The north wind howled, and loneliness and coldness slowly spread in the night. Looking down from the sky, Hope Base looked like a twinkling star.
The architectural style after the disaster is quite different from that before the disaster: tall, three-dimensional buildings are built close together on different slopes, and ultra-lightweight buildings of varying heights resemble an orderly honeycomb.
The electronic screens between the buildings flashed continuously, and colorful virtual projections rolled in a 24-hour loop above the city, with blue and green lights intertwining and swirling with music.
Young men and women wearing bionic prosthetics gathered in a corner, smoking and laughing loudly. There were pedestrians who used wheelchairs to move their limbs. Their entire bodies had been replaced by machines, leaving only their brains inside a transparent fish tank.
A private henchman with evolved human features stood with his arms crossed and a menacing look in his eyes at the club entrance, while a team of base patrol officers on flying vehicles nimbly flew overhead.
A prostitute, scantily clad and with daring, bizarre makeup, stood at the entrance of the repair shop, loudly complaining. The air was filled with the peculiar smell of gasoline mixed with rust...
The interplay of chaos and order creates a unique, surreal, and magical romanticism.
"Hey, watch where you're going!"
Someone nearly bumped into Emil, who was standing next to Xu Milu, and impatiently warned, "This isn't a place for pretty boys like you!"
Emil brandished his fist, refusing to back down: "Big guy, you're the one who should be watching where you're going! Stay away from me and my friends!"
Perhaps recognizing Emil as an evolved being, the other person glared at Xu Milu with some resentment before leaving indignantly.
"Yu Lu, let me teach you a little trick."
Emil began with a grin:
"This is considered a 'no-man's land' of the base; all sorts of people live here: wanted criminals, underground modifiers who illegally modify limbs, casino thugs, thieves, robbers, and many exiled residents who have been expelled by base law. So you absolutely cannot be too weak, otherwise they will surface like sharks smelling blood and tear you to pieces."
Xu Milu looked around and, unsurprisingly, noticed countless people scrutinizing her, both openly and secretly. Compared to the tall and strong Emil, who was also an evolved being, the thin "Yu Lu" looked like a little lamb who had wandered into a pack of wolves.
On the black market, you can buy anything, including fresh organs, of course.
"Is this entire area considered part of the black market?"
Xu Milu followed behind Emil: "This is much larger than I imagined."
Emil whistled: "At first, this was just a small-scale black market, but it grew bigger and bigger. Five years ago, the base lost a batch of weapons, which led to a major reshuffle of the top management in the entire security department. Some people say it was done by the black market boss's people."
Xu Milu understood.
Where there is demand, there is a market. Perhaps at first the base's higher-ups turned a blind eye to the existence of the black market, but the speed at which the black market developed later clearly exceeded everyone's expectations. Even some materials that were officially prohibited from circulating within the base were sold here.
The two followed the narrow alleyway deeper and deeper until a wooden door painted ginger red appeared in the corner. Four or five androids stood in twos and threes at the door. When they saw the two appear, they immediately surrounded them.
"Let's go, let's go, this isn't a place for you to have fun."
“Friend, you don’t want to come here to cause trouble.”
"If you want information or to find someone, the entrance fee is fifty contribution points, which can be paid later."
Emil tactfully raised his hands and stepped back, not asking Xu Milu what she was up to, but simply indicating that he would wait outside the alley: "I'll wait for you at the sanatorium, and I'll treat you to a meal there. There's a great restaurant on the street."
Xu Milu nodded and handed the crystal core in her hand to the gatekeeper: "I need to buy information, please make way."
"Same as always, no weapons allowed."
The leader looked Xu Milu over and over again, perhaps finding "Yu Lu's" image too harmless, and then opened the door, leaving a crack just wide enough for one person to pass through:
"Think carefully about what you want to ask. No one will recognize you. Of course, as long as you have enough money on you, we can find you anything you want."
—To conceal their identities, she and Emil both wore protective masks, and with their voice changers on, neither could recognize the other.
Xu Milu gestured to Emil and went through the ginger-red wooden door.
...
...
The scene inside the wooden door was quite different from what Xu Milu had imagined, or rather, she hadn't expected it at all.
Behind the wooden door was a private clinic of considerable size, but unlike others, the medicine cabinet was filled with lubricating oil, mechanical parts, wrenches, and prosthetics of various sizes.
The air was thick with the smell of engine oil and a faint whiff of blood. A patient lay on a medical bed with his eyes closed, and a doctor in a white coat was dissecting his thigh with a saw.
Without disinfectant or hemostats, if Xu Milu hadn't known this was a prosthetic limb replacement scene, she would have thought this was a case of blatant disregard for human life.
Behind the medical table was a curtain that seemed to be just for show; you could see who was sitting behind it, their light-colored shadows cast on it, and they were completely still.
Are you looking for something or someone?
The doctor beside the medical bed glanced around casually, his voice sounding somewhat hoarse, like coarse sandpaper scraping the ground:
"A 30% handling fee will be added for finding things, and a 10% to 25% hiring fee will be added depending on the circumstances for finding people. The fee for purchasing information separately will be based on the importance of the intelligence."
Three things.
Xu Milu spoke, and the voice changer built into the mask made his voice sound androgynous:
My dear reader, there's more to this chapter! Please click the next page to continue reading—even more exciting content awaits!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
