As Sun Jack watched, the sky outside gradually lightened, and the rain turned from moderate to light.
Sun Jack knew that he couldn't go on like this, sitting around wasn't going to put food on the table.
He rubbed his face vigorously with both hands until it turned red, then gathered his emotions and stood up again.
"Tapai, get up. We must get ourselves a meal today, even if we have to steal, we'll snatch one!"
However, just as he put on the jacket he had dried in the washing machine, Sun Jack noticed a pop-up in the top right corner of his central nervous system screen. It was a vibrating icon of Song 6, humming continuously.
Hesitatingly, he answered and Song 6's tattooed face filled his screen. "yo~~long time no see, bro!"
"What's up? Thinking of paying back the money?" Sun Jack asked impatiently.
"How can I pay back the money if I'm broke, do I look rich to you?"
"If there's nothing else I'm hanging up." Hunger made Sun Jack irritable, so much so that he wished he could bite a chunk of flesh from Song 6's face.
"Hey hey hey! Don't hang up, bro, aren't you looking for work? I've got a job for you, and it pays well!"
"Who told you I'm looking for work?" Sun Jack felt as if his privacy had been invaded.
"I heard it from Tapai, man, he asked if there was any work over here, if he hadn't mentioned it I would've asked someone else."
Sun Jack walked over and thumped the charging Tapai hard, "Can't you be less smart! Can't you ask me first before looking for him?"
Tapai: "(꒪⌓꒪) damn it, didn't you tell me to help you find work? How do you manage to go back on your own words? You can't even afford to eat, so stop the act, if you don't find someone else, you're gonna die at home without anyone to even collect your corpse."
With no alternative, Sun Jack shook his head and turned back to Song 6. "What's the job?"
"Heh, it's a good one! Just get this done, and you two will split at least 5 @ Coins!"
Upon hearing this, Sun Jack's face didn't show any excitement. He wasn't the naive newbie anymore; past job experiences had taught him the real value of @ Coins.
For just 0.15 @ a week, you can hire someone to work themselves to death for you, and now there's a whole 5 @. High pay meant there must be a reason.
"First, tell me what's the job?" Sun Jack asked with his arms crossed.
"Find something."
"What exactly?" Even though he was so poor he could barely afford food, Sun Jack still felt it necessary to ask for details.
Just then, the camera shook as Song 6 said, "Someone's coming, can't talk now. I'll send you the address, come and have a look. We're talking about a team activity this time, not just you, and there are beautiful women too~~!"
Sun Jack was hesitant at first, but when he saw that the meeting place was a restaurant, he immediately grabbed his jacket, put it on, and went out.
"Tapai, stop charging, let's go, we're finally going to eat!"
Riding on Tapai, Sun Jack arrived excitedly at the address Song 6 had given, only to be stunned by the look of the building in front of them.
"You sure this is a place to eat? Feels more like a place to eat crap," Tapai said, looking up.
The so-called restaurant in front of me was a dilapidated bar under an overpass.
The name of the bar was actually Hot Dog Restaurant, which made sense in this city, but its appearance was hardly reasonable.
I could see various black and blue trash bags almost collapsing the rooftop, the slanted neon hot dog sign because of a malfunction, incessantly flashing while also spitting sparks, the ground even more was potholed and awash with filthy water.
"Since we're here already, let's go inside, remember to load your guns." Sun Jack said and walked in.
As soon as he entered, Sun Jack unexpectedly found that there were quite a few people here, unsavory characters dressed in all sorts of cybernetic limbs, gathering in groups of three or five around tables.
Looking at their empty tables, Sun Jack felt that he probably wouldn't find anything to eat in this place.
"Hey!" A metallic arm rose in the corner to the left, waving continuously. "Bro, we're over here!"
With a slight frown, Sun Jack walked over, just about to confront Tapai, when the beauty by his side caught his attention.
She was a young lady draped in a semi-transparent green fluorescent raincoat, underneath which she wore a short-sleeved shirt and hot pants, her figure tall and slender, strands of electromagnetic pulse-emitting purple optical fibers replacing her hair, tied into a ponytail behind her head.
At the moment, she was leaning against a stool, a chip implanted at her temple flashing rapidly, evidently processing some online tasks with her neural system.
"Come on, come over here." Tapai came over familiarly, pulling Sun Jack to sit on the stool, "Let me introduce you, her name is Si Ai, she's the accompanying doctor and engineer for our operation this time."
Hearing her name mentioned, the young lady's chip stopped flashing, and she nodded at Sun Jack.
"Oh? Si Ai? That's a nice name." Sun Jack extended his right hand towards her. "Hello, my name is Sun Jack."
Si Ai looked at Sun Jack's hand and the corners of her mouth lifted slightly as she reached out and gripped it firmly. "First of all, I have to correct something, Si Ai is not my name, Si Ai is my sexual preference."
"Oh, sexual preference, ah? Sexual preference?"
As Sun Jack subconsciously searched his neural system for the meaning of this word, he suddenly felt his soul subjected to a hundred-thousand-tonne shock.
The fourth love is independent of the first kind of love (ordinary heterosexual love), the second kind of love (homosexual male love), and the third kind of love (homosexual female love); it's a new form of love that accepts only women using things to penetrate men.
"My God! Can we not catch a break?! I could understand anywhere else, but who knew even sexual preferences could come up with such gimmicks?!"
While Sun Jack's brain was short-circuiting, the other person's hand was already creeping down his arm.
At that moment, an alarm went off in Sun Jack's mind. "Oh no, this woman is after me!"
The creeped-out Sun Jack hastily stood up, shoving Tapai next to him and quickly switching places with him.
Seeing Sun Jack's actions, Si Ai wasn't annoyed and immediately shifted her target to Tapai. "HI, hello there, little iron scrap, those cybernetic limbs of yours must have cost a pretty penny, huh?"
"No, no, no." Tapai quickly pressed his hand over her restless one, "Σ(゜ロ゜;) I'm begging you, spare me, spare me, my system isn't compatible with your XP."
As the adversary became more and more touchy, after all, it was his own robot, Sun Jack felt obligated to intervene, pointing at Tapai's head, "She's a woman."
With that, Si Ai abruptly lost interest, sheepishly withdrawing her hand.