I asked you to write a light novel, but you wrote about living?

The night in the Seventh Slum is like a mechanical beast that never sleeps and reeks of stench.

Yu Yin pushed open the heavy iron door to the basement, and was greeted by a pungent smell that was a mixture of slightly acidic rainwater, low-quality engine oil, and sewage fermentation products.

She skillfully pulled up the hood of her oversized dark gray coat, hiding most of her face in the shadows, one hand clutching the fifty star coins in her pocket tightly, like a wary kitten, and quickly disappeared into the intricate alleyways.

Hundreds of meters above our heads is a giant holographic GG sign projected from the Upper City.

A virtual female star with a perfect model is promoting the latest "Cloud Dream Capsule" in a sweet voice. The colorful and illusory neon lights penetrate the heavy smog and hit the muddy and potholed road in the downtown area, reflecting bizarre puddles.

In this folded world, the upper class sells dreams, while the lower class is only fit to scavenge reality from the garbage heap.

Yu Yin skillfully avoided the main street.

As she passed a prosthetic repair stall with sparks flying from leaking electricity, she saw a laborer whose body had been mostly transformed into a crude machine. He was being beaten in the mud by several gangsters because he couldn't afford to replace the bearings. The rusty mechanical arm made a teeth-grinding creaking sound.

Further ahead in a dark corner, several emaciated "electronic addicts" were slumped against the wall, with cheap brain-computer interfaces inserted into the back of their heads. Their bodies were convulsing, and white foam was dripping from the corners of their mouths. They were unable to extricate themselves from the low-level dopamine-inducing fantasy world generated by cheap AI.

This is the norm in the cyber wasteland; human life is the cheapest consumable here.

Yu Yin didn't dare to look any longer and quickened her pace, stopping in front of a massive building converted from the hull of a decommissioned cargo spaceship.

On the dilapidated hatch of the spaceship, a few words were sprayed crookedly in fluorescent paint: [Old Blind Man's General Store/Medicine/Prosthetic Body Recycling].

This is the largest black market trading point on the edge of District 7.

Pushing open the heavy hatch, a strong smell of disinfectant mixed with the rust of metal hit me right in the head.

The dimly lit shop was filled with various scrapped mechanical limbs of unknown origin, blood-stained circuit boards, and rows of medicine bottles that gleamed suspiciously.

Behind the counter sat a gaunt old man.

The old blind man wasn't actually blind.

He lost his sight in an early radiation accident, and later he took matters into his own hands and forcibly implanted two low-precision optical sensors that he had taken from an industrial robot into his eye sockets.

At this moment, the two prosthetic eyes were emitting a murky and dim red light, which, accompanied by the slight sound of gears turning, focused on Yu Yin.

"That sorting worker under Scarface?"

The old blind man's voice was hoarse, as if he were rubbing sandpaper:

"You came all this way so late? Didn't you go to work overtime? Did something happen to your paralyzed brother?"

"Uncle Xia, my brother is alright."

Yu Yin swallowed hard, strode to the counter, and slapped the sweat-drenched fifty-cent coin onto the rusty metal tabletop:

"I...I need to buy medicine. The strawberry-flavored nerve-blocking solution."

The old blind man's mechanical red eyes flashed sharply twice.

His gaze lingered on the fifty-star coin for a full three seconds before turning back to Yu Yin.

"Fifty Star Coins?"

A strange smile tugged at the old blind man's face, which was as withered as tree bark:

"Little girl, did you go and rob a transport plane in the upper city today? You usually haggle with me for ages over a tube of anti-inflammatory gel that costs two stars."

"This money is clean! It's my brother's...it's my brother's royalties!"

Yu Yin hurriedly tried to explain, fearing that the other party would misunderstand.

"Payment for the article?"

The old blind man seemed to have heard the biggest joke in the world, and let out a dry, whistling laugh.

"In this era where even writing a will can be generated by AI with a single click, your brother, who can't even afford a high-level computing power quota, earned fifty star coins by typing them out by hand? Little girl, even if you said you earned it by selling your blood, I'd believe you more easily."

Despite his sharp tongue, the old blind man slowly turned his wheelchair and took out two small glass bottles, each about the thickness of a thumb, containing pink liquid from a temperature-controlled refrigerator behind him.

He pushed the small bottle onto the counter, the red light in his mechanical eyes flashing slightly, his tone carrying a hint of the experience of a seasoned veteran from the downtown area:

"Girl, let me remind you. This stuff is called 'inferior nerve blocking fluid,' and it's not some high-grade nutrient solution that can make you smarter at all. It's a defective medical product that was discarded by the upper city. People at the bottom buy it usually to forcibly numb the pain when they need to amputate necrotic limbs without anesthesia."

The old blind man tapped his withered fingers on the table: "If your brother thinks he can use this to stay alert while writing, he's dreaming. If an ordinary person drinks this stuff, their brain nerves will be forcibly suppressed, and they'll just be as drowsy as a lump of mud, unable to even do simple addition. At most, it will make them unable to feel the pain of their crippled legs."

Yu Yin was stunned when she heard what the old blind man said.

That's not right. After drinking yesterday, my brother's eyes were clearly very clear. He even stayed up all night typing on the keyboard and looked full of energy. How could he be so drowsy like Uncle Xia said?

Yu Yin, of course, did not know that the medicine itself only had the effect of numbing and inhibiting nerves.

The reason why Yu Wen did not become dull after drinking it, but instead entered a heaven-defying "hypermeability" state, was entirely because he was a time traveler.

His powerful soul, far surpassing that of ordinary people in this world, broke free from the physical constraints of his broken body after the nerve block fluid suppressed the pain and distracting thoughts of this mutilated body, unleashing terrifying mental computing power.

If any ordinary person in this world were to drink it, they would only become the half-idiot that the old blind man described, who couldn't even calculate one plus one.

But Yu Yin didn't understand any of that. She only knew that the medicine wouldn't kill her and could help relieve her brother's pain, and that was enough for her.

"Thank you, Uncle Xia. As long as it can cure my brother's headache..."

Yu Yin breathed a sigh of relief, clutched the medicine bottle tightly in her hand, and bowed deeply.

"The black market price is thirty star coins per bottle. Since you didn't steal or rob, I'll give you fifty for these two bottles."

The old blind man swiped the fifty star coins on the table into his drawer and waved his hand.

Just as Yu Yin was about to turn and leave, the door of the pharmacy was suddenly pushed open by someone stumbling.

A young girl, dressed in a cheap, revealing bionic leather outfit and extremely thin, rushed in.

Her face was sallow, her eyes were sunken, and her whole body was trembling violently.

This is Ni Ni, the neighbor who lives in the capsule next to Yu Yin's house.

"Uncle Blind... Uncle Blind, help me..."

Ni Ni collapsed incoherently onto the counter, the cheap brain-computer interface on the back of her head still flashing a red light indicating a network outage.

She is experiencing an extreme "electronic dopamine withdrawal reaction".

"Give me ten star coins for internet access... just ten star coins! My 'domineering CEO' in the virtual community is about to propose to me, and my internet connection is cut off... I can't log out, I can't go back..."

Ni Ni nervously scratched her arm, leaving bloody welts.

"Uncle Blind, I'll give you my left cornea, can you lend me ten star coins?"

The old blind man stared at her coldly, his mechanical eyes devoid of any warmth:

"Your optic nerves have long been burned out by those high-frequency AI-driven wish-fulfillment novels. Your corneas aren't even worth two stars. Get out and don't dirty my place."

Rejected, Ni Ni collapsed to the ground in despair. Suddenly, she saw Yu Yin standing to the side, and the medicine bottle that Yu Yin was clutching tightly in her hand.

"Yinyin! Yinyin, you brought money, right?!"

As if grasping at the last straw, Ni Ni lunged forward and hugged Yu Yin's leg:

"Lend me ten star coins! I'll pay you back as soon as I get paid for the drug trial! Please, I'll die without the virtual reality scenario. Reality is too painful, I can't stand it..."

"Sister Ni Ni, please don't do this..."

Yu Yin was so frightened that she took a step back, clutching the medicine bottle tightly in her hand:

"This money belongs to my brother, I can't give it to you."

"What does your crippled brother need money for! He spends all his time in that stinking basement, typing away on a broken keyboard like a caveman!"

Ni Ni became hysterical after being rejected, pointing at Yu Yin and cursing loudly:

"You're an idiot too! You spend your days scavenging for radioactive junk, and you can't even afford the cheapest illusion helmet! You guys have no idea what it means to enjoy life!"

Watching Ni Ni rolling on the ground due to withdrawal symptoms and even wanting to sell her corneas for the sake of a fake AI romance storyline, Yu Yin suddenly felt a strong sense of sorrow.

This is the Lower City area.

Countless people are silenced by capital using "cyber pacifiers," their blood and sweat drained like livestock, just to experience a cheap climax for a second in a fake online world.

Yu Yin ignored Ni Ni's insults. She pressed the bottle containing the nerve-blocking fluid tightly to her chest, pushed open the hatch, and stepped back into the cold acid rain.

Although she didn't understand what her brother was writing, she instinctively felt that the words he typed out with his own hands were a million times more real and noble than the fake AI CEOs in Ni Ni's mind.