Is This What an Adventure Across Eras Feels Like?!

"I'll do anything you want!!!"

Dugu Yan's voice echoed through the Internet Cafe lobby, nearly making Lin Ye spill the soda in his hand.

Looking at the purple-haired girl before him, eyes red and willing to "sell out" even her own grandfather, Poison Douluo, Lin Ye sighed helplessly and leaned back to put a little distance between them.

"Miss Dugu, calm down. Wipe your drool first."

Lin Ye pointed to the Internet Cafe rules on the wall. "We don't hire servants, and we don't make exceptions! If you want to bring Night City's cyberware and advanced tech into the real world, there's only one way—play the game."

"Play the game?" Dugu Yan froze.

"That's right. Immerse yourself in that world and advance the story. Based on your progress and achievements, the system will randomly drop materialization rewards."

Lin Ye waved the glass bottle in his hand and gave her a knowing smile. "You still have five hours of playtime today! If you want to save your grandfather and purge the serpent poison from your body, go find the answer in Night City yourself."

Dugu Yan gritted her teeth and gave Lin Ye a long look.

"Fine! I'll play!"

Without another word, she spun around, rushed back to station four like a whirlwind, and put on the headset again.

Dugu Yan's consciousness sank back into Night City. At first, she had only wanted to farm gear and find an antidote, but she soon realized she had been wrong.

Completely wrong!

Once the initial shock of being a newcomer wore off and the main story unfolded, its cyberpunk epic gripped her completely.

As a prodigy of Heaven Dou Royal Academy, her idea of adventure had always been a trip around the outskirts of Star Dou Forest to find a spirit beast of the right age, beat it half to death, and absorb its Soul Ring.

Dull. Repetitive.

But Night City?

She followed Jackie Welles into a luxury Aero Car and watched Night City's neon lights stream beneath them. She learned what infiltration and hacking really meant, guiding a mechanical spider called Flathead through Arasaka Corporation's most exclusive hotel. The thrill of dancing on a knife's edge set her blood boiling!

This is incredible... This isn't some illusory training ground. It's a living, breathing second world!

Dugu Yan had slipped completely into the role of the protagonist, V.

But Night City did not believe in fairy tales.

When the story took a sudden turn, Saburo Arasaka died before her eyes, and the entire hotel went into maximum lockdown, Dugu Yan felt a pressure unlike anything she had ever known.

She could throw her weight around in Heaven Dou City. She was Poison Douluo's granddaughter. But faced with Arasaka Corporation's overwhelming firepower and heavily armored mechanical troops, she learned for the first time what a desperate escape felt like.

Bang!

The fleeing Aero Car took a devastating hit. Jackie, the big fool who had looked after her all along and bragged that they would become Night City legends together, had his abdomen torn open by a stray bullet while protecting her.

"Jackie! Hang on! I'll get you to Vic!"

In the game, Dugu Yan pressed her hands against Jackie's bleeding wound, her voice trembling.

On the Douluo Continent, she looked down on commoners.

But in this world, Jackie, a foul-mouthed mercenary from the bottom rung of society, had touched the softest part of her heart with his sincere loyalty.

On the Douluo Continent, plenty of people treated her well.

Her grandfather did so because she was his granddaughter.

Yu Tianheng did so because their families were considering a marriage alliance.

Her status shaped everyone's attitude toward her. Some feared her, some flattered her, and some schemed to use her.

But Jackie was different.

Jackie did not know she was Poison Douluo's granddaughter. He did not know Jade Phosphorous Serpent Poison ran through her veins, or that she might die on any given night.

All Jackie knew was that her name was V, that she was a rookie just starting out, someone who could use a little help.

He was good to her simply because he was Jackie.

And for the first time in her life, someone treated her like an ordinary person.

"V... Looks like... I won't be making it... to the big leagues..."

With a trembling hand, Jackie slotted the mysterious chip into her head. Then the light went out of those eyes that had always been so full of optimism.

"No—!!!"

Dugu Yan let out a wail inside the car.

She had become so immersed in the story that real tears slid from the corners of her eyes.

But Night City's cruelty was only beginning.

After struggling back to the meeting point with the chip, she thought she could finally catch her breath. Instead, Dexter DeShawn, the fixer who never stopped running his mouth, coldly pointed a gun at her head to save himself.

Dugu Yan stared down Dexter DeShawn's gun barrel and found it all absurd.

She had seen plenty of people stab others in the back on the Douluo Continent.

She had grown up surrounded by noble marriage alliances, factional struggles, and court intrigue.

But she had always thought those were the rules of the game for people in power.

Dexter DeShawn was only a fixer, someone paid to arrange a job.

She had thought people like him followed a code. She had been wrong.

Bang!

At the gunshot, Dugu Yan's vision went black.

"Hah—ah!"

After what felt like an eternity, Dugu Yan woke in a reeking landfill.

She was not dead.

The mysterious chip called the Relic had saved her. But it had also planted a terrifying soul in her mind—Johnny Silverhand.

"Damn it... What's going on...?"

Dugu Yan staggered out of the landfill, listening to the Digital Ghost in her head curse and try to seize control of her body. Then she stopped short.

Standing amid Night City's ruins, she felt a realization strike like lightning.

What had happened to V... was painfully familiar!

A lethal chip had been implanted in V's head, one that could devour her life and erase her personality at any moment.

And in the real world, Dugu Yan's own body carried Jade Phosphorous Serpent Poison, which could erupt at any time and eat away at her organs!

V had only months to live and had to search for a way to remove the chip in this pitiless society.

Dugu Yan, too, was fighting against a countdown to death, desperately searching for a cure!

She and I... We're the same...

At that moment, Dugu Yan felt her soul resonate with V's across the divide between worlds!

She was no longer merely a highborn Heaven Dou noble, nor a customer who had come solely to claim the Metabolic Editor.

She was V, a Night City mercenary dancing beneath Death's scythe and rebelling against the world's unjust rules!

She would uncover the secrets Arasaka Corporation was hiding! She would find out what the madman named Johnny in her head wanted! She would survive—both as V and as Dugu Yan!

"Beep—"

Your playtime for today has run out. The anti-addiction system has been activated!

Just as Dugu Yan met Takemura and was about to launch a desperate counterattack, the system cut the connection without mercy.

Dugu Yan removed the headset and sat quietly at station four. She did not make a scene as she had before, nor did she throw a fit over being disconnected like Ning Rongrong.

Tear tracks still marked her cheeks, but the petulance had faded from her emerald-green slit-pupiled eyes. She murmured to herself.

"So this is what a real adventure feels like..."