The suburbs of Haicheng.
Inside a cramped, low-rent apartment.
Jake Quinn lay sprawled on the cold floor tiles, his chest feeling as though crushed by a thousand-pound boulder.
His heart thudded frantically against his ribs, but his blood felt sluggish and blocked, unable to reach the extremities of his limbs.
He suffered from Tetralogy of Fallot, one of the most complex congenital heart defects.
Without surgery, most children born with it don’t live past two.
When Jake was a year old, he underwent a free corrective surgery, a rare stroke of luck in an otherwise unfortunate life.
Yet his heart was never truly cured.
Pulmonary valve regurgitation, chronic right ventricular dysfunction…
these lingering sequelae had haunted him ever since.
He couldn’t engage in heavy physical labor, couldn’t stay up late, and even prolonged mental stress could trigger an episode at any time.
Only by living with extreme caution and taking his medication regularly had he managed to survive to twenty-three.
He had been too engrossed just now.
The moment he finished editing his video, he had jumped straight into the game without taking a break.
Staring at the screen for hours on end, his fingers moving nonstop as his adrenaline spiked—that was what had suddenly left him gasping for air.
Now, Jake curled on the floor, listening to his own ragged breathing echo through the empty room.
His fingertips were numb, and tiny specks of light flickered at the edges of his vision.
This was normal for an episode.
In two or three minutes, the symptoms would gradually ease, his heart would slowly calm down, and he would be able to crawl back up to keep working.
Jake didn’t intend to waste even those few minutes.
Maintaining his curled position, he reached out with one hand to grab his phone off the table, unlocked it with his fingerprint, opened a delivery app, found his bookmarked tea shop, and placed an order.
The screen displayed: [Estimated delivery time: 20 minutes.] A few minutes later.
The crushing pressure in his chest began to recede.
Jake slowly pushed himself up, leaning against a leg of the coffee table for a few seconds.
Once he confirmed his legs were no longer jelly, he used the edge of the table to pull himself to his feet.
His computer…
His immediate instinct was to check the screen, but it was pitch black.
“Dammit.” Jake cursed under his breath.
When the episode struck, his hand must have accidentally swiped against the power button on the tower, shutting the whole machine down.
*Did I lose the gameplay footage?* He hit the power button and, with slightly trembling hands, impatiently opened the screen recording folder.
The good news: the recording file was still there.
The bad news: it had only captured his desktop.
The game footage was completely gone, leaving nothing behind except the eye-care green wallpaper and his own self-directed ramblings while playing.
“Great.
All that work for nothing.” Jake gave a helpless laugh.
“Can’t believe I made such a rookie mistake…” The recording wasn’t long, so he didn’t dwell on it too much.
Next time, he’d just double-check before recording…
Jake opened the content creator backend again.
The urgent priority was to ask his client if there were any specific targets for today—like submitting a mandatory number of hours of gameplay recording or bug logs.
If there were, he’d have to keep grinding this afternoon.
Jake tapped into the messaging tab to look for the anonymous user with the solid black avatar.
But no matter how much he scrolled, he couldn’t find any chat history between them.
He refreshed the page twice.
[No new messages] “Strange…” Jake muttered, staring at the empty message box.
*Did I accidentally delete it?* He tapped into his task history.
[No active tasks] Jake scrolled through the records, going from last month’s orders all the way back to last year’s, back and forth three times.
Nothing.
There wasn’t a single record of any commercial contract related to this game.
“I don’t believe this…” Jake opened the customer service tab and typed out an inquiry: *Can you check my chat history with a certain user?
From earlier this afternoon.* The customer service rep replied quickly: *Hello!
All platform chat records are saved directly in your message bar.
If you cannot find them, the other user may have deleted their account or unfriended you.
The platform is unable to recover deleted messages.* Jake stared at the text, falling silent for a few seconds.
Deleted their account?
Unfriended him?
In just a few dozen minutes, that person had vanished into thin air?
“Whatever…” Jake tossed his phone onto the table and slumped back into his chair.
At least he didn’t have to work anymore.
Twenty-four hours of gameplay for two thousand yuan sounded great on paper, but if a sick guy like him actually grinded through it, he’d probably end up in the hospital tomorrow.
Now, the video was gone, the boss was gone, and the contract was gone.
Less hassle, honestly.
*Ding-dong—!* Just then, the doorbell rang out of nowhere.
Jake froze, suddenly remembering the order he had placed earlier.
The milk tea was already here?
Didn’t it say twenty minutes?
He lived in an old residential building in the suburbs; logically, it shouldn’t have arrived this fast…
Jake walked out of the kitchen and opened the door.
Parked right outside was a motorcycle, completely blocking the narrow hallway.
Its 6th Street American stars-and-stripes paint job looked glaringly bright under the dim lighting.
Two items sat beside the bike.
One was a bulging black canvas bag, stuffed full of who-knows-what.
The other was a large, square white cardboard box printed with the [Night City] logo.
“???” Jake stood at his door, utterly stunned for several seconds.
Wasn’t this the motorcycle he had hijacked in the game earlier?
The 6th Street paint job, the stars and stripes on the fuel tank, and even the positions of the bullet holes were identical to the ones he had shot up while controlling David!
He squatted down and unzipped the black canvas tote.
Lying quietly inside was a section of blood-stained metal spine.
Dense neural connectors bristled at the joint interfaces, stamped with the Militech logo.
The [Apogee] Sandevistan.
Jake then opened the large white cardboard box.
Inside sat several firearms: a Lexington pistol, an Ajax assault rifle, and two fragmentation grenades.
Beneath them lay neat, tightly bound rolls of cash.
He counted them.
1,054 Eddies—not a single bill off!
Jake remained squatted there, staring dumbfoundedly at the contents for a long while.
“The equipment manifested in real life?
Are you serious?” “Is someone pulling a prank on me?” He picked up the Lexington pistol.
Its exterior was as exquisite as it looked in the game, and it had a solid, heavy weight in his hand—definitely not a toy.
The magazine was loaded.
He popped it out to check, then snapped it back in.
Jake knew nothing about firearms, so he couldn’t tell if it was real or fake on the spot.
He picked up a stack of Eurodollars, pulled out a bill, searched for an image online to compare, and then shone his phone’s flashlight through it.
Not only did it look identical to real currency, but it also possessed the three core anti-counterfeiting features: watermarks, security threads, and color-shifting ink.
It looked about as real as it could possibly get.
The exchange rate for Eurodollars was 1 to 8, which meant this was over 8,500 yuan!
“A pie actually fell from the sky?” Jake rubbed his thumb over the textured surface of the bill, his eyes full of bewilderment.
He had always been skeptical of things like this.
He couldn’t easily verify the guns, but he could verify the cash.
One trip to the bank to exchange it would bring the truth to light.
But before that…
He looked at the 6th Street motorcycle in front of him.
“I need to deal with this thing first.” This old building had no elevator, and the stairwell was extremely narrow, barely wide enough for people to walk through.
If he didn’t move the bike downstairs, he couldn’t even leave his apartment.
Jake tried pushing it, but the frame didn’t budge an inch.
The thing weighed at least two or three hundred pounds; his weak heart could never handle that kind of strain.
He needed help…
He stood at the door, staring at the bike in deep thought.
…
A few minutes later.
A delivery guy carrying a cup of milk tea came panting up the stairs.
The moment he raised his head, he saw Jake smiling warmly at him.
The smile felt off—like a cat waiting outside a mouse hole.
“You’re finally here.
I’ve been waiting for you for so long.” “What are you doing?” The delivery guy instantly sensed something wrong.
He clutched his chest, took half a step back, and blurted out, “I only deliver food!
I don’t go inside!”