Chapter 505 - 348: Cyber Bodhisattva, Underground Mission

The sound was bizarre. It wasn't the deep, melodious chanting of a traditional temple, but rather… a synthetic, electronic texture. Its ethereal quality was laced with a mechanical coldness, yet strangely, it wasn't off-putting.

Wu Liangchen paused and looked toward the sound.

Deep within the ruins, he saw a few crooked metal struts, tattered canvas, and plastic sheets cobbled together into a crude yet distinctly cyberpunk… temple?

A few exposed energy conduits snaked around the "temple's" frame like blood vessels, emitting a faint blue glow.

A plaque made from a repurposed screen hung at the entrance. A few distorted runes flickered across it, their language indecipherable.

What struck him as even stranger were the figures he saw approaching the entrance. They entered the temple with the quiet reverence of pilgrims.

They were the local poor.

Curiosity piqued, Wu Liangchen masked his presence and slipped into the shadows, peering intently.

His gaze pierced the darkness and the simple door curtain, allowing him to vaguely make out the scene inside the temple.

The statues enshrined inside seemed to be of Buddhas. But their designs were so strange they completely shattered his preconceptions.

They retained the general silhouette and posture of a Buddha, but their bodies were pieced together from assorted metal parts, discarded chips, flashing LED lights, and transparent culture dishes. Some had mechanical arms; others had camera lenses for eyes. In the chest cavity of one statue, you could even see a slowly flowing liquid that emitted a faint glow.

These "Cyber Buddhas" looked utterly grotesque, yet they radiated an indescribable solemnity and… compassion. It was as if they shouldered all the suffering and coldness of this land, yet still emitted some faint light in the darkness.

'What is this? Some new religion, one adapted to the times? Or something else entirely?'

Wu Liangchen's brow furrowed in thought. The discovery was both unexpected and intriguing.

Just then, he felt a gaze upon him. The source was the dilapidated Cyber Temple ahead.

He didn't sense any malice, but Wu Liangchen was startled nonetheless and quickly retreated.

Everything about Zhongjing City was unsettling. He would have to be even more cautious than before.

'But with the iron fist Zhongjing City rules with, how could it allow such a religion to exist?'

Wu Liangchen wondered silently but quickly buried the questions deep in his mind.

'This isn't the time to be thinking about this. Finding Old K and getting the intel I need is the top priority.'

Wu Liangchen pressed on, soon arriving before a dilapidated apartment building. It resembled a giant beehive, its facade a dense lattice of narrow windows and external pipes.

This was the Hive Apartment.

The intel said Old K lived on the top floor of the Hive Apartment. Wu Liangchen avoided the addicts in the hallways, quickened his pace, and reached the top floor in a few flickers of movement.

The top-floor corridor was even narrower and dimmer, the air thick with the smell of machine oil and burnt circuits. A crude "K" was scrawled in graffiti on the metal door at the far end.

Wu Liangchen knocked on the door.

The door slid open without a sound. The room inside was crammed with screens, cables, and scattered electronic components. It was extremely dim, with only the faint glow of the monitors illuminating the central area.

A figure was reclining in a custom chair bristling with ports. Most of his body had been replaced with metal and synthetics. Innumerable fine cables snaked like vines from the nape of his neck and his spine, jacking into the mainframe and other equipment behind him. Only his pale, gaunt face remained human, but his eyes had been replaced by cybernetics that streamed with data.

He didn't even look up. A cold, synthetic voice spoke directly. "You looking for me?"

"I hear you can get any information," Wu Liangchen said, stepping into the room. The door slid shut behind him.

"Depends on the info... and what you can pay." Old K's voice was devoid of inflection. The data streams in his cybernetic eyes flickered rapidly, as if he were scanning and analyzing Wu Liangchen.

"I want to look into... the history of the Alliance." Wu Liangchen didn't say outright that he wanted to probe the Alliance's deepest secrets, instead opting for a vaguer approach.

Old K was silent for a moment. The only sound in the room was the low hum of his equipment.

"The Alliance's history?" The synthetic voice held a trace of derision. "Hmph. The official archives are full of that. You can look it up on any public terminal. No need to come to me."

"I'm not looking for the official story," Wu Liangchen said calmly.

The flickering in Old K's cybernetic eyes accelerated, as if he were running some complex calculation or information retrieval protocol.

"Interesting..." He finally showed a flicker of a reaction. "You want to know what's 'underneath'? Fine. But you know my terms."

"Name it," Wu Liangchen said crisply.

"Simple." Old K's cybernetic eyes projected a three-dimensional map that hovered in the air. It highlighted several red zones beneath the city—the very same abandoned subway stations and fortifications Skinny had mentioned.

"Go to these coordinates and retrieve some 'relics of the Old World' for me. As for what they are, my terminal will instruct you when you arrive."

He paused, then added, "A word of warning. Those places... aren't safe. No one's dared to go in for years. The ones who did never came back out. If you don't think you're up to it, you can walk away right now. But if you overestimate yourself and end up dead, don't say I didn't warn you."