When There Is No Buying and Selling, There Is No Slaughter / Stop, Don't Fight Anymore, Guys

And no one dared to come over to help.

At most, making a call to the NCPD was already the act of a law-abiding citizen in Night City.

As for surveillance cameras.

That was even more out of the question.

This was Night City, not Ceres.

The surveillance across the entirety of America probably didn't amount to as much as that in a single major city in Ceres.

The merchants, who also understood this logic, did not dare to resist.

Trembling, he took a small bag out of his coat pocket and handed it over.

"This is a good start." Su Xiao took the bag, but instead of opening it, he held it in his hand.

He tossed the small bag high into the air and then caught it as it fell back down.

Then he tossed it up again and caught it.

Repeating this process several times, Su Xiao slowly spoke.

"Second, answer me honestly: where did this black market dream chip come from? Where did you source your stock?"

The merchant's eyes rolled, and a clever idea struck him. "The Tiger Claws gave it to me. I'm working for the Tiger Claws."

"The Tiger Claws, is it?" Su Xiao nodded toward the white-haired girl standing behind him. "Lucy!"

"What are you doing?"

The merchant was shocked.

He wanted to resist.

Su Xiao directly pressed his head down against the ground.

Meanwhile, Lucy pulled a personal link cord from her wrist and unceremoniously plugged it straight into the neural interface at the back of the merchant's head.

Chapter 50: When There Is No Buying and Selling, There Is No Slaughter

Shortly after connecting to the neural slots at the back of the black market dream merchant's head, Lucy found the information Su Xiao wanted to know.

"His name is Lenny Nero. He often collaborates with a guy named Gottfried Persson. Gottfried is a black market dream editor who specializes in producing black market dreams."

"They're not just ordinary business partners; they're also friends."

"However, the two of them had some falling out a while ago."

Su Xiao glanced at the merchant, who was pinned to the ground and unable to get up. "What kind of falling out?"

"Gottfried dragged his own son into the business to be his assistant, but our black market dream merchant here felt a bit guilty about it, so he had a huge argument with Gottfried."

"Bringing his own son along to edit black market dreams? Fuck! What kind of pervert is that?! Was the black market dream of that priest's son falling victim also produced by that father-son duo?"

"Yes."

"Does he have Gottfried's hideout in his brain?"

"Hold on, let me check... Found it. They're hiding in an abandoned factory area in the Northside Industrial District, and they've even teamed up with the Vortex Gang, letting the Vortex Gang provide them with protection."

Su Xiao nodded. "I know everything I wanted to know. Log out."

Lucy pulled her personal link cord out from the neural slots at the back of the merchant's head and retracted it back into her wrist.

Jack pointed at the merchant, whom Su Xiao was pinning down, and asked, "So how should we deal with this guy?"

"Please... please let me go. I have an eighty-year-old mother above, an eight-year-old child below, and a disabled wife waiting for me to take care of them."

Just as the merchant finished speaking, Lucy, who had just been roaming around inside his brain, unmercifully pierced his lie.

"Fake. He's all alone. No wife, no kids, and no parents to support."

Su Xiao looked coldly at the lying black market dream merchant.

"When there is no buying and selling, there is no slaughter. If black market dreams can't be sold, no one will make them anymore."

"To some extent, although he's just a middleman who didn't kill anyone and whose hands aren't stained with blood, he bears a share of the blame for the proliferation of black market dreams."

The merchant's expression stiffened.

Su Xiao's words amounted to his death sentence.

In earlier years, the Northside Industrial District was lined with industries that provided tens of thousands of jobs.

A steady stream of products drove the city's economy.

It could well be called the Little Manchester of Night City.

Nowadays, the outdated factories and workers had been abandoned by the times, leaving behind only rows of smokestacks as witnesses to past glories.

Somewhere in an abandoned factory area of the Northside Industrial District.

A Vortex Gang thug standing guard outside to keep stray idlers from wandering in complained to his companion.

"The boss is hugging a chick,

holed up in the castle barking orders, like I'm the dog they raised!"

His companion seemed to find his complaints rather groundless. "Oh, give it a rest. At least the pay is good."

"Hah, so is this just how the world works in Night City now?" Unreconciled to his companion's reaction, the thug protested.

His companion flared up as well. "'I don't like it'? Go talk to Royce! I'll spot you ten times the guts-do you dare?"

Hearing his companion bring up Royce's name, he instantly fell silent and stopped arguing.

He only muttered with bitter resentment, "I really should just short-circuit myself."

At that moment, the two of them saw a young man wearing a long white windbreaker and a long blade slung at his waist walking toward them.

The Vortex Gang thug, having vented his emotions to his companion without finding any empathy, immediately channeled all his dissatisfaction onto this seemingly lost young man.

"Hey, this is Vortex Gang territory. Private tours aren't allowed. Get the fuck lost as far as you can!"

Yet that young man acted as though he hadn't heard a thing.

He still approached unhurriedly.

"What the fuck, are you deaf? Didn't you hear me?"

The thug vaulted straight over the roadblock, stepped forward a few paces, drew his gun, and pulled back the hammer with his thumb.

Then he watched as the young man flashed forward, appearing right in front of him.

The scabbard pressed against his lower jaw.

Before he could even process what had just happened.

Su Xiao pulled the trigger on the scabbard.

Bang!

The ejected Muramasa took the thug straight up into the sky.

His companion stared in dumbfounded shock at the thug ascending into the heavens.

Then turning his head to look at Su Xiao, he finally snapped back to his senses.

Instinctively, he wanted to raise the Copperhead kinetic rifle in his hand.

But Su Xiao knocked the gun out of his grip with a strike from the scabbard.

Next, Su Xiao stepped down hard onto his knee.

Then, using his head as a stepping stone,

he leaped high into the air and grabbed the Muramasa falling down from above.

First, with a single slash, he cut the falling Vortex Gang thug into two halves.

Then, putting power into his right foot, his entire body accelerated into a blur of motion.

He swept past another Vortex Gang member who was running over to pick up a gun.

The crimson blade flashed across the man's neck.

Splat--!!!

A massive fountain of blood spurted out from the headless neck.

Only, what gushed from a fountain was water, while here it was blood.

The conflict erupted fiercely.

Hearing the commotion, the Vortex Gang members inside the compound rushed out from all directions.

Just in time to see Su Xiao turning around and fleeing.

"Damn it, how dare they come smash the place up for our Vortex Gang? If we don't finish him off, how will our Vortex Gang continue to establish a foothold in the Watson District once word gets out?"

The Vortex Gang grunts hollered and yelled.

Splitting into a large group to chase after Su Xiao.

Leaving behind only a small handful of men to guard the grounds.

The Vortex Gang members who gave chase pursued Su Xiao relentlessly.

And out on the streets, they even dared to open fire recklessly.

The incoming bullets struck the ground, railings, and walls, kicking up bursts of dust and debris.

Fortunately, the Northside Industrial District was already dilapidated and desolate, and coupled with this being Vortex Gang territory, people instinctively steered clear of the area.

Right now, the only ones on the street were the fleeing Su Xiao and the Vortex Gang members in pursuit.

Su Xiao moved in an erratic serpentine pattern.

The Vortex Gang members trailing closely behind fired continuously, yet not a single bullet managed to hit him.

Before long, as if blundering out of panic, Su Xiao crashed headfirst into a secluded narrow alley.

The Vortex Gang grunts trailing behind instead felt a surge of certainty in their hearts.

They guessed Su Xiao definitely wasn't a resident of the Northside Industrial District.

Otherwise, they would never have squeezed into this narrow alley.

Because this narrow alley was a dead end, with only this single entrance and exit.

Laughing heartily, they walked in.

This alley was very narrow.

It was only a single person wide.

They walked in a certain distance, yet found no trace of Su Xiao.

They guessed he must have hidden deeper inside.

Just as they intended to continue searching further inward, they suddenly heard a whistling wind sound coming from above their heads.

A figure dropped down from the air.

It was Su Xiao, who had previously entered this narrow alley and then hidden on the exterior air conditioning unit of the building above the alley.

He stomped his foot directly onto the head of the foremost Vortex Gang member.

With a crack, a crisp sound of breaking bones rang out.

That Vortex Gang member's head listed to one side.

His neck had already been snapped by this impact.

Chapter 51: Stop it, you guys shouldn't fight anymore

After landing, Su Xiao smoothly executed a roll.

A Large Caliber Revolver appeared in his hand.

Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!

The Large Caliber Revolver bullets struck five Vortex Gang members right between their eyebrows, on their foreheads, in their eye sockets, in their throats, and in their hearts, respectively.

Of the only two Vortex Gang members remaining, one of them raised his gun to return fire.