Additionally, according to yesterday's news report, 153 people at Zeta Technology were hit by a type of neural virus, suffering severe dehydration.

"Then my colleagues..."

"They'll all stay on as your assistants, with compensation calculated based on your formal salaries at Zeta Technology."

"What about the children..."

"I will build an orphanage to take in all the orphans of Night City, covering their living expenses throughout their education and providing job opportunities."

For a company, the basic cost of cultivating qualified workers is shifted onto society; they just need to select qualified products from this pool. However, for a nation as a whole (not the government), these costs are internal investments for the future.

This is essentially what Huang Ban has been doing, selecting those unfortunate children, instilling loyalty to Huang Ban from a young age, training them into mercenaries, bodyguards, and other professions requiring blind loyalty.

The Academy of Loyalty, some might say; those who understand will understand.

In any case, it's better than letting them grow up in the big melting pot that is Night City; as long as Horizon Corporation's profits hold, this is a business that won't lose.

The loyalty of employees cultivated from childhood can't be compared to those recruited externally.

Yet Lin Miao's response left Anne dumbfounded...

She actually just wanted to focus on the follow-up issues of those ten children, but Lin Miao's actions stunned her.

You should know sponsoring poor students is usually just a show by some legislators, or a pretext for keeping minor female students, rarely exceeding double digits. Lin Miao, with a wave of his hand, wants to cover five digits of orphans from Night City?

"What do you have to say?"

"...."

Anne felt a little too greedy but couldn't help asking:

"You should have seen Zeta Technology's Human Brain Array technology... if it develops, the consequences are unimaginable... can you..."

The preliminary step is to load human brains onto production lines to replace automated operations. The next step is loading them onto trucks, industrial machines, tanks, and airplanes; how many people will die at the hands of these companies during this process?

Probably not fewer than any previous corporate wars.

What's more terrifying is that the interests of all companies are almost aligned in this case; this is a gruesome slaughter by the bourgeoisie against the proletariat.

"I can't."

Lin Miao declined Anne's suggestion without hesitation.

"This isn't something I can do, at least not now."

Before disappointment could settle in, Lin Miao added:

"But if you want fewer people to die in the future, work more actively and speed up the progress; maybe they can save two more lives later."

Anne was left bewildered, not understanding what he meant, could only ask from her standpoint:

"What do you want them to do?"

"It's not about what I want them to do, it's about what they want to do, whether it's controlling drones in battles, machines in construction, or racing cars, they can do whatever they like; this isn't something I'm going to control."

???

Anne was even more confused.

Not...

Zeta Technology's alterations are meant to be strongly purposeful and fully under company control, is your suggestion of letting the altered individuals choose their own path too frivolous?

Is it worthy of your investment?

But Lin Miao didn't care much about all that; could he possibly teach players how to gear up?

"Oh, by the way, they have to pay for the alteration expenses themselves, that's something the company won't cover; you can entirely consider it a part of prosthetic augmentation, don't feel too burdened by it."

"Additionally, the alteration can be divided into multiple tiers, like each alteration liberating 5% of utilization rate, with surgery costs incrementally higher each time, I'll devise a pricing scheme later."

The tradition from hot games of having one life, two lives, and three lives is a valuable lesson from planner predecessors; Lin Miao is already highly benevolent by not crafting a master-level system, mixing the upgrade core within the Mi card pool for players to draw from.

Clear pricing, excluding the poverty-stricken, one honest deal is enough to stand at the pinnacle of the world.

"Also, the processors for control devices have to be exclusive; only control cores purchased from us will work with brain-controlled devices, data encryption has to be well done to prevent counterfeit and inferior products from flooding the market..."

Anne was left stunned listening to a string of words. Once companies have these equipments, they first think of equipping core troops to enhance combat capabilities; how come the soldiers of your company have to buy their own equipment, exploited by their own boss?

Although similar situations have occurred in certain military forces, those are quick to collapse garbage armies; none could match the elite level of Horizon Mercenaries.

Don't understand

Completely don't understand

If Huang Ban dared to treat Agent Huang Ban this way, they might collectively defect to find Military Technology the next day, how could they possibly continue fighting for you?

Anne patted her head, realizing she completely doesn't understand the minds of these people, so she stopped thinking about it.

Like Lin Miao said, she has the right to refuse alteration requests; if Lin Miao truly wants to do something heinous, she can simply quit.

After the Zeta Technology incident, she and those nurses realized death isn't that frightening, as long as the sacrifice is worthwhile.

Moreover, Anne is willing to trust Horizon Corporation this time, not only because of the saving, but most importantly, Anne knows the girl lying on the hospital bed.

She remembers every name on that batch's list of test subjects; these people have near-zero social status, no value whatsoever.

Yet, even so, Horizon Corporation is willing to invest so much in prosthetics and hacker technology to save them from the brink of death, that itself is the greatest proof.

Maybe... they really can achieve something.