There's definitely something wrong with this murder mystery game

The empire's sky was shrouded in thick fog all year round, and perhaps because of the darkness that pervaded much of the time, people gradually developed a frenzied love for vivid colors. Nowadays, all light was artificial.

More than two hundred kilometers from the urban district, floating above the grey mist at a higher altitude than the city, was a gigantic City in the Sky.

The City in the Sky was circular in its entirety, resembling a small asteroid, with mechanical buildings floating around it like a planetary ring, encircling the triangular silver tower in the middle.

There were two layers to the mechanical ring, but the outer structures and the triangular tower did not have connecting bridges; they were even separated by at least a hundred meters.

Inside the triangular tower, a woman in a white lab coat sat in the control room, listening to the alarm sounding in her ear, her gaze flickering.

The pleasing sound of the alarm bell was short, not quite like an alarm, but rather like the notification tone of a text message.

Yet, the woman raised her hand and swiped open an electronic panel, the screen displaying information on the "Omega" file.

Although this file was officially public within the company, it also had an invisible program—if anyone, by any means, opened this document, the related data would certainly be transmitted to the control center at New An Bureau headquarters.

The chime that just sounded meant that someone had just viewed the file, and only the core members of the New An Bureau had access to view such confidential files.

Even hackers couldn't breach this special protective network.

The core group was composed of only twenty-four individuals, no matter how many members joined the New An Bureau, the number remained fixed at twenty-four people.

The woman propped her chin, unable to find the specific codenames of those who accessed the data, but she managed to track the address where the file was viewed.

Four addresses, all within the urban district.

Upon seeing this, the woman's spirits lifted. She did not examine the other locations for the moment, instead, she caught sight of the place farthest from her, marked "Academy Island."

Not only in the Huai'an District, but even the surrounding districts, there was only one Academy Island—that was Huai'an Industrial University!

Huai'an University was responsible for welcoming students from several surrounding urban districts. It had a vast area with a beautiful and comfortable environment and fresh, invigorating air. In this era shrouded in grey mist, it was known as the "Garden of the New Generation."

The woman enlarged the data map, checked the specific distance of that location, then glanced at the distance at her upper right.

The distances matched up.

Right from the start, she had confirmed that two of her teammates were inside Huai'an Industrial University.

Immediately after, she moved the map to inspect the other three locations, but before she could calculate the distances, the marked positions on the screen suddenly disappeared.

It seemed that the person behind the scenes noticed the leak and quickly erased their browsing traces.

But because of certain reasons, the computer protective network in the New An Bureau's control room could not possibly be compromised with altered data!

And now, not only was it infiltrated, but data was also manipulated.

The woman raised an eyebrow, flipping through the core group's information, accurately locating the individual codenamed "Gamma," then sent a command over.

...

In a game room in a shopping mall.

Wei Ya sat cross-legged on a soft gaming chair, furrowing her brows: "Miscalculated, that secret file actually had a virus-like hidden program... Tsk, why did those three idiots go and look at the file!"

Doesn't this mean they were all completely exposed?

Wei Ya frantically entered the data network. Although she discovered and erased the traces in time, the other side probably already noticed the issue.

As she was considering other solutions, suddenly a transparent frame popped up in front of her!

The abrupt appearance of the program panel so startled Wei Ya that she immediately opened her eyes and mentally exited the "Data Reading" ability, but the program panel followed her out.

[Gamma, you're the one changing the data, aren't you.]

Wei Ya: "..."

Isn't this lock-on a bit too fast?

Since the protective network of the New An Bureau was built by "Gamma," why immediately suspect Gamma instead of suspecting those amazing hackers first?

Or is there some other reason...

[Angel, I know it's you. Also, have Professor Li take you four back to headquarters tomorrow, you know the coordinates.]

Wei Ya: "!!!"

This sentence revealed much information.

But Wei Ya couldn't be completely sure yet, whether the person on the other side was their team captain, "Pianning."

Whether or not it was, the other party's status at the New An Bureau must be very high.

Wei Ya replied with mixed feelings and then notified everyone in the secret chat room—just now, our identities and addresses have all been exposed.

Orange Cat: [...]

Maine Coon: [...]

Siamese Cat: [...]

Siamese Cat: [You all can be a thousand percent assured~]

Cheng Can ended with a sardonic comment.

Then he was muted by Wei Ya for ten minutes.

...

A certain high-rise building.

This place was not the lowest-level civilian housing, nor was it the luxurious residential area of the upper echelons.

It could only be described as average, at least it was situated above a plaza that shielded it from the buildings below, and they could still look up to see the foggy sky and the luxurious, beautiful billboards.

Cheng Can brought his friend into his home, and the two of them naturally saw the chat room message for the first time and simultaneously decided to spend half an hour of their limited time browsing through their organization's data.

Then... in less than ten minutes, they were informed that their presence had been detected by the other side.

Cheng Can curled his lips, exited the muted chat room, and turned to Yin Banqian beside him: "Do you think that Omega could be Pianning? She has the status of a deputy director therein!"

Yin Banqian was noncommittal, his face showing contemplation: "We haven't received the main mission yet, maybe it has something to do with this."

"Who knows how far the opposing faction has progressed."

"Right now, it's barely been half a day since the game started, even if they want to do something, there's probably not enough time; most people will choose to gather information first."

Since their side did not receive the script information, the other side was probably in a similar situation.

If everyone was starting the narrative blind, then what they were contesting was the ability and timing of gathering intelligence—at least his side didn't have to waste effort looking for teammates.

Cheng Can walked over to open his display cabinet, which held an array of different styles of gaming helmets.

His home, although not the finest, was quite spacious and complete, a two-bedroom apartment with all the necessary furniture and decor.

"Play a game?" Cheng Can tossed a helmet to his friend.

"That kind of holographic game?"

Yin Banqian examined the gaming helmet, which looked similar to a motorcycle helmet, then asked: "Haven't they already developed those more comfortable Game Nutrition Pods?"

Cheng Can choked for a moment, defending himself: "I need to have money to buy that! You don't know how expensive things are here; as a commoner, it's already quite a feat that I've collected so many gaming helmets!"

Moreover, gaming helmets are quickly outdated, and out of the six on display, five were discarded models.

It could only be said that his character really loved playing games.

Ironically, all six gaming helmets combined couldn't even buy a single Game Nutrition Pod!

Those are for capitalists living in the topmost floors!

When Cheng Can entered the script, he was in a game, with one player next to him charging towards space with a cannon, and another covered in mechanical parts ripping apart a huge beast, which startled him so much that he thought he had ended up in a space war story!

Once he realized it was a game, he immediately quit to understand the worldview of this world.

A future world filled with black technology, Cheng Can had done his homework as his mentor had strictly taught him and even taken him on a tour of the "frontline" of the futuristic world.

"Lately, it seems I'm tracking a New Human who has just awakened. That person loves to play games, and I'm using that to get close to him; I've already added him as a friend," Cheng Can said while putting on his gaming helmet.

"Then you'll absorb him into the New An Bureau?" After examining the helmet, Yin Banqian also put it on.

"Pretty much, that's what the organization's mission for me was. Since he's a freshly matured teenager, he's highly impressionable. At the very least, we can't let the Paradise Bird Organization snatch him away," Cheng Can said.

Yin Banqian nodded. After all, he was in a recovery stage after a mission failure, with no new orders from the organization for now, so he might as well temporarily tag along with his friend.

...