In the real world, it was 3 PM on August 14th.
It had been over 40 hours since Zhang Cheng last heard from Lu Qiuchen, ever since Lu had logged off the game on the night of the 12th.
During this time, Zhang Cheng logged into the game several times, but Lu Qiuchen was never online.
At first, he thought the guy was just busy with something else and didn’t have time to return his calls—something that had happened before.
But things started to feel off at 10 AM that morning, when Lu Qiuchen’s mother called to ask Zhang Cheng whether Lu was with him.
According to her, she hadn’t been able to reach her son since the previous night, and all her calls today went unanswered. That’s when she thought to ask Zhang Cheng if he knew what was going on.
After all, when it came to calls from his parents, Lu Qiuchen had always answered immediately in the past.
The two talked it over and gradually realized just how serious things might be. Lu’s parents immediately dropped everything and booked a flight back to S City.
Despite having been married for over 20 years, their relationship was still deeply affectionate. Both worked as senior executives at the same company, and this time they had taken a business trip together that doubled as a kind of honeymoon.
At 4:30 PM, Zhang Cheng stood anxiously in front of Lu Qiuchen’s apartment door, waiting for his parents to arrive.
He had just tried calling and knocking on the door again, but still got no response.
“Uncle, Auntie—you’re finally here!” Zhang Cheng jogged over to take their luggage.
Lu’s parents were well-maintained in appearance, and though both were over forty, they looked like they were only thirty-five. Their faces were filled with anxiety.
After getting out of the taxi at the entrance to the neighborhood, they had jogged all the way over, and were now out of breath.
They took out the key and opened the door. The three of them entered the apartment to investigate.
Zhang Cheng rushed straight to the bedroom and found that the gaming pod was still running. He immediately called the couple over.
“Is that the game device?” Mr. Lu asked. He normally didn’t pay much attention to entertainment tech, but he’d seen enough news about these pods to have a general idea.
Zhang Cheng quickly explained how the gaming pod worked.
“You mean Qiuchen is still inside this thing? And it can’t be opened right now?” Mrs. Lu asked anxiously, focusing only on finding her son.
“Yes, Auntie. The pod’s power indicator is still on, which means someone’s still inside. It’s best not to open it. I remember the game company warned that forcibly opening the pod while a player is still connected can be extremely dangerous.”
“If the player is forcefully disconnected while unprepared, it could result in permanent brain damage.”
“Then what are we supposed to do? Can you contact Qiuchen at all?” she asked.
“That’s the problem.” Zhang Cheng gave a bitter smile.
“Before I came here, I logged in again to check. Qiuchen’s account shows as offline.”
“Offline? Are you saying this machine might be broken, and he’s not actually inside? But if he’s not in there, then why isn’t he answering his phone? Try calling him again!” Mr. Lu suddenly reacted and told Mrs. Lu to go outside and try his phone again.
With the door shut behind her, Mr. Lu and Zhang Cheng leaned over the gaming pod, pressing their ears against it and listening carefully.
For a moment, the room was filled with nothing but the faint humming of the pod.
Whether it was due to the pod’s sound insulation or the fact that Lu Qiuchen really wasn’t inside, they couldn’t hear any ringtone coming from within.
The three discussed it for a while longer.
Seeing that they still couldn’t come up with any solution, they decided to contact the game company and report the incident to the police simultaneously.
“You said it was you who helped him get the activation code for the game?”
During the separate questioning, a seasoned police officer picked up on something suspicious.
“Yes, officer. I’ve always been interested in gaming, and I was the one who suggested we play this game. At first, Qiuchen wasn’t that interested in the closed beta, but after he played it the other day, he seemed really into it,” Zhang Cheng explained.
“I’m not talking about that,” the officer said. “I mean—out of the three thousand global activation slots, you two just happened to get two?”
He stared keenly at Zhang Cheng’s hesitant expression and immediately sensed that something more was going on.
“Spit it out! The more you cooperate, the better for you. Resistance will only make things worse!”
It turned out that Zhang Cheng’s father, Zhang Guang, was the Executive Vice President of Eternity World, the game company behind this title. He was essentially the third highest-ranking person in the company.
Eternity World was a subsidiary of the globally renowned Eternity Group, and 《Eternity》, the game currently in its beta phase and creating a global sensation, was developed and released by them.
Even the police officer hadn’t expected Zhang Cheng to have such a powerful connection. He had originally thought this might be a breakthrough in the case, but in the end, it was just a matter internal to the company.
Pulling strings for personal favors was hardly a scandal in any corporate structure, especially for something as minor as a few closed beta slots.
Lu Qiuchen’s parents also learned about this connection. Although their blame toward Zhang Cheng hadn’t lessened, they now felt a sliver of hope.
After all, Zhang Cheng and Lu Qiuchen had been good friends for years, and they had never intervened much in their son’s friendships. They only knew that Zhang Cheng came from a wealthy family.
Now that something like this had happened, they couldn’t help but feel conflicted toward Zhang Cheng.
But with his status, at least the game company would take the incident more seriously.
After finishing their statements, the three of them returned to the apartment to wait for a representative from the game company.
About thirty minutes later, two employees from the company arrived.
One of them, evidently a technical engineer, looked to be in his thirties but was already showing signs of balding. He was nervously holding a diagnostic device, waiting for the data to come through.
The other, who appeared to be from the public relations department, was gathering detailed information from the three.
“The scan is complete,” the technician announced, sweat beading on his forehead as he rapidly read the data aloud.
“Current readings confirm that there is a living person inside the unit, and the life-support systems are fully functional.“
Logs show that the user entered the game at 5:29:26 AM on August 13, and from that point until 6:00:32, his brainwave and heart rate indicators were stable and within normal range.
But just one microsecond later, the player’s brain activity suddenly spiked to extreme levels, and the heart rate also began increasing rapidly.
This state lasted only ten seconds. At 6:00:42, the player’s brainwaves disappeared, his pupils became fixed…
“However, his heartbeat gradually returned to normal afterward, and his main arteries are still pulsating. He’s also breathing on his own.”
“This kind of situation is simply baffling. For now, we can’t determine the cause. But based on what I know, the player’s current condition doesn’t qualify as brain death. I suggest you consult a specialist in this field.”
Clinging to a last shred of hope, Zhang Cheng asked his father to request the company to send in a member from the core development team.
Meanwhile, Lu’s father used his connections to bring in the top neurosurgeon from S City.
After discussions between the newly dispatched technicians from the game company and the doctor, the conclusion was that Lu Qiuchen’s condition still needed to be monitored.
Given the severity of this safety incident, the game company could not shirk responsibility. The representative on-site immediately stated that the company was willing to cover all of Lu Qiuchen’s medical expenses.
But all Lu’s parents wanted now was their son back.
They were so distraught they could’ve torn down the game company then and there. In the end, it was Zhang Cheng who sent the people away first, planning to talk things through again once the Lu family had calmed down.
Before leaving, the neurosurgeon, unable to withstand the Lu couple’s pleas, finally offered a gentle yet pessimistic assessment after much consideration.
Hearing even a specialist say this, the final sliver of hope in all three of them shattered.
Although Lu Qiuchen could still breathe on his own and had a heartbeat, the disappearance of brainwaves meant he’d lost the ability to think. If this continued, could he still be considered alive?
Zhang Cheng’s heart was filled with grief and dread. Ultimately, it was because of him that Lu Qiuchen ended up like this.
Watching Lu’s parents collapse to the floor in despair, Zhang Cheng kowtowed heavily before them several times, knowing it couldn’t bring them any comfort.
Staggering to his feet, he couldn’t bear to stay any longer. After leaving a quick “I’m sorry,” he fled the apartment.
Not caring about the stares of passersby, Zhang Cheng wandered the streets in a daze. Thinking of the Lu couple, who had aged years in a single moment, his sorrow only deepened.
If only he hadn’t pushed Lu Qiuchen to play the game. If only he hadn’t gone behind their backs to ask his father for an activation code. If only he hadn’t rushed Lu Qiuchen into logging in…
All of this could have been avoided…
A thought suddenly struck Zhang Cheng—he remembered his father saying that the activation codes had been packaged with the game pods as early as a month ago, and even pulling strings to get one had taken some effort.
He also recalled that the activation code and the game pod were bound one-to-one.
This had been clearly stated in the official announcement for the closed beta, precisely to prevent testers from selling or transferring the pods illegally.
These activation codes weren’t handed out directly to players but were stored in the company’s internal database.
That’s why Eternity Group had implemented a dual layer of security.
Although the pods had retina scanners, as long as it was hardware, there was always a risk of tampering or hacking—so even the retina scan wasn’t foolproof.
This activation code corresponded to a unique private key for each user. To log into the game, a player’s identity had to simultaneously match all three components.
To put it simply, the game pod was like the traditional client software of an online game—but unlike traditional clients, this one was extremely expensive and inherently high in value.
To prevent these pods from being resold, the company implemented an account-password system, where the account was essentially the pod itself.
But that, too, came with risks. If the pod was cracked during the closed beta period and this verification system bypassed, then anyone who got their hands on a pod could join the beta.
To address that, the company also embedded a verification code for each player, stored locally in the pod. Any attempt to tamper with or modify the pod would inevitably result in verification failure, generating an incorrect code.
Like passwords, a backup copy of the code was also stored on the company’s servers. Only when the account, password, and verification code all matched could a player access the beta.
This way, even if a pod was compromised, the loss was limited to a single hardware unit and wouldn’t risk leaking confidential content from the closed beta.
As for why they still went through all the trouble of implementing an account-password system—well, that was to guard against opportunists.
It might sound like overkill, but the company’s official retinal verification technology was already enough to stump 99.99% of hackers.
Without this extra verification inside the pod, reselling beta game pods would’ve become rampant, disrupting the game’s testing phase.
Having thought through this entire system, Zhang Cheng became certain—this had to be a conspiracy.
A global tech giant, with products already proven in military and cutting-edge scientific applications, backed by more than a decade of development and technical validation—and right when they were preparing to launch the first commercial version, a safety failure of this scale occurred?
There had to be a mole inside Eternity World Corporation or Eternity Group!
Whoever is behind this… just you wait. I will find you.