken the girl for the Cyberpsycho who had killed everyone.

The girl had likewise mistaken Su Xiao for the Arasaka Special Assault Unit that had slaughtered the entire camp.

That was why she had suddenly attacked Su Xiao when he opened the box.

Now that the misunderstanding had been cleared up,

the girl's expression softened somewhat.

But she still remained cold and wary.

However, Su Xiao could understand.

After all, in Night City, there were very few people like Jack who would lend a helping hand to newcomers.

Most were Scavengers who had their eyes on your organs and cyberware.

The atmosphere was somewhat awkward.