Finally, the workday was over.
Yes, even in the corporate-controlled cyberpunk megaverse, there was still such a thing as "getting off work."
After all, the annual five-day paid leave, the mandatory seven-day workweek, and the twelve-hour daily shifts were already pushing the biological limits of the overworked corporate drones.
Some companies ran two shifts — day and night — mainly to keep the machines running nonstop. But of course, there was no overtime pay.
And if everyone just lived at the company, who would buy houses? Would the real estate business even survive? Besides, if you lived at the company, would you pay rent? Off work! Everyone get the hell out! Who cares how long your commute is — clock out and get lost!
And so, Li Pan's first day on the job ended in such chaotic fashion.
Squeezed into the subway with a crowd of fellow wage slaves, Li Pan stared blankly at his reflection in the train window like everyone else.
Of course, the others' cybernetic eyes glittered with neon as they immersed themselves in short videos and games on the QVN network. Li Pan, however, was genuinely just zoning out.
For a moment, he even wondered if he had really transmigrated at all.
Before crossing over, he'd been a salaryman. After crossing over, he was still a salaryman. If, after dying in this life, he ended up a salaryman again in the next… would this be some kind of endless, interdimensional overtime hell? Damn — that thought was terrifying.
He shook it off, quickly logging into the net and numbing himself with a dose of digital heroin-B.
These days, the ways to get addicted in the virtual network were endless. With the advancement of technology, you could truly roam the net — the virtual world had been built to be almost indistinguishable from the real one.
Virtual streamers, pro gamers, online artists — all sorts of jobs could be done entirely online.
And if you had the money, you could get an immersion pod, or even live in a capsule hotel–style net café. With your body soaking in nutrient fluid and attended by caretakers, you could literally become a "permanent" ghost in the electronic ocean.
In his past life, Li Pan had been a gamer. With no parents to watch over him in this one, he'd almost fallen into that ghostly fate.
But QVN wasn't safe.
While the public network was monitored by the Public Safety System, there were always illegal deep-net servers — and the system couldn't stop you from digging your own grave.
One wrong click into a trap, and you could lose everything. Going bankrupt was the best-case scenario; worst case, you'd become a remotely controlled electronic zombie.
Li Pan had been burned before. When he'd first crossed into this world, he'd tried streaming as a pro gamer in his spare time. At first, things went well — he even made a small pile of credits. But then he got hacked. If he hadn't been on the secure military academy intranet at the time, the hacker might have gone much further… maybe even killed him.
But his beloved gaming account was stolen, and during the hack's "puppet attack," he'd lost all bodily control in an instant — blind, deaf, numb, like being locked in a sealed elevator, falling endlessly. The helplessness and despair had scarred him deeply.
Since then, he'd developed a psychological shadow toward major VR games — and the deep-net section of QVN in general. These days, he stuck to public network content and shallow-level TV shows.
Every time he saw those endless strings of connection code, he couldn't help but imagine malicious hackers hiding behind the dazzling lights, countless unseen eyes staring at him.
The vast virtual net was like a great, empty abyss — fall in, and you'd never climb back out.
He could only bounce between the edge of that abyss and the hell of reality, back and forth, barely keeping from collapsing.
And ordinary people these days were just like him. Madness was always just one step away.
"Ahhh!" — Screech!
The sharp brakes jolted Li Pan out of his mental movie. Instinctively, he triggered Xingtian combat mode and linked to the safety network, ready to block any hacking attempt while scanning his surroundings.
Up ahead, someone had jumped onto the tracks. Blood sprayed in through the subway's doors and windows, spattering everyone pink.
This cursed subway… On the suburban loop, it was junkies overdosing and defecating; on the city lines, it was people throwing themselves under trains. The floors were always brown — either blood or shit.
The train had to stop until maintenance drones could clean the mangled bones and organs.
Li Pan followed the crowd out to wait, crouching down to wipe the blood off his shoes.
That's when a Public Safety Network warning flashed before his eyes:
Regional Safety Deviation Rising
Li Pan tensed immediately, hand resting on the safety of his Evernight sidearm.
The safety deviation — as much as he hated the concept — could sometimes save your life.
It was a Public Safety Network algorithm based on the monitored environment of Night City — no, the entire multiverse public safety net. It measured violent crime and danger levels against baseline values for each area.
In the central districts, the safety threshold was high; in the industrial scrapyards, it was low. But normally, the numbers stayed steady.
When a region's balance shifted — a threat arriving or a local power leaving — the deviation spiked.
In simpler terms: danger ahead.
Then he saw them — four massive men, each nearly two meters tall, stepping off the train with heads down.
He turned his head and spotted more than a dozen men in black trench coats, sunglasses, and corporate-issue cyber-eyes emerging from every subway entrance and corridor.
An ambush.
At the same instant, the leading black man among the giants sniffed the air and roared:
"Nightstalkers!!"
He ripped two submachine guns from under his jacket — smart weapons.
The station erupted into gunfire.
Li Pan dove behind a metal trash bin as the two sides traded bullets, flashbangs, and smoke grenades. Commuters screamed, bodies dropping in waves.
The corp goons at least used smart ammo that tried to avoid civilians. The big men, though, were firing illegally modded weapons with devastating rounds, tearing the station apart like a demolition job.
Li Pan placed a quick bet on the nightly death lottery — who knew, maybe this would be the jackpot.
No point expecting the NCPA — the Nightstalkers were the Yè Group's elite security force, part gang, part black ops. No one else would dare stage a firefight in the heart of Night City's subway. The police would only show up to mop up.
These giants were absurdly tough, shrugging off smart rounds and retaliating in coordinated squads, trying to fight their way into the tunnels.
Li Pan suspected they were full-body bioware conversions — though not Aka-Inu units, or else the Cerberus Squad would have already dropped thermobarics on them.
Then a black figure burst from the smoke — a woman in a black leather trench coat, short black hair, twin pistols blazing.
Her exquisite face, glowing blue eyes, and near-flight acceleration screamed one thing: Yè Group's combat vampires, or "Blood Clan" as they preferred to be called.
They were famous for beauty, speed, strength, regeneration, and immortality — the pinnacle of Night Warriors.
The female Nightstalker danced through crossfire, killed three giants in seconds, but was finally shot and thrown right over Li Pan's head, crashing into the wall before ending up beside him.
They ducked behind the bin together — only for her to grab his Evernight and bite into his hand, drinking greedily.
"Damn it!"
Even as he struggled, her wound healed before his eyes, the bullet popping out. She moaned in bliss, drinking more, eyelids fluttering.
Across the station, the last giant roared, tearing off his skin to reveal the beast Li Pan had once seen at the hidden tunnel's gate, before smashing through a train and escaping down the tracks.
Li Pan shoved the vampire off. "Hey! Your prey's getting away!"
She glared, then bolted after it. The other Nightstalkers vanished into the tunnels like black shadows.
His heirloom pistol was gone.
With the subway out of service and no money for a cab, he walked two extra stops home, grabbing a twenty-credit bowl of wonton noodles from a street stall.
On his left, a snoring drunk; on his right, a kid gaming in VR glasses; on the TV, an Explosive Ball match — a rugby-like sport where the ball was a bomb.
Li Pan slurped his noodles, watching players die rather than drop the prize money-loaded ball.
Ding. The elevator arrived.
He swallowed the last bite and went upstairs to sleep.
.
.
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⚠️ 30 CHAPTERS AHEAD — I'm Not a Cyberpsycho ⚠️
The system says: Kill.Mercs obey. Corporates obey. Monsters obey.One man didn't.
🧠💀 "I'm not a cyberpsycho. I just think... differently."
💥 High-voltage cyberpunk. Urban warfare. AI paranoia.Read 30 chapters ahead, only on Patreon.
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