Cyberpunk: 2075.

Chapter 657, Section 71: How pathetic!

As Li De walked through the barren wasteland, his consciousness receded like the tide, and in the last moment before plunging into darkness, his vision was filled with a blazing light.

The midday sun poured down, dyeing the sky a dazzling gold. In that blinding halo, a hovercar silently glided in. Its body was entirely silver-white, and its streamlined outline shone with an almost transparent radiance under the strong light, as if it were not made of ordinary iron, but rather of pure light.

The moment the car door opened, light poured out like a torrent, and a tall, slender figure stepped into the light. The person was wearing a long white robe, the hem of which fluttered in the wind, and every fold seemed to flow with a faint light. His face was hidden in the dazzling light, and only his outline could be vaguely seen - a high nose bridge, slightly pursed thin lips, and a pair of eyes.
A pair of eyes that seem to see right through your soul.

Even with his vision blurred, Li De could still feel the weight of that gaze—a pair of calm eyes with a touch of gentleness.

"How pitiful, Mr. Li De."

The voice fell softly, like a feather brushing against a bloodstained blade, gentle yet carrying a cold sharpness.

“You look like this now.” The owner of the voice paused slightly, as if admiring his dying struggle, or as if pitying him, “...like an abandoned stray dog, miserable and pathetic.”

Every word felt like a dull knife scraping against his nerves. Li De couldn't tell if it was real or a hallucination—perhaps neurotoxins were raging in his blood vessels, distorting his perception; or perhaps death was adept at weaving the cruelest allegories. His consciousness flickered like a candle in the wind, while the voice grew clearer and clearer, like a venomous snake burrowing into his eardrums and coiling around his reason.

In the last second before darkness completely engulfed him, Li De struggled to grasp the last ray of light—perhaps a memory, perhaps an illusion, or perhaps, fate's final mockery of him.

"Help me."

The final, instinctive murmur seemed to make that person smile.

"Isn't this exactly the request you made?"

He said.

“Mr. Li De, now that you’re awake, stop pretending to be asleep.”

The voice was like a thin, sharp scalpel, precisely piercing through his hazy consciousness.

Years of experience as a special agent triggered his instincts before his thoughts could even process them—his muscles tensed instantly, his pupils contracted, and his senses, eroded by neurotoxins, were rebuilt in a fraction of a second. When he suddenly opened his eyes, there was no trace of confusion in his dark brown eyes, only the sharpness of a cheetah.

The clinic's incandescent lights hummed overhead, and the air was filled with the mixed smells of disinfectant and metal. His gaze swept over the surrounding walls and the brand-new operating table, finally settling on the prosthetic modification device on which he was lying—the edges of the chrome alloy shell were bright, but the dark red blood with a hint of dark green flowing from the interface was particularly glaring.

Where am I? Why am I here?
The question lingered for only a moment. He looked around and immediately recognized the place from the clinic's decor—the faded posters, the secondhand prosthetic display cases, and the smell of disinfectant mixed with the instruments in the air.

Victor-Victor's clinic is the most trusted and best prosthetic doctor in Watson District.

Li De's intelligence network already had records of this doctor: excellent skills, reasonable fees, and most importantly—he followed the rules, unlike those black market butchers who would steal your advanced implants after you were anesthetized, or plant some 'little surprises' in your system.

More importantly, Victor is practically the KK team's go-to cybernetic engineer.

Memories pierced Li De's nerves like an electric current—Kar of the KK Squad.

He suddenly understood why he was lying on this operating table. The moment he realized that there might be traitors hiding within the FIA ​​or at the top of the new American leadership, he knew that any appeal for help through official channels would be tantamount to personally nailing his coordinates to the enemy's bullseye.

So, in the final moment before the neurotoxin eroded his sanity, his fingers followed instinct and dialed the number stored separately in the encrypted chip.

And now, he's won his gamble.

The stains on the ceiling of Victor's clinic, the familiar metallic smell in the air, and even the slight stinging from the implant in the back of his neck—all these proved one thing: he hadn't died like a stray dog ​​in the wilderness, leaving his body to be devoured by the wind and sand into unclaimed skeletons.

"Karl."

Li De turned to look at the person beside him, and the one who had just told him not to sleep anymore now that he was awake was Karl.

He instinctively pressed his abdomen; the warmth left by the treatment was still pulsating under his skin, but the dull pain characteristic of a laceration still made his fingers tremble slightly.

"It was you." The dryness in his throat made him pause. "You dragged me back?"

"Otherwise, what if you suddenly contacted me at the last minute and gave me your location, saying you were asking for help? When I got there, I found you lying there, so of course I had to carry you back."

Carl crossed his arms: "You didn't even explain what the reward was before suddenly throwing a commission at me and sending me an address. I hadn't even decided whether to accept it. Since I was free anyway, I took the hovercar to locate the location and went to check it out. I guess you were going to die there. So what happened? An FIA agent was poisoned and almost died in the Badlands."

When Karl asked him a question, Li De remained silent, and this behavior made Karl understand.

"Okay, I understand. It involves employer privacy, right? Then I won't ask anymore. Let's talk about compensation."

Carl glanced to the side; Old Wei had gone to buy new medical equipment and medicines, so now it was just him and Li De in the clinic.
"Treatment fees and commission fees are not cheap. Since you haven't offered a price for your commission, and I'm free to do it anyway, let's follow the rules of the underworld. The fee for a life-saving commission is generally about a quarter of the employer's net worth. You..."

Carl glanced at Li De, then suddenly realized something: "Your FBI salaries must be pretty good, right?"

“I haven’t received any funding from the FIA ​​for a long time. The agency gave me a location, but I have to earn my own funding.”

As he spoke, a rare hint of embarrassment appeared on Li De's face: "I only recently took over Moth Bar, and after that incident, Moth Bar hasn't reopened for the time being. Also, because of the lack of commuting lately, I've only received a small portion of my salary as a bodyguard in the city."

"In other words, you're very poor, right?"

Karl was speechless after hearing Li De's awkward words; it turned out he had really been doing something wrong.

"Your compensation will definitely not be small."

As Li De spoke, thinking about the previous situation where the FIA ​​could not be trusted, he said, "It's just that I have to wait until I can apply for the funding allocated from above."

(End of this chapter)