After spending such a long time in District 17, Song Lan finally mustered the courage to walk through the doors of the Prosthetic Hospital for the first time.
If he hadn't prepared himself mentally in advance, he would have mistaken the place for a haunted house - discarded limbs, various artificial organs laid out in transparent Petri dishes. Not long after he walked in, a bloodied patient on a stretcher was wheeled out of a ward.
As the stretcher passed Song Lan, he clearly saw a hollowed-out hole on the patient's face, revealing a nauseating sight of flesh and blood.
Song Lan thought it strangely resembled a biolab from a video game he had once played.
"Sir, is this your first visit to our Prosthetic Hospital?"
Soon, a nurse with a radiant smile approached him.
"Yes."
"Here is our hospital's menu, please take a look."
Song Lan thanked her and took the tablet computer she handed him. After following the instructions on the screen, a 3D projection of a human body appeared in front of him.
The Third-Round Prosthetic Hospital thoughtfully integrated all sorts of surgical procedures into holographic projections. He lightly touched the arm section of the human projection with his index finger, and a detailed price list appeared before him:
"Multi-functional Type III Alloy Package: Recast your arm with advanced synthetic materials. Lightweight and flexible. Built-in 7.5mm ammunition barrel, Palm Blade (Glass State Alloy), and a micro arc generator. Ideal for home and travel. Original price: 397,777 watts. Order now and enjoy a 30% discount."
...
Song Lan quickly counted, there were 12 packages just for arm modifications. Majority of the items were standard packages of an ammunition barrel plus a Palm Blade, the difference lay in the type of bullets used and the material of the Palm Blade.
The cheapest set still cost over 350,000 watts, equivalent to his annual salary of a year and a half.
And with the change in bullet type and Palm Blade material, the price of the package increased exponentially in a way that Song Lan completely couldn't comprehend.
For example, he was quite taken with one particular package labeled "Military-Grade Thermal Cutting Blades" priced at 9.3M watts, equivalent to the price of four to five properties in the most bustling area of District 17. Moreover, this set could not be purchased alone, it must come with a set called the "Carthusian Neuron VII System."
What attracted him wasn't so much the power of the thermal cutting blades, but the accompanying demonstration image was simply too cool.
With a flick of the hand, two luminous blades with light pollution special effects would emerge from the palm.
As a hot-blooded man, who could resist equipping such a cool weapon to fight for the Archbishop?
But no matter how much he wanted it, he probably couldn't afford the package even if he was sold.
Moreover, he noticed a problem with the pricing of these packages. If we put aside those astronomically priced premium packages worth millions of watts, the efficiency of the remaining "civilian packages" was not much different from carrying a gun on their backs.
In District 17, a little over 30,000 watts could buy a whole arsenal of equipment.
The other absurdity that shocked Song Lan was the bounty on Chai Ke. He originally thought that a 620,000 watts reward was astronomical, but compared to these number digits, it was just a drop in the ocean.
As a madman with more than 21% body modification, he was confident that the money Chai Ke spent on modifying his body would definitely exceed this number, especially since Lu Xiang mentioned that Chai Ke even implanted accessories that were not available in the market.
At this point, Song Lan came to an important conclusion.
For some reason, once a prosthesis has been implanted into the human body, it will depreciate.
It was like playing a game with premium purchases. Big players might have spent tens of thousands on an account, but when they sell them, they might not even be able to recover a tenth of the price.
Song Lan had always adhered to frugality. He dismissed this kind of investment.
Just by taking a cursory glance while sitting in the chair, he had already rejected the value of prosthetic implants from the aspects of practicality and preservation. So now it's time to get down to brass tracks.
"Nurse, could you tell me..."
Before he could finish his sentence, several obnoxiously-postured figures blocked his way.
The nurse noticed the situation and gave him a sympathetic yet helpless look.
'Damm it!'
Had his luck run dry these few days?
Three burly men stood before Song Lan, bare-chested, and surrounded him in a triangular formation, their knuckles cracking ominously.
Without a word, the three men made their intentions clear.
"What's up, Bro?"
Song Lan managed to squeeze out a smile.
"We've been watching you." The lead burly man's eyes were as sharp as a hawk. He pointed at Song Lan's right hand and said, "You boy, are you a cop?"
"Of course not."
Song Lan immediately denied it. Lu Xiang had warned him just the night before that Chai Ke's men were looking for lone Law Enforcers. Admitting it now would surely spell trouble.
"No more excuses; I've already seen it."
The burly man grabbed Song Lan's wrist and maliciously turned his palm around. The dimmed Gun Shield Emblem immediately came into everyone's view.
In the law enforcement department, this Gun Shield Emblem is equivalent to their employee ID. When they clock in and out, they just need to scan their palms on a recognizer located at the entrance of the big courtyard.
The burly man holding his wrist immediately broke into a sinister smile. "Ha, I never thought that a cop would dare to walk into our territory! I was just wondering where I could find you guys!"
Another crisis was upon him.
In an unexpected way.
When the burly man mentioned that it was their territory, Song Lan finally realized that he seemed to have made a mistake - he had found some news online about Sanxun Prosthetic Hospital taking black money from patients, and therefore thought that as long as he paid, the unscrupulous doctors would, against their conscience, forge a diagnostic certificate that confirmed he was unable to receive a prosthetic implant for him.
But he never imagined that the place was even darker than he had thought. Not only would there be doctors taking black money from patients, it was under the cover of criminals.
The biggest problem now was that many people had seen him enter this prosthetic hospital.
The patients on either side of the corridor, the nurse who received him, and the surveillance in the corridor.
"What are you looking around for? Give up, no one here will help you!"
The burly man noticed Song Lan's wandering eyes and yelled out a very threatening statement.
His threatening call was quite effective, as the wavering patients nearby immediately looked away. They dared not draw attention to themselves and be implicated. As for the doctors and nurses, they never intended to assist him in the first place.
"12 people..."
Excluding the monitoring, just in the corridor alone, 12 people had witnessed his arrival.
In other words, if anything happens to the three men in front of him, the Law Enforcers will be able to corroborate from 12 different people that they argued with him preceding the incident.
"What did you say?"
The burly man was still gripping Song Lan's wrist, and his spattered saliva was making Song Lan even more agitated.
"I said..."
Song Lan took a deep breath, trying to calm his restless heart, "There are too many people here. It'll affect the hospital's consultation queue."
"Oh? I didn't expect you to be so compliant."
The burly man hadn't expected Song Lan to say that, he was taken aback at first, then said, "Let's go somewhere more 'private' to have a chat."