105: Chapter 104 Bird-catching Spider

Less than half a day after Yorinobu left, a message came through.

At that time, Lin Yi was sitting in front of the studio terminal, the code on the screen only half-written.

A low hum from the encrypted channel came from the personal terminal at his side. He glanced at the sender ID, set aside his work, and opened the encrypted briefing.

The volume of information was immense.

Yorinobu's subordinates clearly hadn't just started their investigation today; this briefing had been in compilation for at least a week.

Lin Yi scrolled down line by line, his fingers moving slower and slower across the touchpad.

Then he stopped.

He read those few lines on the screen three times over.

Even though he had been mentally prepared—after all, during that meeting at Konpeki Plaza, he had already told Yorinobu that Hanako might be connected to Saburo's engram—he was still shocked when this information was organized into a clear investigative report and placed before him.

It wasn't the horror of the situation that surprised him, but the cold-heartedness and meticulousness of Saburo's plan.

The main information regarding Hanako in the briefing was divided into two distinct intelligence points.

First, Hanako's trip to Night City was ostensibly to mourn her father, Saburo Arasaka.

In reality, her core mission was to use Relic technology to overwrite Yorinobu's consciousness with Saburo Arasaka's engram. Simply put—using the chip to possess Yorinobu.

Second, if the first plan encountered errors during execution and possession could not be completed, they would fall back to the next best option: the accompanying technical team from Tokyo headquarters would forcibly extract Yorinobu's core biological samples and secretly send them back to Tokyo headquarters.

With this sample, Saburo's engram could still be implanted into a new [Yorinobu], though it might take more time.

The briefing also included a detailed record of the covert investigation.

Lin Yi continued to scroll down.

Regarding the Mikoshi beneath Arasaka Tower in Night City—that investigative record was very detailed.

Mikoshi utilized a cluster storage architecture; data was not saved on a single node.

There was indeed a physical access point to Mikoshi beneath Arasaka Tower in Night City, but Saburo's engram data did not always reside there.

"Sometimes it is not within the Arasaka Tower node." Lin Yi read this sentence aloud.

He knew exactly what this meant.

Saburo's engram existed in more than one copy; besides Tokyo, there might be other backup nodes in other branch offices.

Even Yorinobu, the current head of Arasaka, did not have the authority to access all storage locations.

That old bastard was adept at leaving himself escape routes while alive, and he was no exception in death.

After reading all the intelligence, Lin Yi was silent for a few seconds, then packed the entire briefing and sent it via the encrypted channel to V and Jackie.

V received the message in the main bedroom on the second floor and appeared at the studio door in less than two minutes.

She was wearing a loose house T-shirt, her hair down, but her eyes were no longer the lazy gaze of the afternoon—in those eyes was a lingering disgust from reading the intelligence.

Less than twenty minutes later, the chime of the access control system and heavy footsteps came from downstairs.

Jackie Welles arrived ten minutes faster than the last time he had rushed over from Heywood for barbecue.

The three of them sat in the living room.

Jackie was in the middle of the sofa, both elbows resting on his knees, his body leaning forward.

The look on his face was a far cry from the revelry of last night—the man who had been hugging Misty and humming Mexican tunes was gone, replaced by the seasoned veteran who had once rolled through the blood and fire of the Valentinos.

"So, in reality," Jackie said, enunciating each word as if confirming he hadn't misunderstood, "Saburo, that old bastard, isn't actually dead? That old, immortal relic chip isn't just some ornament like the Silverhand chip; he wants to wear Yorinobu's skin and continue ruling his Arasaka?"

"He doesn't just want to wear it." Lin Yi leaned against the sofa armrest, his fingers tapping unconsciously on the leather surface. "He is already wearing it. He just hasn't put on Yorinobu's yet—he might be wearing a temporary shell right now, or perhaps he is hiding in Mikoshi, but his permissions remain. That is why he can use the Board of Directors' direct channel to mobilize personnel from Tokyo headquarters right under Yorinobu's nose. And Yorinobu—as the current CEO of Arasaka, can't even enter the Mikoshi beneath his own tower."

Jackie cursed in Spanish, his voice low but every syllable burning with fire.

V straightened up on the sofa, her tone several degrees colder than usual when she spoke. That coldness wasn't calmness; it was disgust suppressed to the back of her throat, letting only a sharp edge show through her sentences: "That pervert. When he was alive, he fought tooth and nail against Militech to monopolize material resources, and now he wants to monopolize everyone's will." She paused, as if truly disgusted by something, "Fuck him—ugh, disgusting."

Lin Yi nodded.

He looked at the expressions on V and Jackie's faces and knew that the three of them didn't need to discuss this issue at all.

Then he remembered what Yorinobu had said about his family during their last meeting and couldn't help but add.

"Yorinobu really has the worst luck."

V and Jackie both looked at him.

"His older half-brother—Kei Arasaka. Yorinobu was raised by Kei when he was young, only to be nearly killed by this same brother later." Lin Yi counted on his fingers. "His sister, Hanako, has lived her whole life in the shadow of that old bastard. She is his own sister, yet now she comes bearing their father's engram to stir trouble for her own brother. Their mother died in childbirth with Hanako, hemorrhaging on the delivery table; she didn't make it."

"What about his niece, Michiko Arasaka?" V asked.

"Michiko? She is a Sanderson to the bone and is thriving over at Militech. If it weren't for her father, Yorinobu wouldn't even be close to her."

Jackie was silent for a moment, then said in a complex tone: "Damn, rich people don't have it easy either."

Lin Yi didn't pick up on that.

He turned the briefing to the last page, looked at the specific requirements Yorinobu had written at the end, and then looked up again.

"Let's put all that aside for now." He projected his personal terminal onto the holographic panel in the living room, and Yorinobu's final requirements appeared in the holographic projection before them. "Yorinobu is very clear: knowing the opponent's plan, we have only one goal—to destroy it. It doesn't matter how many people Hanako brings, or how many contingencies Saburo has left in Mikoshi. We are going to shatter their plan completely."

He paused.

"As for Hanako herself, although Yorinobu said to take her out."

The living room was silent for a second.

This wasn't hesitation, but caution—when it came to Yorinobu's relatives, every word needed to be precise.

"But she is, after all, Yorinobu's own sister." Lin Yi continued. "My suggestion is: after neutralizing her, we hand her over to Yorinobu to make the choice himself. What do you think?"

Jackie shook his head first, his movement as crisp as flicking coolant off a gun barrel: "I have no objections. A brother's business is his own; no matter what, Yorinobu is our partner. How he wants to handle his sister is his business."

V didn't state her position immediately.

She crossed her legs, leaned back against the sofa, and lowered her eyelids for a moment, as if quickly running through all possible consequences in her mind.

Then she let out a soft breath, and when she spoke, her tone carried a hint of faint regret.

"What a shame. That bitch Abernathy is in Hanako's faction—I had hoped to take that old bastard out while we were at it." She waved her hand. "But I have no objections to this decision. Yorinobu does indeed have feelings for Hanako that go beyond ordinary sibling bonds."

Lin Yi raised an eyebrow slightly, signaling her to continue.

V met his gaze, her tone shifting from regret back to calm analysis: "When I was in Counterintelligence, I saw some files related to Yorinobu—not anything top secret, just operational records from the Kei Arasaka era. During the years when the Steel Dragon was being hunted down the worst, Hanako didn't participate in the purge. Moreover, the siblings kept in constant contact. The content was somewhat unethical, but this is Arasaka; no one dared to gossip about them. Saburo wanted Hanako to be a pawn in his hand, but she wasn't entirely a pawn back then. Now, she is just a bird trapped in a cage for too long, having forgotten she still has wings."

"So?"

"So, Yorinobu cannot bring himself to hate this sister." V said. "He hates Saburo, he hates this system, he hates all of Arasaka. But Hanako—he doesn't see an enemy. He sees a victim. A victim brainwashed to the point of losing herself."

"Then the rift you mentioned earlier—"

"If you don't hand Hanako over to him, even if he doesn't say anything, he won't be able to let it go. Because she is the last sister he has by blood. He can be cold and ruthless to Arasaka Corporation, but he cannot be cold and ruthless to Hanako. You haven't seen his expression when he mentions Hanako—last time he mentioned Michiko, his tone was all business, like a real corporate executive discussing a subsidiary CEO. But when he mentions Hanako, his voice slows down. She is the only person in the entire Arasaka family he hasn't given up on."

V paused again and added: "Even if you didn't plan it this way, Lin Yi, Yorinobu would have asked about it anyway."

Lin Yi looked at V and nodded gently.

This was why he needed V present, not just as the sharpest blade in the team.

She was an elite agent from Arasaka's former Counterintelligence division; she understood the emotions and logic within that system, and understood what kind of choices someone trapped in that tower would make.

"Unanimously approved." Lin Yi stood up. "Let's get to work."

The three of them began their preparations.

Lin Yi used "Bai Ze" to retrieve all route data that Hanako might take, accessing the flight list of Arasaka Tokyo headquarters to Night City over the last two days, the equipment procurement records of the security team, and the personnel files of Hanako's personal guard.

Every piece of data was dismantled, analyzed, and marked with time nodes.

V was responsible for analyzing the security team's tactical configuration and possible emergency response patterns—this was what she did when she was at Arasaka; she could draw the standard defensive formation with her eyes closed.

Jackie, on the other hand, contacted his old connections in Heywood to set up his own eyes and ears at key nodes along the route.

From intelligence to routes, from equipment to networks.

Every link had to be woven into this web.

Lin Yi unfolded a 3D city map model in mid-air, marking out attack points, extraction points, and backup evacuation routes along several paths.

Red nodes lit up on the map like dewdrops placed on a spider's web.

"Hanako's plane lands tomorrow. The accompanying security team will enter pre-deployment positions three hours before landing. But we won't strike then. We wait for the parade the day after tomorrow—when they are most relaxed and most convinced they have everything under control, this web will close."

He extended his finger and tapped gently on a node on the model.

"On the only path she can take to mourn at Arasaka Tower."

V leaned against the sofa armrest, watching the glowing map model, the corners of her mouth curling into a very slight arc.

That wasn't a smile—it was the spark kicked up from sharpening a blade.

Jackie cracked his knuckles with a loud pop. "Then let's do it. Let the old bastards in Tokyo see that on Night City turf, even the waves in the undercurrent can capsize a big ship."