"According to Huang Ban's satellite monitoring, the radiation levels on Taiping Continent show signs of declining."

"Ye Corporation dispatched dozens of underwater drones to forcibly break through the nuclear-contaminated area. Only one managed to get close to the contaminated center and send back footage. The rest were all penetrated by high-energy radiation, destroying their circuit boards. Next is firsthand video footage."

Although referred to as nearshore, the pipeline burial area is over a hundred meters deep. Furthermore, due to long-term waste discharge, the sea water's quality has severely deteriorated, with extremely poor light penetration. The hundred-meter-deep sea area is no different from the deep sea, with zero visibility to the naked eye, relying solely on the drones' built-in lights for illumination.

You can only see a deep, dark seabed. The water is mixed with seabed silt, rendering the footage extremely murky. Coupled with radiation effects, lots of noise on the screen makes it even harder to discern anything.

As for radar data, ordinary citizens naturally cannot access it. Even if they were shown, they wouldn't understand it.

Those who understand it wouldn't reveal it.

And what gets revealed is fake.

After all, at this point, even if it's real, it can only be fake.

In Night City, the public normally doesn't have the right to know about such matters.

"According to Ye Corporation's analysis, it's highly likely that an AI mine drifted into the nearshore area due to tidal effects, accidentally triggering the seabed pipeline, blowing a hole in the nuclear wastewater discharge device, leading to massive leakage of radioactive wastewater. Fortunately, timely rescue efforts forcefully closed the pipeline gate, and the nuclear radiation incident is under control. It's expected that radiation in the nearshore area will effectively abate within a week. The threat posed by roaming AI to our human society is increasingly severe..."

No details on which company's pipeline or rescue efforts are involved. Just blame the rogue AI, and that's it.

It's surely foreign forces stirring up trouble.JPG

As to which foreign forces—you don't need to know. Anyway, it's not the Moon.

"It is reported that during the economic turmoil caused by the radiation incident in Taiping Continent, an intermediary named Handz seized the opportunity to purchase over 70% of Dog Town's real estate projects at a low price. Lin Miao, a director of Horizon Corporation, severely reprimanded the intermediary in the name of economic crime, becoming visibly agitated."

Lin Miao in the news, red-faced and angry: "Handz, damn you, son of a bitch! Why are you like a dog? Do you believe I can make you fly? Haven't you ever seen gangsters? Amynos!"

According to Night City's traditional folk culture, if someone angers a real black glove like Horizon Corporation this much, you'd soon find Handz's body on the coast or under some overpass that day.

But here's the rub: Lin Miao is the loudest among them. Because he also sold his land to Handz at the lowest price due to the nuclear radiation issue, his loss was the greatest among everyone. It was natural for him to shout the loudest. In fact, due to his agitation, other companies couldn't act against Handz. They were just waiting for him to take personal revenge.

As a result, Lin Miao indeed led a large group of people to the Heavy Heart Bar to find Handz, but instead of killing Handz, he managed to reclaim 95% of the shares in all the lands from him. Then, he set aside 25 points from these shares, inviting the original landowners to jointly sign development agreements for Dog Town and Taiping Continent.

He artfully justified it, saying it was about adhering to business game rules and accepting losing bets.

By now, even fools could see what was going on. Lin Miao lost less than half of the projects in Dog Town, while others lost everything.

Now the fish are in someone else's mouth. Unless they kill Lin Miao now, those 25 points are the maximum share they can strive for. In fact, if they managed to get rid of Lin Miao, the rest would still have to fight it out among themselves.

If they fail, Lin Miao would become the next Hansen, and the land would remain wasted, possibly getting blown up by Dog Town's hidden mines to obliterate the remaining value, launching the entire Night City sky-high.

What to do?

Nothing but cold negotiation.

Continuing to work with Lin Miao to drive up land prices might at least break even and yield profits. Acting impulsively would lead to having nothing.

Those fooled now can only hold onto this rotten cake and swallow it. They even have to collaborate with Lin Miao to continue investing in Taiping Continent, providing construction materials and equipment.

Now that Lin Miao used bank loans to buy their land, they have to gratefully use their own money on Lin Miao's tourism industry, buying construction teams, equipment, and raw materials from him.

Watching Lin Miao passionately waxing lyrical about Taiping Continent's future prospects on stage, everyone in the audience silently cursed him under their breath.

Shameless, truly without face.

But curses aside, they still needed to make money.

Making money, after all, is a business of kneeling, nothing to be ashamed of.

————

The relocation work at Long Beach Waste Yard wasn't going smoothly.

Many frontline tasks can't be accomplished just by highly aware individuals or money. Once you get down to business, you'd realize below are all sorts of peculiar people of various kinds.

You'll meet markets where people wield shotguns, loudly yelling to drive the company out and to defend their homes. There are open and hidden sex workers. Some people bring their modified shops demanding commercial relocation compensation from Horizon Corporation, while others stand on the second floor firing glue at them, not to mention a bunch of fentanyl addicts causing trouble every day.

Completely unreasonable demands and people almost drove the freshly arrived Chaotic Blade Association—or Teaching Team members—mad.

First entering Night City from Evil Land, this was the first time they realized how annoying fellow real estate hooligans like themselves could be.

If it were in the past, they'd have put gun barrels to these people's heads, forcing them to leave these slums.

Many couldn't understand why anybody wouldn't want to live in good dorms but would rather shrink in this stinking, poor hellhole.

"Leader, can I apply for a job change? I want to return to Dragon Field to work on Engineering Department. I want to head to the front lines and get some concrete work..."

Jiao Ao, sporting a green mohawk, wore a bitter face. He couldn't take it anymore.

"Going to the front isn't any use."

[I Eat Fujian People], tasked with managing the demolition, didn't look good either but still urged

"There's engineering management work upfront too. Trust me, the job there isn't any easier than here."

He's just a clock-watching worker, never expected to be assigned such a tough task in-game. If it weren't for the subsidy, no damn person would come here.

Jiao Ao: "This work is just inhuman."

"How's it inhuman?" Fujianman rolled his eyes, not at all sympathetic to Jiao Ao's complaints

"You haven't seen the real tough work."

"Wait till you learn what poverty alleviation education support really means, then you'll know what tough is."

They anticipated this scenario, lacking guidance and true awareness, one couldn't rely solely on the adrenaline brought by previous class education.

"Alright, it's about time, A group has returned."

Realizing his newly received task, Fujianman remembered.

He took out more than a dozen Super Dream Headbands from the box he brought over in the morning.

"Come, come, each of you take one. This just arrived today. This is top-secret good stuff, enough to get your blood boiling."

"Huh?"

Jiao Ao was stunned. Ever since entering Dragon Field, their Mewtwo contents had all R18 contents removed, with all education and violence eliminated, at most just some boxing.

Half a year wasn't enough to wean them off all past bad habits, still in the formative stage, hearing Fujianman say it's exciting, they couldn't help it.

Subconsciously, he accepted the headband, found a comfortable spot with a chair, and put it on.

Seeing no response from Fujianman, he naturally started the Mewtwo.

After a blinding flash, his consciousness traveled back two hundred years.

In his ears was the shrill noise of wheel gearing; just hearing it made him uncomfortable, the awful stench of oil mixed with sweat hit his nostrils, mercilessly torturing his sense of smell.

Looking around, ancient steam machinery worked ceaselessly, the belts whirring while he, Jiao Ao, stood at a conveyor line with a wrench, fastening screws, clad in filthy overalls.

Where the hell is the thrill in this?