Under the dim blue light, white mist-like cold air lingered and floated. Four or five bathtubs were placed on the white tiled floor, filled with floating ice cubes and twisted corpses.
The scene is much more terrifying than in the game.
The smell of condensing agent and corpse stench mixed into a hellish smell that poured mercilessly into their lungs, forcing them to stop breathing.
Bai Rui was the first one who couldn't help herself. She bent over and vomited a pool of water, then staggered out of the house while holding onto the door frame. "Come on, I can't stand it, V."
Bai Rui walked and vomited until she collapsed on the desk outside and barely recovered.
"Damn, V, hurry up and get it done. I'll cover you." Jack frowned, stood guard at the door with a gun in hand, and kept urging V to go in with his eyes, looking very cunning.
"What a mess." The two accomplices hid, and V could only pinch her nose and walk in with a bitter face, moving the corpses among the bathtubs, searching for the target they were looking for.
"Fuck, let me tell you, V, I've seen a lot of dead people, but this... this..." Standing at the door, looking at the horrifying scene, Jack was still adding to V's psychological burden. "This is fucking disgusting, what is this for? A human meat freezer? Damn scavenger, so inhuman..."
"I swear... this is my last job. I will never take this kind of job again."
As Jack spoke tremblingly, V pushed a body out of the bathtub and saw the target's face sinking under the ice water.
"V?" V's movement caught Jack's attention.
"This should be her, target confirmed." V frowned and carried out the naked rescue target.
Outside the door, Bai Rui lay on the table and rested for a while before she barely recovered.
"Damn, I'd rather have a fight with the Tiger Claw Gang than do this kind of work again." Bai Rui thought that no matter how disgusting it was, it would be no different from the game, but reality taught her a severe lesson.
"What is this?" Bai Rui's hand touched something papery on the desk. She looked down and saw it was a stack of folded euro banknotes.
Seeing the money, Bai Rui raised her eyebrows. Although the feeling of nausea still remained, the green banknotes still gave her enough comfort. Bai Rui quickly opened the drawer, and sure enough, there was a pile of banknotes quietly waiting for her.
Damn, these guys who sell kidneys have made so much ill-gotten gains.
Looking at these green bills, Bai Rui's breath became heavier. With so much money, she could already see the cool parts on her new machine.
Adhering to V's Three Lights spirit in the game, Bai Rui did not hesitate, but immediately reached out and stuffed stacks of money into his pockets. If her jacket could not fit them, she stuffed them into her trouser pockets, filling up her jacket and trouser pockets, looking like a money-grubber.
"…Let's go and take her out."
Jack and V ran out one after another, with V holding their target user in her arms.
"Bai Rui, hurry up, the trauma team is coming." Jack almost froze when he saw Bai Rui packing money. She was almost vomiting bile just now, so why is she so happy to pick up money now?
"Okay, I'll be right there!" Bai Rui, who was wearing a suit full of money and looked a little bloated, picked up the pistol on the table and followed the two men out of the side door to the balcony.
Walking to the balcony, the three of them squinted their eyes due to the dazzling sunlight. The roar of an engine came to their ears. A hovercraft with the trauma team logo painted on it had flown over and stopped beside the balcony.
"Docking, keep out of the way! Security procedures are activated. Follow all instructions."
A red alert was projected from the hovercraft onto the balcony, the hatch opened, and several fully armed trauma team members came down.
"Hurry, put the patient on the ground." Within the red frame warning range, the squadron soldiers opened the stretcher pointed their guns at V, and gave orders.
V trotted forward and placed the client on the stand.
"Back five steps!" Before she could even let go of her hands, she was pushed away by a soldier beside her.
"Hey, can you guys be a little more fucking polite!" Bai Rui stepped forward to support V, gritted her teeth, and looked at the trauma team with anger on her face.
Without replying, after using a defibrillator to give the lying client an electric shock, the two men lifted her up. Several soldiers pointed guns at V and the other two slowly retreated back to the hovercraft.
The car door closed, the engine spurted out, and the whole journey took less than half a minute, as if they had never been there.
"What a bunch of bastards!" The hovercraft sped away, and Bai Rui's eyes were filled with anger.
"Forget it, Bai Rui, this is the character of these guys." V smiled and patted Bai Rui's hand that was supporting her, and comforted her.
"Yes, Bai Rui, let's go quickly. We can take the elevator directly to the garage." Jack also said so.
"Okay, let's go." Bai Rui suppressed her dissatisfaction. Since the people had already run away, she couldn't settle the score. She had to put her gun back and go back to the house with the two of them.
When the trauma team arrived, all the scavengers in the hall had run away. Now the hall was in a mess, with knocked-over debris everywhere. Jack and the other two were moving around.
"This trauma team is just a group of scavengers in white clothes, no different from these guys." Jack talked about the trauma team. As a kid born and raised in the city, he has seen many of these guys falling from the sky on heavy motorcycles.
"'Seven minutes to save a life or your money back' sounds good, but these guys have turned the doctor's responsibility to save lives into a business, the worst kind."
"If you have money and are a platinum member, then it's no problem. These guys can show up with guns in a minute and rescue you from the hail of bullets. But if you don't have money, fuck, they won't even move an inch even if you die in front of them."
"Children from poor families who want to see a doctor either go to unlicensed black doctors, who have a one-third chance of survival, a one-third chance of death from unlicensed drugs and surgical infection, and another one-third chance of death from the doctor's targeting of your prosthetics."
"As for the family doctor arranged by the Night City government, the appointment is scheduled for ten years in the future."
"But I don't think those rich people will have a good life. The trauma team are not angels, they are paid mercenaries. You may not be dead yet, but they will dismantle your high-end prostheses and sell them. Yes, these things are done in a covert and beautiful way. The parliament has investigated more than a dozen times, but nothing has been found. If three of the responsible persons had not died, the public would have really ignored it."
"Rich or poor, they all die in the mud of Night City. This is Night City. This is where we roll every day..."
The three of them had already gotten back into the car, and the echo of Jack's words still lingered in Bai Rui's ears for a long time. She stared at the parking lot outside the window in a daze, and her heart couldn't calm down for a long time.
"I'm getting ready to log off now. See you in the future." In the end, it was the sound of the bug that woke Bai Rui up.
"…Um, listen, chica, I have something to ask." Jack leaned over to the driver's seat and looked at V sheepishly. "Um, can I borrow your car?"
"Hmm?" V raised an eyebrow in confusion and looked at Jack, not understanding his intention.
"I have an appointment with Misty, but... we can't take the subway! It would be too embarrassing."
"Okay then, I'll save my friend's face. Jack, just use it." V was very generous and agreed without hesitation.
"Bai Rui? You don't mind, do you?" Jack turned his head and looked at Bai Rui.
"Hmm?" Bai Rui just woke up from her dream, "Ah, the car, V's car, as long as she agrees."
Even though there was Bai Rui, a money-sucking beast, at home, V still managed to change her car and bought a new one.
Tianqiong Company, the EC-D I360 model of the Hera series, is a four-seater family car with a matte black exterior. Its biggest features are its cheapness and durability, and Tianqiong Company has even suffered losses because of it.
In 2023, they released the first model of the Hera series. It turned out to be so durable and so easy to repair that it nearly bankrupted the company.
However, after learning about the high-tech "planned obsolescence" of other companies, this situation no longer occurs. However, compared with other unscrupulous products, the Hera series is still known for being cheap and durable.
But even if the car was cheap, V couldn't afford the full price, all thanks to Bai Rui, who drained her wallet clean.
What's even more tragic is that V's apartment is still rented.
As the protagonist of the game, she has to pay off a car loan and cannot afford to buy a house, so she can only rent one. Except for the fact that she starts with sackcloth clothes in Skyrim, all her equipment is obtained by fighting for the root of the enemy. Who can be more miserable than V?
"Okay then, I'll take you home first." Jack squinted his eyes and lit the fire, as if he was imagining the happy time he would have with his girlfriend Misty.
"Oh, I almost forgot. I have to call Wakako and tell her that it's done." Jack was idle. He almost forgot about it.
"You drive, I'll come." V's eyes glowed blue and she made a video call to Wakako.
"By the way, Jack, you can't go out and play with your girlfriend without money." While V was on the phone, Bai Rui took out the money she had looted from the scavenger, counted out about one-third of it, and stuffed it into Jack's hand.
"Wow, Bai Rui." Jack first sighed at the thickness of the money, but then stretched out his hand to push it back. "This is not a mission reward, this is your own money, Bai Rui, you should keep it yourself, I can't take it."
"Hey, Jack, what's the relationship between us?" Bai Rui's boyish appearance made it seem out of place to say such street talk, but she herself didn't notice anything unusual. "This isn't a profit sharing, it's a gift for big brother."
"Okay then, Bai Rui, you're such a good sister." Unable to resist Bai Rui's enthusiasm, Jack nodded and accepted it gratefully. He originally wanted to say "good sister", but when he thought of V who was plotting against Bai Rui next to him, he decided not to say something that could easily cause misunderstanding.
"...Okay, thank you." V hung up the phone. "Wakako said that Watson District is about to be blocked by NCPD. We have to go back quickly. I don't want to sleep in a hotel full of needles and condoms."
"No problem!" Not only could he see his girlfriend, but he also got a lot of money. Jack was so happy that his brows relaxed in a smile. He shifted gears and stepped on the accelerator in one go, and the car rushed out of the parking lot.
It is about ten o'clock in the evening now. The street lights and neon signs on the buildings are all lit up, illuminating the streets with colorful lights that are dazzling and the light pollution is very serious.
Driving on the flat road and looking at the night view outside the car window, the three finally calmed down from the tension of the battle.
"By the way, V." After a moment of silence, Jack, who was driving, seemed to have thought of something. He turned his head and looked at V, winking. "Well, I remember you asked me before if you had anything to say to Bai Rui."
Being stared at with such a strange look by Jack, V, who was leaning against the car window with her hand, was a little confused at first, but suddenly, as if she remembered something, a blush appeared on her face.
"Ah, now..." V, who had been so resolute and capable just now, suddenly became awkward and spoke hesitantly, which was a 180-degree turn.
The strange interaction between the two caught the attention of Bai Rui in the back seat. She frowned and looked at V who was behaving strangely, her big eyes full of confusion and inquiry.