Chapter 213 Ghost

Fifteen minutes have passed.

Li Lin glanced at the latest news from New York, but didn't find the new wave of attacks he had anticipated. There were too many jumpy headlines; he shouldn't have brought Eoubs' planning team's scheme into this world in the first place. Most channels had switched back to normal, broadcasting nothing but Bloodborne and transplant surgeries. This city, carrying countless lives, happiness, advanced technology, and ignorant fanaticism, was rushing headlong towards the goal of immortality. Occasionally, a presenter, seemingly recovered from the attacks, appeared nonchalantly calm, showing no sign of panic.

The deaths of those people only caused a small ripple; no one would react much. To them, everything that happened today—the wanted notices, the missile attacks, and so on—was nothing more than a somewhat interesting topic of conversation. The powerful figures on the board would handle the matter, and even if many people died, the Creator would give them new life.

Just then, someone rushed in from outside the salon. He ran so fast that the virtual projection didn't even refresh, leaving a few streaks of gray and white behind him at the doorway. The man shouted, "Damn it, Yu Yun blew up one of his mother's branch offices! A lot of the database data was destroyed! And why is the arrest warrant only being issued now?"

Several people turned to look at him, stared at him for a while, and then replied dryly, "Ah...we also think it's outrageous."

"The tech department keeps saying they're fixing it, but damn it, it's broken again! I don't think they're fixing it at all!" The other person said, glaring menacingly into the field of vision, clearly having received another message. "Besides Yu Yuzhi, a lot more people have hacked our access. It's fucking insane! I can't even access my own database! I seriously suspect there are a lot of moles in the salon; this must have been done by one of our own, and they have very high-level privileges—"

He opened a list of programs for self-destructing chips on some terminals and kept trying to press the start button, but there was no response. They had implemented the suggestion that Li Lin had made without much thought. A small program, similar to a punishment device, was attached to everyone's brain. With a light press, one could ascend to heaven.

At this moment, his movements were so urgent. The chip had a wide variety of additional options, some of which were added entirely out of personal preference. Just hearing the names of them made you feel how perverted they were. Li Lin kept watching him, making sure that this guy couldn't wait to try every single button, but there was still no reaction.

"Well, it's not surprising that Pandora would do this," he said with a smile.

“Mr. Li?! I’m so sorry… I’m sorry I didn’t notice you were here, but the situation is very serious, I think we have to kill them!” the man said again, his expression becoming more and more distorted: “We can kill him in front of these citizens, the planning team will film a very spectacular death scene—we can add some music or something, or add appropriate lighting and dialogue, to tell those ungrateful fools that the farce is over, this place no longer needs resistance and riots—as long as those people are dead, everything will return to normal—we have to kill them.”

"It doesn't matter, those chips are no longer useful," Li Lin said without looking up.

He had actually been browsing the forums the whole time, with all his attention on the news—Pandora had blocked too many terminal permissions, so he couldn't find any signals from anyone. He didn't need to guess either; most of the operatives trapped in the Mirror of Eternal Dreams had woken up, regardless of which batch—in turn.

But the riots did not increase much, which means that... even if some people woke up, they chose to continue to stand on his side.

"Shouldn't we go and kill them?" the man said urgently again.

He looked up from a bunch of flashing control templates, his eyes gleaming in the screen's reflection, appearing extremely ferocious: "We'll have the armed forces use the new transplant feature, we can add a little more, it doesn't matter if it's a little against the rules... we'll just kill them right in front of the live stream camera."

"We can make up any excuse then, or even no excuse is needed. Just say the word, and we can kill him right in front of the camera."

Li Lin looked over again. Most of the time, he was smiling, like a mask nailed to his face. But in this void, the cruelty and pathos of the salon's elites were replicated so vividly that it was grotesque to the point of being nauseating.

He fiddled with the golden cup with a deft yet neurotic gesture. He was the founder of the board of directors, the creator of this world. In most cases, he didn't make decisions and had no opinions on anything—because it was enough to leave it to his subordinates.

They were quite certain that this god's...thinking would eventually go wrong, as if for him everything was mixed up, and it made no difference who lived or died.

Of course, they didn't know how these things happened. Perhaps under a peaceful rule, those good-for-nothings would always cause some heinous trouble. But he was very... very tolerant, especially towards Yu Jianchu. She hadn't even come to the meeting yet, and they didn't know what she was doing, but that wasn't their concern.

That feeling wasn't a strong possessiveness or some kind of noble love; it was more like the relief of grasping at a straw in despair—a chilling obsession.

Li Lin stared intently at the newly appointed core member of the board of directors in front of him, who had incorporated the genes and characteristics of many people. Suddenly, he stood up and put his hand on the man's shoulder.

The other person looked up at him uncertainly—he had always considered himself to be quite competent, perhaps because he was one of Li Lin's companions, but he got along well with everyone and had no vices, except for drug use… but everyone on the board did that—he raised his hand, accessing the database on his terminal. That thing was supposed to be confidential, but it automatically decoded the moment it touched his fingerprint.

"Mr. Li?" he said blankly.

“You really want to kill them, huh?” Li Lin said softly. “Well, I see you’re in Queens right now, aren’t you?”

His movements were elegant, as if he were selecting some high-end goods—this supreme creator had finally found an interesting idea.

“I sent you some gifts, several in total. Go and deliver them to Hebrew, Gu Heng, and An Ru Shi.”

"If there are any extras, ask Mr. Stanford if he wants them, but I can't get in touch with him anymore. Also, if you can't find the three of them, please add them to the wanted list as well."

He saw Li Lin glance at the holographic screen with interest, then look away and type in the pile of code. No one dared to look in that direction.

"Do whatever you want, no need to ask for my advice."

What do you mean?

He stood there in a daze, the things in those codes... just one glance was enough to make one's pupils tremble—it was the highest level of authority to allocate Heaven's Gospel weapons.

"Of course, it's what you just said." Li Lin smiled brightly, as if he were talking about something that would bring great pleasure. "Do everything you can to kill them all. Just do it."