46: Chapter 46 V is very curious about you

The three of them arrived covertly at Misty's shop, which was a place where they could finally catch their breath for a moment.

The unique air inside Esoterica, mixed with the scent of incense and herbs, could not dispel the stench of gunpowder and blood that the three of them brought in.

V practically half-carried Lin Yi as she rushed into Viktor's basement surgical room.

Viktor had just put down his tools when he saw Lin Yi, supported by V, looking deathly pale and drenched in cold sweat; his brow immediately knitted into a knot.

"Put him on the medical chair, gently!" Viktor's voice carried an unquestionable authority mixed with obvious concern.

A quick examination followed—neural link scan, cortical activity monitoring, and vital sign readings.

Viktor's expression gradually softened from its grave state, though it remained serious.

"The neural load is terrifyingly high; it's like he overclocked and overdrawn his system a dozen times in a short period. It's a miracle his brain didn't fry," he said, while expertly preparing a nerve-soothing injection and carefully administering it into the standard port at the back of Lin Yi's neck, avoiding the warm, smooth "Baize."

"His brain has initiated a protective hibernation; in layman's terms, it's a 'thermal shutdown.' There's no immediate danger to his life, but..."

He turned around to look at V, whose face was stained with blood and dust, but whose eyes were filled with concern.

"When he wakes up, tell him he must rest properly for a few days. For at least seventy-two hours, he is strictly forbidden from engaging in any high-intensity hacking activities or... whatever else." Viktor's tone was almost like a warning. "Otherwise, the recovery period will drag on, and there could be permanent damage; if he only ends up with tremors or headaches, he'll be lucky."

V nodded heavily, committing these words firmly to memory.

Beside them, hearing "no immediate danger to his life," Jackie's tense shoulders finally relaxed, and he let out a long sigh. As he exhaled, the sharp pain and weakness he had been forcibly ignoring surged up instantly.

He subconsciously pressed his hand against his abdomen, his fingertips touching a patch of warm, sticky moisture.

At this moment, V happened to turn toward Jackie, noticing the obvious gunshot wound on his abdomen.

"It's nothing, chica," Jackie said, seeing V turn around and noticing his pale lips, still trying to put on a brave face. "Just let Viktor stop the bleeding and stitch it up; it's a piece of cake." He tried to force a relaxed smile, but it looked strained. He shouted at Viktor: "Viktor, hurry and help me out; I'm starting to feel a bit cold."

Viktor glared at him, then looked at the unconscious Lin Yi, efficiently disinfecting his hands and instruments while muttering: "What kind of earth-shattering job did you two go on? One gets shot, and the other hits a hard shutdown from overload! Jackie, you idiot, come over here and lie on that surgical table! Let me see what kind of situation could make a tough guy like you feel cold!"

V stood guard over the still-unconscious Lin Yi, watching his brow, which remained furrowed even in hibernation, and felt a complex mix of emotions.

From Jackie's side, the faint sounds of Viktor cleaning the wound and clinking instruments soon followed, along with Jackie's occasional involuntary hiss of pain.

The wound was treated quickly.

For this kind of wound, Viktor's skill was impeccable; extracting the bullet, stopping the bleeding, and stitching it up were all done in one go.

Jackie was a tough guy after all; after the stitches and an injection of antibiotics and painkillers, his complexion was still pale, but his spirits had returned somewhat.

He grimaced as he climbed off the surgical chair, patted V on the shoulder to signal he was fine, and then wobbled off to find Misty upstairs for some "emotional comfort."

The basement went quiet for a moment, leaving only the rhythmic ticking of equipment and Lin Yi's slightly heavy breathing.

V looked at her unconscious companion, recalling the roller-coaster, life-threatening experience of the day. T-Bug was dead; she hadn't even had time to make a sound before being completely incinerated within the data stream.

To get them out, Lin Yi had ended up in this miserable state.

Jackie had also been shot...

"One dead, two wounded. Heh." V whispered to herself, a heavy sense of powerlessness seizing her.

The team had just formed, and it had been crippled in almost a single mission.

And all of this was for that damn Relic chip now lying quietly in the corner.

Her gaze returned to Lin Yi.

Lin Yi's performance today had completely exceeded the scope of her understanding.

Without plugging into a Data Fortress, without physically connecting to a server, he had hacked into Saburo Arasaka's AV access and the hotel's partial security permissions almost instantly.

That was already absurd, but what was even more exaggerated was when they were shaking off their pursuers—not to mention masking their vehicle's signal, just those Arasaka vehicles flanking them from the left and right, dense and numbering at least twenty at a glance, had all lost control and crashed in less than a second!

This was simply not something a hacker she knew could do.

It didn't even seem within the scope of human capability.

She couldn't help but lower her voice and ask Viktor, who was organizing his equipment: "Viktor, this guy... what exactly is the origin of his cyberware?"

Viktor paused, not looking up, and replied in an almost perfunctory tone: "This kid is terrifyingly lucky. He's got at least three pieces of top-tier hacking cyberware installed." He paused, seemingly choosing his words, and then added in a lower voice, "And that thing... his condition today, I suspect it has everything to do with it."

"It?" V's curiosity deepened. "Viktor, what riddles are you speaking in? You might as well be clear; Lin Yi has never mentioned it to me."

Viktor sighed, put down his tools, pulled up a stool, and sat opposite V.

His gaze swept over, as if he could see through the skin to the neural port on the back of Lin Yi's neck—a piece that looked like white jade and stood out in style from all other cyberware—and his eyes were filled with complexity.

"Fine, there's no harm in telling you; besides, I installed most of this kid's cyberware anyway." Viktor lowered his voice, as if recounting a secret legend.

"It was probably not long after he first arrived in Night City, back when he hadn't made a name for himself yet. He suddenly found me, acting all mysterious, and pulled out a box." Viktor gestured with his hands. "Inside was the cyberdeck he uses now—the exterior is white, like a piece of jade."

"That thing..." Viktor recalled, a look of slight confusion on his face. "I've been in this business for so many years, and I've never seen that kind of design or material. It's not Militech, it's not Arasaka, and it doesn't look like the product of any manufacturer I know. It... gives me a very strange feeling, and strange often implies more risk."

"I warned him at the time that prototype cyberware of unknown origin, especially something that looked this extraordinary, carried extremely high risks and could very well fry his brain. But the kid was insistent; he said he knew the risks, but he 'had to use this.'" Viktor shrugged. "I could only do my best to ensure the implantation process was as safe as possible. The whole process... well, how should I put it? It was very smooth—smooth in a way that was almost eerie. It was like... like that thing was meant to be there all along."

He pointed to the back of his own neck.

"After it was installed, he was unconscious for a day and a night. After he woke up, he gradually developed these... 'abilities' you see now." Viktor concluded, his tone carrying a hint of wariness he hadn't even noticed himself. "As for what exactly that thing is or what its specific functions are, he never elaborated, and I didn't ask. In this Night City, knowing too much isn't necessarily a good thing."

V listened in silence, her gaze focusing once again on the location of the "Baize" cyberdeck. Beneath that skin, it seemed, lay unimaginable secrets and power.

She didn't know why, but she felt that everything she had witnessed today was only the tip of the iceberg of what it could do.

And as for Lin Yi, who possessed it, the burden he carried was likely far heavier than she had imagined.

The basement clinic's ventilation system hummed, Lin Yi's breathing gradually steadied in his unconscious state, but the mysteries in V's heart only grew deeper.

The crisis was temporarily averted, but surrounding the Relic, and surrounding the secrets of Lin Yi, a greater storm was perhaps already brewing.