CNS | Chapter 3

Chapter 3, Reunion

tap, tap…..

In the silent abandoned building, leisurely footsteps echoed. With every step that person took, Chi Yu’s heart clenched hard once.

Madman……

Chi Yu was on the verge of tears. Just a moment ago, he had personally witnessed an attack.

That rumored City Ranger had crushed the man chasing after him with extremely brutal methods, then pointed his fist at him.

Run! He could not stop. If he got caught, he would die!

That thought drove Chi Yu to sprint forward. His cyber-eye had been hacked, and the image before his eyes had turned into a mass of garbled code.

“Ah!”

Chi Yu, who was no different from a blind man, stepped into empty space and rolled down the steel-frame stairs.

It was over.

The Ranger’s footsteps grew closer and closer, and Chi Yu felt his heartbeat stop.

“Why are you running?”

After a low laugh, Chi Yu was tightly seized by the throat, and intense pain struck. He could not help but let out two painful groans.

“Uh…..Uh…….”

“I just heard your conversation with that man. You seem to know Sleeve Blade?”

The Ranger’s voice was unexpectedly pleasant, like a cool evening breeze.

Chi Yu’s instinct for survival made him nod frantically. “Know….uh…know….”

Feeling the grip around his neck loosen a little, Chi Yu coughed a few times. “He is my Shifu……”

“Ah.”

The Ranger let out a sudden exclamation. “So you’re master and disciple…”

“Then your relationship must be very close?”

Chi Yu nodded frantically again, like a chicken pecking at rice. “Yes… yes, my Shifu always grants me whatever I ask for. As long as you don’t kill me, I can help you contact him and have him come see you!”

As soon as the words fell, the hand around his throat suddenly tightened. Blood rushed upward, and Chi Yu felt dizzy in waves.

“So close, how enviable……”

What did I say wrong……?

Chi Yu kept cursing this capricious madman in his heart, praying that Shifu would hurry and come save him.

“I ask you, is he doing well?”

His brain seemed to have grown sluggish from oxygen deprivation.

Only after a few seconds did Chi Yu realize that the “he” in this madman’s mouth referred to his Shifu.

Thinking of his Shifu’s face these past few days, he hesitated before answering, “It seems…… not too well……”

The madman did not speak. After a brief silence, he asked the next question.

“Does he have a lover?”

Why ask this?

Chi Yu’s consciousness was drifting. “No, from the time I knew him, he had always been alone.”

“Alone……”

The madman repeated those four words many times, like a robot that had crashed.

Where Chi Yu could not see, a bright off-road vehicle sped into the industrial park.

“Ah, you secretly sent him the coordinates here……”

The madman let out a sigh. “What a pity. I had wanted to talk with you a little longer. But I still do not want to meet him for the time being.”

He let go of the hand gripping Chi Yu’s throat, and then Chi Yu heard a sharp sound of metal bending and scraping.

That madman seemed to have torn off a section of the stair handrail with his bare hands.

He held the iron rod in his hand, and before smashing it toward Chi Yu’s head, he let out two low laughs.

“Then, pass along a message for me. Tell him……”

“Long time no see.”

Scene 5

From the moment he stepped into this abandoned industrial park, Shen Run’s heart had been filled with a bad premonition.

No, to be precise, from the moment he dreamed of that long-unseen person, this bad premonition had occupied his thoughts.

The sky was still silently drizzling. Not far away, the neon lights of a giant billboard cast the rainwater in purple-red.

“Brother Shen, the map has come through.”

Luxiusi’s voice sounded from behind. Shen Run came back to himself, pushed the safety on the M221 submachine gun in his hand, and with his other hand pulled down the goggles on top of his head and put them on.

After the signal of the call with Chi Yu was cut off, he politely declined Joshua’s offer of help, and brought the Heimdall members stationed at Eden Bar to rush to the coordinates Chi Yu had sent at full speed.

This was an industrial park. It had been abandoned long before the Free War, and now had become a place where gangs and thugs met to trade.

The staggered factories and office buildings greatly increased the difficulty of the search and rescue, but Shen Run had many connections. On the way here, he had gotten a detailed map of the industrial park.

“First we need to confirm Chi Yu’s location.”

While waiting for the 3D map to render in the field of view of his monocle, Shen Run instructed two subordinates to connect through their respective access pods to the Hummingbird II drones and control the two drones to scan the entire park.

The Hummingbird II was a military drone. Its shell was coated with automatic camouflage, and even the most top-tier electronic cyber-eye could hardly catch it.

“You two need to move faster. These two drones drain power like crazy, and we came in such a hurry that the battery reserve in the car is not enough.”

After giving the two men their instructions, Shen Run led Luxiusi and the rest into the frontmost factory building. As soon as they entered, they saw a large pool of blood and a corpse lying in it.

He walked up to check. The corpse wore a white robe, and around its neck hung a necklace made of many colored jewels. It looked like a clergyman.

“This should be the unlucky one Chi Yu extorted. Judging by the clothes, a priest?”

Shen Run crouched beside the pool of blood and connected to the corpse’s network access pod. As expected, he found familiar traces of intrusion. At a glance, it was clearly his disciple’s handiwork.

Chi Yu loved playing these little tricks. Relying on his exceptional talent, he often planted malicious trojans in the network access pods of passing customers. After stealing data from their brains, he would use it to extort money.

He only ever chose people who were not so clean. These people were either wanted criminals, or about to become wanted criminals. Faced with Chi Yu’s extortion, they had no way at all and could only swallow the loss in silence.

“Both hands and feet were broken.”

Luxiusi also crouched down, turning over the blood-soaked corpse through his gloves.

Like all the victims of attack cases, this “priest” had also had his skull smashed. The situation was even more severe. His entire face had caved in.

“Not just the limbs, the neck too, even the fingers were broken one by one.”

As Luxiusi was speaking, the voice of the drone operator came through their communications chip into everyone’s ears.

“Brother Shen, we found the person!”

The operator’s voice was somewhat excited. “Just at the corner of the stairwell on the fourth and fifth floors of the office building across from you, two biological signals, that Ranger is there too!”

Shen Run lifted his spirits. “First scan his facial information.”

“Okay, I’ll right now…”

The operator had only spoken halfway when his voice suddenly changed pitch. “No, he found me! He, he’s invading the drone’s network!”

“Cut the link!”

Shen Run shouted, but it was too late. The operator’s voice stopped abruptly, and at the same time the connection to the communications channel was cut off.

Without time to think further, Shen Run sprinted toward the factory exit. “Luxiusi and I will go save Chi Yu, the rest of you block every entrance and exit of the industrial park.”

“Yes!”

Shen Run rushed into the office building across from the factory, and at top speed ran toward the fifth floor. At the stairwell corner, he saw his disciple on the verge of death.

Fortunately, the limbs were intact, only a hole had been blown in his head.

After letting out a slight breath of relief, Shen Run took out a dose of special vitality booster to accelerate heart blood flow, moved decisively, and stabbed it straight into Chi Yu’s chest.

After quickly finishing this, he did not linger. Crossing over Chi Yu’s unconscious body, he stepped onto the last stretch of stairs. Shen Run saw a tall figure in front of the full-length windows.

It was him, the maker of hundreds of attack cases, the City Ranger stirring up storms throughout the city.

Shen Run was overjoyed. He had finally caught him.

The next second, that person smashed the glass of the full-length window with his fist, without any hesitation, and leaped out, jumping from the fifth floor.

？

This was the fifth floor!

Shen Run rushed to the full-length window, and watched helplessly as that person landed steadily. After rolling once on the ground, he merged into the darkness again.

Was this still a human being?

Only one thought remained in Shen Run’s head. Fine raindrops drifted through the opening into the building, completely soaking the strands of hair on his forehead.

“Brother Shen, that person’s biological signal disappeared! He seems to have already escaped……”

Another drone operator’s voice sounded in the communications channel, followed by the astonished cries of others. “We didn’t even see a shadow on our side. This motherfucker can’t be a ghost!”

Behind him, Luxiusi supported the badly injured Chi Yu as he walked toward him, and with a cold face, lowly cursed, “He got away again.”

This was not the first time they had rushed to the scene to pursue the City Ranger, but no matter how tightly they deployed, that guy always managed to disappear under their noses as if he had wings.

There was no trace at all, like a ghost.

“Shifu……?”

Leaning against Luxiusi’s shoulder, Chi Yu let out a weak voice. His expression was pained as he fumbled in his pants pocket for a square object.

“Give you this…..”

It was an old phone.

Shen Run took it, not understanding why his disciple would give him such a broken old phone.

He unlocked the screen, and on it was a flashing red dot, moving at a not-so-slow speed.

“I wanted to plant a tracking trojan on him, but his ICE level was too high and I couldn’t crack it, so I could only use the most primitive method……”【注】

Scene 6

“Wooooo——”

The whistle of a ship came from not far away. Saint Grange had an advantageous geographical location and had originally been Corolia State’s largest transportation hub. Even in the middle of the night, cargo ships still entered the port.

Following the guidance of the tracker, Shen Run came to a port in Jade Bay, and the signal on the old phone disappeared.

Perhaps the City Ranger had finally discovered the tracker Chi Yu had stuck to his cuff, or perhaps the overly old-fashioned tracker had had its signal stability affected by the rain.

In any case, the clue was cut off once again.

“This may be the ugliest mark in my career……”

He rubbed his face with both hands, took out the last cigarette from the cigarette case, and lit it.

Since he was already here, with this thought, Shen Run moved forward along the pedestrian street, walking without direction.

He passed an arcade, passed a convenience store, and when he passed a magnificently decorated club, the attractive blue-haired clone standing at the door came up and wrapped an arm around his shoulder.

After seeing his face clearly, this lady was so frightened that her flower-like face lost all color. “Shen… Brother Shen, I didn’t know it was you…”

Shen Run did not know how a clone working in the sex industry knew him, and had no interest in knowing.

He kept walking forward, and at this time, Shen Run felt that burning gaze again, as if it wanted to eat him alive.

Had that friend not already been locked in Nirvana’s basement by Luxiusi and the others?

He stopped in his tracks and found that he was standing in front of a music store.

Perhaps to avoid that gaze, Shen Run walked in as if possessed.

There were no customers in the store, only a man in a black punk vest taking a nap. He should have been the owner of this shop.

Probably this shop’s customers were mainly punk youths, and most of the instruments hanging on the wall were guitars, electric ones.

Perhaps God had assigned all of Shen Run’s talent to network roaming, he was completely ignorant about music, and could even be said to be tone-deaf. But he knew a lot about guitars, of course, not in terms of performance.

Back then, in order to give someone a guitar they would be satisfied with, he had studied this field almost obsessively, from pickups to what wood the body should use, and he still remembered it to this day.

In a not very conspicuous spot at the corner hung a blue-black guitar. This was an SG-style electric guitar, with a double-cutaway design and a cool shape.

Shen Run stared at that guitar without blinking. He did not know what paint had been used on its surface, but under the neon lights, it refracted points of starlight.

Shen Run recognized this guitar. Back then, he had searched for it for a long time, and in the end only bought a similar style.

The guy who received the gift completely did not buy it, crying and shouting that he did not want a substitute. Shen Run spent a long time coaxing him before he finally calmed down.

He had not expected to run into it here.

“Boss, I’ll take this one.”

Shen Run took down the guitar, walked to the counter, and woke the sleeping Boss.

“Sirius? This one has already been sold.”

The Boss rubbed his eyes, his expression a little awkward. “That customer said he had nowhere to put it, so he left it here for temporary storage. The newly arrived guitars have not come in yet, and the wall looks bad with a gap, so I hung it in the corner…”

“Ah, so that’s how it is…” Shen Run was a little disappointed, but still smiled. “Looks like we just weren’t meant to have it.”

The wind chime hanging on the glass door rang tinkling as another customer walked in.

“There are other similar styles in the shop, you can take a look…”

Shen Run shook his head. “No need, he just wanted this one.”

“Is it a gift? You have very good taste, this guitar went out of production many years ago. It came from the same luthier as the Orion in big star Wei Lan’s hands.”

The Boss looked regretful. “Really… the customer who bought it also liked it a lot, otherwise…”

As he spoke, the Boss looked up at the direction behind Shen Run, and light came into his eyes. “Ah, he just happened to come! Maybe you two can talk.”

The Boss smiled and waved at the direction behind Shen Run.

“Talk about what?”

A warm voice sounded from behind, like sea wind blowing across a sultry night.

Shen Run, who was just about to turn around, froze in place, feeling his mind go blank.

This voice was far too familiar. He could never forget it in this lifetime.

“This customer also wanted Sirius. I thought maybe you two could exchange a few words.” The Boss enthusiastically explained to the newcomer.

The owner of the voice let out a low laugh, and reached out to take the guitar from behind Shen Run. “Sure, I can let it go to you.”

Shen Run mechanically turned his neck. What came into view was a broad chest. The person behind him was tall, almost half a head taller than Shen Run, and he had no choice but to look up.

That person had a head of jet-black long hair, with the slender ends tied by a small metal hair ring and hanging in front of his chest.

His face was sharply defined, yet not aggressive. His features seemed like they had been sculpted little by little with patience by a sculptor’s chisel. The whole person was beautiful like an oil painting.

Shen Run widened his eyes, his eye sockets almost splitting open. The familiar face was exactly the same as in his memory, and compared to seven years ago, he had shed his former immaturity and looked much more mature.

The person in his dreams walked out of the dream into reality, and only then did Shen Run realize this face was hundreds of times better-looking than in his memory.

“Shen… Shen Ze?”

He lost his voice.

The handsome young man holding the guitar was equally shocked.

In his eyes flashed a look of disbelief, and the water-drop earring hanging from his ear trembled slightly with his emotions.

“….Brother?”