"You know her?"
Lucy had noticed Lin Mo's subtle reaction—the way his pupils shrank ever so slightly the moment his gaze touched that direction. That tiny shift didn't escape her sharp eyes.
She had always been this sensitive, this cautious. It was the only reason she'd managed to escape hell back then, wandering and drifting until she finally arrived in this so-called freest city in the world.
"Yeah, I know her. If you haven't mistaken her identity, and I haven't either, then your friend's team must be the very same one that was put together by a friend of mine." Lin Mo spoke with a hint of wonder.
Lucy blinked, momentarily surprised, before her face softened into something resembling awe.
"Well, isn't that a coincidence..." she murmured.
"Since fate seems to have brought us here, how about inviting your friend over for a drink? Tonight's food isn't my treat, but a few bottles of booze? That I can afford." Lin Mo suggested with a grin.
"Forget it. She doesn't like those kinds of formalities," Lucy declined curtly.
"I was just wondering who those two women sitting beside her were. Now it's obvious—they must be your friends too." She leaned lazily against her chair, her voice relaxed.
Lin Mo looked a little surprised. "How can you tell?"
"Because that white-haired woman is already headed this way. Never thought I'd run into someone with the same hair color as me here."
A strange smile tugged at Lucy's lips as she stared past Lin Mo's shoulder.
Lin Mo frowned, curiosity piqued, and glanced back.
Sure enough—just as Lucy had said—Sasha had noticed them. For some reason, she'd excused herself from the trio's little "get-together." With a mysterious smile playing on her lips, she strolled toward them.
Meanwhile, Rebecca and the hacker woman named Qiwei naturally followed Sasha's line of movement and glanced toward Lin Mo and Lucy's table.
The woman in the red coat, upon seeing Lucy, narrowed her long eyes slightly, then lazily lifted a hand in greeting.
Lucy smiled faintly and raised her own hand in reply.
"Your friend doesn't look too happy. Looks like she's here for you," Lucy remarked, shooting Lin Mo a sidelong glance with a teasing smile.
Her intuition told her that beneath Sasha's gentle smile lurked a thin veil of hostility.
"Really? Couldn't it just be that she learned about you from Qiwei and wanted to get to know you herself? She's a netrunner too, after all."
Lin Mo yawned, unbothered. Truth be told, talking to these sharp, complicated women wasn't exactly pleasant. He had to consider each one's personality carefully, choose his words precisely—every one of them was sharp as a knife. Just keeping up with them was exhausting.
Just as he thought, when Sasha arrived, she barely spared him a glance before directing all her attention toward Lucy. She offered a polite smile and nodded slightly in greeting.
At the same time, she carefully studied the girl.
White hair... eyes not crimson, but clear and bright... good figure.
From what she knew of Lin Mo, if he hadn't known her before, he never would have initiated contact.
That meant this white-haired girl had to be someone Lin Mo already knew.
Sasha's expression gave nothing away as she calmly observed Lucy, then slid into the empty seat beside Lin Mo. Her eyes softened into a charming smile as she asked:
"A new friend? Or a new member of the studio?"
Bulls-eye.
Lin Mo grinned smugly, shooting Lucy a look that seemed to say, See? She's here for you, not me.
"She's Lucy—technically still an external member of the studio. She's on trial right now. A netrunner. You two should chat when you've got the time." Lin Mo introduced her amiably, then gestured toward Sasha in turn.
Sasha smiled, her eyes curving beautifully, her voice as soft and lingering as a melody:
"Even if you hadn't said anything, I would have. Miss Lucy, it's a pleasure to finally meet you."
"Hello." Lucy's response was short, clipped, as if unwilling to engage further.
"So, how did you two meet?" Sasha pressed on.
Lin Mo shot her a puzzled look.
The same delicate face, the same playful, narrowed eyes, the new snow-white hair that reminded him of melting spring snow—yet she was suddenly acting so different. She'd never been the type to dig into someone else's business like this.
Lucy pointed straight at Lin Mo, tossing the question right back at him.
"You'll have to ask him."
With Sasha's eyes now fixed on him, Lin Mo took a moment to gather his words before slowly recounting how he and Lucy had met.
There wasn't much to tell—it had all happened within the last month or two. They hadn't met many times either. He simply explained how he'd lured, tricked, and coaxed her into joining the studio.
Sasha listened patiently, her face calm, her expression giving nothing away.
"So, before joining the studio, Miss Lucy, you were... stealing chips?" Sasha finally asked, clearly surprised.
She hadn't expected a netrunner to stoop to that kind of work.
Stealing neural chips from other people? If it was just ordinary folks, there was no real profit in it. And if it was the wealthy... well, the risk far outweighed the reward.
"That's none of your business," Lucy replied coolly, unwilling to elaborate.
Lin Mo thought about it. He understood Sasha's confusion—hell, even he couldn't figure out why Lucy had chosen that line of work.
But judging by her targets—all of them connected to Arasaka in some way—perhaps there was more to the story. Something she wasn't telling anyone.
"Ahem. Alright, let's drop that. Lucy, how's the work I assigned you coming along?" Lin Mo coughed lightly, shifting the topic just in time.
Lucy stared at him for a moment, then silently pulled out a chip and tossed it on the table.
"It's all in there. Take a look."
"Well, well, didn't expect you to carry it around. Real employee spirit," Lin Mo joked, picking it up. He was about to slot it into his neural socket when he suddenly paused.
Looking at the two women with a wry expression, he said:
"Alright—when I check this chip, the two of you better not just sneak off without a word again."
-
-
-
-
-
MY CYBERPUNK 2077 SIMULATOR
🧠💻 MY CYBERPUNK 2077 SIMULATOR 💻🧠
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📢 SYSTEM ONLINE! 📢
My Cyberpunk 2077 Simulator has 100+ chapters ahead available on Patreon! 💾🔥
Enter Night City with a simulator, a system, and the kind of advantage most mercs would kill for.
But this is still Night City.
And in a world ruled by corpos, bullets, chrome, gangs, and cyberpsychos, even a cheat-like power doesn't guarantee survival.
⚙️ Level up.🔫 Fight harder.🌃 Stay alive.💀 Or get swallowed by the city.
Read ahead now before the public readers catch up!
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🛑 ALSO AVAILABLE ON PATREON:
🌃 Cyberpunk: Dogtown Legend🔥 Cyberpunk: The Relentless👩👦 Cyberpunk: Lucy Adopted Me and I Got a System🤖 My Girlfriend's a Cyberpsycho—Who Knew?🛡️ Star Wars: The Rise of Mandalore🌌 Star Wars: Relics of the Past🏰 Game of Thrones: Secrets Beneath the Dreadfort⚡ The Rebirth of Harry Potter🌹 R18: Reincarnated in Her World
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🔗 Patreon: www.patreon.com/c/MrMagnus👤 Patreon Name: SrMagnus🐦 X / Twitter: https://x.com/SrMagnusBook
⚠️ Power Stones determine which novel gets priority!
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━