27: Chapter 27 Quenching

When Lin Yi stepped out of Viktor's clinic, the look in his eyes had changed.

Clear, calm, as if he had been thoroughly scrubbed inside and out by something.

The evening air in Watson followed its usual recipe—the acrid sting of low-grade fuel, the heavy scent of street stall spices, and the wisps of rot seeping from hidden corners.

These chaotic smells swirled together, pouring straight into his lungs.

Murky and choking, yet at this moment, it smelled like a potent stimulant.

The lingering confusion and the last traces of warmth that Viktor had hammered out of him back at the clinic were completely driven away by this gulp of cold air.

Viktor's words remained fixed in his mind. Every single word felt like an ice-tempered nail.

"Anything the corporation gives you has its price marked in secret."

"Often, it's your freedom. Your bottom line. Or even—your soul."

It wasn't alarmism.

Nor was it the preaching of someone who had seen it all.

It was a survival rule hammered out by a former boxing pro and current ripperdoc who had lived in the shadows of Night City for most of his life, forged through countless bloody examples.

Lin Yi understood the weight of those words. He had almost stepped into that trap just a moment ago; he had been a hair's breadth away from selling himself out entirely, driven by that simple desire to catch his breath.

He walked slowly along the grimy streets, not caring about the direction, letting the clamor envelop him.

On a roadside holographic billboard, a pixelated, alluring dancer twisted her tireless waist; the soundproofing wall next door wasn't sealed properly, and the leaking bass made the ground tremble slightly; a few gang members squatted at the alley entrance, their eyelids drooping lazily, but from the moment he passed until he moved far away, those eyes remained glued to his back, as if weighing whether this prey was worth the effort to stand up for.

All of this formed the most honest backdrop of Night City. Chaotic, dirty, dangerous. Yet, it was also filled with a raw, unyielding, primal vitality.

Arasaka Tower stood in the direction of the city center, its glass curtain walls reflecting the last layer of twilight—sharp, pristine, like a polished blade.

In most people's perception, what it offered—stability, security, but a precisely calculated "future"—was just a sterile room. If he joined, he might truly be able to temporarily evade Kang Tao's surveillance, and perhaps he really could catch a few breaths inside. But what about the cost?

The cost was becoming a labeled exhibit. Placed on a shelf, dusted periodically, and occasionally taken out for people to see—then you would get used to the temperature of the sterile room and never want to touch the cold air outside again. By the day the label couldn't be torn off, you wouldn't even recognize yourself.

He suddenly remembered a line from an old movie in his past life.

It wasn't some profound philosophy, just five words, roared by that character.

"My fate is determined by me, not by heaven."

Applied to his current situation in Night City, the focus of this sentence wasn't on "heaven," but on "me." It wasn't about the stability doled out by others, the contracts given by others, or the safety promised by others.

It was about what was in his own hands. Things he could grasp, things that couldn't be lost, things that no one could take away.

Self-assurance wasn't something you could accumulate just by being quick to call someone "daddy."

Handouts from a giant corporation? They could be withdrawn just like that, faster than the seasons changed in Night City.

The only thing that could truly let him stand his ground was the primitive accumulation of hard power—strength, connections, intelligence, and the upper limit that the Baize in the back of his neck could leverage.

"32PB/ms, one person is a nation unto themselves... tsk." He murmured, as if weighing a promise that hadn't been fully realized yet.

Right now, only a third was enough—even if it was just a third—it would be enough for him to trade for a new deck at the card table of Night City.

Returning to his apartment in Charter Hill, the smart home system turned on the lights and radio the moment he stepped inside, quiet to the point of being devout. Compared to the clamor of the streets in Watson, this kind of quiet wasn't comfortable or leisurely; it was oppressive.

He walked to the floor-to-ceiling window and stopped.

Below his feet, Night City looked like a brilliant gemstone, with neon lights outlining the logos of mega-corporations, and AVs flying rapidly between the gaps of buildings like fireflies.

But behind every point of light, there were deals being signed, betrayals being enacted with a knife, people dying, and people laughing.

This city had no Messiah; the only salvation was self-salvation.

He couldn't wait any longer. Waiting passively for trouble to knock on his door meant handing the initiative over to others. He wouldn't do it.

Lin Yi activated his comms and reconnected to that encrypted channel. This time, the thing in his chest had been forged once—cold, hard, without a trace of unnecessary ripples.

The call was answered almost instantly.

"Mr. Lin, I am very glad to hear your voice again. I presume you have made a wise decision."

Yoshikawa's tone remained composed. That composure carried a thin, formulaic layer of confidence, like a repeatedly calibrated recording, with the volume preset. Lin Yi could almost imagine the business-like smile hanging on the face on the other side.

"Yes."

Lin Yi spoke. His voice was very flat, so flat that it carried no emotional fluctuation; he felt like a terminal that had just started up—cold, stable, running only the necessary processes.

"I appreciate the kindness and appreciation of Arasaka Corporation. However, after careful consideration, I am accustomed to a mode of free operation and may not be able to adapt to your company's system. Therefore—I am very sorry, but I cannot accept this consulting invitation."

The other end of the communication suddenly went quiet.

These few seconds of silence carried more weight than all the pretty words combined. Yoshikawa did not respond immediately, but Lin Yi could feel that the silence wasn't empty—something was crawling over along the signal.

Yoshikawa's thoughts were like cold tentacles, re-examining him, evaluating him: was this refusal a fallback plan discussed with others, or pure naivety? What kind of trump card did the person on the other side really have to dare to say no to Arasaka?

Or perhaps it was an idiot. A pure, ignorant idiot. Yoshikawa was probably mentally checking which of these two possibilities accounted for a larger share.

"I... understand."

Yoshikawa finally spoke. His voice still maintained professional politeness, but that layer of deliberately tuned affinity had completely vanished. Replacing it was a pure, business-like coldness, with a trace of extremely subtle, almost unhideable anger pressed underneath.

"I am very sorry to hear this decision. The spirit of freedom is certainly precious—" He paused, grinding the second half of the sentence slowly on the tip of his tongue, "but the nights in Night City are long, and it is dark. A person's strength is ultimately limited. The door to Arasaka's friendship is not open forever. I hope you will not regret today's choice."

Lin Yi listened, his expression not moving an inch.

This statement had completely stripped away the disguise; it wasn't an invitation, it was a warning.

Refusing the olive branch of a corporation was, on the ledger of a giant, an offense that required a price to be paid to cancel it out.

"I have my own weighing of risks and rewards." Lin Yi's voice remained calm and steady, without any inclination to explain, "I wish you luck in finding a candidate who better meets your company's needs."

Without saying another word, he cut the communication.

At the same moment, his consciousness drove Baize.

[Insight] was activated simultaneously with the anti-tracking daemon he had cobbled together earlier, surging backward along the just-disconnected communication link, locating residual access logs, intermediate node caches, and any data fragments that might be used by Yoshikawa's side to reconstruct the communication chain—all wiped out. Wiping layer by layer, leaving not a single trace. Like the most cautious Scavengers cleaning up a scene before a rainstorm, not even a single hair was left behind.

After finishing, he leaned back in his chair, his heartbeat steady, but he was already placing bets in his mind.

On the list of potential threats, besides Kang Tao, there might be one more name.

Perhaps Arasaka wouldn't act immediately, perhaps today's refusal was just a memo that would be filed away, only to be reopened at some point in the future. But regardless, the thorns on the road ahead had thickened by another layer.

He didn't care.

This hardship was the price that had to be paid for choosing freedom, and he could afford to pay it.

He exhaled a breath, feeling something in his chest grow heavier.

It wasn't fear, it was certainty.

He dialed out on his comms, to Jackie's number.

The other side answered almost instantly; the background noise was a string of rhythmic Latin rap, mixed with someone arguing in a fit of shame and anger.

"Brother, where are you? It's so lively."

"Hey! Helping out at Misty's shop!" Jackie's voice came through wrapped in a smile, the background noise quieter, as if he had moved to a relatively quiet corner, "Some idiot ordered a 'retro-style feng shui fortune-telling device,' and the circuits are a total mess—almost burned Misty's precious crystal ball into glass shards! I'm currently cleaning up his mess! Let me tell you, this thing is more of a pain than dealing with a nest of Maelstrom!"

Lin Yi could even imagine what Jackie looked like right now.

One hand holding wire strippers, the other clutching that unlucky client's circuit diagram, a cigarette dangling unlit in his mouth, rolling his eyes harder than anyone. This kind of complaint, full of the scent of daily life, was more effective than any placebo.

After hanging up the comms, he turned and walked into the small room he had converted into a studio.

On the data pad on the table, there was still the unfinished daemon framework from last time—a chain-type attack script based on an extension of the cyberware malfunction protocol; the idea was to have a single target's smart weapon malfunction and automatically propagate to nearby friendly units, but it was currently stuck on the logic of the propagation threshold setting.

In the terminal next to it, there was also a draft of a virus algorithm, the core idea of which was to reverse-inject noise signals from the target's editor; theoretically, it could turn non-lethal suppression into a more lasting sensory deprivation, but the empirical data wasn't stable enough, and it was also to minimize the use of [Lockdown].

[Lockdown] still had to be used sparingly; this thing was even more outrageous than Soulkiller.

Soulkiller was about copying, then killing the person.

[Lockdown], this thing, the person was still there, but their five senses and consciousness were directly "locked up."

What Soulkiller had, this thing also had, but it could also temporarily block their brain's neural control over the various systems of the body.

It was just a bit too high-load for him right now, so he needed to think of a substitute.

He pulled out the chair and sat down, the cold light from the screen reflecting on his face.

It's fine. Those corporations, the trouble that would come knocking sooner or later, that uncertain hostility—it's all fine. All he could do now was sharpen these daemons a bit more, improve the stability of the virus algorithm by a few more percentage points. And push his own upper limit up another level.

The moment his fingertips touched the data pad, the Baize at the back of his neck sent a steady chill. The code on the screen began to scroll down, and the light in his eyes sank along with it—focused, calm; the code was like a blade that had just been tempered, being sharpened by its owner's own hands.