The Creators: From Night City

Page 381

The woman pulled back her hood, revealing half of her face lacking artificial skin; the metallic prosthetic face looked particularly terrifying under the rain.

"I'm curious, what are you going to do if we just refuse to give you the money?"

Jiang Bing, leaning on his cane, approached step by step. The woman's carefully prepared intimidating tactics failed to work, and her momentum immediately weakened by three points. She was forced to retreat repeatedly by Jiang Bing's pressure.

"What if we not only refuse to pay, but also plan to do something else?"

Jiang Bing reached under his raincoat and pulled out a revolver.

A deathly pale color crept onto the woman's face.

"No, you can't do this," the woman cried out, her voice trembling slightly.

"This is 'Junk King's' territory. If you don't want to be hunted down by him, you can't fire your gun here!"

Jiang Bing withdrew his gun from under his raincoat, and when he pulled it out again, he had replaced it with two 100-euro banknotes.

“I’ll give you four times the amount, take me to see this ‘Junk King’.”

The woman was stunned.

"What, you don't like cash? But that debt account under your name doesn't receive much money."

"How do you know?"

The woman who opened the box on the spot was extremely surprised.

Jiang Bing's hand holding the money trembled slightly in the rain; the soft plastic-like material kept the banknotes firm even in the rain.

He didn't answer; he let the money speak for itself.

The results were outstanding.

The five set off again, continuing their journey through the slum hidden among the bustling buildings.

"I'm a little curious. Someone like you, who is fluent in English, should have received a relatively high level of education. Why have you fallen on hard times and ended up on the streets?"

Yumi Okita

Jiang Bing paused for a moment, then decisively continued opening the box and calling out the other party's name.

It's not difficult to identify someone by comparing their facial recognition and the prosthetic code on their body in the Tokyo resident database; any novice hacker who knows how to use the internet could do it.

The difficulty lies in how to hack into the Tokyo resident database.

It's important to understand that although the Arasaka Group is powerful and influential in Japan, overshadowing the government, Japan is still a country with a stable government. Compared to the 'free' Night City, it at least has a well-established order.

The woman kept walking, and since the other party could find out that she had debt accounts under her name, they could naturally also find out her name.

"This city doesn't have much room for trial and error, Your Excellency. If an ordinary person's life encounters even the slightest problem, their hard-earned decent life will collapse instantly."

"Unemployment, illness, accidents, or being injured by stray bullets during gang fights—any slight setback can cause an ordinary person's already strained economic situation to collapse completely."

“Once you fall into the mire, this city won’t give you any more chances; it’s too cruel.”

The woman spoke calmly, as if it were commonplace and she didn't find it sad.

Jiang Bing listened to the other person's experience with great interest, occasionally glancing up at the surveillance cameras hidden in the various maintenance and ventilation ducts.

The title of "King of Junk" is indeed well-deserved.

Yumi Okita eventually led the four of them to a large waste treatment plant located at the intersection of Shinjuku and Nakano wards.

The area outside Night City is vast and spacious, so garbage can be dumped directly outside the city. However, Tokyo, as the capital of Japan, is densely populated, and Japan's small land area does not support their attempt to imitate Night City.

As a result, professional waste treatment plants came into being.

These waste treatment plants are located throughout Tokyo, and waste from recycling stations scattered throughout the city is transferred here via underground sewage pipes for final processing.

However, there are often good things hidden in this garbage, and the characteristic of finding gold in excrement has attracted many professional gold prospectors.

They would systematically occupy the area around the junkyard, calling themselves 'antique dealers,' but outsiders still referred to them as 'junk collectors.'

The "King of Junk" is the uncrowned king of this waste treatment plant.

Of course, he wasn't an official; he was just the gang leader who controlled the garbage 'mining rights' at this waste treatment plant. The actual employees of the waste treatment plant looked down on this smelly "job" that involved dealing with excrement and filth all day long.

However, even so, the monthly 'site management fee' is indispensable!

So their destination wasn't the interior of a garbage disposal plant, but rather the interior of a nearby building whose roof had collapsed.

"Yumi?"

The two Rust Belt Society members in charge of security at the entrance clearly knew the woman and struck up a conversation with her.

Jiang Bing, unhurried, tapped his cane with his fingers, his eyes already shining brightly beneath his raincoat.

A server farm is generally used to refer to a super-large data center consisting of clusters of thousands of servers, resembling a factory assembly line of "machine farms," ​​used to support the storage, computing, and operation of the corresponding Internet data and virtual world.

However, only large enterprises can afford to use farms of this scale, while small and micro users also have requirements for rented computing power.

Thus, private 'server farms' came into being.

Compared to the high costs and privacy risks of legitimate computing power rental companies, these unlicensed computing power nodes operated by all sorts of shady characters are characterized by their low prices and lack of oversight.

Regardless of who the lessee is, what they intend to do with the rented computing power, or the after-sales service, it doesn't matter.

Beneath this dilapidated building lies a privately built 'server farm'.

Of course, these computing nodes, assembled from poorly formatted servers and computing devices, don't even meet the standards of a 'server farm'; at best, they're just 'flower pots'.

Golden current surged along the cables, dominating and controlling the data center comprised of hundreds of dilapidated servers.

The network was hijacked by Jiang Bing in a high dimension without the knowledge of the other hacker. In less than half a minute, the entire 'Rust Belt Society' had no secrets left in front of Jiang Bing.

Along with the computing power that had already been rented out and its renters, they also suffered, as Jiang Bingshun opened their boxes.

Just as he was browsing through the various creative ways these computing power renters were doing, Yumi Okita finished her negotiations and came back.

"The 'Junk King' has agreed to see you, but he needs you to hand over your weapons and disable your combat cybernetic devices, including the hacking components on your body."

This news is considered quite harsh.

“That’s the rule here,” Yumi Okita quickly added, fearing that Jiang Bing might misunderstand.

“If you really want to see him, I suggest you do as I say,”

Jiang Bing's response was to lift his cane and gently tap it on the ground.

"Da~"

Along with this, there was the sound of two guard dogs falling to the ground.

Ever since he started out in the junkyard outside Night City, Boss Jiang has always disliked accepting advice from others.

The numerous garbage collectors buried under the Shijishan landfill knew this perfectly well.

Chapter 784 Reunion of Old Friends

Cold, shivering.

The 'Junk King' suddenly awoke from his coma, only to find himself firmly strapped to a metal chair.

"woke up?"

Jiang Bing sat down in front of him with an air of authority, smiling as he looked at this veteran garbage collector.

The "ragpicker" made his fortune by collecting scraps. While this industry brought him wealth, it also caused him to lose many things.

For example, a healthy lung is part of the respiratory system.

He can only wear a special breathing mask all year round, and in recent years his goal has changed from getting ahead to making money to get a high-quality lung to treat his body.

When people are down on their luck, they can only use their bodies to make money, but when they are successful, they can only try to use money to buy back their health.

He almost succeeded, of course, if it weren't for Jiang Bing's actions.

"Let's talk. What led you down the path of human trafficking?"

The 'ragpicker' clearly didn't want to talk, but he was even less able to withstand Jiang Bing's beating.

There's nothing that a beating can't solve; if there is, then give it another beating.

Soon, the other party revealed his entire mental journey, including his dirty business dealings.

Of course, this also includes what Jiang Bing most wants to know at this moment.

Who is the most famous middleman in Tokyo, where does he live, and how can I contact him?

The culture of middlemen is not unique to Night City; it is prevalent throughout the world. After all, this profession can be simply called a broker, intermediary, or agent, and it has been a constant throughout thousands of years of human history.

But Jiang Bing was looking for the most famous middleman in all of Tokyo, and even in all of Japan.

After all, unless you're at that level, you don't have any information about Saburo Arasaka, nor would you dare to have any information about Saburo Arasaka.

He can only search slowly.

Fortunately, he had plenty of time and resources.

………………

David hadn't been back to Night City for a long time, and everything here felt somewhat unfamiliar.

He had been to Taiping Prefecture before, but he had never seen Taiping Prefecture as prosperous as the one before him.

South of Taiping Prefecture, most of the building ruins surrounding Dog Town have been cleared away by various construction teams.

Countless new buildings have sprung up, decades of accumulated garbage have been cleared away, the paralyzed traffic control system has been rebuilt, and broken, unfinished roads have been repaired.

The entire state of Taiping was so clean and tidy that David could hardly believe it.

Factories, residential areas, police stations, restaurants, supermarkets, grocery stores—countless normal buildings sprang up, and a large influx of residents revitalized this district that should have been abandoned by Night City.

But David had a specific purpose for his trip, and the car sped toward the 'Hao Zai Lai' factory.

He came to see his best friend, Pila Lustful Hand.

During this hard-earned holiday, he was also thinking of having a good chat with the other person about their private collections. As kindred spirits, the quality of the sunglasses in Pila's hands skyrocketed as his earning power increased.

David's biggest weakness is that he has a mother.

However, his 'secret operation' ended in failure halfway through.

Pila was urgently recalled to Base Seven in Badlands.

So David had no choice but to return.

The Mackintosh La Rimoor, a car inherited from Jiang Bing, sped eastward along the highway at the foot of Red Peak Mountain, with numerous tall towers scattered across the vast desert of the barren land.

Are these 'domains' all assets of [Anti-Entropy]?

The AI ​​systems that are already online and running will respond immediately.

[That's right, David, these are all newly built solar towers, providing a continuous source of energy for the [Anti-Entropy] base.]

What about those?

David pointed to a large pipe in the wasteland, half-hidden and half-exposed in the gravel, which resembled an earth dragon, and asked.

[The high-speed transport pipeline primarily connects Base 7, Base 3, the Pacific State outpost, and the Coronado Farm outpost.]

Wow!

David exclaimed in surprise.

During the year he buried himself in his studies at 'Heiml', the drastic changes in the familiar Night City felt like yesterday.

[Ms. Gloria awaits you in Conference Room 2 at Base 6, David Martinez.]

The 'Domain' sent out a timely summons from the top manager.

The Badlands have undergone tremendous changes, and the changes at Base 6, located there, are naturally even more significant.

First, the entrance to the 'Superspeed Transport Pipeline' from the world of Sword Star was built at the entrance to the base.

High walls surrounded the entire base, while flat, sturdy roads stretched all the way to the main road leading to the border.

The base has expanded outwards four times, so the walls from the previous expansions couldn't be demolished in time and were simply left as boundaries between different areas.

The tunnel that Jiang Bingqi built had already been widened again, and the collapsed area had been cleared, turning it into a real mountain base.

David's office, which he both missed and hated, the place where he had been exploited, had long been demolished. To facilitate the transportation of supplies, the tunnel entrance had been cleared out, and a thick iron door capable of withstanding missile attacks had been installed.

When David drove into the base, he found it bustling with people, with a large number of mid- to high-level employees gathering there, as if something big was about to happen.

Meeting room number 2 was not hard to find, but when David arrived, he found that all his old friends had actually arrived.