This customer's request was too strange.
**Ethan Carter** looked depressed as he left **Derek Johnson**'s scrap warehouse with the package.
"Give the package to the most beautiful woman in the bar today." Is this a prank?
Aesthetics vary from person to person, and the title of "the most beautiful woman" has never belonged to any single individual.
But if this is a prank, then this customer is too generous—he paid a commission of 1,000 SP points for this order, minus 10% for the middleman, **Ethan Carter** can get a full 900 points after completing the order!
It's really strange.
**Ethan Carter** once suspected that the package contained some dangerous contraband, but **Derek Johnson** assured him that he had checked it in advance and there were no dangerous items in the package.
**Derek Johnson** told him: "It's just a perfume."
"Why should it be delivered through you at a high price for just a perfume?" **Ethan Carter** asked.
**Derek Johnson** smiled: "The high price is paid to the delivery service, not the goods themselves."
Indeed, not many people know about Hongyu Bar. The goods delivered this time are not gray items, but the place they need to go to is a gray area.
**Ethan Carter** also learned about the existence of Hongyu Bar from a colleague a few months ago.
"Hongyu" is a secret bar opened in the underground street of the northern part of the old city. The place is shown on the map as a rental area converted from an abandoned office building.
To enter Hongyu Bar, you must pass through the basement of the office building.
And the bar is only open after 8 pm.
Most people who go there are not for drinking, but for gambling.
This is not an ordinary underground bar, but a casino.
The price of each type of wine in Hongyu Bar is several times or even dozens of times more expensive than the normal market price.
Because buying wine here is equivalent to placing a bet.
Regular customers of Hongyu Bar know that at 10 o'clock every night, the iron ball hanging above the long circular table of the bar will open the grand prize.
Three kinds of wine are put into the iron ball in advance. According to the rules, guests who participate in the bet can buy any five kinds of wine before the prize is drawn. If the type of wine purchased by the guest is exactly the same as the wine in the iron ball, he will be regarded as the winner of the night.
After the results are announced, if there is a winner, the bar will take out 50% of the day's revenue and divide it equally among all the winners.
Even if you don't guess all the types correctly, if one of the five types of wine bought by the customer matches the lottery result, you can basically get your money back. If you guess two correctly, you can make money.
**Ethan Carter** has made two small fortunes there before, but he cheated by using his supernatural powers to exploit loopholes in the rules.
Because Hongyu Bar allows customers to place orders at any time before the lottery, **Ethan Carter** chose to wait until the last minute to rely on his prediction ability to directly get the correct answer.
The SP points won in the first two times have become his current favorite bike, and purchasing and modifying it is a considerable expense.
**Ethan Carter** is a very calm person. He did not indulge in this desire for easy and unearned gains, nor did he want to be targeted by the big boss behind the bar.
So since he bought his own motorcycle, he has never been there again.
The mixed atmosphere of that place did not make **Ethan Carter** feel comfortable. Even if you occasionally meet a hot beauty, it is difficult to tell whether her body has been operated on or which parts have become bionic silicone or metal machinery...
Prosthetic transformation is the most avant-garde trend nowadays, but **Ethan Carter** belongs to the conservative camp.
No matter how much the researchers or technology companies in related fields exaggerate the benefits, calling it "the ultimate direction of human evolution," he is unwilling to turn his body into a half-human, half-machine.
Even in the top circles of the academic world, there are great differences among scientific research leaders of different factions.
**Ethan Carter** remembered that when he and **Ryan Miller** just moved into the rental house, they turned on a TV program to cheer up while cleaning, and happened to hear a debate about the direction of human evolution.
Unlike the usual debate between Party A and Party B, the program was a three-party debate.
In addition to Party A who supported direct surgery on the human body and Party B who insisted on refusing to transform and rely on superpower genes to achieve evolution, a young doctor on behalf of Party C proposed a third argument of "combining technological exoskeleton armor with stable and controllable superpower genes."
Although the debate on that TV show was more powerful between Party A and Party B, **Ethan Carter** supported the young doctor's point of view in his heart.
It is obvious that the current Iron Dome Security Agency also adheres to the principle of "exoskeleton armor technology as the main and supernatural gene ability as the auxiliary." Unless a specialist is accidentally disabled, they will consider prosthetic transformation for him.
**Ethan Carter**'s evaluation of this is a conservative and steady strategy.
Although he also yearns to transcend the laws of biology to avoid birth, aging, illness, and death, he still hopes to maintain the fun of being a living person rather than evolving into an immortal form that drinks motor oil and chews energy blocks.
"Hello, is this Dr. Qin?"
**Ethan Carter** sat astride the motorcycle and called the number of **Dr. Qin**, the psychologist that **Ryan Miller** pushed to him.
"Hello, Dr. Qin, I am a friend of **Ryan Miller**. I would like to consult you about psychological problems. What time do you think is suitable?"
"Today? Now? Uh... No, no, no, I'm free. Then I'll come over."
**Ethan Carter** hung up the phone and drove to **Dr. Qin**'s psychological clinic.
The clinic is located in the south of Shangsu District, and there is also a cross-sea bridge connecting it to the old city. It takes about half an hour to ride a bike there.
Since Hongyu Bar will not open until the evening, **Ethan Carter** plans to go see **Dr. Qin** first.
According to **Ryan Miller**, **Dr. Qin**'s psychological counseling is very magical and effective. He worked overtime and became depressed. He felt that he was going to die. Thanks to **Dr. Qin**, he had the courage to continue living.
Although it sounds a bit exaggerated, **Ethan Carter** still plans to give it a try.
The clinic is located on the 33rd floor of an office building that is rented to various private studios and small companies. It is not a big shop, and there are only **Dr. Qin** and a young female assistant inside.
"Mr. **Ethan Carter**, right? Mr. **Ryan** mentioned you."
**Dr. Qin**, wearing an open white coat, put her hands in her pockets and smiled at **Ethan Carter** who came in.
She looked to be in her early thirties, with light makeup on her face, a pair of frameless gold-rimmed glasses, and soft black long hair scattered behind her head.
"What did **Ryan** tell you about me?" **Ethan Carter** smiled.
"This is the patient's privacy, so I can't disclose it." **Dr. Qin** winked at him and motioned him to follow her to the dark room inside.
**Ethan Carter** sat down on a recliner according to **Dr. Qin**'s instructions and looked around curiously.
"Is this a place for psychological counseling?"
"Yes, hypnosis will be used for auxiliary treatment." **Dr. Qin** nodded.
"You haven't even asked me what I want to consult, but you want to hypnotize me right away?" **Ethan Carter** asked in surprise.
**Dr. Qin** said, "If you enter a semi-hypnotic state, you will understand more details."
"Then Doctor Qin, can you control others with hypnosis?" **Ethan Carter** grabbed the armrest of the recliner and did not hide his nervousness.
"Many people have asked me this question." **Dr. Qin** pulled a chair with wheels over and sat down next to **Ethan Carter**.
"Then your answer is..."
The lights in the room suddenly turned off.
After a while, a small dim light lit up above **Ethan Carter**'s head.
"Mr. **Ethan**, you should not have claustrophobia, right? Do you feel uncomfortable in such an environment?" **Dr. Qin**'s voice became very soft.
"Well... no problem, just call me Xiao Yu." **Ethan Carter** smiled shyly at her.
**Dr. Qin** nodded: "Next, you just need to look forward, don't look at me, just listen with your ears."
**Ethan Carter** looked straight ahead, and the black wall turned out to be a screen. Now the screen was playing a constantly changing kaleidoscope-like pattern.
At first, he thought it was nothing special, but gradually, he was surprised to find that he could hardly take his eyes off the screen.
"What do you see?" **Dr. Qin**'s voice sounded in his ears.
"The changing kaleidoscope."
"Then, is there something in the middle of the kaleidoscope?"
"I saw... a running white horse."
"Okay, next remember, when you see this white horse stop, it means we have entered a virtual space..."
"I see it! Virtual space!" **Ethan Carter** suddenly shouted excitedly.
**Dr. Qin**, who was standing by, was startled by him. Fortunately, she was well-informed and quickly calmed down. She asked cautiously, "What did you see?"
"The white horse passed through a glowing ring, and the road ahead suddenly became clear... a silver-white circular hall... transparent glass on all sides..."
**Dr. Qin** was stunned. This situation was completely beyond her expectations.
Did the hypnosis go wrong? Or was this young man completely out of state and talking nonsense to tease her?
According to her plan, after **Ethan Carter** saw the white horse, she would use the signal "the white horse stopped running" to guide **Ethan Carter** into deep hypnosis, and then start looking for his psychological barriers.
The so-called entering the virtual space together was just a hypnotic rhetoric.
In the past, she had never faced a patient like **Ethan Carter** who would follow the white horse and see these strange scenes.
**Ethan Carter**'s words continued to chatter, but from the initial excitement and clarity, they turned into half-awake mumbling.
**Dr. Qin** frowned and began to record what **Ethan Carter** mentioned.
Outside the glass wall of the silver hall is a vast expanse of green fields and a blue sky, with simple towns on the distant hills...
The winding road crosses the river through a stone arch bridge, and wooden boats with people on board slowly pass under the bridge...
**Dr. Qin** began to realize that the things **Ethan Carter** described belonged to the "old times" and were far earlier than the Iron Dome era.
This is so strange...
After a while, **Ethan Carter**'s mumbling became lighter and lighter, and finally, a steady and regular breathing sound was heard on the recliner.
**Dr. Qin** shook her head and pressed the remote control to turn off the screen.