Cyberpunk: 2075.

Chapter 831, Section 41: The Last-Ditch Effort
“Wisely, pass down the order to have all loyal soldiers proceed to the designated floor and make thorough preparations.”

"It's been arranged."

“Very good. Now, follow me.”

Using a hidden passage and the authority granted to her by Saburo Arasaka before his death, Hanako Arasaka opened a hidden elevator in the Arasaka Tower. After giving her final instructions, she signaled to Akechi to follow her.

The elevator doors slowly closed and began to ascend. In the silence, Akechi keenly noticed that Hanako Arasaka's body was slightly tense.

Although she maintained her usual dignity and composure as a person in a superior position, at this crucial moment, a trace of tension that could not be completely suppressed still leaked out from the atmosphere around her.

A wise gaze swept over her pair of golden prosthetic fingers.

Hanako Arasaka suffers from a condition called Raynaud's disease—a disease that is more common in women and is usually triggered by cold or emotional excitement. It is a vascular dysfunction that manifests as intermittent paleness, cyanosis, and flushing of the fingertips, often accompanied by numbness and tingling.

Hanako Arasaka, who suffers from this condition, perhaps did not want to expose any weaknesses that might be discovered by others, so she chose to completely replace her original fingers with gorgeous golden prosthetics. This behavior can only be described as resolute and bold.

After all, not everyone has the courage to undergo a body modification that would discard all their fingers just to cover up a physical defect.

However, as far as Mingzhi knew, current genetic engineering technology should be sufficient to cure Raynaud's disease. He still couldn't understand why she would rather give up her fleshy finger than use a gentler gene therapy.

Even if Arasaka's strength in genetic engineering is indeed slightly inferior to that in biotechnology, that is only when compared with industry giants.

As for themselves, Arasaka is at the forefront of almost all technological fields—there is almost no field that they cannot master if they are willing to get involved.

Not to mention, Arasaka also possesses a top-notch corporate spy and intelligence network. In fact, they have almost never failed to acquire any technology they truly desire.

Let alone manageable conditions like Raynaud's disease, even more complex and challenging illnesses are no problem for Arasaka's regular medical team.

This is precisely why Hanako Arakawa's choice to cure her disease with prosthetic body replacement rather than gene therapy is all the more special—does this mean that she herself is actually resistant to genetic engineering?

Akechi kept the strange thing he noticed to himself, but didn't pay much attention to it. After all, what was about to happen was more important than focusing on Hanako Arasaka's personal preferences.

Paying special attention to someone is a wise thing to do, and it will only happen in two situations.

One option is when the other person is a friend, and you need to understand their preferences and eating habits. After all, if you're having a meal together, you can't just order things that the other person doesn't like or can't eat.

The second type is the target. For those who are about to be "dealt with", no amount of detailed knowledge is too much. Every habit and preference of the other party may become a flaw to be used in the mission, making everything go more smoothly.

The elevator came to a smooth stop on an unfamiliar floor.

Mingzhi glanced at the indicator light—it wasn't the 'jungle floor' he had already visited once, filled with simulated ecosystems, but a place he had no recollection of, where the indicator light didn't even show the floor.

Akechi believed he had a thorough understanding of the internal structure of Arasaka Tower.

He had ventured into all the hidden floors, and even visited the CEO's office floor multiple times.

It could be said that, if he wanted, there were virtually no 'forbidden zones' in this tower; he could wander around as easily and naturally as if he were at home. Yet, this particular floor... he had never set foot on it before, and had no recollection of it. To have to specifically detour to this floor before even entering the venue—what meaning did it hold?
Just as he was pondering this, the elevator doors silently slid open to both sides, revealing the entire floor to him.

The space was rather cramped, and the ceiling was low. At 1.8 meters tall, Mingzhi would probably have to bend down slightly to enter. The entire area was initially shrouded in darkness until the elevator arrived, at which point the lights gradually came on—a scene that almost instantly made Mingzhi realize the nature of this place:

A hidden layer.

He had heard similar rumors before: some high-rise buildings secretly insert hidden mezzanines between regular floors to hide confidential information. In the past, he had always regarded such claims as urban legends and laughed them off. But now it seems that the legends may not be entirely unfounded.

In ordinary concealed floors, one can easily spot the unusual spacing between floors by simply observing the exterior of the building.

In Akechi's memory, the exterior of the Arasaka Tower was neat and continuous. Although the floor heights of the different functional areas inside did vary, based on his previous observations from riding the airship, the external sections basically corresponded to the internal floors.

It's not visible from the outside, but there is indeed a hidden layer in front of you. In other words, this layer is a space that was 'stolen' through some special means?

Perhaps by utilizing the water features of the upper garden, the high loft attic on the lower level, or other architectural techniques, this gap, unnoticed by outsiders, was cleverly created.

Mingzhi glanced at the elevator touchscreen again, which also did not display the floor number. He already understood that this was probably an absolute domain that could only be reached by using Saburo Arasaka's highest authority.

"Xiaotian, go and fetch that thing."

Faced with this secluded floor that required bending down to enter, Arasaka Hanako clearly had no intention of stepping in herself; she naturally gave the order to Oda Santayu.

Xiao Tian nodded silently, then bent down and disappeared into the low, dark space. A moment later, he reappeared, holding an object—

It was a metal box about the size of a suitcase.

A discerning eye immediately locked onto it, and a strange unease suddenly gripped him, as if the contents of the box exuded some invisible yet deadly threat, causing his instincts to tighten subtly.

But he remained silent and did not ask any questions.

At a subtle signal from Hanako Arasaka, Santao Oda handed the metal box to Akechi with both hands—his actions clearly indicating that he was the one who needed to take it.

“Mingzhi, you need to take this.”

"Miss Hua, this is..."

Hanako Arakawa's calm voice came through, revealing the truth about the box.

"This is our last resort. If I can't convince those rebels, you'll have to initiate it."

"Could this be..."

"That's right, just like you thought, it's a miniature nuclear weapon."

(End of this chapter)