So, after signing the statement on behalf of the company and filing an official report with the NCPA, Li Pan headed to the next site.
Right—what else could he do? Charge into the sewers, beat the ninja serial killer to the punch, and drag back those two tangled-up monstrosities—capable of ripping alloy armor apart with their bare hands—to lock them in the warehouse?
Don't make him laugh. He'd be better off using that time to pad the daily reports.
So Li Pan continued his container inspections—which, of course, were limited strictly to the containers themselves, not their contents. As long as the system monitor and a visual check showed the containers intact, and his pocket watch confirmed there was no loss of control, the task was complete.
If he had learned anything in these past two days as a temp worker, it was this: once a monster has been contained, don't mess with it. If the rules and procedures look flawless on paper, then even if something goes wrong, it's not on you—it's the fault of the last guy. On the other hand, if you actually uncover a problem, guess who gets stuck cleaning up the mess.
Luckily, the other warehouses were fine. Even though all their temp warehouse staff were dead, at least there hadn't been any large-scale raids by theft rings or corporate attacks, and the security systems were still functioning.
Still, Li Pan noticed something: when office staff were deleted, there was nothing left—not even scraps. But temp warehouse workers often had cybernetic parts left behind.
In reviewing the footage, he could see those leftover parts being swept away by cleaning bots like trash. If it hadn't been for Big Bear's oversized cybernetic frame—and Li Pan's own habit of poking through garbage—he probably wouldn't have noticed.
Could it be that the "three years as a temp" and "save-file deletion" were both part of some bizarre monster's required mechanism…?
Li Pan shuddered. Wait, what was he doing?! Was he making excuses for the company?! Two thousand five hundred a month! No excuses! No questions! If you have to ask, the answer is: the company's garbage!
Refocusing his mindset and sharpening his resolve, Li Pan immediately started filing injury compensation loan applications for all temp workers—pro bono. Who knew if, in a few days, upper management would parachute in a new general manager? Might as well take any chance to fleece the company while he could.
And so the day passed in a blur of container checks and compensation applications.
"Just drop me at the parking lot up ahead. I'll make my own way back after I'm done."
"Local deviation index is slightly high. Are you sure you don't want a security drone escort?"
Not far from the gate of the district, a group of gang members dressed in garish colors, covered in tattoos, dripping gold and silver, and oozing flamboyance, stood glaring at the hovering car parked in the community lot—hands resting on their guns. The two sides looked like they belonged to parallel worlds.
"It's fine. These guys are lawful evil."
Li Pan didn't care. Of course the deviation index was high—this was the outer ring slums, where Big Bear lived. A Latin district. Funny how you couldn't tell, given how much he'd been modified.
"Please stay safe."
Mr. 007 took the hovercar back to the company, while Li Pan undid his suit buttons, grabbed his briefcase, and walked toward the gaudily dressed gangsters.
The dominant power in the Latin community was the Valentinos—also known as the Lovers, the Huálun Tiānbì, or whatever name you preferred. After the nuclear wars turned the Americas into wastelands, Latin refugees had been one of the main labor forces rebuilding Neo-Tokyo. As their numbers grew, so did gangs unified by Latin culture—exploiting those lower on the ladder while defending their own from local gangs' suppression.
By the Night City era, the ambiguous ties between Tokyo's underworld and Takamagahara meant that the Night Group covertly used gangs like the Valentinos to suppress the native gangs, openly and secretly enabling their expansion, stoking inter-gang wars, and killing by proxy.
Given the opportunities the company offered, the Valentinos were relatively polite toward corporate reps—after all, if they could maintain the upper hand, they were happy to play by the rules.
"Looking to die, corpo dog? Get your ass back to your kennel!"
Long guns and handguns were raised at Li Pan's head.
Well, that was polite—if this had been the Maelstrom, they'd have RPG'd his hovercar on sight. That's lawful evil for you.
Li Pan handed over a business card.
"I'm with Monster Corp. I need to see your boss."
"Which boss, smart guy? Do you know how many bosses we have? Who the hell are you here to see?"
Li Pan thought for a moment, eyes narrowing.
"…The 'Pastor'?"
"You brain-dead? You just looked him up online, didn't you? You come all the way here and only then search his name?! You think you can just Google him and get a meeting?!"
Li Pan shrugged.
"He put his contact info online, didn't he? Pretty sure that means he's open to meetings. See? I even booked an appointment. Looks like he's free."
The thug: "…"
The man clearly wanted to blow the corpo's head off, but rules were rules. His cybernetic eyes flickered; he glanced at Li Pan's card, probably checked with the Pastor, then lowered his gun.
"Follow me."
Li Pan, briefcase in hand, followed three Valentino thugs into the neighborhood.
This whole block was their turf—though not exclusively Latin. They were more "rational" than Maelstrom. Thanks to the Night Group's backing, Latinos had a hidden edge in the labor market: higher pay than other ethnic groups, better employment rates. The Valentinos straddled both sides of the law, running black-market firearms, drugs, and braindance alongside legitimate ventures—light manufacturing, restaurants, mechanical workshops—which, while less profitable than crime, kept the cash flow healthy and provided a front for laundering.
The Night Group's legal support meant tax authorities went easier on them than on other gangs. They also maintained order far better than the useless NCPA, so the community's overall condition was decent—flourishing, even.
Still, they were a gang. Murder, robbery, drug deals—plenty of bounties hung over their heads. If someone wiped out the whole district, you could probably pay off a loan with the reward money.
Soon, Li Pan arrived at a church. Sure enough, the Pastor was an actual pastor—running the church on Valentino turf, along with an orphanage and community center.
Men like this were legends—slaughtering their way through oceans of blood in youth, feared across Night City, then one day turning their back on it all to protect their community.
So he ran the church, supported the poor, and acted as a mediator between factions. The younger bosses had grown up hearing his stories and gave him respect, so he also served as a broker—settling disputes, arranging jobs, and collecting fees.
"Weapons here."
A fully cybernetic bodyguard blocked the church door.
One look at his military-grade frame told Li Pan he'd been modified in the same batch as Big Bear. Li Pan handed over the Black Kite—it didn't have bullets yet anyway.
"Please, sit, Mr. Li. It's rare to have such a distinguished guest. What can I do for your company?"
The Pastor looked like an ordinary old shopkeeper—not a war god, though who knew what he had stashed away.
"Big Bear's dead. You knew him, right?"
The Pastor nodded. "I remember him. A good kid. Wanted to be a pro wrestler, but he was too kind, too honest for underground fights. I sent him into the army instead."
Li Pan opened his briefcase and took out a stack of neatly organized documents.
"Good—then you'll understand. Our company's had some incidents lately. These are loan applications for workplace injury compensation. They're all residents of this district. I'm sure you know them. We just need direct family signatures. Could I leave them with you to handle?"
There was no way he'd track down each family himself—wandering into rival turf as a stranger was basically asking to die. You always went to the top.
The Pastor looked a bit surprised as he leafed through the papers.
"You came here to deliver these? Forgive me, but… no one's ever cared about such things before."
Of course not—this was Night City. Death was routine. Most people didn't even get a body back. Funerals were a luxury.
Li Pan shrugged. "Big Bear helped me. This is the least I can do. And since many of your people work for us, I thought I'd bring them all at once."
The Pastor studied him, testing.
"That's a large sum in interest-free loans. You're sure you trust me with this?"
Li Pan understood. In these times, an interest-free loan was practically cash, and gangs had ways of forcing families to sign and skimming their cut.
But that was how things worked. Without gang protection, ordinary people couldn't keep that kind of money. He'd been sheltered in a military academy; these families couldn't just relocate. They'd be paying the Valentinos protection anyway.
"I've heard of your reputation, and I know your gang plays by the rules. The money will benefit the community, and no one will go too far.
I also hope this builds a foundation of trust. If we can't even handle aftercare, it'll be hard to recruit here in the future.
If this goes well, I may need your help finding more good men like Big Bear."
The Pastor nodded. "Thank you for your trust. I've heard of your company, too—lots of rules, long probation periods. Kids looking for quick cash don't go to you. Big Bear had his reasons.
But the job market's been bad. Many here are unemployed and want stable work. If you trust me, I can introduce people—honest workers without gang ties or criminal records. Many have factory experience and will meet your needs."
Li Pan nodded. "May I ask why they lost their jobs?"
The Pastor sighed. "What else? They just… got old."
Li Pan was silent for a moment, then gestured to the forms.
"Monster Corp can be dangerous—high mortality rate. If they're okay with that, have them apply to HR. I can request a referral fee."
The Pastor smiled. "At my age, I'm not chasing fees. I just want to help my friends."
Li Pan shook his hand. "I hope we can be friends too."
"May the Lord bless you."
The labor dispatch deal went well, and word spread that Li Pan was here to create jobs. The thugs stopped shadowing him, took an e-photo for the gang's surveillance system, and flagged him for free passage in the district.
On his way out, Li Pan bought special high-caliber rounds for the Black Kite from the Valentino black market—depleted uranium AP, explosive, incendiary, electromagnetic disruptor—forty rounds each, for 800 cash.
Armed now, he took the metro home. The massive, black, oversized handgun on his belt kept the junkies away.
Back at his apartment building, he planned to grab an energy bar and study Nine Yin Manual—but spotted a kid in a school uniform, pig-faced and wiping a bloody nose, waiting for the elevator.
"Huh? Huang Dahe? Someone beat you up?"
"You're… oh, mop-head. You shaved it…"
The kid squinted at him for a while before recognizing him.
"I'm fine… oh, you found a job? Congrats…"
"Bwahaha! Cut the crap! Look at your face—it's all swollen! You look just like Pigsy!"
Laughing until his eyes watered, Li Pan tossed him an energy drink.
Huang Dahe sighed, pressing the chilled can to his bruises.
"What, some rich brat bullied you? Because you ranked first?"
Li Pan didn't even need to guess—small-town overachievers in elite schools were prime targets for rich kids' bullying. Sometimes they got pushed to suicide; the bullies walked away scot-free, maybe transferred at worst. The parents were the ones left suffering.
A quick scan told Li Pan, "No broken bones—not as bad as when you got hurt playing ball. Get your mom to grab a first-aid kit when she's back. You'll be fine in a week."
"She's been working overtime for days… and I'm not telling her. She'll just nag me to death."
He plucked a loose tooth, spat blood.
"Hang in there, kid. Once you graduate, it gets easier."
Li Pan patted his shoulder. The elevator arrived, and they squeezed in together.
"Easier, huh? Hey, mop-head, you graduated—was it really easier?"
Huang's mood was low; the elevator newsfeed was all corpses and economic crises.
Li Pan scratched his face, thought for a moment.
"Not really easier. But look at me—back in school, I got beaten up too, and I'm still here. Hang on—you never know, things might turn around."
Huang eyed his suit with envy. "Didn't you go to a military academy? You got beat up there too?"
"What do you think? Lights out, they drag you out of bed, pin your limbs, gag you, and beat you with a blanket-wrapped boot. Hurts like hell, no bruises.
There's always one or two unlucky guys in a unit. The instructors don't care—maybe they think group bullying builds cohesion. Who knows. Anyway, how'd you end up like this? Bullies don't usually go for the face."
Huang swallowed, then admitted,
"There's this new kung fu movie… some rednecks bought the hero's fighting mod, got bored with punching e-sandbags, so they used me for practice… Hey, mop-head, how'd you hold it in?"
"Me? I didn't. I waited until I graduated and hit back. Just remember your grudges. One day, find a way to settle them, and it's done."
"Settle… as in beat them up?"
"Yeah. Or take them apart and sell them."
"Take them… apart…?"
Ding!
The elevator arrived. They pried open the doors and stepped out together.
.
.
.
⚠️ 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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