Anomalies

Shao Zi rushed to the internet cafe, never expecting his arduous tracking journey to end so smoothly.

He walked straight in as a customer, finding a secluded spot not close to anyone. After sitting down, he intended to use his peripheral vision to search for the target, or contact Lu Yao—who was also hacking into the internet cafe's network system—only to find the person he was looking for sitting directly opposite him.

A complex feeling instantly welled up in his heart. Just like when he was pestered by that old man, he had spent all his energy planning, calculating the exact force, and even adding some martial virtue—only to trip up at the last moment, as if all his strength had struck cotton.

Wenren Yu was squinting, seemingly intensely focused on the battle on the screen. Shao Zi had watched a few documentary videos about him. Aside from the overwhelming praise from fans, Wenren Yu's "tactical thinking" was what interested Shao Zi the most.

To avoid exposing the team's basic tactics, voice recordings of commands were rarely released, but they did exist. Even if only a few short sentences, they were enough to show his grand vision and extraordinary predictive ability.

Although Shao Zi wasn't interested in games, he didn't deny that they contained elements of practical significance. Those who could stand at the peak in this field certainly possessed sharper thinking than ordinary people, and always had potential worth tapping into. Lu Yao was a prime example.

Although she had a habit of staying silent while playing games, she won not because of top-tier mechanical operations, but because she knew how to follow her teammates' commands, knowing when to hold her ground and when to provide backup. When applied to reality, this effect was very obvious. Lu Yao wasn't necessarily a master strategist, but she acted with extreme decisiveness and performed well in all situations, making her a good prospect.

Shao Zi wasn't sure if this Mr. Wenren was so scheming in real life, but at least currently, it wasn't obvious. Wenren Yu didn't say a word, clearly not commanding his teammates with his mind—if he could do that, his ID, Ming Huo, would have been a deity.

But after watching Wenren Yu play for a while, Shao Zi began to feel something was wrong. Even if he had never eaten pork, he had seen pigs run. Shao Zi had seen Lu Yao show off her rank in an internet cafe, causing a stir in the whole area. With a player of Ming Huo's caliber, he should have attracted similar attention... At that time, he could have naturally blended into the crowd to observe.

But the current situation was different. Wenren Yu didn't say a word, his expression was serious, his eyes glued to the screen, and his hand holding the mouse only moved twice occasionally. He was clearly playing a game, yet he didn't look like he was playing a game. This was because his continuous operation time was much shorter than his idle time.

Even Shao Zi grew curious. He messaged Lu Yao about this situation and received an absolute denial. A MOBA game on PC, even if short, took over ten minutes. If the respawn timer was longer than the active play time, Ming Huo wouldn't have retired for personal reasons, but because his skills were too poor.

Lu Yao speculated that he might be playing a tower defense game—five minutes of building, twenty minutes of waiting. This sounded plausible, but the frequency of operations still didn't match. They then wondered if Wenren Yu couldn't catch any fish in real life, so he went into the virtual world to find the feeling, but they quickly dismissed that too. Going to a high-end internet cafe and paying by the hour just to play a fishing game was hard to imagine, especially when a real fishing spot was only a few hundred meters away.

The fastest way to find out was to stand directly behind him and watch, or have Lu Yao hack into the internet cafe's surveillance camera system. Lu Yao was very excited about the latter option, but Shao Zi decided to execute the former. Hacking into an offline system exceeded his initial boundaries.

Afterward, Shao Zi saw another game, which explained Wenren Yu's strange behavior. It started with Wenren Yu's character standing motionless in a square, then appearing on a flying vehicle. Shao Zi quickly searched the keywords and received an answer from Lu Yao.

"A shooting game, whoever survives to the end wins," Lu Yao explained briefly, not forgetting to add, "I once invited Brother Song to try it to see if someone who is genuinely good at shooting has an advantage."

"What was the result?" Shao Zi messaged back.

Lu Yao replied tactfully, "His level... still needs a lot of improvement."

While chatting, Shao Zi saw Wenren Yu's character jump down and slowly land.

"After landing, you have to gather supplies, guns, and stuff. Then you eliminate each other and run into the safe zone," Lu Yao explained clearly. "The guns in there all have real-life prototypes. Since you're familiar with them, you'll recognize them at a glance."

But Shao Zi couldn't distinguish anything. Because after picking up a gun and some ammo, Wenren Yu began to lie prone in the grass. At this point, Shao Zi thought of another issue.

"Try to eavesdrop on his headphones. I'm afraid there might be other factors..." Although the probability was low, there were precedents of criminals using in-game language to direct behavior. Shao Zi quickly compromised his principles.

However, there was no intense combat sound in the headphones, only the sound of wind blowing through the grass, not even footsteps. Only occasionally did a gunshot echo from afar. Shao Zi kept watching the screen, and other than the grass moving with the wind, nothing changed.

One minute passed... five minutes passed...

Shao Zi began to lose patience, but Wenren Yu remained focused on the screen. The character didn't move, and the real person didn't move either. His expression was so focused that Shao Zi wondered if some major event was happening in the minor details he couldn't see.

"How long does a match last?" Shao Zi couldn't help but ask.

Lu Yao reported a number, then added, "His luck is really good. He landed right in the final circle—meaning he doesn't need to move."

It was hard to describe. Ten minutes passed, and Wenren Yu's only movement was to adjust his field of view slightly. It was as if he was playing the role of a sunflower, rooted in place, only occasionally "turning his head."

Shao Zi realized he had misunderstood from the very beginning. Wasn't real-life fishing much more interesting than this way of playing?