Cyberpunk: Nirvana of Shoko Toyokawa

Not counting the email sent to Xiangzi's mobile phone after the live ended.

[Something happened to your father.]

The text is very formal, but to summarize, it only talks about this one thing.

When Xiangzi turned down the celebration banquet and rushed to the Toyokawa family's private mansion, everything was over.

The "Purge" of my father had just been completed. This simple phrase meant that all of his accounts had been closed, all of his assets had been confiscated, all of his implants had been removed, all of his neural enhancements had been burned, and all of his memories of non-essential intelligence had been erased.

Everything that happened in the past eighteen years turned into a dream in just a few hours. This man turned back to the way he was before he married into the Toyokawa family. Or perhaps, even worse.

His identity was crossed out from the social archives and he became a non-existent person.

Then, he was thrown out of the Toyokawa family.

"How is this going!?"

Xiangzi shouted, wanting to get an answer, but the video calls he made to his grandfather and mother only resulted in simple replies.

"Your father screwed up. This is what he has to pay for."

Ding dong.

The bell rang and Xiangzi was awakened from his memories.

She took a deep breath and removed her hands from her face.

She looked at the virtual panel in front of her.

It showed that it was time for her shift to end.

……

After clicking [Exit], Xiangzi dragged his tired body out of the narrow and hidden door of the customer service company.

The poor salary, bad working environment, and working hours that seriously violated the regulations of the City of Music made it clear that this was a black company.

But now Xiangzi can only work here to have energy biscuits to fill his stomach tomorrow.

Because she has no identity either.

What messed up did my father make? Even I can't tell him? In the City of Joy, being "cleansed" and exiled is almost equivalent to dying after being humiliated and tortured! My family of so many years, just because I messed up one thing, I have to be abandoned so cruelly!

Xiangzi couldn't accept it. That day, she stopped the thugs who tried to take her father away, and angrily and resolutely demanded an explanation from her grandfather and mother.

"Father is a good man!"

Xiangzi still remembers what he said at the beginning.

"Let him go. I'll do anything."

However, Grandpa just looked at her.

"You are just a student. Can you afford the lives of others?"

He said.

"Go in, Xiangzi. If you can't do it, don't say it easily."

But Xiangzi is not the kind of person who would bow his head.

She didn't compromise.

And she soon paid the price for her persistence.

……

All accounts were closed, all assets confiscated, all implants removed, all neural enhancements incinerated, and all memories of non-essential intelligence erased.

The identity was scratched from the social profile.

Xiangzi experienced all of this exactly the same way.

A soft-hearted family cannot survive in the era of cybernetics.

Xiangzi knew this, but at that time she was just...

...just a little too naive.

The Toyokawa family does not need an heir who would go against the family's will, nor does it need an heir who would choose reason over interests.

The fact that Xiangzi spoke up for her father changed her own destiny.

The same "cleansing" was used on Xiangzi. She lost everything so quickly that after she and her father were expelled from the Toyokawa family, she stood in the heavy rain and subconsciously wanted to open the navigation system that had been dismantled.

The title of heir is precious, but not that precious.

The Toyokawa family has preserved a copy of Shoko's synapses before she was cleansed, which contains all her skills and knowledge as the heir to the Toyokawa family.

My mother had many lovers outside, and perhaps even illegitimate children - this was not uncommon in this era. It would not be that difficult to find a few children of Toyokawa descent.

At worst, they can start "cultivating" a new one in the incubator from now on.

As long as they feed the new heir a copy of Toyokawa Shoko's synapses, they will have a perfect successor.

A more rational heir without fatal flaws.

……

In the early morning, Xiangzi walked towards his temporary residence through the dark, noisy alleys where there were always half-crazy cyberpsychopath candidates casting creepy glances in the dark.

Half a year has passed since that rainy day when I was kicked out of the house.

“(Now I seem to be able to recall it in a more peaceful state.)”

Xiangzi thought.

A few months ago, if she had had such a dream, she might have woken up in tears.

But now, if you ask her what she thinks about this dream...

“…Those musical instruments are so expensive.”

The crychic rehearsal room in my dream is full of real things of the latest models.

In the past, Xiangzi never cared about the price. But now it seems that a musical instrument might be able to buy a person's life.

"Haha."

In the past, Xiangzi didn't like the decoration of the rehearsal room. She felt that it was "full of inorganic coldness and no temperature".

Now, the place where she lives is warm.

Warm and dirty, with the remnants of human desire all over the floor.

Xiangzi and his father finally settled down in Morfonica's territory. The territory of this band, which was called "Butterfly Group" because its gang logo was a butterfly, had the cheapest accommodation in the whole city of Lezhicheng.

But at the same time, it is also the area with the most serious drug abuse in the entire City of Joy.

A new development area. The gang leader is a newcomer and does not have much experience. The gang has not been established for a long time and has insufficient control over the area.

Amid the chaos caused by these problems, drugs quickly infiltrated the lives of Xiangzi and his daughter.

My father was unable to digest what had happened to him and numbed himself with alcohol and drugs every day.

"Dad, what did you do? Why is the Toyokawa family so determined?"

Xiangzi asked his father countless times.

The key information about my father was deleted, but he should still have some memory of the truth.

Life had to go on. Rent, utilities, food, alcohol and medicine. All of these required money, and debts continued to accumulate on the temporary identity obtained by pre-mortgaging organs. Xiangzi was forced to face everything in front of him.

Intelligence is the most valuable thing in Le City, and it is also the only thing they can exchange for money besides labor. She believes that if she knows what her father has done, she and her father can at least do something to avoid the fate of being hunted down by the thugs who will be detained one day.

However, no matter how she asked, her father refused to tell her. He just lay in his room, drunk and dreaming, day after day.

Xiangzi walked along the street. She could already see the small house where she lived.

“(It will be fine.)”

She comforted herself, just as she had said to herself countless times in the past six months.

"(Father will get better. He is very kind and capable. Wasn't the fact that he married into the Toyokawa family a proof of that?)"

"(When he gets better, I'll see if the information can be used. First, I'll exchange some money and leave here, and then I'll work with my father.)"

“(If my father doesn’t drink or take drugs, the two of us should be able to make money just faster than the debt is accumulating. It’s hard, but as long as we take it step by step…)”

These thoughts supported Xiangzi countless times when she was about to fall, and allowed her to take another tired step.

Xiangzi finally walked back to the door of her home. She took out the key and opened the door.

"I'm home, Dad."

A dizzying smell hit my nose.

There was no response. The house was completely dark.

Xiangzi reached out and turned on the light.

then.

Xiangzi saw his father die at home from taking too many drugs.

Chapter 3 My Father is Dead

Small Kabuki district.

Flashing neon lights, blaring music, and surging crowds.

Everything here seemed to be covered by a big cover, intertwined and melted into a buzzing noise.

Night is the busiest time in the Kabuki district, and every street is crowded with people.

And everyone drank something.

There is no one who is completely sober in this area.

A drunk staggered along the outermost edge of the crowd. He bumped into people several times, swore at them, and was sworn at in return. He walked a few steps forward and bumped into a girl sitting by the flower bed.

"Hey! There's no place to stand here! Who is sitting here and making things worse?"

The drunk started yelling, reeking of alcohol.

"..."

But the girl he bumped into said nothing, just sat there silently, like a senseless doll, her long gray-blue hair hanging down her shoulders, swaying lifelessly because of the drunk's shove.

"Hey! You--look down on your grandfather? Your grandfather is talking to you!"

The drunk became even more angry because he was ignored, and he raised his fist with bone fiber spikes built into it.

Phew.

There was the sound of a pneumatic door opening behind me.

“——Hey, no, no, no, man, man, don’t fight in front of my store.”

In the bar behind the flower bed, a bartender with an infrared thermal imaging prosthetic eye installed on half of his head ran out in a panic.

"There's a conflict at the entrance, and the customer flow will be reduced by half. Brother, please understand, please understand."

The bartender thrust a bottle of red-brand Bolshevik vodka into the drunk's hand. The drunk took a few gulps without even looking at it, then staggered away, cursing.

"Hey, you...you don't have to sit here, come into the store, come into the store."

The bartender grabbed the girl and went into the store.

……

Toyokawa Shoko was dragged into the bar. The music was twice as loud as outside, which made her frown slightly.

This was the first time she showed any expression since her father's death.

My father died and turned into ashes by an underground black doctor.

Xiangzi was not asked to sign any organ disposal agreement because all his organs had already entered the mortgage recovery process, with not a single one left.

Even the ashes were not given to Xiangzi.

Because the debt was so great, the ashes were transferred to the carbon recovery separation process.

Xiangzi didn't intend to fight for it.