Chapter 450 - 422: Tiger Claw Gang Past Events (Part 2)

If a country possesses the world’s most powerful corporations and financial groups, along with the leading GDP and the most prosperous economy on paper, one would think that country must be very strong, its citizens very wealthy, and there would be no need for them to move to other impoverished areas, right?

In this world, many people have such a misconception about the Japanese.

In actuality, the Arasaka Group is the richest and most powerful megacorporation in the world, and rather than saying that Arasaka is a card representing Japan, it would be more accurate to say that Japan is an element of Arasaka.

The Japanese Government did not become wealthier as a result; on the contrary, as a national government, its ability to mediate conflicts has completely failed.

In the early 21st century, the Arasaka Group conducted some secret research involving nano robots and nano medical surgeries in the densely populated Chiba Prefecture.

This research resulted in massive pollution of the entire Chiba region’s water and land resources, and anyone contaminated by the unidentified plague would die within days at the fastest!

Mass deaths brought chaos to the entire region, and the Japanese Government had to invest a large amount of money to deal with the issues in the area, but these problems were simply endless!

Batch after batch of waste disposal workers were sent into Chiba, and batch after batch of police and even Self-Defense Forces were dispatched, but in the end...

What resulted was not the recovery of Chiba, but the entire region remained in a zombie-like half-dead state, and the Government thus fell into a predicament, having to inject large amounts of money into this bottomless pit every year, becoming increasingly weakened.

Many people firmly believed that Arasaka was the Black Hand behind the Chiba epidemic, but the Japanese Government simply had no capacity to confront Arasaka, and thus could not sanction it.

This disaster was just one of the more notorious incidents that occurred in Japan; in fact, the Arasaka’s toxicity to the entire Japanese populace began after World War II, or it could even be said that this family’s toxicity to Japan existed since before the war.

Only after that war did the Arasaka family suddenly upgrade their brains, transforming overnight into the vanguard of liberalism, the international megacorporation, Arasaka.

So, in a certain sense, "Japan" owning the Arasaka Group can indeed be deemed powerful, but the Japanese Government is not, and many Japanese people have become sacrifices to this strength.

The outside world, because of the infamous war between Arasaka and Military Technology, despised Arasaka, despised Japan, and of course also despised these Japanese immigrants.

So...

"...in a way, our ’enemy’ is Arasaka, who come from the streets, curse the corporate dogs, rob the corporate dogs.

You choose to work for Arasaka, so how are you any different from those Arasaka dogs that turned Chiba into a living Hell?

You still have the nerve to talk to me about the Tiger Claw Gang of the past? You’re not your father or your grandfather, and besides, your father and your grandfather never licked the company’s arse."

Lille bluntly retorted to Qian Chuan, "These poor bastards, because they were made unlivable by Arasaka, came to Night City chasing after a dream of a stable life.

And you, the current you, are actually willing to sacrifice people who came here just as difficultly as you, to lick Arasaka’s arse, and then you talk to me about original intentions, the original heart..."

Bang bang bang!

The Octopus Arm slammed on the high-quality organic glass table in front of Qian Chuan—

Enveloped between the thick glass of the table was a tiger head emblem, on which was embroidered in soaring dragons and dancing phoenixes four big characters: Unrivaled Under Heaven.

The glass cracked so extensively that the original pattern was almost unrecognizable.

"Then tell me, tell your people, all these are ’necessary sacrifices’, the ’helplessness of the times’, ’I will deal with it in a few days’... are you joking, aren’t you disgusting?"

"Disgusting." Brick simply spat out a mouthful of saliva, "Too disgusting, our Vortex Gang never does such things, no wonder the young ones don’t hang with you."

"Indeed." Jostar nodded. "Glad I didn’t mix with you; really pathetic, little brother Qian Chuan."

Seeing these two characters, V nearly laughed out loud, but soon she saw Jack at the door, silently recording all of this, so she too fell into thought...

Qian Chuan no longer had such leisurely grace, one of his legs shaking like an electric small motor, so much that the floor was rattling.

After shaking for a while, he stopped his leg, took his hands away from his face, completely losing the tense feeling of a gang boss and instead had an expression of utter fatigue.

"...everyone is a prostitute, just selling different things..."

He suddenly stopped, staring at the four big characters on the table:

Unrivaled Under Heaven.

The more one lacks something, the more they cry out for it; without Arasaka, the Tiger Claw Gang truly wasn’t Unrivaled Under Heaven.

It was when he uttered this line that he had repeated countless times to these three lunatics that he somewhat lost his confidence.

Although he used this line to persuade himself, he also yearned to truly be...

Unrivaled Under Heaven.

Seeing the atmosphere was right, Lille gave Brick a look, and Brick passed it onto Jostar, who then clanked as he moved things onto the table.

Exquisite first-generation Prosthetics, electronic devices, firearms...

And there was a Separation Chip, on which was listed all of the exoskeletons, second-generation Prosthetics and Plasma Weapons that were about to come fresh off the production line, as well as armed vehicles.

"Prosthetics, weapons, I can provide you with those."

"...I have no money."

"No problem, I can offer you another payment option, barter, or exchange for electricity."

Lille opened one of the big boxes, which contained the graphene batteries that were uniformly used in current production lines and products.

Before they knew it, Lille’s side of goods had become very mature and complete in terms of assortments, fully capable of satisfying the basic needs of a gang.

Nowadays, almost all gangs are dead broke, while those small gangs that have made a surprising comeback seem to be quite wealthy.

"Electricity?" Qian Chuan picked up the battery on the table, information streaming into his mind, "Nice stuff, but... not so easy to transport.

Speaking of which, it seems like the Six Street Gang is doing some kind of welfare policy, something similar...

As a result, Santo Domingo has had electricity theft every day, with both NCPD and Ye Group clueless, small amounts each time, but on a large scale; they’re hard to catch and there are too many to finish catching."

"It was my doing, just say if you’re in or out, if you plan to go back and lick Arasaka’s boots, I won’t stop you. However, once you leave this door, I can’t say what might happen the next time we meet."

"Heh." Qian Chuan laughed at this, putting the battery back on the table and looking at Jack, "I want one at that level, got any?"

Lille appeared surprised—

"Of course, come, full body prosthetics transformation. If you go mad, it’s not my responsibility, want to try?"

"Could I possibly become a cyber psycho?" Qian Chuan mulled over the sense of powerlessness he had felt that day, then glanced at the four large characters on the background wall of the room, "But if I’m being hunted by a psycho, I can’t exactly claim to be peerless under heaven. I want to try, Mr. Burger King."

"Alright, get ready. I’ll have someone arrange the available stock, and as for the modifications..."

Lille turned to a confused Brick, "Vortex Gang will act as the distributor, talk to him."

...

"Uh... tough guy, I’m grateful that you opened up a market for me, but we don’t have the technology for full body prosthetics transformations here..."

Leaving the room, Qian Chuan stayed in the office pondering life, while Brick leaned in close to Lille and murmured softly.

"We do!" Lille’s mechanical arm smacked him, "Have you forgotten your current body?"

"Me?"

Brick looked at his own body, which essentially used first-generation prosthetics.

To say it was a full body prosthetics transformation wasn’t exactly wrong.

At the time, Lille had even separated his head individually, and putting it back was essentially like installing the brain into a body of full prosthetics.

Although it was connected to the skull, rounding up, it could be considered a full body prosthetics transformation.

However, Lille provided mainly first-generation prosthetics, which were all cobbled together from previous parts.

Who would have such comprehensive full body prosthetics modification?

Lille slowly began to enlighten Brick, "That’s the thing, remember the software update I gave you before?"

Brick nodded.

Their jumbled prosthetics were all integrated and adjusted by Lille’s side, and the software for every component had been completely refreshed from the ground up.

Doom-doom had watched the process from the side and was dumbstruck.

"Actually, you were the test subjects, now we have enough data to move on to the second-generation prosthetics.

You’ll soon get a batch of gear, take it and use it, don’t say I made you work for nothing.

Once you learn how to install it, you can offer it to the customers."

Brick’s brain zapped to life as Lille flooded him with a torrent of item information!

All of it was the latest, hot-off-the-press second-generation prosthetic components, along with full body prosthetics transformation plans made from these components...

These were all fresh from the Marvel World, brand new products yet to be tested on living subjects!

On paper, their performance was significantly higher than Alpha Level!

"Boss..." Jostar watched Lille walk forward, while his boss froze in place and he quietly crept up, "It seems like he’s saying we’ve become lab rats..."

Smack!

Brick solidly smacked Jostar in the face, "Are you scared?"

"It’s not that, I was just..."

"Then stop talking nonsense! Instead of wasting time, why not think about getting yourself a shiny new carapace! These prosthetics are too neat for my taste, uncomfortable..."

Brick glanced at Jostar, then snapped back to admiring the prosthetics, muttering to himself, "Free prosthetics to use, free tech to see, such great deals, and you whine about being lab rats... put it out there and there’ll be a line of people eager to be guinea pigs."

He then turned to Jostar, "Grow a brain, will you!"

"Oh..." Jostar scratched his head, "Boss, since I’m here already, can I go check on my mom, who’s out there selling herself?"

"Whatever you want." Brick waved his hand dismissively, "Don’t damn ask me about these trivial things. Just make sure you’re around when there’s work. And don’t forget your gun... just take mine, don’t get damned ambushed."

"Got it."