Chapter 1098: Chapter 357: So It Was the European Taikun_2

But just like that, her father, who’d been brainwashed by Huang Ban, threw her into the company as a mining GPU for the Old Net.

Later she escaped, drifted around and eventually came to Night City, and in the end ended up mixed up with Lin Miao.

And her whole backstory basically let the corps figure out once and for all where Lin Miao’s tech actually came from.

Isn’t the answer obvious?

This woman definitely dug up some serious loot in the Old Net, then hid it from Huang Ban and ran, and finally hit it off with Lin Miao and started a company to cash in.

And when it comes to high-end tech jobs like hacker work, talent really doesn’t play by your rules sometimes.

The unsolvable problem you’ve spent your whole life banging your head against, the engine you can’t code no matter what—might just be something a genius can handle over a cup of tea.

After all, fifty years ago there was already a batch of super hackers who gave the whole world a masterclass.

Every question got an answer; the logic all checked out.

The only one getting screwed in this process was Huang Ban—every other company was snickering on the sidelines.

They lost a fortune that big plus a top-tier hacker and still didn’t know it; the Huang Ban branch over in Europe is probably about to get their names written on someone’s shit list.

But Devon sure as hell wasn’t going to tell West Fire Grass any of this; his rank was way too low, and even if he asked, nobody would say a word about something this big.

Digging out traitors and stealing intel has to start small, you let the target sink little by little until there’s no way back.

"Do you know this person?"

Devon slid out a photo; it was Pandora eating ice cream on the street.

"Of course I know her."

West Fire Grass slapped his thigh and said angrily,

"That chick’s boobs aren’t big, but her attitude sure is. I just said her little handful looks like it’s still underage, and she pinned me to the wall for a whole day and wouldn’t let me down. It still hurts."

Serves you right!

Son of a bitch, why didn’t she just kill you on the spot!

Devon cursed in his heart, but his face stayed blank as he pulled out a stack of Orokin from his bag and laid it on the table.

"We’ve got a few big bosses who are interested in her, they want to find a reliable hacker to write some stuff for them, but they don’t have her contact, so..."

Even though he’d already mentally prepped himself, West Fire Grass was still shocked by the guy’s "big gesture."

"Whoa, damn, that’s... so—much—money... what do you guys wanna do?"

A few thousand.

To buy him off?

What, is he a beggar to be fobbed off?

Weren’t they saying that once you pick up a special side quest like this, you can go full mole, embezzle and take bribes, rake in cash by the bucketload?

But thanks to West Fire Grass’s natural "talent," the way he stared dead at the cash on the table made the European agents opposite him think he’d already taken the bait.

They felt a surge of contempt. Just a few thousand euro and he’s ready to sell out.

They conveniently forgot the bribe budget they’d gotten from upstairs was ten grand.

A full belly never knows what hunger feels like; a European is never going to empathize with a bottom-tier African who only ever hits pity-minimum. Their concept of money is completely different.

In Latin America, South America, a human life only runs you a few hundred, not even a couple days’ pay for these European corporate drones.

And there’s no way they’d know what kind of rates Lin Miao charges the players, because almost all consumption goes through the Intranet as internal transactions; cash almost never flows out.

With that kind of perspective gap, both sides clearly thought the money was too little, yet somehow still managed to close the deal.

"Deal!"

Like he was afraid they’d change their minds, West Fire Grass lunged across the table and grabbed the money, stuffing it into his pocket like he was robbing them, making the others frown even harder.

"Whenever, whatever you need, just say the word. I guarantee your message gets to her, but if she doesn’t agree then..."

Only now he says this after taking the money—fucking rat, still trying to squeeze more out of us!

They’d already stuffed the rest of the funds into their own pockets; no way were they sharing easily with West Fire Grass.

"That’s your problem."

"Right, right, my problem. Even if I have to kidnap that little handful, I’ll drag her over."

"No need for kidnapping. Just tell us where she is."

Hacker players aren’t like normal players; they almost never show up in the real world. They spend nearly all their time soaking in Cyberspace. For hackers, that place feels way better, more real than reality.

Seeing that, West Fire Grass didn’t say much more. His groveling posture was perfectly on point—no wonder he’d been coached by an expert. Every bit of his brows and gestures screamed "collaborator scum."

"If you sirs don’t have anything else, I’ll get going first."

"Go. If something comes up, I’ll have someone contact you again."

Once West Fire Grass left the private room, Devon finally let the disgust show on his face and cursed,

"What a moron—doesn’t even know he’s about to die. Cuba also sent over a useless piece of shit; can’t win on the front line, and now the rear line they still need us to step in."

His colleague chuckled.

"If he wasn’t greedy this would actually be harder for us. Once this goes down, even if he wants to back out, he can’t."

"If this works out, there’s no way we’re not getting a fat year-end bonus."

"You’re still thinking about year-end bonuses? If we manage to take out Horizon Corporation, how much money do you think we can make?"

"Haha, cheers!"

Of course they weren’t actually planning to hire Pandora to write some program—they were looking for a chance to take her out.

As one of the most active hackers among the front-facing player crowd, her death would absolutely deal Horizon Corporation a heavy blow!

By then, with West Fire Grass lashed tight to their pirate ship and no way to jump off, the European agents could push him further, make him do more: upload viruses into the company servers, steal trade secrets or technical data, maybe even assassinate higher-ups, and drag even more people into the mud.

This is the kind of game agents always play.