Because Edgerunners is a bi-monthly serialized magazine, with only two chapters published per month, the plot progresses very slowly.
Furthermore, the plot of Edgerunners is indeed very slow.
Therefore, in the first month, it remained unknown in the reader popularity survey.
In the third chapter, Edgerunners directly shows the cruelest side of Night City.
As a poor man, David couldn't afford the cost to update the system required for school, which led to him and his mother, Gloria, getting caught in a gang fight in Night City on their way home.
After the car accident, the Night City Trauma Team chose to watch David die in front of David's stunned eyes.
In the end, David could only send his mother to the Scavenger Clinic in Night City. He thought his mother's life had been saved, but in the end, he received news that his mother's condition worsened and she had passed away.
He didn't even see his mother one last time.
Fan Siwei, who got the manga magazine as soon as he saw the plot of the third chapter, suddenly felt ill.
"David's mother just... died like that?" He couldn't accept it.
The important thing is that this is the protagonist's mother.
It's not that the protagonist's mother can't die. On the contrary, in many manga plots, the protagonist's parents are in high-risk situations.
It's not that the protagonist is killed by the enemy, so he holds a blood feud and strives to become stronger to avenge his parents.
It's that she dies to protect the protagonist, at least in an important plot.
David's mother, Gloria, died just like that, and none of the above situations are the same.
She was caught in a gang fight on the road, and the Trauma Team didn't save her. When she entered the junk shop clinic, her death was announced a few days later.
The protagonist didn't even have the chance to see his mother one last time, to stage a sensational and touching plot.
It was simply...
a highlight that shocked people.
At that moment, Fan Siwei didn't notice anything unusual, but in the future, this kind of plot will become a symbol of Ren Amamiya.
Serving 'lunchboxes' to protagonists suddenly is logical, but there's no sign, which makes readers extremely uncomfortable.
Years later, Fan Siwei recalled the plot of Ren's first work, where 'lunchboxes' were suddenly served, and he suddenly realized.
"So this guy started having a fit that year! That's when he had his first fit!"
But Fan Siwei still felt a little uncomfortable.
His mother, Gloria's, death was too ordinary. An ordinary person, living an ordinary life, one day encountered an accident and died normally.
This seems to be the everyday portrayal of ordinary people in Night City.
He didn't know when, like an ant, she died.
And the death of an ant means nothing in Night City.
The Trauma Team will tell David, "Our target is the client; leave him to the municipal corpse collection truck."
The trash collector will tell David, "She was stable this morning, but her vitals suddenly plummeted, and she passed away... Are you willing to accept our payment plan?"
The rich second generation who bullied David told him, "I heard your mother passed away. I know I should express my condolences, but I really can't pity you..."
Money! Damn Night City, just look at the money!
Seeing David being bullied, beaten, and insulted by the rich second generation with advanced prosthetics.
Finally, he walked through the bustling streets of Night City with his mother's ashes, looking lonely.
Fan Siwei felt extremely uncomfortable. Finally, he saw David, stimulated by the call of the wealthy second generation, recalling the past and uncontrollably shaking his legs. Suddenly, he felt extremely uncomfortable.
He looked at the last scene, where David found a black market doctor with the military prosthetic "Sandevistan".
David stared at him: "I'm not here to sell it; I want to... put it... on my body!"
David's resolute and fierce gaze made Fan Siwei feel a sense of relief.
"This episode has ended."
"Ahhhh, why is it here?" Fan Siwei said with some discomfort.
Subconsciously, he had already put himself in David's shoes. After feeling his frustration, he especially wanted to see his counterattack and growth after installing "Sandevistan".
This is the plot effect of suppressing first and then praising. After deep frustration, the protagonist is forced to use an external ability to counterattack.
This will make readers very happy!
Fan Siwei, naturally, was unaware of the details. He just thought that the newly published manga "Edgerunners" was quite good.
Although it wasn't as good as the two he was following, he has now started to quietly pay attention to it.
On the other hand, Sakura also felt a blockage after reading the latest plot of "Edgerunners". Unlike high school students like Fan Siwei, she also felt that David's experience was very miserable, and that his mother, Gloria's, death was sudden and strange.
But she felt that the tragedy of David and his mother, Gloria, was destined for Night City.
A single-parent family, sustained only by the mother's meager income, is simply difficult to survive in a place like Night City.
A simple daily gang fight in Night City caused David and Gloria to fall into the abyss. Even if Gloria didn't die, they would eventually have to live on the streets.
Sakura increasingly felt that Ren's idea was not simple. "Cyberpunk 2077: Edgerunners" was completely different from previous science fiction works.
Previous science fiction works only exaggerated the power of human technology in the future, without paying attention to what would happen to human beings in this context.
Will the lives of ordinary people improve if technology becomes powerful in the future?
The answer given by previous science fiction works is affirmative.
However, Ren's "Cyberpunk 2077: Edgerunners" gave another answer, not necessarily.
If a situation like Night City arises, where capital controls the city and even the country, and everything is based on interests and money.
Robots and artificial intelligence begin to proliferate, and the lives of ordinary people become insignificant, then a world like Cyberpunk will be born.
The level of technology has significantly increased, but the quality of life has worsened.
Sakura always felt that she was not watching an entertainment work, but a masterpiece with deep reflections and connotations.
'Although Ren-san doesn't seem serious, he's a genius,' she exclaimed, unable to help herself.
But recalling the feeling at that moment, she felt a little uncomfortable. 'But if it really shapes according to the logic of this worldview, won't David die in the end?'