Players Invade Cyberpunk-Chapter 659 - 212: Yilin: The Inherent Vice of a Certain Group_2
10. Any criminal act incited other than by upper-level directives may be a test, do not believe them.
11. If you encounter a life-threatening situation from other gangs or your superiors, you might consider joining them. They will protect you, but the cost is becoming one of them, forever and ever.
The rules are bizarre and strange, but effective.
No one on the street dares to kill recklessly anymore, even the previously arrogant gangsters have become much more honest.
However, the price was nearly four figures of gang casualties and three figures of player casualties.
After all, everyone is just trying to make a living. In the face of a real iron fist that can blow their heads off, no one dares not to be afraid.
Some have tried to report back to their golden backers, but the problem is Huang Ban's recent actions have been too extreme. Horizon Corporation also used an iron fist to show everyone they're not to be trifled with. Additionally, Ye Corporation, Kangtao, and the military tech giants have all established beneficial relations with Horizon Corporation, so no one dares to mess with Horizon in Night City for the time being.
After all, everyone still needs to do business in this area. If some grey businesses suffer, so be it; as long as things are kept low-key for a while, the gangs can only bear it.
In the top floor office of the Ye Corporation building, a man, whose pupils reflected a Möbius strip, picked up the coffee brewed by Blue Eyes, took a sip, and threw the paper onto the table.
"Seems like a lot has been happening in Night City recently."
"You're just letting them wreak havoc in Night City and still doing business with them."
The newspaper boldly stated that the Night City Council had signed a garbage collection agreement with Horizon Corporation. Starting from January 1, 2076, garbage trucks would be punctual in collecting trash on the streets every day, but of course, the garbage tax would rise from 2 Orokin to 5 Orokin per ton.
This cost will surely be counted against the middle-class registered in Night City.
However, Blue Eyes, sitting on the opposite sofa, didn't show much of a reaction, only smiled and said,
"Their behavior hasn't crossed my bottom line, and isn't the current situation fine?"
"Heh, I forgot, you always hated those disruptive violent gangs, didn't even die in peace."
Möbius fiddled with the coffee cup in his hand, implying something.
"But I'm curious, if you hated those guys so much, why didn't you just wipe them out back then? As the Night City Mayor and in the name of Ye Corporation, forming a police force shouldn't have been too hard, right?"
"What good is destroying their bodies? They're only the consequence, not the process."
Facing his peer pointing out his past true identity, Blue Eyes wasn't angry; instead, he spoke eloquently.
"This is merely a by-product of humanity's selfishness and love of violence. Even if you wipe out this group of gangsters, another batch will fill their place, just like humans need toilets. Even if they despise how dirty toilets are, they can't do without them."
Gangs are just by-products of the giant corporations' domination of the city. Corporations lack the ability and willingness to control social order at the grassroots level and don't allow the government to have too much power. This results in a vacuum of power that breeds low-level gangs using violence to maintain control.
These gangs feed on the leftovers discarded by corporations and continue to oppress and control the grassroots people for them.
"It's a shame Richard Knight realized this too late."
Blue Eyes spoke with a calm tone, as if stating facts from a third-person perspective, without any emotional fluctuation.
"He naively wanted to create a free trade city not controlled by government power, but ignored the inherent corruption of humanity, ultimately causing Night City's collapse and his own death. We're on a new, correct path."
"Eventually, perfect new humans will replace those with inerasable flaws, becoming the inheritors of a new world."
"Really?"
Nishikawa Lingmei sat on a high stool, her legs dangling in the air, holding a warm milk tea, her fluttering eyes filled with the innocence and admiration only children have.
"Did you really defeat those bad guys and protect everyone's reservoir? That's amazing."
Though that day she was brought to Stone Ridge Mountain by her mother to award the big brothers and sisters with medals, Lingmei actually didn't know what had happened. She didn't even know what the medals she held were, only feeling that doing so made the big brothers and sisters happy.
Only after the cops returned to Night City did they mention the event, and Lingmei learned that the Masked Rider and others had defeated a much larger group of bad guys outside. In fact, she didn't even know what a reservoir was. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞
Kids always like stories of heroes defeating villains, and the reasons for fighting or the plot don't matter at all.
"Oh ho, of course."
Masked Rider, already back in his original Masked Rider outfit, struck a cool knight pose in front of Lingmei.
"For the freedom of humanity and the peace of the world, the Masked Rider will defeat all the bad guys."
Because he wore a mask, it didn't matter how many times the face beneath the mask changed. Unlike other players, who after obtaining a face that met their aesthetic, had to record it and spend money at ERO to change back to that face every time they died and resurrected.
