Chapter 58 Being Late
So after getting off work, Li Pan, who was covered in skin and simply bandaged into a mummy, returned to the apartment and went to his neighbor's house to have a look.
Sure enough, Orange, who was covered in bandages just like him, was sitting in a daze at the door of his apartment.
While she was in the hospital, Ye Shi had already come to dismantle the virtual cabin and clear out all the electronic equipment at home to investigate the case of technology leakage.
Because of taking on a huge penalty loan for his son, Orange Payment’s credit rating dropped to the lowest level, and no institution provided prepayment services anymore. The access to her apartment was immediately locked by the property management company, and she had to pay a cash deposit of three months' rent before the next settlement date, otherwise she would be evicted from the house.
But Orange probably doesn't care about this.
Although she has never served in the military, the only benefit of working in a public medical facility like NCHC is that it can be converted into years of service. Huang Dahe can enroll in science and engineering, which means that her guardian Chengzi has also received citizenship treatment.
Therefore, even if the house is taken away and the salary is given priority to repay the loan, the social security subsidy for basic subsistence is still available.
Probably just like the group of bankrupt homeless people in this apartment building, she thought that as long as she maintained her previous routine every day, came back after work, even if she slept in the corridor, and waited for her son to come back, maybe she would regain the peace she had lost. The days can come back.
Seeing Cheng Zi's dull eyes, Li Pan knew that this was probably her plan.
"Don't be stupid. If you wait like this, your son will never come back."
Li Pan put his pockets in his pocket and looked at Chengzi,
"Let's have a drink and have a chat."
Chengzi looked up at Li Pan and hesitated for a while. , or stood up and followed.
As soon as she entered the door, she took off her jacket and trousers,
"Whatever you can give, forget it, you can give me whatever you want, I just want cash."
Li Pan ignored her and handed the cold beer to Cheng Zi,
"Brain plug. Where's the chip?"
"Sell it, let's go back and exchange it for a civilian one."
Chengzi drank a bottle of beer, lay down on the sofa, stretched his legs, and stared at the ceiling with a careless attitude.
Li Pan rolled his eyes, took off his glasses and handed them to her,
"Look, this is a case where Yamato was wrongly accused."
When Chengzi heard that he was wronged, his pupils shrank, he sat up, took the glasses and put them on.
"I checked the surveillance cameras near the apartment and asked the neighbors. I thought Yamato never came back after you passed away. Even if he left for three days, he just walked back. Why would he come to pick up some relics? And this
matter The rumors are spreading. In fact, many people know that he developed the OS operating system. I think there is a high probability that he was kidnapped."
Li Pan looked at him sitting on the sofa, reading the information and chewing. orange with fingernails.
"He, he never told me this..."
"What's the use of saying it? Does it make you worry? You can't help him."
Li Pan pressed the cold beer into Cheng Zi's hand,
"He is so smart. The company was reluctant to kill him, so he must have been kidnapped to develop systems." "
I, I thought, I was fighting with my classmates again... Until the end, I was still lecturing him... Use him, use him as a punching bag... ...Woo! Wuwuwuwu! It’s me who’s useless! It’s all my fault! If I hadn’t given birth to him, this child wouldn’t have suffered so much! It’s all my fault! Wuwuwu!” Chengzi suddenly
said I lost control of my emotions, covering my face and crying.
Li Pan was watching from the side, waiting for Chengzi to vent. Of course he knew that at this time, he could deceive someone by borrowing his warm arms, kissing, hugging and hugging her, but he couldn't do it, and he was really here to discuss business.
When she calmed down a bit, Li Pan continued,
"Finding someone can wait. Huang Dahe is at least better than wandering on the streets working for the company. He will not be easily exploited before his use value is drained." Abandoned.
And the hacker I know is a top-level hacker. She can't even find a clue. The opponent must be at the company level, but the OS is so powerful. As long as any company's SMS makes rapid progress, they can lock the target and target them. Searched.
What you have to consider now is Yamato's fines and loans. If you don't pay off the money owed to Ye Shi, it will be useless even if you find and rescue Yamato. He will have no future of his own. Orange,
you You understand, this is the way the world is. As long as the money problem is solved, most problems can be solved. So how much money do you owe now? How much can you earn by working at NCHC?" "I understand what you mean, thank you
... ..."
After hearing this, Chengzi took the towel handed by Li Pan and wiped his face, gradually calming down.
After all, Chengzi has been working at NCHC for so many years, and he is a front-line cleanup team. He has seen too many tragic human tragedies. NCHC provides free medical care, and usually there are a lot of poor people swallowed by despair queuing up. , what she encountered herself was nothing unusual in the City of Night.
"I used all my savings to pay part of the compensation. The remaining fines from Yamato are probably more than 13 million yuan, and there are still 1.4 million yuan in student loans. For breach of contract due to wrongful withdrawal, there are three times the fine, which adds up to about 1.4 million yuan. It's about 20 million."
Cheng Zi laid his head on the sofa and exhaled softly,
"NCHC's basic salary is 5,000, and you can get a subsidy of 10,000 for overtime and field work every day. If you pick up some useful things after picking up corpses, I give the scavengers some small sums from time to time, and on average, I can get 20,000 yuan a month. If I use it all to repay...it will take more than eighty years to pay it off..."
Li Pan was also speechless, okay? Although Cheng Zi is busy, he can still earn 20,000 yuan a month. If Huang Dahe successfully graduates, with his brains, he will be a senior engineer who started with a small salary of 100,000 yuan, and his family can be well-off. Then don't drag people into the fire pit of 2,500 yuan. But...
"Chengzi, do you have a medical license? Or a battlefield first aid certificate? Do you have any experience in participating in tactical operations?"
Because of our friendship with Huang Dahe and Chengzi helping him practice twice, this time Li Pan had risked his life to save her life. The debt must be paid off.
Since Li Pan himself is very poor, if he still wants to help, it's not impossible, but there must be a limit.
It doesn't matter if he helps Huang Dahe, but if he wants to bring Chengzi into his extra-money team and make money together and share the spoils, he has to confirm the other party's professional skills and true level.
Cheng Zi was stunned,
"I don't have a medical license. Only rich people can afford to go to medical school. I graduated from a nursing school, but I do have a battlefield first aid certificate. Members of the frontline cleanup team are very familiar with the emergency treatment of trauma and the use of basic nursing equipment." No problem, these are the most basic requirements."
Li Pan looked at her and said,
"You know those ghouls in Wallenstein. They usually do more than shoveling corpses and selling garbage, right? What about black surgery or something? No license. Practicing medicine?"
Chengzi didn't hide it from him,
"Well, I can't do it if I'm seriously ill or seriously injured, but it doesn't matter if I take out shrapnel, sew up the wound, or replace it with a prosthetic body. I can practice it, and I can occasionally earn thousands."
Li Pan thought that this kind of simple emergency surgery would be enough, so he suggested,
"I have a team that currently does not have medical support. If you are willing to provide us with outsourced medical services, we can sign a contract. There may not be any Cash, sometimes in kind or black currency transactions. If you want, you can live in a Yamato like me. The rent is included in the contract." Chengzi sat up and stared at him, "Li, you don't have to help me like this,
we
just But I slept once, and I don’t have that value."
Li Pan also sat down on the sofa,
"Of course, you are a serious citizen, you can register a company, you can apply for a loan, and you can get an obituary number in the news when you die. , at least in name, you are the 'person' recognized by this system.
As long as there is someone in the name and certain channels, you can do a lot of things and save a lot of money by just typing on the keyboard. Of course, the premise is that you first put your fine liabilities and The loan must be paid off and your credit restored.
So think of it as an investment. Before I rescued Huang Dahe, you paid off the debt. After I rescued him, he came to work for me. What do you think?"
Chengzi stared at Li Pan for a while, then nodded in agreement.
Maybe Chengzi had accumulated a lot of stress in the past few days, so he and Li Pan leaned together, fell on the sofa and fell asleep.
Li Pan was also exhausted. The two of them slept head to head all night. Before dawn, they had to get up together and squeeze into the subway to go to work to pay off the loan.
Let's talk about being fragile. I jumped out of the window as soon as I couldn't think about it. But tenacity is actually very tenacity. Look at this early in the morning, there are so many people with low blood sugar getting up to commute.
The subway is full of people. Who doesn’t have tens or even millions of loans on their head? Why don’t they grit their teeth and squeeze into the train...
Damn it! Which trolley wolf touched me!
Uh, okay, it was a sudden stop. That means someone fell on the track again. Okay, just wait for five minutes...
But today the transportation system was stopped for forty minutes. God knows what happened, so there was a person at every station. A large number of social animals are desperately trying to squeeze in, and they can't wait for one more class. After all, if this class can't catch up, they may be late and their performance will be deducted.
As a result, the subway door was too crowded to close, and everyone continued to get stuck. In the end, Li Pan was late for checking in.
"Boss, you have used up your three days of annual leave, and you are late again today. You will not have full attendance this month, and your salary will be deducted by 500." Aqi, who is in charge of the human
resources department, handed the coffee and the personnel attendance sheet to Li Panpai.
"Oh my god..."
You can still deduct another 500 from me even though you already have a basic salary. Oh my God...
Li Pan almost knelt down.
"No! What's going on today! What's wrong with the transportation system! So many people are lying on the tracks today?"
Shiba is a good gossip,
"Yeah, I heard that there is some aristocratic women's college, and a whole class of girls are holding hands. I jumped, and the subway almost derailed. Now the security bureau has been dispatched, and the whole city is trying to find out whether it is a cult, a hacker, or an extremist organization. Various forums on the deep
web have been quarreling, and now one of the young ladies has been revealed. , there are a few people who seem to be from well-known families, they may have been involved in the underground war."
Fuck, is it so involved? A whole class was involved in the wheel...
"Noble Women's Academy? Which one is it?"
Kotaro asked. Not affected, this guy came by private car.
KUSO! How many hidden assets does this young master of the Feng Demon Family have...
Shiba checked and said, "The middle school affiliated with Jinyao Women's College." "What
!! Jinyao Academy! And it's a middle school department!" Kotaro was shocked, "Then But you are a top-line chaebol lady!"
Li Pan was watching the fun, "Why do you know about it again? Are there any classmates you know?"
Kotaro gossiped,
"How can I, a ninja, be qualified to know them, in a place like Jinyaoyuan? Those who go to school are all well-matched ladies, and those who come out are the wives of plutocrats. Moreover, many of those who enroll in graduate schools are the children of cadres who came to "gild", hoping to marry the plutocrats and choose concubines. And they start enrolling in the middle school
. Yes, they are all 'pure gold'! They are all the direct princesses of the Oda, Hashiba, and Tokugawa families! Those noble daughters are precious resources used by big families to make alliances and recruit husbands. Maybe he went to Jin Yaoyuan Middle School!"
Li Pan also understood,
"Oh, that means the internal fighting in Night City has begun to get out of control? I didn't expect that a mere Tokugawa clan could be so difficult to deal with. It's been a few days, weren't the other companies wiped out in an instant?"
Kotaro said sincerely, "That may be because you didn't take action personally, boss."
Li Pan laughed, "That's what you said, haha Haha!"
After flattering, Kotaro and Shiba handed over the information they had recently obtained through their respective channels.
The fight for the inheritance of Takamagahara is currently at a fierce stage. The Hashiba family is still raiding Kansai and annexing several other forces. They are temporarily unable to get involved in the affairs of the Night City, but their allies who can support Tokugawa have been killed. They were all exhausted, and they all went bankrupt and surrendered.
Although the Ye Group imposed economic sanctions on Tokugawa, they did not openly confiscate their homes. They mainly used immigrant gangs to target the Dongcheng Alliance under the other party, and at the same time sent night crawlers to assassinate and sweep away the key elites of the Tokugawa Zaibatsu.
In addition, the security system of the Night City is online, and the three-headed dog troops are also watching for the Red Tengu. It is obvious that a considerable number of Tengu have been attracted by Yu Shiba's side. Therefore, the hidden Red Tengu forces are not fully committed to Germany. Chuan for support.
No matter how you look at it, the Tokugawa clan, which was brutally besieged and beaten by a group of people, is already in dire straits and is on the verge of death.
But the Tokugawa family still has a ninja army.
This was the Iga ninja who was once the main force of the imperial court and was known as the Iga 48in.
Hanzo, the leader of the Hattori family, has been a security consultant employed by the Tokugawa clan for generations.
In recent years, after the sealing of the demon family was wiped out, Hattori also opposed Principal Koga of Goche Academy and became a new generation of ninjas. Under his command, he gathered a large number of ninjas who missed their old masters and were dissatisfied with the Ye clan.
After all, when you laid down your weapons and surrendered unconditionally, you promised to spare the life of the Oda family. What do you mean by killing everyone? Do we need to calculate the general ledger? ?
So now these ninjas are gathering from all over the world to fight against the Ye clan day and night. They are even at an advantage at the moment, which also prevents the Ye clan from completely falling out with Tokugawa.
It's not that these ninjas are really powerful. No matter how powerful they are, they are just individual soldiers.
Mainly because the Ye clan is an outsider, the combat skeletons used by the Night Walkers cannot be produced locally. They are all transported by starships from the interstellar home of the Ye clan. And they can't just take care of one Night City. The entire 0791 plane needs to be guarded. Naturally, they don't have enough troops. If they kill one, they will lose one.
Ah, speaking of this, K’s prosthetic body was also transported by a starship...
By the way! K! I’ve been thinking about oranges lately! There is still a deal with K that has not been completed!
Li Pan quickly looked through the records.
Fortunately, fortunately, he only slept for three days, not three years. The message K sent last night said that the money had been raised, so he only needed to bring the refrigerator to the warehouse, and he could get half a million!
So Li Pan began to arrange tasks.
"Rama, where is my car?"
"It's at Martin's. It was repainted. You still owe him 2,400, boss." "
Oh, okay, drive it back and load it, and I'll go deliver it tonight." "
It's the boss. ."
"Kotaro, you are so familiar with the women's college. The company suspects that there may be a monster in this case. The task has been sent. You go and investigate. Eighteen Technical Support." "Okay boss, I will sneak in and conduct a search!" "
Ah
! ? No, I didn’t ask you... Oh, it’s up to you, Ah Qi continues to recruit people." "
It's the manager, by the way, the bed sheets haven't been hired yet."
"The bed sheets aren't... ready yet, I'll go take a look."
Ya If you don't toast me with these tattered sheets, you'll have to drink wine as a fine.
So Li Pan rolled up his sleeves and went to the warehouse, where the bed sheets were still the same as before, and he packed them there.
Hehe, just kidding, you are a Mach 5-per-second thing, you have been shot with a machine gun for days and nights without a scratch, and you still pretend to be like this... Li Pan raised his leg and kicked it twice, raised his fist and hit it hard,
practice. After a while of boxing, relaxing his muscles and bones to warm up, he couldn't help but recall the shot that the bearded master had stabbed him before.
Although I don't know how the other party exerts force, how to move his energy, how to carry out his moves, even though the other party has never taught him a single word of secret formula.
But now that Li Pan thought about it, the dragon-like spear power was still clearly visible before his eyes. And there is also the immersive experience of simulating monkey swordsmanship, no, armor swordsmanship.
So Li Pan tried to gather the Nine Yin Qi in his body, used his fingertips as a gun, and replayed Ling Lie's killing move in his mind, imitating the previous illusion of the monkey sword, but imagining himself as a knight wearing armor and holding a gun.
He held the pistol and stabbed the sheets, once, and again.
Thorn, thorn, thorn.
Poke, poke, poke.
Thorn, thorn, thorn.
Poke, poke, poke.
Every blow gathers the strength of the whole body, involuntarily shaking the spine and body shape, infusing the dragon shape with killing intent, and sends the power of Nine Yin from the waist, through the back to the arms and shoulders, condenses it on the fingertips and the head of the gun, and thrusts out with one finger. , stabbing straight at a point.
"Poof!"
I don't know how long it took and how many times he stabbed Li Pan. He came back to his senses and found that gray flames were lingering on his fingertips, and he had pierced a hole in the sheet.
Oh, this is considered accomplished.
If it can pierce the bed sheet, it at least means that the destructive power is comparable to that of a monkey's swordsmanship...
Suddenly, the bed sheet stood up with a clatter! It was so fierce that Li Pan was wrapped up! Wrap his head!
Damn it! Dare to rebel!
Li Pan reacted and was so shocked that he quickly gathered energy to protect his body! He reached out and wanted to pull the sheets off!
But the sheets were too fast, and his head was tightly wrapped in just one move, and his eyes were completely white.
And Li Pan clearly felt that the feeling of being swallowed by the sheets this time was obviously different from the previous time he saved Nana.
As if he suddenly lost his solid form, Li Pan rushed to the bed sheet covering his head. Like thick white paint pouring down, it poured down his head and face, stuck to his skin, and poured into his collar and Mouth and nose, it poured all over Li Pan's body and face.
Li Pan was so startled that he jumped back, hit the wall with a bang, and fell to the ground.
When he got up, he felt something was wrong all over his body, as if he was wrapped in a thick leather coat.
My eyes were also completely white and I couldn't see anything.
But he can 'see' it.
Li Pan was able to use a third-person perspective to see a figure in formal clothes standing in the warehouse where the 'sheets' were kept.
It has no facial features, no ears, no hair, just a flat, white dough-like face. A pair of hands were also covered in gray and gray color, with no fingerprints or palm prints at all.
It just stood there, motionless, like a doll in formal clothes in a display window.
After standing like this for a while, it suddenly raised its right hand, holding the two index fingers straight up, and gray flames slowly emerged from the fingertips, piercing the white and seemingly empty face!
The blood overflowed from under the white paint with a splash, but it remained unmoved and pulled open the tear on its face, as if drawing on white paper, and drew a crooked, blood-red smile. .
Finally, it opened its bloody mouth and screamed angrily,
"Aqi!! Come back to me!"
(End of this chapter)