21: Chapter 21 can only be cleansed by a rain of blood.
In the Charter Hill apartment, soundproof glass filtered the city's clamor into a faint, muffled hum. It was too quiet. Quiet enough that Lin Yi could still hear those sounds echoing in his ears—the roar of shotguns, the crisp snap of Scavengers' bones breaking, and the silence in that dead-still "operating room," where one couldn't even cry.
He lay on that insanely expensive mattress, his body feeling like it had been run over, while his brain felt like an overloaded circuit board, burning and unable to stop. Every time he closed his eyes, the pale shadowless lamps, the cold metal trays, the lingering despair behind the plastic sheets—all these images seemed to automatically switch to high-definition braindance, looping before his eyes.
His stomach gave a sudden spasm. He rushed into the bathroom, hunched over the toilet, and dry-heaved for a while, but nothing came out. Only acidic fluid burned his throat.
Fine, forget about sleeping.
He walked to the floor-to-ceiling window in the living room. Outside was the brilliant and cold skyline of Westbrook, where neon lights dyed the rain into colorful ribbons, like a rainbow that was weeping. He used to think this night view was quite beautiful, but now it only felt hypocritical and distant.
The cigarette Jackie had handed him flashed through his mind. He rummaged through the drawer for that crumpled pack of cigarettes, pulled one out, and put it in his mouth. The lighter's flame flickered in the darkness, the tobacco ignited, and a strange, spicy smoke poured into his lungs. Then came a violent coughing fit, tears choking out. Nicotine didn't bring even half a second of calm; instead, it agitated his nerves even more.
"Efficiency... Control..."
These two words popped into his mind out of nowhere. Right—facing that kind of inhumane darkness, what did personal emotions matter? They were useless. Only absolute power, incorporating everything into calculation and control, could uproot that kind of filth.
He stubbed out the cigarette after only one puff and turned to walk into the room he had converted into a studio. The terminal screen lit up, casting a pale light onto his face, reflecting his bloodless complexion. He didn't need alcohol. He didn't need nicotine. He needed something more direct. Something more thorough.
He sat down and closed his eyes. His consciousness sank into that familiar, cold stream of data. The "Bai Ze" at the back of his neck sent a steady pulse, like a second heart beating.
[Command confirmed: Deep data scanning protocol initiated. Target: Night City public safety database—anonymous access; underground network information flow. Keywords: Scavengers, strongholds, activity frequency, missing persons correlation reports.]
[Insight] Current power level that the body can stably support, at full capacity.
A torrent of data surged in from all directions—fragments of surveillance footage, sporadic reports drowned out in police channels, stolen item serial numbers that matched records in the black market cyberware circulation logs, posts on anonymous forums showing off "new stock," and the tacit inquiry replies below. All information was processed in coordination by Bai Ze and the COX-2 optimizer, filtered, cross-referenced, and logically verified. Noise was stripped away layer by layer, and clues and truths floated up one by one.
In his field of vision, the electronic map of Night City unfolded silently. One by one, scarlet light dots began to flicker, like festering sores under the skin. Every dot was a potential Scavengers nest. He was no longer satisfied with waiting for people to issue contracts. He wanted to take the initiative and pay a visit for a thorough "extermination."
[Analysis complete. High-probability targets locked: 17 locations. Optimal cleanup path planned.]
Lin Yi opened his eyes. The confusion and nausea from just a moment ago were gone, replaced by a near-absolute calmness—or rather, ice formed after anger had been compressed to its limit.
He stood up and walked to the weapon cabinet, his movements in grabbing his gear unhurried and methodical. The "Ghost" pistol was holstered under his arm, and spare magazines filled every pocket of his tactical vest. He didn't call Jackie. This was his personal reckoning.
The black "galena" GTS slid out of the garage, slipping into the night rain like a silent ray. The low roar of the engine was completely covered by the sound of the rain as the car glided over the wet streets, heading toward the first target—an abandoned drive-in theater on the edge of Japantown.
Upon arriving, he didn't rush to get out of the car. He sat in the driver's seat and closed his eyes.
[Insight: Environmental scanning in progress. Target building structure analysis. Vital signs detection... Targets detected: 5 people. Biological characteristics match: Scavengers—100%.]
[Tactical plan simulation in progress... Optimal solution: Silent infiltration, eliminate one by one.]
He threw away the "optimal solution."
No need for infiltration. He was here to vent. He was here to crush them.
[Command changed. Execute area-wide Lockdown. Target: All Scavengers individuals within the area. Duration: 5 minutes. Power allocation: 6%.]
A familiar chill surged from the depths of his soul, accompanied by a slight prickling sensation. The next second, in the screening room of that abandoned theater—those playing cards, those oiling weapons, those dismantling the "goods" they had just acquired—all five Scavengers froze simultaneously. Their movements stopped in mid-air, their expressions solidified on their faces, and their eyes instantly went blank. They were like five puppets whose strings had been cut all at once.
Lin Yi pushed open the car door. The rain hit his shoulders, but he didn't care. He held the "Ghost" in his hand, his footsteps unhurried, as if executing a program running exactly as expected.
The first room. The Scavenger slumped in the chair had unfocused eyes, but was still breathing, though only fear remained in that breath.
Bang. Bang. Chest.
Bang. Head.
Turn around. Next one.
[Insight] quietly marked the position of the next target at the edge of his vision, predicting possible traps—although under Lockdown, these things posed no threat at all—and even marked out the energy-saving movement route for him. He completely surrendered himself to this killing rhythm driven by data and computing power, his mind blank, thinking of nothing, just acting.
The second stronghold, an underground garage. Four. Lockdown. Two to the body, one to the head.
The third stronghold, a dilapidated apartment building. Six. Lockdown. Two to the body, one to the head.
The fourth stronghold was in a modified garage deep in an alley, hiding five of them. One of them was spraying preservative on the "goods" just dismantled—a bloody prosthetic forearm. When Lin Yi walked in, he couldn't even turn his head. Two to the body, one to the head. The prosthetic limb rolled off the shelf, hitting the ground with a dull thud, the bottle of preservative toppled over, and the liquid spread a pungent white mist in the pool of blood.
The rain fell harder and harder. The rainwater washed the streets, and also washed the mud splashes off the "galena." Lin Yi shuttled through the shadows of Night City like an antivirus program executing a delete command, finding those "viruses" hiding in corners one by one, completely erasing them from the hard drive. Every time he pulled the trigger, the image of the "operating room" in his mind faded by one degree. That nauseating smell dissipated by one degree.
The last stronghold—an abandoned small freight warehouse near Pine Street South. Three. Lockdown. Two to the body, one to the head.
The gunshot echoed one last time between the tin walls, and then the entire warehouse fell silent.
Lin Yi stood on one side of the warehouse, rainwater dripping down from a hole in the roof, gathering into a few shallow puddles on the ground, reflecting the dim emergency lights. The air was filled with the mixed smell of blood and gunpowder.
He let out a long, heavy breath. His nerves, which had been taut like steel wires, finally relaxed. But what replaced it was not the satisfaction after venting, but a strange emptiness. The anger and nausea had been hollowed out, leaving behind a clean, empty shell.
He lowered his hands and said in a low voice: "Now... I... am finally at peace with myself."
The voice echoed once in the empty warehouse, then was swallowed by the sound of the rain.
That night, Night City's "dead person lottery" hit a new high for the month. But the extra numbers were all Scavengers—just like clearing out a few nests of rats in the sewer, the NCPD couldn't even be bothered to conduct a deep investigation, just stuffing a few cold statistical figures into the monthly report.
Lin Yi sat back in the car and started the engine. The windshield wipers rhythmically swept across the windshield, pushing the water curtain away and closing it again, pushing it away and closing it again. He felt a weariness seeping from the gaps in his bones, but his heart was surprisingly calm.
He had used [Lockdown] again. Once more. So what if he used it. He was fine. And he had taken out more than a dozen nests of Scavengers. As he drove the car onto the wet streets, he internally reached a conclusion he could accept: dependency is dependency; it's just a tool, not like he's looking for a daddy. As long as it could clear his mind, as long as the image of that "operating room" in his head could fade, everything else could be dealt with tomorrow.
The black "galena" disappeared into the end of the rainy night, leaving behind more than a dozen silent deaths, and a city that continued to operate as usual, as numb as ever.
It was almost dawn when he returned to the apartment. He took off his coat, soaked through by the rain, didn't shower, and collapsed directly onto the bed. When he closed his eyes, there were no pale shadowless lamps in his mind, no trays, no babies. The sense of exhaustion was instantly like a darkness pressing down, the kind of pure black that allowed one to catch a breath.
And then he knew nothing more.