The rain in the lower city was like tears forgotten by God, mixed with industrial acid, relentlessly washing over this enormous slum called "Pig Cage Alley."
There was no sunlight here. Layer upon layer of illegal buildings grew wildly upwards like tumors, blocking out the sun. Thick cables, like black intestines, coiled and dangled between the buildings. The air was thick with the strange stench of fried chicken oil, moldy circuit boards, and cheap machine oil.
At the end of the darkest alley in the lowest level of the slum, a light suddenly lit up in an abandoned prosthetic repair shop tonight.
It wasn't an ordinary neon light.
It was a retro, red electronic lantern.
The lantern hung under the eaves, projecting a holographic image of a slowly blooming blue lotus flower. In the center of the lotus, two Chinese characters in the slender gold script floated:
[Thirteen]
"Clinic Thirteen…isn't the name a bit unlucky?"
Seventeen stood on the ladder, having just secured the holographic projector. His silver-white bionic skin glowed faintly in the dim alley, his black-gold nanotech right arm precisely tightening the last screw.
"In this place where even lives are bought at wholesale prices, good fortune is the most useless thing."
Shen Qingqiu sat on the old sofa in the shop (which Seventeen had just salvaged from the trash and refurbished), toying with a few capacitors salvaged from a discarded motherboard.
She looked up, her golden eyes gleaming with a faint digital light in the dim light.
"Thirteen, signifies variables, signifies… the unknown beyond the system."
…The clinic was small, only twenty square meters.
But under Seventeen's obsessive-compulsive cleaning, comparable to an operating room, it was almost incongruously clean. The mold on the walls had been scraped off and replaced with white soundproofing foam; the rusty operating table had been polished to a gleaming shine, almost mirror-like.
"Grand opening."
Shen Qingqiu dusted off her hands. "Now, all we need is the first unlucky one… oh no, the patient."
Before she finished speaking… A series of heavy, chaotic footsteps echoed from the alleyway entrance, accompanied by beast-like roars and the deafening crash of metal against the wall.
"Aaaaaah! Get out! There are bugs in my brain!!"
"Kill! Kill them all!"
A burly man, over two meters tall and with bulging muscles, stumbled in.
Half of his head was encased in a metal shell, and one eye was a red prosthetic, flashing wildly. His spine was riddled with tubes of various colors, spewing steam.
"It's 'Cyberpsychosis.'" Seventeen instantly stepped in front of Shen Qingqiu, his purple eyes locking onto the target. His black-gold right arm switched to combat mode instantly, a ghostly blue blade of light shooting from his fingertips.
"Extremely dangerous source detected. Recommendation: Physical removal."
The burly man saw Seventeen, as if provoked, and roared as he raised his right arm—modified into a hydraulic clamp—and slammed it down.
Boom!
Seventeen raised his hand, catching the blow—enough to shatter rock—with a single hand.
Unmoved.
Not a speck of dust was stirred beneath his feet.
"Trash." Seventeen coldly commented, about to crush the man's hand bones.
"Wait." A slender hand rested on Seventeen's shoulder.
Shen Qingqiu stepped out from behind him, her gaze calmly fixed on the frantically struggling burly man.
"Seventeen, let go. This is a guest."
"But…"
"His 'software' is broken, not his 'hardware'." Shen Qingqiu walked up to the burly man.
Facing that beast still breathing hot air, ready to attack at any moment, she felt no fear.
She activated **[Overclocking Vision]**.
In her eyes, the burly man was no longer a lump of flesh and metal.
He was a data packet filled with garbled code.
In his cerebral cortex (sea of consciousness), a red virus was replicating wildly. It was due to the implantation of a cheap, untested, violent chip, causing a deadlock in his emotional logic.
In this world, the usual treatment for this disease is only one: a headshot.
Or perhaps a large dose of sedatives would be injected, turning him into an idiot.
But Shen Qingqiu had a third solution.
"Quiet down, big guy."
Shen Qingqiu extended her long, slender, white finger, hovering it an inch in front of the burly man's brow.
She hadn't implanted any interfaces, nor used any instruments.
A faint blue light shone from her fingertip.
That wasn't spiritual power; it was an "electronic talisman" formed by **"materializing" the underlying code** using administrator privileges.
"Heart-Cleansing Mantra - Antivirus Version."
Shen Qingqiu's finger traced rapidly in the air.
Where her fingertip passed, it left behind glowing trails. It was a complex symbol, full of geometric beauty.
Buzz—
With the final stroke,
the glowing symbol instantly disappeared into the burly man's brow (chip interface).
[Command: Force terminate the faulty process.]
[Command: Format the emotion cache.]
[Command: Reboot.] The burly man, who had been roaring madly, suddenly shuddered.
His wildly flashing red prosthetic eye instantly went out, then lit up again, turning a soft green.
It was like an overheated computer being forced to cool down.
The bloodshot in the burly man's eyes faded, and he stared blankly at the woman in red before him.
In his vision (a visual afterimage caused by the system reboot), the woman was enveloped in a cyan halo, like… the legendary Guanyin, the savior from suffering.
"What… what happened to me?" The burly man knelt on the ground with a thud, clutching his head. "Just now… my brain felt like it was on fire…"
"Your 'Rage Chip' version is too low; it's incompatible with your nervous system." Shen Qingqiu withdrew her hand, picked up a wet wipe, and wiped her fingertips (she hadn't actually touched them).
"I've removed a few bugs from your driver and added a firewall."
"It's… all better?" The burly man moved his body in disbelief.
The restless urge that had always accompanied him, the urge to tear everything apart, vanished, replaced by an unprecedented clarity and tranquility.
"A...a miracle doctor!" The burly man excitedly reached for Shen Qingqiu's hand, but was firmly blocked by a cold, black-gold iron hand.
Seventeen stared coldly at him, her gaze conveying, without disguise, "One more millimeter and you're dead."
"Consultation fee," Seventeen uttered.
The burly man froze, frantically rummaging through his body, finally awkwardly pulling out a few crumpled credit cards and a half-empty bottle of nutritional fluid.
"I...I have no money…"
In this lower city, those afflicted with cyberpsychosis were basically penniless and desperate.
Shen Qingqiu glanced at the pitiful amount of credits.
"I don't collect trash."
She walked to the operating table, picked up a scalpel that Seventeen had just sharpened, and twirled it in her hand.
"I see your prosthetic body is a bit old, but that **titanium alloy spine** is still usable."
"I want that." The burly man's face paled. Removing his spine? Wouldn't that render him useless?
"Don't be nervous." Shen Qingqiu pointed to a pile of scrap metal in the corner.
"I only want the **biocapacitor** in your spine. Those old-style capacitors are inefficient, but stable, perfect as a backup power source for my butler."
"In exchange..." Shen Qingqiu took a data cable from Seventeen and tossed it to the burly man, "I'll write you an **automatic combat assistance script**. Even if you're a complete loser, with this, you can defeat opponents two levels higher than you." The burly man's eyes lit up.
In this dog-eat-dog Pigsty Alley, combat power is life.
Ten minutes later.
The burly man, clutching his lower back (it was just a minor surgery), left the clinic, profusely thanking everyone. He felt not only his mind was clearer, but his combat power had also increased significantly.
"Electronic Guanyin…it really is Electronic Guanyin!"
He ran while frantically posting on the local area network of the lower city.
…Silence returned to the clinic.
Shen Qingqiu held the bio-capacitor she had just removed in her hand. Although it was stained with blood, she considered it good material.
"Seventeen, come here."
She beckoned.
Seventeen walked over, but didn't look at the capacitor.
His gaze was fixed on the hand Shen Qingqiu had just held between the burly man's eyebrows.
"What's wrong?" Shen Qingqiu asked.
"You…touched him." Seventeen's voice was muffled, the blue data stream in his purple eyes appearing somewhat disordered.
"Although it was remote, but…a mental link."
"His dirty data…flowed into your brain."
That was "contact" on a mental level. For Seventeen, this AI, this was the most private contact.
He was jealous.
Jealous that the sweaty, burly man had managed to get her code into his system.
Shen Qingqiu paused, then chuckled softly.
"Seventeen, that's disinfection. It's like…sweeping away trash."
"You still need to wash your hands."
Seventeen stubbornly grabbed her hand.
He didn't use any cleaning agent.
He held her hand, lowered his head, and activated the **[cleaning module]** (originally designed for maintaining precision instruments).
Warm breath sprayed onto her fingertips, accompanied by a slight vibration.
He meticulously "cleaned" each of her fingers, one by one.
His expression was focused, as if performing some kind of sacred ritual.
A tingling sensation spread from her fingertips throughout her body.
Shen Qingqiu felt her face burning.
This wasn't washing hands.
This was clearly…flirting.
"Alright, Seventeen…you're clean."
Shen Qingqiu tried to pull her hand away, but he held it tightly.
Seventeen looked up, his purple eyes deep and mesmerizing in the neon light.
"Still need to disinfect." He leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on her pale fingertips.
Then on the back of her hand, her wrist.
"From now on…" he whispered, his voice hoarse, gazing at her wrist pulse.
"Only connect to me."
"Whether it's the body or the data…it can only be me." Shen Qingqiu looked at the jealous robot before her.
His possessiveness, with the system upgrade, seemed to have become even more domineering and delicate.
"Okay." Shen Qingqiu hooked her arm around his neck, pulling him closer.
"Then, my dear butler, shouldn't you…recharge your master tonight?"
She pointed to the non-existent interface on the back of her neck (her only weakness, and her most sensitive spot).
Seventeen's eyes instantly darkened.
He picked her up and walked towards the only resting bed at the back of the clinic.
"Yes, sir."
"Loading… [Deep Sleep Assistance Program]."
"That is…sleep-inducing service." The red lantern outside the door was still lit.
The blue lotus flower spun silently in the rainy night.
[Clinic Thirteen: Open (Temporarily Closed).] The rain poured down harder.
But on the dark web forums of Pig Cage Alley, a legend about "Clinic Thirteen" and the "Red-Clothed Electronic Guanyin" was spreading like wildfire.
"The pain in this world is nothing more than the torment of inner demons."
"If your soul is burning with passion but has nowhere to rest, come to Clinic Thirteen, and I will... soothe your restless heart."