Cyberpunk: 2075.

Chapter 740, Section 154: The Devil's Deal
After being received, Kenichi Shiro soon met Shojo.

"Kenichi Shiro, the vice president of the Night City Arasaka Group, who can easily stir up bloodshed on the North American corporate battlefield and make even the top military technology executives tremble with fear, actually condescended to come to my dilapidated safe house to visit a poor blind man."

After the device allows the user to see the visitor, the slider makes a hoarse sound, as if it has been sanded, with each syllable filled with deliberate sarcasm.

"Oh, this is truly... I'm flattered." He slowly turned the adjustment knob connected to the vision device, which emitted a piercing buzz as the camera focused on the visitor standing in the doorway.

Even a seasoned veteran who had spent years navigating the dirtiest streets of Night City couldn't help but feel his fingers twitch when the visual aid finally projected the man's face clearly onto his retina.

He deliberately slowed down his movements, letting his calloused fingers tap lightly on the metal casing of the neural scanner, the device scraping harshly against the floor.

The unhealed wound in his frontal lobe began to throb again—a reminder of how he had gone blind and the reason he couldn't get a prosthetic eye to restore his vision. Now, he could only piece together the outline of this world by relying on the connected equipment and monitoring.

Kenichi Shiro stared at Slito without saying a word, calmly scanning and observing him.

However, Kenichi Shiro remained silent, and the slider showed no intention of letting the silence continue.

Since the other party doesn't intend to acknowledge his greeting, he should at least get down to business.

"I know you must have gotten my information from Military Technology, or maybe it's from New America, Arasaka, and Military Technology's moles, their intelligence networks that have seeped into each other's very core. Even drug addicts on the streets of Pacific Island can talk about these things, so I won't ask you how you knew I was here."

He moved the instrument beside him so that his body and the equipment were facing Kenichi Shiro, and then said:
"Since you were able to pinpoint this godforsaken place that even cockroaches wouldn't bother with, you must know the price I paid to shake off those FIA ​​guys." He continued to slowly tap the instrument beside him with his index finger:
"Right now, I have no interest in getting involved in any corporate battles—especially when one side is Arasaka and the other side is military technology."

At this moment, Kenichi Shiro spoke up: "Even if you're just deceiving yourself, you still need to understand how to continue living."

His voice was icy cold: "From the moment Rosalind Miles' Air Force One exploded into a fireball over Dogtown, the entire Night City was destined to be caught up in this storm."

Kenichi Shiro moved closer, looking down at Sliding, who was sitting in a chair: "How much breathing room do you think those hyenas in the FBI, driven to the brink, will give you? Four hours, three hours, two hours? Or..."

Kenichi Shiro looked up at the wall clock in the room where the slide was located.

"After this conversation is over?"

Under the indoor lighting, Slide's prosthetic eyes, devoid of pupils, gleamed a dull gray. He calmly answered Kenichi Shiro's deliberately threatening words:
"Of course I'm not naive enough to think that the mess with the FIA ​​and New America can be wiped clean."

His sudden dry laugh sounded like rusty gears rubbing against each other: "I'm not that naive, but at least there was a so-called 'win-win' situation between us."

After chuckling a few times, Sliding said, "Although we both know perfectly well that the only reason they've kept me alive until now is because I'm still useful, who knows if they won't let me live after this? I don't think living another day would be a waste of my life." At this point, Sliding leaned forward abruptly, looking blindly up at Kenichi Shiro: "I could have waited for yet another lie from military technology and New America, but now the vice president of North America, Arakawa, has personally come to visit."

The slider drawled out, "I don't know about the others, but at least I don't believe in voodoo like the old voodoo gangs. I've been involved in religions in various places to some extent. As far as I know, there's a saying: when the devil comes to you and the devil is about to offer you help, it's best not to believe either of them."

Are you planning to leave nobody to help?

"I'm not that stupid."

Slider sat back in the hacker chair: "Between demons and devils, I, a poor blind man, have no bargaining power, do I? It doesn't matter who devours my soul. I'm tired of the devils' broken promises anyway. I have no reason not to give a contract offered by the devil to my door."

Sliding isn't stupid. Kenichi Shiro is right in front of him. If he still says he's going to help New America and military technology, he won't live to see the next second. And if he wants to play the neutral card like Hansen, look at what Hansen has done now. Sliding doesn't think Kenichi Shiro will let him live either.

Ultimately, he was just a nobody, a nobody who could only choose sides. Now that the devil had come knocking first, what else could he ask for besides offering help?

I just hope that the devil is a little better than the demon, and that he can actually help me when I'm about to be dealt with by the demon.

"Oh, Chaos Demons, Lawful Demons, huh? I feel like you dug up some old games while browsing the internet recently. Is this really a religion? It feels more like a tabletop game setting to me."

Just as Sliding nodded in agreement with Kenichi Shiro, a sudden noise came from the doorway. Karl, his hands stained with blood, stepped into the room and, to the astonishment of the two, flicked the blood droplets onto the floor.

The stench of blood filled the nostrils first, followed by the visual aid system projecting the glaring red onto the retina—and the slider's breathing immediately became erratic.

"KK! What have you done?!"

Sliding Strip absolutely did not believe that anyone on his territory could hurt KK, so the blood could only have come from his subordinates.

Could it be that while he was negotiating with President Arakawa, KK actually...
"Going to help out."

Carl flicked his wrist in response, at which point the monitor's feed suddenly switched, revealing a scene that stunned him—not only were his men unharmed, but even those who had been caught in the earlier fighting, whose wrist nerves should have been severed, were now completely recovered.
Beneath the sterile gauze, the precisely sutured nerve interfaces were faintly visible, and the surgical scars were so neat they resembled machine-printed patterns.

"Six consecutive nerve suturing surgeries, and there wasn't even a place to wash your hands after the surgery. That's hardly hygienic." Carl leaned against the wall and found a bottle of unopened purified water that Slider usually drank from to wash his hands. "If I hadn't learned a few tricks from Oliver, you would be seeing six people who need prosthetic hands right now, and I would have to compensate them separately."

(End of this chapter)