Chapter 9: After Work

Finally off work.

Yes, even in the cyberpunk world's corporate universe, there is a concept of 'getting off work'.

After all, a mandatory work system of five days of paid leave per year, seven days of work per week, and twelve hours of work per day had already pushed the limits of the working social livestock.

Some factory enterprises do operate on a shift system, one during the day and another at night, mainly to keep the equipment running nonstop—of course, without any overtime pay.

And if everyone lived at the company, who would buy the houses? Would the real estate business still be up and running? And if you live at the company, do you pay rent? Time to get off work! Everybody out! Who cares how many hours you commute, just scram once you're off!

And so, Li Pan's first day on the job ended in such a mess.

Squeezed into the subway with a bunch of social livestock, Li Pan, like everyone else, stared blankly at the shadows reflected in the window.

Of course, other people's cyber eyes were illuminated with colorful and bright images, as they were addicted to scrolling through short videos and playing games on the QVN network. Li Pan was genuinely staring into space.

For a moment, he even wondered whether he had actually traveled through time.

Before traveling, he was a wage earner, and after traveling, he was still a wage earner. What if he died and was still a wage earner in his next life? Could this be some kind of Celestial Endless Overtime Hell... Damn, suddenly I'm so scared...

Li Pan didn't dare to think further and hurriedly connected to the internet to numb himself with the electronic sea of videos.

But these days, there are just too many ways to indulge in the virtual network. With the advancement of technology, you could really wander in the network—the virtual world was constructed almost indistinguishably from the real one.

Virtual anchors, gamers, internet artists, and various professions could work online.

And with money, one could get an ecological pod or even live in a hotel-style internet café, immersing the body in nutrient fluid with professionals taking care of your physical needs, literally becoming an 'electronic phantom' who lives in the sea of electronics forever.

In his past life, Li Pan was a gamer, and in this life, with no parents watching over him, he almost became one of those electronic phantoms.

But QVN is not safe.

Although there's a public safety system monitoring everything on the public network, there are always people setting up illegal deep web servers, and the safety system can't stop you from seeking your own death.

Just one wrong step, falling into a trap, could mean losing everything. Bankruptcy is the least of it; you could even become a cyber zombie, controlled by others.

Li Pan had been played. When he first crossed into this world, he tried to become a game anchor, a pro player, in addition to his studies. At first, things went well and he made a small fortune. But then he was hacked by a professional hacker. If he hadn't been on the military school's intranet, where the hacker didn't dare to go too far, he might have lost his life.

His passionately invested game account was stolen, and when attacked by the hacker's magic puppet, he was not only disconnected from the public network in a split second but also lost control of his body. He couldn't see, hear or touch anything, feeling as if he was trapped in a sealed elevator, falling endlessly into helplessness and despair. It scared him deeply.

Since then, Li Pan had developed a psychological shadow over those large virtual network games, or rather, the entire QVN deep web. As a result, he now only watches public network and shallow TV programs.

Each time he looked at the countless connecting codes, he felt that behind the dazzling array of lights, malicious hackers lurked, with countless eyes watching him.

The endless virtual network was like a vast abyss of nothingness—once trapped, if you fall into it, you can never climb out.

Sometimes even Li Pan didn't know which was more terrifying, the electronic abyss or the real-world hell.

All he could do was jump from one cliff side to the other when he was about to give in, back and forth.

These days, the predicament of ordinary people is the same as his. Madness is but a hair's breadth away.

"Ahhhh—!" "Screech—!"

The sharp sound of screeching brakes violently woke Li Pan from his brief distraction. He jolted into Xingtian Combat Mode, connected to the safety network to ward off any hackers, and became vigilant of his surroundings.

It turned out someone had committed suicide by lying on the tracks ahead, and blood spattered through the gaps of the subway car's doors and windows, staining the crowd pink.

Sigh, this cursed subway. The suburban loop line is filled with junkies doing drugs and defecating, while the city loop line sees all kinds of suicides by jumping in front of the train. The ground is perpetually brown, stained with either blood or feces.

As a result, the subway was forced to temporarily shut down to wait for the cleaning robots to clear away the mangled bones and organs.

Li Pan also had no choice but to follow the crowd out and wait, finding a place to squat and clean the blood off his shoes.

At that moment, a warning popped up before his eyes from the public safety network.

'Area safety deviation level has increased.'

Li Pan immediately became alert, his hand resting on the safety of his Endless Night handgun at his waist.

As much as he hated this troublesome setting, he had to admit, sometimes it could save his life.

Safety deviation level, as the name implies, is a reference based on the public safety network's algorithm. The safety network, referencing the whole of Night City, no, the entire Celestial public safety network monitoring environment, inputs various violent crimes and danger coefficients to set baseline standards for different areas.

For example, in the Downtown District, this safety threshold is quite high, while in suburban junkyards and industrial areas, it's much lower. But generally, it's relatively steady in the long run.