[Notification: Your apartment rent has been overdue for one month and five days. According to the agreement drafted on 2076/06/04, in 25 days our company will forcibly reclaim all property within your apartment and freeze your access card. Please make your payment in time.
— Sender: Hengda Property Management Corp. | Recipient: Lin Mo]
[Dear Mr. Lin Mo, Company ID #102512 — Due to your recent unauthorized absence, and a total of five missed workdays over your three-year employment, your position has been terminated in accordance with company policy.
Furthermore, your absence resulted in the failure of a key contract, causing damages totaling 35,000 eddies — which you are now liable for.
We have initiated repossession procedures. All external cyberware has been confiscated, and your personal accounts have been frozen.
You are required to pay the remaining debt of 26,000 eddies within five days, or a professional debt collection team will be dispatched to your residence.
— Sender: Weixue Corporation | Recipient: Lin Mo]
[Yo, bro — the BD you ordered just got dropped at your door. Not gonna lie, this new reel is insane — three white-haired, red-eyed babes in all kinds of uniforms. Absolute heaven.
Your taste? God-tier.
— Sender: Li Weiko | Recipient: Lin Mo]
[Dear Mr. Lin Mo,
The ashes of your parents have been respectfully handled by our professional staff. Per your wishes, they will be scattered into the unpolluted open ocean. As you know, most coastal waters are now contaminated.
Our company guarantees a pristine resting place for the departed — a final peace with no regrets.
Choose Ocean Horizon Funeral Services, and enjoy the beauty of the afterlife.
— Sender: Ocean Horizon Funeral Home | Recipient: Lin Mo]
The streets stank of rotting garbage. Homeless drifters lay sprawled across filthy mats, curled up in worn-out blankets or flattened cardboard.
On their heads, flickering digital visors displayed hypnotic colors. Compared to their dirt-caked clothes, those barely-oiled visors were the cleanest things on them — like gamblers clutching their final chips, they clung to them with religious fervor.
Most stayed motionless, sunk into whatever scrap of territory they'd claimed. Every now and then, one would crawl toward a trash bin, scouring for a scrap of food to survive the night.
"So fucking dirty," a man sneered, drifting through the street like the walking dead.
His pressed suit made the drifters instinctively part, their eyes filled with fear and hatred. In this world, appearances still bought power.
Though he'd already been fired, the suit let Lin Mo bluff his way past trouble — a little borrowed authority went a long way.
Breathing in the rancid air, he hurried out of that pit and took a few sharp turns until he reached his apartment.
Swipe.
Access granted.
The door slid open.
As soon as he stepped inside, his desk terminal lit up, flooding the screen with unread messages.
Every email screamed the same thing: his life was falling apart.
Utterly, completely fucked.
He tossed his packaged food aside and collapsed onto the couch, his whole body hollowed out like a deflated shell.
He'd been in this world for 21 years. And every time he thought of his past life, this one felt even more unbearable.
A hypertech future — but a quality of life worse than dogshit. The poor couldn't even afford underwear, and the rich were still scheming to wring the last eddie out of them.
And then came the grind. Sixteen-hour workdays were the standard. If an emergency hit, you popped stims and pushed through it — no breaks, no rest.
These five days of strike? The best days of his working life. A rare, precious dream.
"But... dreams end eventually," Lin Mo muttered, reaching beneath the table for a box.
If anyone was to blame, it was himself. He'd transmigrated with his memories intact — and still ended up in a middle-class nobody's body, not some corporate prince.
Second life, same damn struggle.
But his parents in this world had done everything they could. Gave him warmth, support — a shot at life.
Everything went to hell the day they died in a car crash. Three deaths, two cars, no one left to blame. Just empty grief.
With his pillars gone, nothing in this world mattered anymore.
Might as well enjoy what little was left.
He opened the box. Inside was a brand-new BD display unit, along with a small chip.
Braindance — a neural stim device that hijacked your senses and dropped you into another person's recorded experiences. Insert the chip, and you could taste their world: scent, sound, pleasure, heartbeat... everything.
In this case? Three angel-faced, red-eyed, white-haired goddesses.
He'd burned the last of his cash on this BD chip.
In a way, it reminded him of that game from his past life — Cyberpunk 2077. Braindances were everywhere there too. Cheap thrills, synthetic pleasure.
Honestly? This world wasn't so different from that one.
A world totally fucked.
With practiced ease, Lin Mo grabbed the display, slotted in the chip, and was just about to jack into dreamland — when he noticed something.
The box was still heavy.
"Huh? They threw in a freebie?" he muttered, inspecting the packaging.
Inside a hidden compartment was a sleek, black head-mounted device — semicircular, sci-fi finish, with two tiny projectors built to beam light directly into your eyes.
The moment he saw it, a flood of recognition hit him.
As a former gaming addict in his past life, Lin Mo knew exactly what this was.
A BD headset — straight out of Cyberpunk 2077.
"The hell? They sent me this as a bonus? But this world doesn't even have a concept like Cyberpunk..." he murmured, puzzled.
Still — curiosity always won.
He slipped on the headset.
A folded note inside gave basic instructions. Lin Mo followed them, powered it on.
His vision went black.
Suddenly, glowing text cut through the darkness — stylized, sharp, impossible to ignore:
[WELCOME TO THE CYBERPUNK LIFE SIMULATOR BRAINDANCE]
Would you like to begin your simulated life experience in the Cyber World?
If you select YES, you will relive a new life inside the Cyber World in just a few minutes.
If you're satisfied, you may choose full immersion — to physically descend and live inside that world for real.
Either way, you'll receive your reward at the end.
If you select NO, the simulator will permanently shut down.
…
P.S. This is a fictional world. Please do not confuse it with reality.