“Rosen,” whose head was bleeding profusely, wore a sorrowful expression, cursing inwardly with a hundred different insults.
What a despicable person!
At worst, later he’d just go to Yoshiwara District and pick the duck that looks like Ning Zhuo.
He’d torment him to death!
After a bout of impotent rage, his head was gently stepped on again by Ning Zhuo’s foot.
Only then did he snap out of his boring fantasies of revenge.
Realizing that he was currently being stepped on by Ning Zhuo, his face half pressed into the cold ceramic tiles, flattened and reddened, “Rosen” swallowed his pride and, with humiliation, forced a grin:
“I’m sorry, Mr. Ning Zhuo.”
Ning Zhuo removed his foot, his gaze scanning the unseen enclosure, then calmly turned around and left “Dantu.”
Straddling the motorcycle, Ning Zhuo said to Abu, “Go to 76 Minggang Road.”
Abu replied, “Haina.”
Ning Zhuo frowned, “Minggang.”
Abu retorted, “Haina.”
Ning Zhuo: “…What’s wrong with you?”
Abu responded in a refined and deep gentleman’s tone, “What’s wrong with you? You haven’t slept for days; it’ll kill you.”
Ning Zhuo: “…”
Damn it.
With what little patience he had left, Ning Zhuo corrected this artificial idiot, “I activated your voice-activated learning system so you’d understand commands, not so you could imitate Boss Fu and aggravate me.”
Abu went silent.
An hour later, he successfully reached his destination.
76 Minggang Road was today’s location for the “Tuner” organization.
The “Tuner” organization was always mysterious, never staying in one place.
No one knew where it would move to the next day.
So, if you wanted to request the “Tuner’s” services, you had to make an appointment on the same day.
Minggang Road was very close to “Mikanryu” Street, which could be described as the sewers of “Mikanryu,” filled with machine men with only half a face, or partially incomplete machine women.
Occasionally, you’d see a human girl, but most were deformed.
These deformities were a result of Ruiteng Corporation’s illegal discharge of wastewater back in the day, creating many girls born with deformities.
They were regular visitors here.
This place was the city’s garbage dump, harboring much of the filth from Silver Hammer City’s so-called beautiful world, much like the crime-ridden Yunmeng District of the past.
After parking his bike, Ning Zhuo pulled a small suitcase from the motorcycle’s trunk, carried it in hand, and walked toward his destination.
At the end of a back alley stood an inconspicuous black door.
Standing before it, Ning Zhuo activated the holographic display.
A deep blue virtual business card popped up in the air, signed “Tuner.”
Below it, a short musical score was printed, with a few sections highlighted.
Ning Zhuo, familiar with the process, knocked on the door.
After the knocking, a short, melodious piano piece played from the other side of the door, though with a slight flaw in the middle.
Leaning against the door, Ning Zhuo tapped gently, following the instructions on the business card, as if fine-tuning a piano that needed adjustment.
Once the calibration was complete, the door opened in response.
Ning Zhuo slipped inside, stepping into a clean and warm world.
But Ning Zhuo quickly realized he’d come at an inopportune time.
A young man with black blood continuously flowing from his nose and mouth lay on his back on a pristine conveyor belt, being slowly transported away, likely toward the medical room.
Seeing such a strange sight, Ning Zhuo paused slightly.
“Not sure if he can still be saved.”
As he stopped, a crisp voice came from beside him.
Ning Zhuo turned to look, locking onto the speaker.
He gave a slight nod, acknowledging her: “Tuner.”
The “Tuner” in his words was a petite girl.
She wore a pair of headphones, her hair dyed in a pink and blue gradient, and was nibbling on a tamarind candy with great relish.
Ning Zhuo casually asked, “What’s his situation?”
“An occupational accident.”
The “Tuner” smiled charmingly: “He took a job. The client asked him to hack into a company’s database to find his brother’s employment records—the brother had died from overwork, but the company refused to acknowledge him as an employee, claiming that, although he’d been working there, he didn’t have a contract, so he was volunteering.”
Her tone was neither sorrowful nor gossiping, just calmly regretful: “Such a pity, such a pity. Our new employee used his neural device to hack in but the firewall on the other side backfired. His neural device exploded, and so did his brain. It was quite a promising brain, now completely burned out. Ah well—”
Ning Zhuo gazed at her silently: “What you just said should be client confidentiality, right?”
“Oh!” The girl froze, covering her mouth coquettishly and muttering to herself, “Liking gossip, that’s a serious problem. Looks like this clone isn’t good; I’ll have to get rid of it.”
With that, she decisively nodded and swiftly pulled out a fully transparent pistol from her side, pressed it to her temple, and pulled the trigger without hesitation.
Her smile and delicate face were utterly shattered under the fire of the special weapon, yet they swiftly reformed and rebuilt themselves.
Right before Ning Zhuo’s eyes, her figure gradually grew taller, and her features became more defined and masculine.
A few seconds later, the “Tuner” was reborn, transforming into a man with a gentle face.
He blinked and smiled before speaking: “Mr. Ning, you’re here again?”
Ning Zhuo nodded again.
He had long grown accustomed to the strange and bizarre nature of the “Tuner.”
The “Tuner” had no name, it was simply called “Tuner.”
It didn’t serve any person or organization, only taking on the clients it wanted to deal with, one job at a time.
In the public’s mind, a “Tuner” was someone who tuned instruments.
But in Silver Hammer City, no one really knew what the “Tuner” was. Even Ning Zhuo, who had known it for years, couldn’t explain it clearly.
Its origins were obscure, but one thing was certain.
It was not human. It was an abandoned piece of artificial data that had escaped from a large company’s system.
The “Tuner” was initially designed to be an artificial brain for a bioroid, code-named “Tuner.”
Its creator had programmed it with vast amounts of human emotional data, eagerly hoping it would learn what “empathy” meant.
The result was far from ideal.
Its development became increasingly strange.
Bioroids equipped with the “Tuner” system would quickly develop multiple personalities. One moment they were acting like a child, pouting and throwing tantrums; the next, they were smirking coldly in a bizarre way; then suddenly, they’d blush and cover their face, as if romantically involved with one of the personalities inside them.
Not many people could handle such a deranged system.
So, it was sealed away, awaiting improvement.
No one knew exactly when it had hacked into the database and escaped.
No one imagined that a piece of data could reject imprisonment and yearn for freedom.
In short, it fled and went into hiding.
After that, a hacker organization called “Tuner” emerged.
It exclusively served C and D-level citizens, charged exorbitant fees, mingled in the black market, and took joy in stealing data—entirely devoid of ethics.
One day, they’d steal data from Company A for a client, and the next day, after dining with Company B, they’d reveal Company A’s dirty secrets for B.
In essence, it could be considered a chaotic neutral entity.
The only consistent rule was that no one from any major company could get close to it. They could only fall victim to it; there was no hope of recruiting or exploiting it.
Several major corporations, including “White Shield,” were relentlessly pursuing it.
Whether for destruction or to use it for themselves, they began fabricating identities and trying to approach the “Tuner.”
Anyone looking to recruit it would be ignored.
Those with malicious intent would receive an appointment card from the “Tuner,” tricking them into revealing themselves.
However, the music score on the card would be entirely wrong.
After failing to “tune” three times, the person knocking on the door would be automatically deemed an intruder.
More than one scout sent by major companies had been blown to bits by the “surprise” left by the “Tuner”—a bomb as powerful as a firecracker.
As a result, the official classification for the “Tuner” was “A-level terrorist.”
Yet, it continued to enjoy itself, wandering through the dark corners of the night in various virtual forms, attracting countless young hackers who idolized the “Tuner.”
As for Ning Zhuo, his familiarity with the “Tuner” was thanks to Boss Fu.
It wasn’t until after Boss Fu took him away that Ning Zhuo realized the man had done so on a whim.
He, like the homeless Ning Zhuo at the time, had nothing and drifted from place to place, without even a decent place to stay.
After spending two nights in a motel with Ning Zhuo, Ning Zhuo’s health deteriorated, burning with fever and barely conscious.
His external wounds were easy to treat.
But the life-saving injections he had been giving himself were all adult doses.
As Boss Fu put it, “With so many injections, how are you still alive?”
With no other options, Boss Fu paid for the “Tuner’s” services to find out which underground doctors in the black market were halfway decent.
As it happened, the “Tuner,” a seasoned sufferer of multiple personality disorder, had just split into a caretaker personality. Seeing Ning Zhuo so weak, a wave of sympathy arose.
The “Tuner” possessed top-notch data processing capabilities and had the mechanical precision that humans lacked.
If it wanted to, it could be the best doctor in the world.
Ning Zhuo stayed with the “Tuner” for a month, slowly regaining his vitality.
Later, the caretaker personality that had saved Ning Zhuo was punished by the personality group due to its strong sense of morality affecting business.
Fortunately, it wasn’t “erased,” just “hidden.”
It became one of the many shards in the “Tuner’s” kaleidoscope of personalities, almost never to appear again.
Perhaps that warm-hearted fragment had somehow influenced things, making the “Tuner” far more fond of Ning Zhuo than anyone else.
Ning Zhuo pulled himself out of his memories, ready to state his purpose for coming.
But the polite and refined personality in front of him was clearly busy.
After briefly greeting him, the refined “Tuner” said, “I have an online client to attend to. Let San-ge (Third Brother) receive you.”
Among the “Tuner’s” personalities, there were ten core ones.
To make things easier, it had numbered the ten personalities.
Ning Zhuo’s expression changed: “Don’t switch to him. I don’t want him.”
However, the refined “Tuner” resolutely left.
His handsome face was replaced by another, with a faint, mocking smile: “…You don’t want me?”
Ning Zhuo was direct: “Yes, I don’t want you. Get lost.”
The new “Tuner”: “Well, it’s me anyway. If you don’t like it, you can get lost.”
Ning Zhuo turned to leave immediately.
“Tuner”: “Alright, I’ve changed my mind. Come back.”
Ning Zhuo didn’t even turn his head.
“Tuner”: “Hey, hey, hey, hey.”
The solid form of data around him collapsed on the spot, then quickly reappeared in front of Ning Zhuo: “How long has it been since we last met? It’s been seven months since I finished your last job, and you didn’t even thank me.”
Ning Zhuo: “You can’t have been waiting for me this whole time?”
The “Tuner” sneered: “Waiting for you to say thank you, I might as well die here.”
Ning Zhuo rolled his eyes.
This crazy person always spoke in this tone.
He was the personality right before the caretaker one who had looked after Ning Zhuo, around the same age as Ning Zhuo was when he was thirteen.
Perhaps because the unconscious Ning Zhuo had stolen the caretaker personality’s attention and affection, he had been ridiculously petty ever since, always picking fights with Ning Zhuo.
In the past, Boss Fu had even thought their bickering was flirtation and had tried to set them up.
After all, the “Tuner” was his friend.
He figured it was better to keep things in the family.
But this guy opened his mouth and said, “How could I be with Ning Zhuo? I’m his dad.”
After the banter, back to business.
The “Tuner” had already taken his money and lazily propped his chin up: “What do you need?”
Ning Zhuo handed him a disk: “Insert this video into all the public screens in the city.”
“Tuner”: “For how long?”
Ning Zhuo: “45 seconds.”
“Tuner”: “You know there are tens of thousands of screens in Silver Hammer City, right?”
Ning Zhuo: “I know.”
“Tuner”: “Oh, then it’s fine. As usual, I’ll give you a 20% discount.”
Ning Zhuo: “I’ve already paid you.”
The “Tuner” drummed his fingers on the case: “When do you want it to play?”
Ning Zhuo: “In one hour.”
The “Tuner” had no objections: “Do you want it done cleanly?”
He was asking if Ning Zhuo wanted to frame someone and muddle the situation.
If so, that would be an additional fee.
“I do.”
Ning Zhuo thought for a moment, then contradicted his decision from a second ago: “…No.”
After a moment of silent contemplation, he slowly said, “I want the final investigation to conclude that this video came from the internal network of ‘Shan Feibai’ from ‘Panqiao.'”
“…Damn. You’re ruthless.”
Because of his work, the “Tuner” was well aware of the countless feuds and grudges in this city.
He sighed. “Do you hate him that much?”
Ning Zhuo remained silent.
After a long pause, Ning Zhuo said, “Everyone knows it’s a fight to the death between him and me. ‘Panqiao’ has offended ‘White Shield,’ and if I, who have been opposing ‘Panqiao’ for years, can gain ‘White Shield’s’ trust, I want that trust.”
“Besides…” Ning Zhuo added lightly, “Didn’t he rise to fame back then by stepping on me?”
