Chapter 2

The air in the underground parking garage reeked of burning ions, and the cold fluorescent lights overhead flickered like an electrocardiogram of a dying patient. I stood beside the maglev car, watching Karl rush out of the elevator. He moved swiftly, the invisible blades on the soles of his boots reflecting a chilling glint in the lights, but to me, his movements were as slow as an old man's disco. In my previous life, I was a veteran of the battlefield; this level of assassination didn't even warrant a frown from me.

"Ryan Lynn! You fucking stop right there!"

Carl blocked my way, his chest heaving, still seething with anger from my public humiliation at the summit. His face was flushed, and the cheap skin patch on his neck was wrinkled from his emotions, revealing the dark gray mechanical skeleton beneath. I leaned against the car door, watching him lazily. "What's up?" "What did you mean by what you just said?" Carl gritted his teeth. "You said I was picked up from a junkyard? Do you know how long I've been with Grace? Three years! For three years, I've let her have her way. Who do you think you are? A heir to a small, nearly bankrupt family, you dare—"

"Finished?" I interrupted him. "No!" Karl took a step forward, the invisible blade humming beneath his feet. "I'm warning you, if you know what's good for you, go back to the summit hall and sign the papers. Don't pretend to be so high and mighty. You think Grace really cares about you? She just needs the Lin family's political leverage. You're just a tool to her, understand?"

I get it. This guy is genuinely scared. Not of me, but of me ruining his long-term financial future. If Grace were to marry me, his position in the Gu family, even if not shaken, would at least have to be more restrained. Now that I'm not signing, Grace is going crazy, and his good days are over.

So he panicked, so panicked that he personally came to threaten me. "Karl," I suddenly asked an unrelated question, "has your prosthetic body's warranty expired?" He was taken aback: "What?" "I'm just curious, if your cheap equipment breaks, will Grace replace it with a new one?" Karl's face instantly turned ashen.

Just then, the hum of a drone engine came from overhead. Grace descended with a squadron of security drones, their black and gold military-grade exoskeletons reflecting a cold, hard gleam under the lights. As soon as she landed, she saw Karl blocking my way, and assuming he was trying to embarrass me, a smug smile played on her lips. Then Karl moved. He fell backward violently, screaming, "Ah—! Ryan! You actually hit me!"

A fake fall. A textbook example of a manipulative woman faking an accident. I watched him roll around on the ground expressionlessly; his acting was so exaggerated I almost wanted to applaud him. Grace strode over, glanced at Karl on the ground, then at me, her expression complex—anger, smugness, and a familiar hint of "I've got you covered" glee.

“Ryan,” she said coldly, “what else do you have to say?” I shrugged. “I didn’t even touch him.” “He didn’t touch me! I fell down myself!” Carl continued to wail on the ground. “Grace, you have to stand up for me! He’s bullying me because of the Lin family’s power—”

"Enough." Grace raised her hand to stop him, her gaze fixed on me. "Ryan, I know you're upset. But to touch my people, aren't you showing me too little respect?"

She drew her gun. The muzzle of the pulse pistol was once again pointed at my forehead. But this time, her eyes weren't as cold as before; instead, they held a nauseatingly amused look. She was waiting. Waiting for me to explain, waiting for me to defend myself, waiting for me to slip up because of my "jealousy." She had even begun to enjoy this illusion that "I care about her, which is why I attacked her male lover."

How would I have handled this in my past life? I probably would have frantically explained, begged her to believe me, and said things like, "I really didn't touch him." Then she would have condescendingly "forgiven" me, while adding a few sarcastic remarks to make me feel even more inferior.

But in this life—"Victor," I said calmly, "it's yours now." "It should have been sooner." A rough voice rang out from behind Karl. Victor emerged from the shadows, his mechanical prosthetic eyes glowing a dangerous red light, the gravity field generator on his right arm already preheated, its low buzzing sound making the air tremble.

Carl got up from the ground and saw Victor's fierce face. His face turned green. "What... what do you want to do?" "What do I want to do?" Victor grinned. "Didn't you just say that Ryan broke your leg? I hate being wronged. Since you insist on saying that, then I'll make sure that you're guilty."

"No—!" Karl tried to run, but it was too late. Victor's right arm slammed into the ground, the gravity field activated! Terrifying pressure instantly enveloped the entire area, even shattering the overhead fluorescent lights. Karl screamed, pinned to the ground, unable to move. His inferior leg prosthetics creaked and twisted under the crushing force, sparks flying and parts flying off.

"Aaaaaaahh ...

"Victor! You're insane!" Grace's face changed drastically, and she raised her gun to fire.

I stood in front of her. "Get out of the way!" she yelled. I didn't move. "I said get out of the way!" Her finger was on the trigger, her knuckles white. "Grace," I looked at her calmly, "are you sure you want to shoot here?"

She was stunned.

“This is the New Los Center Building, three floors underground, and the conference room of the Financial Consortium is right above us.” I pointed to the ceiling. “Everyone up there could hear you firing your gun. Are you sure you want the whole of New Los City to know that the Gu family governor used force on the Financial Consortium’s summit grounds for a gigolo from the lower city?”

Grace's hands trembled slightly. The screams behind her gradually subsided; Karl's leg prosthetic had been completely crushed, fragments scattered across the ground, revealing the charred biological tissue inside. He had passed out from the pain, drooling from the corner of his mouth, looking both disgusting and pitiful.

Victor withdrew the gravity field, clapped his hands, and dismissed it as easily as if he'd dealt with a pile of trash. Grace looked at the unconscious Karl on the ground, her eyes reddening—this time, they were truly red. "Ryan," she gritted her teeth, "Are you out of your mind?"

"Me?" "You hate me that much?" Her voice began to tremble, "Hate me so much that you'd join forces with the Yakuza Alliance to humiliate me in front of me?"

I looked at her and suddenly found it a little funny. "You think I did all this because I hate you?" "Isn't that right?" Grace stared at me intently. "You're jealous of Carl, you hate that I'm good to him, so you want to destroy him—" "Grace," I interrupted her, my tone as flat as if I were commenting on the weather, "Don't flatter yourself."

Her expression froze. "You and your trash are both unworthy of my hands." Those words were like a knife, piercing precisely into her most vulnerable spot. Grace's lips trembled, and tears finally welled up in her eyes, streaming down her cheeks. But she didn't cry out loud; instead, she bit her lip, desperately suppressing the humiliation and resentment.

She opened her mouth, as if to say something, but nothing came out. "Victor, let's go." I turned and opened the car door.

"Wait." Grace's voice came from behind, hoarse and trembling, "A marriage alliance... what about it?"

I looked back at her. She stood in the shadows of the garage, arms crossed, looking both disheveled and pitiful. The female governor who had been so high and mighty just moments before, pointing a gun at me, now resembled an abandoned cat.

"Didn't you want a marriage alliance?" I said. "The Lin family won't break the contract. Lucas will marry into the family in my place, and we'll sign the formal contract tomorrow."

“Lucas?” Grace frowned. “That vicious—” “Greedy, insidious, and ruthless,” I finished for her. “He perfectly fits your requirements for a son-in-law in the Lin family.”

"That's not who I want!" "What you want is the Lin family's political leverage." I said coldly, "Does it matter who marries into the family?"

Grace was speechless. Because she knew I was right. Her "need" for me was never affection, but exploitation. Now that I'm bringing our exploitative relationship to the forefront, she can't accept it.

"Whether you sign or not is your decision." I got into the car. "It's better if you don't sign, it'll save me trouble." The moment the car door closed, I saw Grace squat down, holding the unconscious Karl, her shoulders trembling.

But my heart remained unmoved. In my previous life, when I died in the hospital, she was on the moon, observing the star rings. In this life, it's time for her to taste the bitterness of being abandoned.

The maglev car pulled out of the underground parking garage, the neon lights of New Los Angeles flashing past the window. Victor, sitting in the passenger seat, unscrewed a bottle of synthetic whiskey and took a swig.

"Are you sure Lucas will take the bait?" "Absolutely." I closed my eyes and leaned back in my seat. "That guy's ambition is bigger than his prosthetic body's capacity. If you give him the chance, he'll pounce on him like a mad dog."

"And then?" "And then?" I opened my eyes and looked out the window at the Gu's Building, which was gradually receding into the distance. "Then we should go and have a look at the wasteland black market."

Victor grinned: "A double-cross?" "No." I took a bottle of ice water from the car refrigerator and pressed it to my forehead. "Go dig up a grave."

The deepest medical secrets of Gu's Heavy Industry, the truth behind Grace's ovarian failure, and Karl's tampering with the DNA database transaction records—all these things are buried in the server matrix of the wasteland black market.

In this life, I know better than anyone how to dig it out.