"Boss Lin, you wouldn't be planning to clash with the Tiger Claw gang in the city, would you?"

"It's not the time yet. He's my friend's son and he's really interested in you guys, so I brought him here for some fun. You guys do your thing, and who knows, I might have some jobs for you in the future."

"Got it!"

Pira tactfully didn't interrupt the conversation any further. Instead, he turned and joined the mercenary group, exchanging dirty jokes without limits.

Lin Miao took David over to the small bar, ordered a bottle of beer and two glasses, and poured a glass for the visibly excited David.

"Just this bottle, and don't tell your mom about today's events, or she'll definitely come after me."

He wouldn't doubt Gloria's determination to protect her son.

"Thanks."

The noisy and lively atmosphere around them made David a bit excited. He accepted the beer and nodded repeatedly. To him, this felt like Lin's acknowledgment of him, and his previous worries melted away.

"Mr. Lin, are you familiar with these people?"

"I've dealt with them before, but I wouldn't say we're close," Lin Miao replied, leaning against the bar and pouring himself a glass.

"I've heard you seem to admire these mercenaries a lot. Why is that? If you graduate from school with excellent grades, you could easily have a better life than they do."

"I..." Perhaps bolstered by the alcohol, David took a deep breath and looked down at his empty cup, "I envy them. They do whatever they want without caring about others' opinions, they're never short on cash, they're free and unrestrained, and maybe one day they could become legends admired by many."

"Even though I come from an ordinary Santo Domingo family, with not much money, my mom insists on sending me to Huang Ban Academy and getting me into Huang Ban, even if it means accruing a lot of debt..."

"At school, even the children of company employees, though they don't say it, I know they look down on me. And the students from ordinary families don't like me either, they feel my good grades are just showing off..."

"So you feel like you're not really accepted anywhere, and that's why you don't want to go to school, right?"

"Yeah, if it wasn't for my mom, I wouldn't be studying so hard..."

David had never shared these thoughts with Gloria, keeping them buried inside. Saying them out loud made him feel a little better, and Lin Miao poured him another drink and signaled him to look at the mercenaries.

"You think their lives are happy?"

David asked somewhat puzzled, "Isn't it? Cyberpunk is just super cool."

Carrying guns during the day and risking life with brothers, then partying in bars at night, how carefree.

"David..." Lin Miao spoke earnestly, "Their lives have nothing to do with coolness; it's just a party in flames within hell."

"I don't like calling them cyberpunks. I think 'edge runners' or... 'precarious proletariat' fits better."

Lin Miao emphasized those six words heavily, fearing the voice translation might miss the nuance.

"...Proletariat..." David felt he'd heard that term somewhere before, perhaps in that Bartmos Collective system, but that site was just full of ranting lunatics.

Is Lin Miao one of them?

But the Lin Miao he saw was calm and rational.

"Yep, this term is quite old, used for those who have lost their full-time jobs, forced to take on gigs just to survive while not owning any means of production themselves."

David was still a bit dazed, understanding most of it, but unsure about what 'means of production' meant.

Lin Miao didn't plan to explain too much and continued.

"Take that man you met earlier, for instance. In just the past three days, I paid their five-person squad forty thousand Eurodollars."

"So much!!!"

David was utterly shocked. Forty thousand in three days, his mother's whole year's salary might not even amount to so much.

"Right, this amount of money, if spent wisely, could let them live a few months of peaceful life, taking less dangerous jobs to get by. Yet, they choose to live on the edge, quickly spending the money on stronger implants, continuing to take those high-risk, high-reward jobs regardless of the near-death probabilities."

"How could..."

David didn't understand. Why would anyone intentionally push themselves to the brink just for money?

"Of course they would." Lin Miao raised his glass up to the eye level, and the mercenaries' figures stretched long through the glass and liquid, speaking earnestly, "Because what they want isn't merely higher wages or better benefits, but a sense of security, stability... and dignity, you get it?"

Accepting more dangerous work for safety and stability... isn't that contradictory?

"But all these are things normal life can't provide them. These social outsiders can only hope to get rich quick or become legends by licking the blood off the knife, using plenty of money to fill the void of security, earning respect through the mercenary legend in Night City. After all, who wants to live a life where they could die unnoticed, treated like ants?"

If merely aiming to survive, there are many ways in Night City, getting a meal isn't difficult.

But humans live for more than just existing.

"But..." David recalled his Huang Ban uniform, "Since these mercenaries are so skilled, why don't they apply to companies? With such skills, they should easily find a job, right?"

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