As a result, tasks that were predicted to be "completed in half a day" frequently appeared before going out, and they dragged on until night.Sixteen hours later, Deng Huailing and Rosie walked out of the police station in disgrace, sitting on the steps and sighing.

Rosie doesn't need to eat, but Deng Huailing missed lunch and dinner, and didn't even drink a sip of water for most of the day.Artificial food vending cabinets were thoughtfully placed at the entrance of the police station, and the food imitating the shape of hamburgers, sandwiches, and Chinese roujiamo were all sold out. He scanned it with an ID chip for a long time, and a can of iron-gray quick nutritional supplements fell out.

Deng Huailing casually sat down on the highest step, straightened his long legs, and crossed several steps.The pull ring was opened with a "pop", and he raised his head, intending to drink up the nutritional supplement, but he put it down halfway through, showing an indescribable expression.

It smelled like expired saccharin. In order to cover up the smell of artificial nutrients, a lot of essence and sugar were added to it. If Deng Huailing could choose, he would miss the sandwiches in the apartment refrigerator very much.

"Is it hard to drink?" Rosie hugged her knees and sat down beside him.

"It's okay." Deng Huailing shook the jar, and the remaining liquid in it collided with the aluminum wall, rattling, "Actually, when I first came to Cecina, I drank this every day, and it was only 100 credits.The problem is solved, it’s just not quite like life.”

He noticed Rosie's eyes and asked, "You want to try?"

"Can you?" Rosie has been curious for a long time.

Deng Huailing handed the aluminum can to the bionic man.Rosie took it, took a sip cautiously with both hands, and didn't speak for a while after swallowing."It's hard to drink." He frowned and pursed the corners of his lips.

"I thought you had no sense of taste." Deng Huailing took back the jar and drank the remaining nutritional supplements in one gulp.That weird smell seemed less unbearable.

"Yes," Rosie wrung her fingers, "there are also hearing, sight, and touch, just like human beings. But my senses are just electrical signals, not real."

"Human feelings are just nerve electrical signals." Deng Huailing said.He raised his hand, and the aluminum can fell into the trash can under the steps in a beautiful parabola, "Today is a bit unlucky, I thought I wouldn't enter the police station this year."

They stayed in the police station for most of the night. The bounty hunters and the police are two groups that often deal with each other. They know many acquaintances. Deng Huailing was not treated harshly, but according to the procedure, he accepted the memory transfer and filed the case..

He'd always hated memory retrieval, and the feeling of a part of his mind being duplicated made him uncomfortable.Finally, the police signaled that he could go, but the matter was not over, and he still faced the risk of being charged with violating citizens' right to privacy.

There are two types of missions for bounty hunters. One is commissioned by the government and most of them are related to criminal cases. In this kind of mission, even if criminals are killed, it is often not illegal; the other is private commissions.They are not protected by the law, and they will basically violate the law, such as this commission to help Mrs. Miller investigate her husband's infidelity.

"Have you ever traveled before, Mr. Deng?" Rosie said in surprise.

"It doesn't look like it?" Deng Huailing pointed to himself and smiled, "So I have such a noble impression in your heartthen I take back what I just said, this is the first time I have entered the police station, and I don't know what to do.it is good."

"...Mr. Deng, is my impression in your mind easy to deceive?" Rosie said, and at the same time it took a millisecond to retrieve the other party's criminal record.He saw all kinds of crimes listed in a long list in the void, most of which were fights, with different numbers of people, different locations, and different plots, it was simply a rich street history.

But it has been a while since the latest date. After meeting Rosie, Deng Huailing did not have many conflicts with others. He seemed to be calmer, so he said with a smile that he would not enter the police station this year.

"Just kidding, I just think you would prefer good people who obey the law." Deng Huailing remembered the undelivered tasks, and changed the subject, "It's bad luck, but it's not completely fruitless. Although I was sent to the policeBureau, but we have collected the evidence, we can hand in the task."

He turned on the communicator and checked the several groups of photos he had taken.According to Mrs. Miller's commission, they followed her husband, Peter Miller, whose schedule today was a big-name fashion show.

Rolla provided them with technical assistance, helping them obtain press cards and forge ID chips. On the way, they found that Rosie and a model attending the meeting both had Asian long hair and had almost the same body shape. So Deng Huailing pretended to be a reporter, and Rosie pretended to be the model..

Rosie buttoned her shirt all the way to the top button, and put on her windbreaker, covering the android chip at the side of her neck.He covered his face with sunglasses, chewed gum, walked to the entrance with an expression as indifferent as ice and snow on a mountain top, and no one stopped him.There was nothing wrong with the ID chip Rolla gave him. He walked to the backstage waiting area smoothly, spied Peter Miller flirting with his cheating partner, and sent the photo to Deng Huailing——

If it wasn't for the fact that Rosie's posing as a supermodel hadn't happened to bump into this scene head-on, they'd have been able to keep going.Deng Huailing wanted to knock the model unconscious, but the other party had already pressed the alarm bell.Then the security personnel at the scene turned them over to the police station. The original charge was only illegal intrusion. After recalling Deng Huailing's memory, they added a charge of violating citizens' privacy.

Fortunately, the photo has been sent to the agent, Igor. The other party called to greet him, and he did not forget to tease Deng Huailing: "A+ hunters also have a day when their horse stumbles."

"This is not my specialty." Deng Huailing didn't take it too seriously. Anyway, Igor would help him accommodate these crimes in the name of the Hunter's Guild. He only needs to pay a fine, which is far less than the reward he received.much.

While the guild collects commissions, it protects the hunters walking in the gray area like a protective umbrella, otherwise all the bounty hunters in the city should be in prison at this moment.

"Indeed." Igor said, "You are a single-celled organism, fighting and killing is your domain."

The single-celled creature Deng Huailing hung up the phone and stood up from the steps.The Cesina police station is located in the downtown area, not far from the shopping mall he had planned to go to, within walking distance.The spire of the building could already be seen from here, and when he took a step, Rosie automatically followed.

In the memory of Mary Ellis, they once saw a document, which was given to Chen Wei by the mayor, about the whereabouts of the "brain lock".After returning to reality, Deng Huailing asked Chen Wei about the document, and got this reply:

"Oh, I have deciphered the abnormality of the data recorded in the document, but I have been delaying and not reporting it to the mayor. I can tell you the result, but it is useless to you now.

"Both you and Rosie are too unfamiliar with the Magic Sea system, and the task I want to entrust is very dangerous, so the first thing I ask you is to order two sets of external equipment and try to get familiar with the Magic Sea system."

The "Magic Ocean System" that Dr. Chen mentioned is another pillar industry of CyberRose besides bionics.As a citizen of Cesina, it is impossible for Deng Huailing to have never heard of the Huanhai system. However, because of his character of always rejecting emerging technologies, he has never used it, let alone purchased external devices.

In fact, the Magic Sea system is very popular in Cesina, and you can easily sink into the virtual reality world just by connecting an external device.Last night in Dr. Chen's laboratory, the two metal ball cabins were a kind of external equipment. They interpreted the memory through the Magic Sea system and logged into Mary Ellis' Sea of Memory.

And this is just one of the functions of the Magic Sea system. Most people buy it not because they are idle and bored watching someone's memory, but to enjoy the thrill of being a creator.In the fantasy sea system, you can get everything you want, and your endless desires can be satisfied. The much-anticipated star, the king of the country of flowers and wine, stands on the top of the world and overlooks the ants. The satin-like skin of handsome men and womenFingertips slide over.

The Huanhai system virtualizes a perfect illusion to solve people's spiritual needs, and the bionic man is responsible for solving the needs of life.If a person is rich enough, he can let the bionic man take care of everything in reality, and lie in bed to enjoy the illusion—unfortunately, both are very expensive, and those rich people who can afford it don't need to indulgeIn the virtual world, they have real happiness.

Therefore, 95% of the users of the Huanhai system are below the middle-level income, and they seem to be in a deadlock: the more painful the real life is, the easier it is to indulge in the illusion; indulging in the illusion, the reality will appear extraordinarily cruel.

This is what Deng Huailing saw when he went to the slums to hunt down Che Guangxu.It wasn't that there was no one in the house. On the contrary, the slums were crowded with people, but they were all lying on narrow beds with external devices on their faces, so that the street was eerily quiet.

The residents there repeat a kind of life, go out occasionally to do labor, earn enough money to buy nutritional injections, give themselves a dose of nutritional injections, and come back to immerse themselves in the Magic Sea system.The slums are quiet tombs, where people slowly decay and enjoy bliss in another world, without pain, awakening, or resistance. The Magic Sea system is the best tool for ruling.

In recent years, with the development of bionic technology, industries that require simple labor are basically filled by bionics.The city has abandoned the poor, and it is extremely difficult for people in the slums to find short-term jobs and cannot maintain a minimum survival, but surprisingly, no contradictions arise.When Deng Huailing went there, the street was still dead silent, people were indulging in hallucinations, and not even a radical slogan could be found on the wall.

——Slum areas and prosperous areas are fundamentally different.Deng Huailing took Rosie into the shopping mall, and the noisy crowd came oncoming.Rosie held him tightly to prevent him from getting lost. It was a weekend night, and the flow of people was higher than before, and there were couples hanging out everywhere.

They passed by the ground floor, and Deng Huailing noticed that this is the largest android store of CyberRose—in the Magic Sea system, they have been here before, and Jason Ellis bought Mary home seven years agoplace.

The display area for external devices is on the 11th floor. Rows of bright silver metal balls look the same as the devices seen at Dr. Chen's place.This is the most expensive device with the highest degree of simulation. Deng Huailing looked at it for a while, then turned to look for a lower configuration.

It's not that he can't afford it, but he has a natural resistance to emerging technologies.Deng Huailing doesn't like the realism of the Huanhai system, and doesn't like the feeling of being stared at and manipulated by technology. This body is his own, and all feelings should be decided by him.He asked the bionic salesman about the effects of various configurations, and finally purchased two moderately priced devices.

He originally wanted to choose the lowest configuration, that is, the head-mounted device he had seen in the slums, but since it was commissioned by Dr. Chen, in order to ensure smoothness and no distortion, he chose a mid-range price.

After the order is completed, the equipment will be sent to Deng Huailing's apartment.The two walked out of the external equipment area and looked around on other floors, but couldn't find anything they liked.

Deng Huailing originally planned to buy a folding bed for Rosie. Even if Rosie is a bionic person, sleeping on a cat cushion every day is not decent.But the other party insisted on not wanting it, claiming that it would not fit in the apartment.

"Then what do you want?" Deng Huailing asked, turning his head to the side.Before he came out, he promised Rosie that he could buy things under 10 million credits. After a day of tossing around, he still hasn't forgotten.

Rosie thought for a long time.This was the first gift the administrator gave him, so he couldn't be so hasty.Deng Huailing patiently accompanied him to the shopping mall. Although he had been on the road today, Deng Huailing didn't look very tired. Rosie is a bionic person, so she naturally didn't feel tired.

"Can I have that, Mr. Deng?" They passed by a shop that sold jewelry, and the flower-themed earrings alone hung on the entire wall, and it was specially marked that it was made by hand, not a product of machinery.

What Rosie fancy is a gold rose stud earrings.Deng Huailing didn't understand jewelry at all, he always thought it was something that girls only wear, so he said casually, "Do you like this?"

"No, but it can be engraved after the petals are written on it." Rosie suddenly hesitated, "Mr. Deng, can you...well, that's..."

"Okay, engrave my name." Deng Huailing understood his thoughts at a glance, and said generously.