Trickster Hunter.

Chapter 558 First Name: Charles

"What?" Yang Qiaoxi narrowed her eyes. "Do you have a grudge against sea buckthorn roses?"

"It's more than just a grudge!" the mercenary said, glaring fiercely at Su Yue. "My two closest brothers, one was seduced by the stinking mark of the Seabuckthorn Rose and willingly became someone's scapegoat; the other was ambushed by the Seabuckthorn Rose on the way back from a mission, and his body was even dumped in the wilderness... These women are the kind of people who eat people without spitting out the bones!"

"Tsk, he really has a lot of bitterness and hatred." Yang Qiaoxi looked at the mercenary with a hint of sympathy in her eyes.

"This woman... could she be protected by the Heavenly Pivot Tower?" the mercenary asked.

"I don't know." Yang Qiaoxi offered a convincing answer, then looked directly at Sun Hang, who was standing not far away.

“If we hand this woman over to you, what would you do with her?” Sun Hang suddenly asked.

"Torture her with the cruelest methods I can think of, make her wish she were dead, and when she's on her last breath, throw her into the territory of the flesh-eating ants, so she can experience what it's like to be eaten piece by piece by thousands of flesh-eating ants..." the mercenary said through gritted teeth.

"Aren't you afraid that the people from Seabuckthorn Rose will retaliate against you?" Sun Hang asked again.

"Didn't all her companions die at Giant's Hill?" The mercenary looked up at Sun Hang. "Could it be that Tian Shu Tower and Seabuckthorn Rose have a cooperative relationship?"

“No, but I won’t hand her over to you.” Sun Hang glanced at the trembling Su Yue. “I still have a use for this person.”

"Useful?" The mercenary was taken aback at first, then he understood the implication in Sun Hang's words. "How is it used?"

"Making the most of everything," Sun Hang replied.

“…Okay.” The mercenary slowly exhaled, then spat forcefully at Su Yue’s feet before turning and leaving.

"How do you intend to make the most of her?" Yang Qiaoxi asked curiously. "Are you really going to use her for live experiments?"

Sun Hang didn't answer Yang Qiaoxi's question directly. Instead, he walked up to Su Yue, squatted down, and hooked her chin with his finger, asking, "That mercenary really wants to kill you... He doesn't even want you to die a quick death. I'm curious to know, after you and your companions reunite, how will you take revenge on him?"

“Sea buckthorn rose has offended many people…we know our reputation is bad,” Su Yue murmured softly. “If we were to take revenge on all of them, we simply wouldn’t have the time or energy…as long as they don’t attack us, we won’t bother with them…”

“He hasn’t attacked you not because he doesn’t want to, but because I’m here,” Sun Hang said. “What if I hand you over to him now?”

"Please, please don't... I'll do anything you want, I'll agree to any condition!" Su Yue pleaded urgently, "Just don't hand me over... I'll do anything!"

"Did you say the same thing to those two hunters who saved you?" Sun Hang suddenly changed the subject, choking Su Yue's plea in his throat.

“You…you’re different…” Su Yue whispered, “Sea buckthorn roses would never offend the Heavenly Pivot Tower…”

"That's not necessarily true. Didn't you plan to ambush and kill us before?"

"We were framed!" Su Yue argued.

"How much longer until your companions arrive?" Sun Hang abruptly changed the subject.

"I...I...I don't quite know." Su Yue lowered her head. "My hunter's bracelet is completely destroyed, and I've lost contact with the organization..."

“I searched her,” Yang Qiaoxi said. “She didn’t have any communication devices on her.”

"If not on their bodies, then what about inside their bodies?" Sun Hang said casually. "I've heard that some criminals use their bodies as a means of transportation to hide contraband inside their bodies for transport... So it's reasonable for an organization like Seabuckthorn Rose to implant a miniature locator or something in its members' bodies, right?"

"With your abilities, if she really has something like that in her body, you could detect it anytime, right?" Yang Qiaoxi rolled her eyes at Sun Hang, annoyed.

"The Seabuckthorn Rose people will definitely come." The mercenary who had just left returned and tossed two vacuum-packed bags of braised duck legs to Sun Hang—in the resource-scarce no-man's-land, these two bags of braised duck legs could be considered a generous gift.

“The bounty offered by Tian Shu Tower is too high. Seabuckthorn Rose will never let go of such a juicy piece of meat,” the mercenary said. “Not to mention, in their eyes, people like us are also juicy meat.”

“The rewards from the Tian Shu Tower are deposited directly into the participants’ personal accounts. Even if they rob you, they shouldn’t be able to steal any money, right?” Zhu Long asked, somewhat puzzled. “If they had the ability to hack into personal accounts, neither the federal government nor the major banks would stand idly by.”

“If you are captured alive, they have countless ways to make you reveal your personal account payment password,” the mercenary sneered. “If you accidentally die, before news of your death or disappearance reaches Yumen or Longcheng, a wife or live-in girlfriend you may have never met in your lifetime will suddenly appear and inherit your estate through various means… This infamous organization has grown and thrived in this way.”

"Doesn't the Hunter Management Bureau of Dragon City handle this?" Sun Hang asked curiously.

“We can’t control them.” The mercenary unscrewed the bottle cap, took a swig of what he couldn’t tell was alcohol or some other beverage, then kicked a small pebble far away. “They know how to exploit loopholes in the rules. Their illegal activities all take place in uninhabited areas, making it difficult to catch them red-handed—sometimes even if you know it was the Seabuckthorn Roses who cheated you, you can’t get enough evidence to sue them. Besides, many people in Dragon City’s Hunter Management Bureau have connections with members of the Seabuckthorn Roses…”

"What kind of relationship?"

"It's the kind of relationship you're thinking of," the mercenary said indignantly. "Besides the hunter mercenaries, this organization also recruits some pretty and well-built young women, even if these women have no combat ability or any special skills other than their looks... Guess what they recruit these people for?" "It seems that the Hunter Management Bureau of Dragon City needs a major overhaul..." Sun Hang nodded thoughtfully.

“Any hunter who’s spent a year or two in the Hexi Corridor knows that this damn Management Bureau is full of problems, but what’s the use? What we say doesn’t matter, and what you say… you’re from the Tian Shu Tower, so maybe it’ll be of some use, but not by much… at most it’ll just be a temporary fix, and once the heat dies down, everything will be back to normal.” The mercenary shrugged. “I’m used to it. I just complain a bit when I’m bored. Anyway, I’m not a hunter, so I don’t have to deal with those people.”

"There will be changes, and big changes." As he spoke, Sun Hang had already given the mainframe a new order: once this operation is over, abolish the Dragon City Hunter Management Bureau and have the Tian Shu Tower mainframe take over all the work of the original Hunter Management Bureau.

Doing this might consume some of the mainframe's computing power, but the mainframe currently has a surplus of computing power. Let alone a Dragon City, the mainframe can handle ten times the workload.

Once Sun Hang retrieves the other half of the Sphinx's brain, the main brain's computing power will experience a qualitative leap. According to the main brain's own estimation, after the two halves of the Sphinx's brain are reunited, without using its prophetic abilities, the computing power of this super biological computer alone will be sufficient to process all the information in the entire Earth-Moon system.

Even after humanity reclaims all the lost territories on Earth and delegates all information processing to the mainframe, the mainframe can still manage an additional moon... This doesn't refer to the current moon, but to a moon fully inhabited by humans after they have colonized it.

Although no one knows if that day will ever come, it at least illustrates the limits of what the Sphinx's brain can achieve.

The surplus computing power will then be fully utilized to analyze all sorts of strange memes, develop targeted weapons and equipment, and so on—besides prophecy, this thing can do so many things.

As for the Hunter Management Bureau of Dragon City, Sun Hang had no intention of investigating it at all—when a cockroach is exposed in front of you, there may already be several nests of cockroaches in places you can't see. If you want to completely change the status quo, you can only break the original framework and rebuild a new order.

Just then, Pei Zongjun's voice suddenly rang in Sun Hang's earpiece: "The main brain of the Tian Shu Tower is controlled by half of the Sphinx's brain, which is essentially a kind of monster. Is it a bit inappropriate to let a monster manage humans?"

"Old man Pei? You're not dead?" Sun Hang was slightly taken aback, then activated a soundproof barrier and asked into his headset.

"I am an artificial intelligence simulated based on the personality of the previous administrator, Pei Zongjun. This is an additional insurance measure that Pei Zongjun added to prevent the main brain from going out of control. When the main brain's authority exceeds a certain red line, I will be activated and temporarily take over the main brain," Pei Zongjun's voice said.

Is this... a cyber ghost?

"So how do you think this should be handled? Should we let the Hunter Management Bureau continue to rot? Or should we transfer a group of sufficiently talented people from other places? But I think these are just temporary solutions... As long as power exists, corruption will breed. Humans have desires. Unless I can find a way to remove all these people's desires, but if I do that, are they still human?"

“Perhaps we can find a compromise,” Pei Zongjun’s AI personality said, “but that will take time.”

“You just asked me if it was inappropriate to let a monster manage humans. So let me ask you, what do you think I am? A monster? An infected person? Or a human? Why would you entrust this power and responsibility to me? Aren’t you afraid I’ll just give up?” Sun Hang retorted.

"This is a conclusion drawn from the mastermind's prophecy..."

"Is this prophetic ability derived from half of the Sphinx's brain? In other words, this prophecy comes from a monster. You believed a so-called prophecy told to you by a monster, and then handed over power to someone who you don't know if they are a monster or a human... So let me ask you, don't you think there's something wrong with that?"

Pei Zongjun's AI personality remained silent for a long time before finally sighing: "Alright, you're right. As for my motives, perhaps it's because I've seen too many hopeless futures that I chose to bet all my chips on the only glimmer of hope that appears in the face of despair... You can think of it as me gambling."

"Since you've already placed your bet, let's wait and see the results."

Sun Hang turned off the soundproof barrier, and Yang Qiaoxi's voice immediately came in: "What were you muttering to yourself just now? I couldn't hear you at all?"

"Nothing much? I was just thinking about some things, and my lips just started moving involuntarily when I was thinking about them," Sun Hang casually made up an excuse.

“Wow, that’s not a good habit,” Yang Qiaoxi said. “What if you run into someone who can read lips? Wouldn’t all your thoughts be exposed?”

“That’s true.” Sun Hang nodded, and decided that next time he used a soundproof barrier in front of others, he should add an illusionary trick to deceive the eyes to be on the safe side.

"Speaking of which, what's your name?" Sun Hang asked the mercenary.

“Charles,” the mercenary said.

“You look like a pure-blooded Xia Zhou person, so why did you choose a Western name? Is it a code name?” Yang Qiaoxi asked.

Charles took off his helmet, scratched his short hair which was deformed by the helmet, and said helplessly, "My surname is Charles, and my given name is Charles... This is my name, not a code name. It was given to me by my foreign-worshipping father. He said this name sounds fancy, and if I ever join a big company, I'll need an English name anyway. It's so convenient to just call me Charles."

“Your father’s views are from so many years ago…” Yang Qiaoxi couldn’t help but rub her forehead and said, “After the United States and the European Union collapsed, all the Xia State branches of those foreign companies were acquired by the federal government long ago. Now, which big company still needs its employees to have English names?”

“There’s nothing I can do. I can’t go against my dad’s wishes. That’s my name on my household registration. I got used to it and I was too lazy to change it,” Charles said. “My dad passed away when I was in high school. If he knew I ended up in this line of work, he’d climb out of his coffin and beat me up.”

"Isn't cremation now the standard procedure? Everyone uses urns, where are the coffins anymore?" Yang Qiaoxi muttered under her breath. "Because of the existence of the monster meme, burial might lead to zombie resurrection, causing many unnecessary monster attacks..."

“Yeah, the old man’s been burned to ashes, haha.” Charles laughed without a care in the face of Yang Qiaoxi’s slightly hellish吐槽 (tu cao, a Chinese internet slang term for sarcastic or sarcastic remarks). “I had forgotten about it if you hadn’t mentioned it.”

Mercenaries are generally indifferent to life and death—whether it's their own or the lives of others.

(End of this chapter)