52: Chapter 52 When Happiness Comes, Knock on the Door

After a busy day yesterday, the three decided to ease up to let Evelyn Parker lower her guard, though that person wouldn't relax much anyway.

The operation was scheduled for the next evening, when Clouds started business and the crowd gradually increased.

At the ambiguously lit entrance, V adjusted the expensive outfit she was wearing, which allowed her to blend perfectly into the customer crowd, and whispered into the headset: "I'm going in."

"Received. I'm just outside. If anything goes wrong, just break through and start fighting," Lin Yi's voice came through the encrypted channel, calm and reliable.

Lin Yi seemed to be one of the people outside Clouds, chatting with two or three regulars with his arms around their shoulders.

First, he quickly used Insight to get the basic information on these people, who were named Gan, Wen, and Cui respectively.

"Hey, Gan, long time no see. How have you been lately? It's been so long since we graduated from Arasaka Academy, and you haven't contacted me. The friendship has really faded," Lin Yi feigned familiarity as he struck up a conversation.

"Who are you?" Gan looked at the person in front of him, who seemed somewhat familiar but he wasn't quite sure, with some confusion.

"You forgot? That year we graduated, the final assessment. Who covered for you? Who cleared out the others in the dorm so you could have a double party?" Lin Yi combined the information obtained from Insight and his own cunning, performing perfectly, successfully making it look real.

"Oh! It's you, kid! Damn! Sam, you've changed so much in these years, becoming so suave?" Gan said as if he had remembered.

"This is my good buddy from when I was in school, Sam. Sam, these two are my current friends, Wen and Cui. They both work at the NCPD," Gan briefly introduced both sides, and then the group started chatting enthusiastically at the stall outside.

Amidst the casual chatter, Lin Yi secretly performed signal camouflage on the three's ocular cyberware to avoid leaving any traces.

Switching the perspective to V.

V took a deep breath and stepped into this luxurious world filled with the scent of expensive perfume and desire.

She bypassed the noisy dance floor and gambling tables, relying on her memory and the information she dug out from Judy earlier, and headed straight for the staff area.

The key to the operation was speed—she had to get things done before the manager of Clouds, "Woodman" Forrest, noticed the anomaly with this top-tier doll.

Luck was clearly on V's side.

In an exquisitely decorated preparation room, V successfully found Evelyn Parker.

She looked a bit haggard, but clearly hadn't been liquidated or tortured by management yet, and was touching up her makeup in front of the mirror, trying to cover up her inner panic and unease.

"Evelyn." V closed the door, her voice low, but it made the woman in front of the mirror's shoulders tremble violently.

Evelyn turned around, and seeing it was V, a flash of surprise crossed her eyes, immediately replaced by a forced composure. "V? How did you find this place?" She pulled out a professional smile, "If it's about the last commission, I'm sorry I messed it up, but..."

"Save it," V interrupted her, straight to the point, "I'm not here to listen to apologies. Tell me, what exactly do the Voodoo Boys want to do? How do I contact them?"

Evelyn's eyes flickered, the panic quickly suppressed, replaced by a kind of ridiculous bluffing.

She crossed her arms, lifted her chin slightly, and said with a threatening tone: "Heh, the Voodoo Boys? I advise you not to ask. They aren't people you can afford to provoke. In Pacifica, they are the 'Masters'! If you don't want trouble, better forget about this."

In the remote channel, Jackie couldn't help but chuckle: "Yo yo yo, using the Masters' name to scare us... Is this woman not understanding the situation?"

V was almost amused by this idiot, such a calculating person who couldn't see the situation clearly.

She didn't waste any more breath, walked out the door, and whispered into the headset: "She refuses to cooperate."

"Received. I'll be there immediately."

Almost as soon as V finished speaking, the door to the preparation room was pushed open silently, Lin Yi's figure appeared at the door, quickly entered, and locked the door.

Evelyn saw V return, and Lin Yi, who obviously came with ill intent, and the color on her face instantly faded.

"You... what do you want? This is Clouds! Tyger Claws territory." She tried to use the authority of the place to intimidate them.

Lin Yi couldn't be bothered to waste another word with her.

A cold light flashed in his eyes, and his consciousness was already connected to "Baize".

[Lockdown].

An invisible force instantly enveloped Evelyn. Her body stiffened, her eyes became hollow as if her soul had been extracted, and she was frozen in place, unable to move even a finger, with only extreme fear remaining in her pupils.

Lin Yi stepped forward, the data connection cable extending from his wrist like a spirit snake, precisely plugging into the neural slot at the back of Evelyn's neck.

"Deep dive, focusing on content related to the Voodoo Boys, such as contact information and base locations. Pay attention to the detailed operation this time," he signaled to V, and set up the computing power bridge again.

This time, he led most of the process, while V assisted in learning and monitoring the surrounding environment from the side.

Evelyn's memory was rudely opened like an undefended database.

Those carefully calculated schemes, delusions about the future, fear of the Voodoo Boys, and the coldness of treating V and Jackie as expendable pawns... all dirty or naive thoughts were exposed.

Lin Yi precisely filtered out useless emotions and images, and quickly locked onto the target—a specific coordinate in Pacifica. By the way, through the image of her communicating with Maman Brigitte, he directly redirected to Brigitte and grabbed a complex access verification protocol.

This was the "entry card" to the core area of the Voodoo Boys.

"Got it." Lin Yi retracted the connection cable, clean and decisive.

Evelyn collapsed softly to the ground, falling into a coma.

"Let's go." Lin Yi didn't even glance at the woman on the ground.

The two left Clouds as quietly as they came. Lin Yi even briefly said goodbye to his "old friend" Gan, acting the whole part.

"Is that guy an acquaintance of yours?" V couldn't help but ask curiously.

"Don't know him," Lin Yi replied to V while waving goodbye to Gan, "Just a guest role in today's play. They don't know anything. Let's go, Jackie is still waiting for us at the shop."

The two drove away, blending into the never-sleeping night of Night City.

As for what would happen after Evelyn woke up, whether she would continue her pathetic fantasies, or finally be liquidated by "Woodman", who cares?

Almost at the same time, in a dark corner near Arasaka Tower, Goro Takemura was looking at the latest report on Dexter Deshawn on the terminal in his hand, his brows locked in a frown.

He was one step too late. Arasaka Corporation's internal agents had already found the fixer's safe house before him, but the report recorded that only traces of cleaning and untraceable blanks remained inside.

The clue was completely broken here; he only knew someone had silenced him first.

"Who exactly is it..." Takemura muttered to himself, feeling an invisible net tightening, and he couldn't even touch the shadow of his opponent.

An Arasaka agent stepped forward: "Takemura-san, Young Master Yorinobu invites you over."

In the villa in North Oak, the two brought Jackie over from his sweet little nest.

The three sat around the living room, finally sorting out the complete chain of the commission.

Jackie scratched his head and raised a question he had been holding back for several days: "That's not right, buddy. It's been three days, such a big commotion at Konpeki Plaza, and Arasaka's people haven't come knocking yet? This doesn't seem right."

Hearing this, V smiled triumphantly and began to vividly describe how Lin Yi used "Baize" to disguise their facial information that day, how he interfered with the opponent's tracking during the pursuit, and finally, at Dexter's place, how he cut the Gordian knot, making both people and data "vanish into thin air."

"You guys are so bold," Jackie smacked his lips after listening, "You actually just took out the fixer directly."

"He insisted on doing it that way, I couldn't help it," Lin Yi defended himself with an innocent face.

Jackie looked at the two with a complicated expression, and only after a long while squeezed out a sentence: "... Then what about my fear and anxiety these past few days, and my expectation of fighting the Arasaka ninjas for three hundred rounds?"

V blinked, and replied with a pure and innocent face: "Count it as you being awesome?"

Lin Yi couldn't help but laugh looking at this pair of clowns.

He clapped his hands and stood up: "Alright, alright. Let's put the past troubles aside for now. We haven't had a good gathering for a while. Tonight, call Misty and Viktor, come over to my place, and let's relax properly."

"By the way, Jackie, did Viktor tell you? The things ordered for you will arrive in the next two days. By then, you'll be like you were before, and we can go on a rampage together," Lin Yi added as if remembering something.

"Oh my god, it's finally arriving, mano. You don't know how bored I've been these past few days," Jackie said with a sense of relief upon hearing this news.

That's right, in this Night City, everyone has their own rhythm.