Chapter 87#

Little Cats Are Predators#

The rain fell in torrents, and the world was enveloped in the clamor of the downpour.

Sang Chiyu opened his eyes. The crowd was like a woven tapestry, shuttling past him like a succession of phantoms. Before his eyes was a narrow, cramped street, flanked on both sides by towering wooden buildings stacked floor upon floor. Dazzling lights were blurred by the heavy rain, yet they could not be extinguished, drifting like colorful ghosts suspended in the air. Holding an oil-paper umbrella, he stood in the middle of the rushing sea of people like an incongruous reef.

Where was this? Black Street?

Su Guanyu’s phantom appeared before him. “Silly child, this is your memory from before you entered the Snowflake World.” Su Guanyu looked around, his eyes full of interest. “So this is the real world? Why does it look so similar to Black Street?”

What did that mean? Sang Chiyu felt a splitting headache.

“Shh, listen carefully.” Su Guanyu put a finger to his lips. “See what you experienced before entering our fake world.”

Su Guanyu vanished into the rain.

“Invasion of Paradise successful. Please respond. Audio signal returned; I will automatically lock onto your position.”

A flat male voice suddenly sounded in his ear, his tone devoid of any inflection. Sang Chiyu’s hand rose of its own accord to press against his ear, where a small, hard object was lodged; the voice came from that object.

He heard his own response: “Received.”

Sang Chiyu was surprised to find he could not move freely. He was like a man in shackles, imprisoned in a cage.

“Position confirmed. You are currently in the ‘Black Street’ sector of Paradise. You are the commander of this operation. The mission objective is in the ‘Elysium Quarter.’ You need to find the target within three hours and obtain the target’s ‘Snowflake Key.’ The ‘Snowflake Key’ is the crux of AI technological progress in the new century; it must be obtained by us. Given the high danger level of the target, regardless of the mission’s success, headquarters will initiate the Purge Protocol in three hours. Missiles will be launched in three hours to destroy the entirety of Paradise. Please manage your time accordingly. A total of twenty Mystics are participating in this operation; they will follow your command. According to the currently planned route, you will rendezvous in the ‘Elysium Quarter’ in half an hour.”

Sang Chiyu heard his own voice: “Commander calling Alpha Squad.”

The communication channel crackled with voices that were constantly stuttering and indistinct.

“Network interference detected. Headquarters is strengthening the signal, please wait,” the male voice said. “Reiterating: First, do not communicate with the people or animals within Paradise. They are not living beings; their foreign-entity detection programs will identify you as an intruder. Second, do not bring implants into Paradise. Implants will be hacked by the target. Six months ago, of the ten Mystics who invaded Paradise, eight had their hearts ripped out by their own prosthetic limbs, and two suffered cyber-brain explosions.”

What was “Paradise”? Sang Chiyu wanted to ask. But he replied: “Understood.”

The voice in his ear glitched for a moment, then said: “Apologies, squad communication restoration failed. Please have the communications officer establish a link upon reaching the rendezvous point. Three-hour countdown begins. Please proceed north and cross the ‘Hall of Great Compassion’ sector.”

Raindrops the size of beans drummed against his umbrella. He somehow knew that he had taken this oil-paper umbrella from a stall at the street corner—it had a beechwood handle, an ancient style, with the charm of the Jiangnan region. He looked up and walked forward, gradually realizing that this was Fire Mountain Alley in Black Street. It had long been destroyed by the fires of the Demon Race, yet here it was, as bustling as ever. Sang Chiyu smelled the cloying scent of rouge in the wind. A host leaning against a doorframe waved a handkerchief at him; as he brushed past, the host grinned and pulled open his robe, revealing three massive breasts.

Sang Chiyu frowned.

The voice in his ear introduced the sight: “That is a three-breasted prostitute, a tribute to the 1990 film Total Recall. The story tells of a construction worker troubled by dreams who undergoes a virtual memory experience. An accident occurs during the memory implantation, and he subsequently discovers he is actually a secret agent who has lost his memory. The people and scenes from his dreams appear in his life. He slaughters everyone in his path, saves the world, and falls in love with a brave and beautiful woman. The three-breasted prostitute in the movie was a woman; the target changed her into a man.”

Sang Chiyu observed the people in his field of vision. This place resembled Black Street, yet it was not Black Street. He noticed that everyone had a hexagonal port in the back of their neck.

What was that?

An answer suddenly popped into his mind—a neural-link interface.

“Aren’t you going to ask me why?” the voice in his ear asked.

Sang Chiyu ignored him.

The fellow spoke to himself: “According to my intel, your target is a gay man.”

Sang Chiyu quickened his pace northward, passing the flying bridge where he had once embraced Su Ruhui.

“This bridge is called the ‘Magpie Bridge,’” the male voice said. “It takes its meaning from the ancient Oriental poem Magpie Bridge Immortal: ‘When the golden wind and jade dew meet, they surpass countless encounters in the mortal world.’”

The real flying bridge had probably been blown up by the Demon Race’s cannons. Sang Chiyu wanted to go up and look, but his feet did not stop, treading up the bluestone steps. He silently calculated the time. After walking for about the duration of half an incense stick, the shadow of the ruins of the Hall of Great Compassion appeared ahead. From a distance, he saw the dark, towering silhouette of the Hevajra Buddha. A humming Buddhist chant pierced through the torrential rain like the low droning of bees.

“You’ve arrived,” the voice in his ear said.

Sang Chiyu felt an indescribable strangeness, yet he continued forward, stopping under a corridor pillar washed shiny by the rain. The lacquer surface reflected his image. He saw himself, dressed all in black, the fabric of unknown material. His face was cold as always, making his emotions impossible to discern, as if he were keeping people a thousand miles away. It was indeed himself, but here his hair was short, clean-cut, and as brilliant as silver.

The Buddhist chanting was dense and heavy, close at hand. He felt a sense of baseless oppression in his heart.

“Go in. Remember, stay quiet. Don’t alert them.”

He entered as instructed. Before the Hevajra Buddha, countless monks dressed in patchwork cassocks sat cross-legged, rhythmically striking wooden fish. He walked among them and found these monks to be extremely bizarre. They were people assembled from scrap metal; their heads were inverted iron buckets with two dark holes gouged out, revealing a shimmering green light within. The iron skin was engraved with dense scriptures, and the raindrops hitting them sounded like the beating of drums.

These scriptures were read in a chaotic mess, sounding extremely sinister. He turned a deaf ear to them, following the instructions of the voice and walking forward soundlessly. However, as he prepared to bypass the Hevajra Buddha, the giant statue opened its eyes. Behind him, the cacophonous chanting was suddenly cut off, as if by someone’s hand.

The world went silent, leaving only the torrential rain.

The Hevajra Buddha lowered its head, its bulbous, lamp-like eyes reflecting the tiny person below. Sang Chiyu looked back; all the iron-clad monks had raised their heads, staring at him without blinking. Sang Chiyu knew that someone was behind the eyes of these strange things, watching him.

A low laugh came from his ear. The flat electronic voice distorted and warped, transforming into another man’s voice. The person on the other end of the communicator was laughing, sounding very amused.

Sang Chiyu realized that the communicator had been hacked the first time the electronic voice glitched. Sang Chiyu adjusted his breathing, his body shifting into a guarded stance. But his heart was calm, because he was far too familiar with this voice. Familiar, and missed.

“Who are you?” he asked in a low voice.

The man said, “Welcome to my Paradise, friend.”

Sang Chiyu gripped the black shotgun beneath his trench coat, glancing around. Beneath the heavy rain, he smelled the cold scent of machinery. Aside from himself, there was no breath of any other living creature. That man was not here; he was watching Sang Chiyu through these puppets.

“Rain, stop,” the man said.

As soon as he spoke, as if those two words were an incantation, the heavy rain ceased instantly.

“I’ll give you nineteen bursts of grand fireworks,” the man added.

The combat squad’s communication network suddenly restored to normal. Sang Chiyu heard screams in the radio channel.

“Ammunition exhausted, requesting extraction! Requesting extraction!”

“Under attack by a large number of puppets, support! Call for support!”

“Help me—I don’t want to die!”

In the pitch-black night sky, from the four corners of Paradise and within the channel, nineteen explosions rang out in succession. Giant flames soared into the air, dazzling to the extreme.

Nineteen.

There were nineteen Mystics who had infiltrated Paradise with him. That fellow had killed them all.

The deaths of his comrades did not cause Sang Chiyu to panic. He merely furrowed his brows and took a palm-sized instrument from his pocket. This was a bandwidth monitor, very classical, a product from the last century that had long since been pulled from the market. It could monitor the volume of data transmitted through various interfaces within a local area network and display it on a map through visualization.

“You guys are smart, knowing I’m good at hacking other people’s computers, so you found twenty natural Mystics without implants to deal with me. Especially you… eh, wait a second, let me look at your file. Where is it? Where did I put it… oh, found it. Sorry, I used your file to level a table leg.”

Sang Chiyu listened without a word, his body maintaining a statue-like stillness.

“Sang Chiyu, male, Cat Tribe. Wow, you’re a cat. I like cats. Devouring Mystic, eldest son of the 58th generation of the Sang clan of the Cat Tribe. Enlisted in 3011, currently belonging to the Predator Assault Squad of the Mystic Clan Alliance. Hmm, does a little kitty count as a predator?”

Sang Chiyu: “…”

The man continued reading: “Inheritor of ancient martial arts, proficient in Wing Chun, Bajiquan, Ninjutsu, and Itto-ryu. Has fought on global battlefields, participated in 21 campaigns, and was exceptionally promoted to Colonel in 3021. Height 185.5cm, length 18.5cm… length? What length?” As he spoke, the man seemed to realize something and said awkwardly, “What the hell? Sorry, I didn’t mean to. This file was collected by my AI assistant system.”

“Enough,” Sang Chiyu said coldly.

The detector vibrated. The scan was complete. A bright red dot appeared on the map on the screen. On the map, Paradise was surrounded by a white sea of ice, indicating that this Paradise was an isolated island at sea. The red dot was three thousand meters away from him and seven hundred meters underground—that was the place with the largest share of bandwidth usage in the entire Paradise. That person was controlling so many puppets; all the commands were sent from the computing center via the network. Without a doubt, the bandwidth used by the computing center must be the highest. If Paradise’s network was compared to a highway, then the traffic volume at the computing center was almost off the charts.

The target was there.

“Using bandwidth to find me. Smart.” The man laughed. “Then come. I’ll wait for you.”

After he spoke, the Hevajra Buddha and all the monks began to move. The giant puppets shifted, the ground vibrated, and dust fell like frost and snow.

Sang Chiyu stood among them, expressionless.

“Karmic intrusion detected,” the monks roared. “Execute Salvation Protocol! Execute Salvation Protocol!”

Sang Chiyu did not draw his gun. He drew an ancient-style Hengdao from his hip. Gripping the cold hilt, the induction system automatically triggered a discharge, and pale blue electricity enveloped the blade. The puppets sprinted, launching themselves at him like fleas. The Hevajra Buddha raised its hand, its thick, massive palm like Mount Tai pressing down, aiming for his head.

Mystic Art: Instant Shadow Shift.

On the damp ground, the man in the black trench coat suddenly vanished. Only electricity flowed and tangled in the air, turning into dazzling afterimages. The blue current sliced through the night. In an instant, all the monks who had leapt into the air froze mid-flight, splitting apart at the joints of their ankles, waists, and heads. The Hevajra Buddha’s wrist was also severed. A surging current poured into its circuits, and its internal systems immediately overloaded and burned out. Those giant, bulbous Buddha eyes flickered twice and went dark.

When Sang Chiyu reappeared in his original spot, the limbs of the monks were scattered in pieces, clattering around his feet. The hand of the Hevajra Buddha above him slid diagonally off its wrist and crashed to the ground, making an earth-shattering boom.

This was the Quick-Draw technique of the new century, fast as lightning.

The earpiece was silent.

“I finally know why they sent you to kill me. You really are strong.” The man on the other end of the communicator laughed. “Do you want to know my name?”

Before coming here, Sang Chiyu had not received any background information on the target, only that he was the master of Paradise. This mysterious fellow had built this Paradise on an isolated island. The Paradise was full of robots; he was the only living person. Paradise was secluded from the rest of the world. Except for teleportation gates and skydiving, there was no other way to reach it.

It wasn’t that the Mystic Sect’s intelligence agency was incompetent, but because this person was completely anonymous on the network. In this era, no one possessed absolute privacy, yet he had achieved it. No one knew his background, no one knew the true face of Paradise, except for those intruders who had died there.

Until now, Sang Chiyu only knew that this was a vulgar fellow.

He was mysterious and treacherous, like a grinning demon hiding in the shadows.

Despite this, Sang Chiyu showed no curiosity and continued to ignore him. The silent man sheathed his sword and looked down at the time. Two and a half hours left. He looked up and walked toward the computing center on the map.

On the other end of the communicator, the fellow started talking to himself again. “My name is Su Ruhui. Su as in Su Ruhui, Ruhui as in Su Ruhui.” His laughter sounded bright and cheerful. “My heart is thumping, Mr. Kitty. I’ve fallen in love with you.”

Sang Chiyu stepped over the remains of the puppets and came to the foot of the Hevajra Buddha. This area was covered by a thick layer of black oilcloth. He pulled back the cloth, and a pure black motorcycle came into view. A Kawasaki H2R, an old model from the previous era, a track beast capable of reaching 326 horsepower. Sang Chiyu had felt something was off when he stopped at the entrance of the Hall of Great Compassion. The reason he had come inside was that he had caught the scent of this beast’s gasoline in the rain.

He straddled the motorcycle as if mounting a fierce leopard. The engine roared, the headlight flickered on, and a beam of brilliant white light illuminated the dark night.

“That’s my collection. I spent eight hundred thousand to buy it—the last Kawasaki motorcycle in the world.” Su Ruhui sounded pained. “Treat it well.”

Sang Chiyu turned a deaf ear. The engine roared like thunder, propelling him into the endless night.

The author has something to say:

Beginning with this chapter is the real world. These are Sang Chiyu’s memories before entering the Metaverse, and they are the blocked memories mentioned in the previous chapter.

Yang Su: Is a little kitty a predator?

Sang Chiyu (seriously): Yes.