Zhang Guang was startled by the sound of the door opening.
When he saw Zhang Cheng, he silently closed the book in his hand, placed it on the table, and folded his hands over it.
“What’s the matter? So urgent you couldn’t even knock!” Zhang Guang displayed his usual air of authority, clearly displeased with Zhang Cheng’s behavior, and his tone was stern.
Zhang Cheng didn’t answer.
He closed the door tightly, then strode quickly over to the desk.
“Dad!” Zhang Cheng called out, then fell silent.
He lit up his phone screen and pushed it onto the desk, staring intently at his father, as if searching his face for clues.
“Pa!”
Zhang Guang didn’t even look at the phone’s contents.
He slapped the desk in anger, scolding Zhang Cheng furiously.
“You brat, you’ve only been living away for a few months and you think you’ve grown up? Now you come back and interrogate me like I’m a criminal!”
Zhang Cheng’s quick temper was inherited from Zhang Guang.
Over the years, Zhang Guang’s temper had mellowed a lot since becoming the company’s executive president, but being contradicted by his own son still made his anger flare up.
Honestly, Zhang Cheng had been planning this little stunt for a while.
His father’s temper had improved in recent years, which was why he dared to joke around like this.
But when Zhang Guang glared at him, Zhang Cheng realized his father was truly angry.
The tone reminded him of the pain from being disciplined as a mischievous child, so he quickly changed his attitude and moved forward with a placating smile. “Dad, please calm down. Just look at the phone first, okay?”
After all, Zhang Guang was a bit older now, and with his high position and self-cultivation, his temper had improved.
If this had happened ten years ago, he would have given this brat a beating.
With a cold snort, Zhang Guang looked displeased as he picked up the phone on the desk and started reading the text.
“All of this is just your baseless speculation and wild guesses.” Zhang Guang put down the phone after glancing through it, glaring at Zhang Cheng. “You came to bother me over this? And you even barged in without knocking. Have you forgotten all the manners I taught you?”
He was even angrier now—not so much about Zhang Cheng’s lack of manners, but because the article on the phone was all Zhang Cheng’s own speculation and intuition, with no evidence to back it up.
Seeing Zhang Guang getting angry again, Zhang Cheng knew his father was furious this time.
He felt a bit afraid, but still kept smiling and once again urged his father to look carefully.
Zhang Guang saw that his son wasn’t joking or trying to fool him, so he picked up the phone again and began to read the contents more thoroughly.
Gradually, his brows furrowed tightly.
“Where did you collect this information?” After reading through the phone, Zhang Guang put it down and asked Zhang Cheng seriously.
Hearing his father’s question, Zhang Cheng knew he’d passed the first hurdle and let out a sigh of relief inside.
He answered seriously, “Some of this information is from public posts on the game forum, some I gathered from inside the company, and some I got through personal contacts.”
Zhang Cheng took back the phone and pointed to a few lines. “This employee with the ID number 9527 made some strange replies on the forum. After noticing this, I conducted an internal investigation at the company, but didn’t find anything unusual.”
Zhang Cheng continued, “I’ve been keeping an eye on the player this employee replied to. His last post was five days ago.”
“Before that, he posted at least four times a day, describing his experiences in the game and his thoughts. In the last post, he didn’t mention taking a break from the game.
“Three days after he stopped posting, I logged into the game, copied his forum ID, and tried to add him as a friend. But strangely, I couldn’t find this player in the game anymore.
“At first, I thought maybe he’d deleted his account. But the forum and the official site use the same account, and his forum posts are still there, so that theory doesn’t hold up.
“Then I realized that what happened to this player was exactly the same as what happened to my friend, Lu Qiuchen.”
Seeing Zhang Guang’s puzzled expression, Zhang Cheng explained, “She’s the victim from the Game Pod incident two and a half years ago. You even helped contact the company’s tech staff back then. Now, just like before, she can’t be found in the game, but her forum account still exists.”
“So I asked a friend to look up recent news related to Game Pods. After two days of searching, we managed to filter out a piece of information.”
“Five days ago, on December 27th last year, in the North American State, a 27-year-old man suddenly died in a Game Pod. The Federation investigated and concluded the cause of death was sudden cardiac arrest.”
“When they found him, there was still special medicine left in the Game Pod, and the records showed he’d already taken the medicine through the pod’s internal life-support system, but he still died.”
“The family suspected the medicine was ineffective, so they had the body tested, but the results showed there was nothing wrong with the drug.”
“This news wasn’t reported by any major media—my friend only found out from a few small media websites. He later video-called the deceased’s family and confirmed the incident was real.”
“After paying a significant fee, the family agreed to give us access to the deceased’s forum ID, and it matched the player I mentioned earlier.”
“With this case, and combining it with what I’ve encountered in the game, I have reason to believe that Eternal World is not just a simple game.”
Zhang Cheng pulled over a chair and sat down, spreading his elbows on the table and interlacing his ten fingers into a triangle.
He leaned forward, resting his head between his hands, taking on an aggressive posture as he earnestly said to his father, “I seriously suspect that Eternal World allows players to cross over to another world!”
“What are you trying to pull with your old man!” Zhang Guang, annoyed, reached out and knocked Zhang Cheng’s arm aside, interrupting his performance.
Zhang Guang’s expression grew very serious as he looked at his son and said, “You haven’t told anyone else about your suspicions, have you? Including that friend you mentioned.”
Hearing his father’s words, Zhang Cheng became excited inside.
This was a sign he was about to get the truth!
He sat up straight and shook his head honestly. “I haven’t told anyone else.”
Zhang Guang nodded in satisfaction, his gaze toward his son much gentler.
Although there were still many mistakes in Zhang Cheng’s speculations, the direction of his investigation was correct.
“Since you’ve already found out some things, it’s fine to tell you now. But what I’m about to say, you can only listen with your own ears. You can’t tell anyone else—not even your mother or your sister!” Zhang Guang said sternly.
After Zhang Cheng nodded, Zhang Guang confirmed his suspicions.
“Eternal World is indeed not just a game.”