[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-cyberpunk-cross-dimensional-science-and-engineer":3,"chapter-cyberpunk-cross-dimensional-science-and-engineer-cyberpunk-cross-dimensional-science-and-engineer-chapter-542":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"english","Cyberpunk: Cross-dimensional Science and Engineering",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":20,"prevChapterSlug":21,"totalChapters":22,"novelImage":23},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":16,"volume":17,"translator":18,"content_hash":19},1152383,1495,"Chapter 542 - 513: Confident Blue Eyes, The Cheating Lille","cyberpunk-cross-dimensional-science-and-engineer-chapter-542",542,"\u003Cp>Lille walked up to Ryan and pulled out his personal link.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In that instant, his brain flashed through many clues, connecting them into a string—\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ryan, he had to be saved, because the assassination against him was a joint effort from various corporations, a final ultimatum from the companies to \"independent\" Night City.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The corporations couldn’t tolerate a mere city mayor keeping them on tenterhooks, pouring in resources with restraint, fattening others, and harming themselves.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This day was bound to come, and Ryan had seen it coming long ago.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"I... heh... thirsty... have always been... thirsty... waiting...\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ryan’s throat muscles spasmed completely, and he couldn’t say a word.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>What he wanted to say was he had been waiting for Night City to cultivate a crew of such tough men... a gang, with technology, guts, brains, and fighting ability.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Sooner or later, Night City would be crushed by the corporations; his only way out was to foster such a local enterprise... even a gang would do, before they got to him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Of course, those were parts of the speech he had prepared for years, and now he hadn’t even finished speaking when he was saved, which made him feel somewhat comforted:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The indoctrination of Night City was indeed better than the effect of my speeches!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Of course, sometimes this fat man was a bit too self-indulgent.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Lille saved him because, after all, the corporations had already mangled the world, and everything bad they wanted to do, Lille had to oppose—\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So Ryan couldn’t die.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But reality deviated slightly from his expectations: Arasaka didn’t make a move after Ryan entered the Red Queen’s race.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Instead, it was Perares who took a considerable risk standing here...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This inevitably led him to consider a few more possibilities for the situation.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Lille was about to insert the personal link into Ryan’s slot to make contact with the neural virus on his body when he suddenly asked:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"The fact that Arasaka didn’t make a move puzzles you, right?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Perares gave no indication, the AI’s mastery of facial expression management was at its peak.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yes, Lille was certain that Perares was now controlled by an AI, or rather, it was the AI speaking through Perares’s body!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Of course, such details were not perceivable by normal people, but today, here, in both Lille’s brain and hardware, there was more than one AI!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This was also the second thing Lille had to do—\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Perares was a person controlled by an AI, but before he was fully under control, Lille actually supported Perares’s ideas, at most they were just a bit idealistic.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>V and Jack had asked Lille about Ryan and Perares before coming here.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Emperor of the underground order was still the underground order; gangs, no matter how formidable, couldn’t pull out hundreds or thousands of intercontinental nuclear missiles, so at most they had only thought about whom to help, but they really hadn’t anticipated ending up...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Deciding who will be the future mayor of Night City.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As for Hot, everyone instinctively ignored him since he was openly Arasaka’s lapdog, looked down upon by everyone; of course, the corporations wouldn’t choose him either.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Different from Hot, both Ryan and Perares had very similar struggles.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Perares lost his parents early on, strived hard, got accepted to Knight University, and received sponsorship from the Ye Group.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ryan’s parents were company personnel; his father died in the nuclear explosion at Arasaka Tower, and his mother became a vegetable when she was attacked by a rogue AI during a network mission.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Under these circumstances, he too got into Knight University and entered politics through his own efforts.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Honestly, both parties could be considered hardworking and diligent men; if Perares was a \"free\" person, he might have tended to help Perares.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But the problem was here:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Lille knew there were many issues with Perares—from the moment he received sponsorship from the Ye Group, the Ye Group also set their sights on him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This company was different from the others; its true executor was actually an AI lurking within, the same client who commissioned Munemasa to design the miniature wireless transmitter—it was the mysterious \"Mr. Blue Eyes\" from the game.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>From the moment Perares caught their attention, the Ye Group had used some kind of device that could directly influence the brain, along with drugs, hormone control, and course suggestions, to subtly alter their thoughts...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Or, to use the term that had just come from Perares’s mouth: \"domestication.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>What Perares said to Lille previously might have been his genuine feelings, but his own thoughts had been modified from the outside, so severely that he forgot a fact:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Unlike Ryan, who had compensation for the loss of both parents, Perares’s family couldn’t even afford to send him to a middle school with better educational resources. It was his older brother who worked tirelessly, labored to the point of death by overwork, and earned him the tuition and living conditions that led to his present!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But for some reason, perhaps the model that Mr. Blue Eyes implanted in Perares clashed with his actual experiences:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As a child from the slums, Perares was supposed to be fixed within his social class, but thanks to his brother’s support, his own efforts, and a bit of luck, he managed to break through the class barrier!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If Perares were a sound person, Lille would truly prefer to help him from the bottom of his heart, but unfortunately...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The current Perares couldn’t even remember his own brother, and his slightly trembling voice might have been a cry of agony from the brain under the pressure of powerful data streams—\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Perhaps he had realized something was wrong, perhaps his brain was already sounding the alarm, but...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But just a bit more electric current beyond the limit could completely restrict human brain activity.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Lille did not hate Perares, even though a large part of his thoughts had been fabricated by Mr. Blue Eyes with technology.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Therefore, while saving Ryan, Lille also had to release Perares from his controlled state.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Killing Ryan was an act of a strong man freely killing a weaker one, which was common in this world; Mr. Blue Eyes’s brainwashing of Perares was a complete distortion of free will by technology.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If Lille simply let Ryan die and allowed Perares to entirely become a tool for Mr. Blue Eyes to \"maintain\" social stability, he could become an underground king, a corporate-approved underground king, but he would forever remain just an underground king.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Beautiful, yet false.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Standing against the corporation and Mr. Blue Eyes, Lille might be killed tonight.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But Lille still chose the latter, real yet cruel.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>How exactly to do it?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>We must go back to Lille’s earlier probe to Mr. Blue Eyes: Ryan arrived at the Red Queen’s race as scheduled, and it seemed that all Arasaka had to do was to lift a finger to end him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But in reality, Ryan was still alive, and Mr. Blue Eyes had pushed his most senior politician, cultivated over such a long time with countless effort and resources, to the front of three thugs.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Perhaps there was an intent to redeem Lille, but...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But even so, he shouldn’t have stood by, leaving Lille with an obvious way out: kidnapping him and Ryan to escape.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Unless he himself was a trap.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This logic is entirely possible:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After all, Arasaka’s unexpected withdrawal had pushed the situation towards the worst direction. When Mr. Blue Eyes went to great lengths to get Ryan to the race at the Red Queen, clearly wanting Arasaka to make a move, they did nothing!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Even though they had already sent out a room reservation request from Hot!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Because Arasaka didn’t make a move, Mr. Blue Eyes of Ye Group had to take matters into his own hands—\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But he couldn’t leave any traces that would raise suspicion from other corporations, so he could only... wait for Lille to make a move, transferring all traces onto Lille.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This required an incredibly high level of network technology and the victim to take the bait willingly—actively connecting to Perares’s network.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>With this in mind, Lille continued:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"You were thinking of using the virus in Ryan’s head to hack me, kill Ryan and take me out, the troublesome one, in passing. Then rescue your wife and appear on TV as a hero, earning the support of both the gang and the corporation, and win the election against Hot in one fell swoop.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And you think Arasaka didn’t make things easy for you as well because they were wary of your move, right?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Mr. Blue Eyes stopped pretending and nodded, \"Very smart, but it’s a little late to realize it now. However, if you’re willing to turn back... it’s not too late.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Either way, you can’t win this game. Without political protection, you will only be hunted down to death by the oncoming Terrorist Mobile Team and corporations.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>What you get is only one truth: yes, we all want Ryan dead, accept it.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"I could kidnap you,\" Lille suddenly said. \"Kidnap all of you.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Try it.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Lille laughed, the classic honey pot tactic, a strategy that was always in fashion in network attack and defense.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He directed his personal link towards Perares.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The roaming AI always had full confidence in their network skills, especially with sufficient support.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Now was when Mr. Blue Eyes felt most confident: backed by Ye Group’s vast servers, and with his AI identity unknown to his opponent, he was about to carry out a precise and rapid network strike...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Unfortunately for him, there was more than one AI in Lille’s head.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And he had more than just the body visible before him—\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The computing power provided by the Marvel World across dimensions amounted to 700 CCU, more than twenty times the maximum Mr. Blue Eyes could have estimated!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In network attack and defense, the side that takes the initiative has a great deal of autonomy—\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>An unexpected AI, unexpected computing power, an unexpected... counterattack!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Lille wanted to use Perares’s body, this connection, to directly attack Ye Group’s corporate intranet!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His personal link was about to penetrate Perares’s interface, Lille suddenly grinned and sent a cryptic message:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>[Little AI, hiding quite deep.]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>An utterly unpredictable situation caused Mr. Blue Eyes’s server computations to surge dramatically...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This was doubt.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But before the doubt could be resolved, an unimaginable offensive instantly bore a hole in the network defenses of Ye Group!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Merely a human, yet he exhibited the computing power of a medium-sized company!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Merely a human, yet fully displayed three types of attacks moving at speeds comparable to Mr. Blue Eyes...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>No, it was four types!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>An army of one!\u003C\u002Fp>",1779,"2026-06-03T12:33:29.771Z","2026-06-03T12:33:38.261Z",1,"novelbin.me","9416843d4ba2d28f57e0fbdb96e2d17c87410c0a6b90e6a2ef55f5c7c5c1dd84","cyberpunk-cross-dimensional-science-and-engineer-chapter-543","cyberpunk-cross-dimensional-science-and-engineer-chapter-541",1068,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fcyberpunk-cross-dimensional-science-and-engineer-cover.jpg"]