Chapter 119

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Chapter 119: Tracking

Chaoyang settled down in front of his computer, holding a steaming bowl of instant noodles. While his eyes glued to the monitor, he slurped a tangled clump of noodles, the sound echoing in his dimly lit room.

If you could strip away his identity as the creator of Paradise, his life right now wouldn’t differ much from that of any introvert’s.. To cut down on going outside, he relied on deliveries for food and drink, and entertained himself by listening to music or browsing forums. Even his old hobby of games had lost its charm. After all, living through his experiences in the other world had already been thrilling enough.

But the entertainment break only took up a small portion of his time.

Even on Earth, he had many things to do. One of the most important was to regularly monitor the players’ whereabouts and observe the impact the Paradise game was having on them.

Although his Cyber Eye ability could pierce through all defenses on the internet.But raw power didn’t spare him the grind, it also meant he had to filter through oceans of data with his own eyes and brain being the only filter, which was, in its own way, quite tedious and exhausting.

Of course, he could give up this monitoring and setting down for just casually skimming through emails and phone logs, but cutting corners would clearly compromise his own safety. Especially when the players were either wealthy or influential, their social circles could easily turn a whisper into a storm. If he neglected any of these ripples, the unlucky one who will be suffering in the tsunami would still be himself.

This was also one of the reasons why Chaoyang had always been cautious about expanding the number of players.

If there were over a dozen players participating in each Paradise game, he wouldn’t be able to investigate their backgrounds thoroughly afterwards.

When Chaoyang swallowed his last bite of noodles and linked his consciousness to the network of the Island Prison holding Joe James, he couldn’t help but exclaim, “Huh?”

The surveillance footage revealed that Joe James had vanished.

Could it be that the extradition process had already begun?

He swiftly hacked into the prison’s central archive and searched for Wayne Jenkins. The result was entirely unexpected: there was no information on this individual whatsoever.

This was highly suspicious.

Regardless of whether it was a trial, transfer, or extradition, such processes wouldn’t cause a person’s data to vanish into thin air. It was like a student moving from elementary to middle school; both institutions would retain records of their enrollment. Now, even Joe James’ incarceration records had disappeared, implying that this prison never held such a prisoner at all!

Chaoyang set down his chopsticks and his expression turning serious.

His first course of action was to examine the prison’s surveillance records. However, he soon discovered that the oldest footage available was from only three days ago. Later, in the warden’s email inbox, he found a message about upgrading the surveillance system. It mentioned replacing all the cameras and storage devices across the prison, which could indeed explain why the network-accessible footage only went back three days.

But to call this a coincidence was too convenient.

The most pressing question was ‘where was Joe James?’

After a moment’s thought, Chaoyang decided to expand his search to include the staff working in prison. He compiled a comprehensive list of incoming messages and email records from every staff member, focusing mainly on the time frame between the third and fourth rounds of the game. The search took over two hours. A message from a cleaner named Ankre caught his attention:

「“Mom, I’ll be late tonight. The laundry room had a sudden power outage and. there was no prior notice. I still have two tubs of bedding and one tub of prisoner uniforms left to wash. You and Elder Sister don’t need wait for me to eat.”」

There was a unnoticed power outage?

Chaoyang tapped the table absentmindedly. Why hadn’t any of the guards mentioned this?

The coastal prison was equipped with electrically controlled cell doors. A power outage would disable all the doors that operated on electric motors. Although a backup generator was available, if the doors malfunctioned—either failing to close properly or, even worse, locking due to the outage, the most anxious individuals would undoubtedly be the on-site prison guards.

Yet, strangely, among the hundred-plus member security team, not a single one had complained about the power outage.

He checked the local power company’s reports again and found there were no planned outages for that day. There were three maintenance records for malfunctions, but all occurred in the old districts of L City, which was no way near the prison.

Rubbing his eyes, Chaoyang suddenly had a premonition that Joe James would never appear before the public eye again.

Now, a new problem surfaced in front of him.

If someone had truly erased Joe James’s traces without detection, who could it possibly be?

His first suspicion naturally fell on Tyler.

As Joe James’s friend, Tyler had been absent during the third round of the game. Factoring in the interval between the third and fourth rounds, he indeed had the time to act.

Yet Chaoyang had investigated Tyler’s background multiple times and found no obvious red flags. Tyler was born into L City’s wealthy elite, with a throughly documented education from elementary school through university. His pharmaceutical company which was his family business was operated legitimately. Aside from their shared affluence, Tyler and Joe James were fundamentally different kinds of people.

Chaoyang had even verified Tyler’s whereabouts during his critical period between third round. He was traveling to Germany to attend a conference, with airport security cameras capturing him entering and exiting the airport in both locations.

If it wasn’t Tyler, then who else could it be?

Could it be Anthony? He certainly had disliked the Americans, but his influence wasn’t large enough to stir up trouble on the British Isles.

The likelihood of Asahara Naruko or Zhang Zhiyuan being involved was even slimmer.

Chaoyang rubbed his stiff neck and leaned back in his computer chair letting out a long sigh.

Could it be that someone else was targeting Joe James, and this matter had nothing to do with Paradise at all from the very beginning?

After all, James was a criminal wanted by multiple nations, as his operations including illegal psychoactive drugs. He’d undoubtedly made countless enemies, so it seemed plausible that he was silenced due to power struggles and conflicts of interest.

Suddenly, the cleaner’s text message flashed through Chaoyang’s mind:
“There was a sudden power outage in the laundry room, but there was no prior notice…”

“No prior notice.”

“No notice.”

Chaoyang’s eye widened as his heart lurched with a sudden realization! What if this scenario unfolded differently than he was thinking ? What if Joe James’ disappearance wasn’t due to personal vendettas but a official
covert operation involving the entire prison?

In that case, the guards wouldn’t discuss the outage, because they all knew it was planned, and they needed to adhere to their duties and keep this event secret strictly uphold secrecy about the incident.

But Ankre was different.

He was merely an insignificant worker at the lower levels of the prison hierarchy. Positions like his were always in flux, and no one would bother to include people like him in their plans.

Following this line of reasoning, didn’t it mean the mastermind had anticipated that someone would be continuously monitoring Joe James’s movements via the prison’s own surveillance system?

Chaoyang’s mind shifted abruptly as he opened several new network connections.

These connections led to various digital currency markets—he had used such anonymous transactions, transferring funds through multiple layers, to gradually funnel the Paradise game’s admission fees into domestic accounts.

What he discovered left him utterly astounded:

Every one of these digital currency markets were now inaccessible!

Tracing the connections, Chaoyang then located their real-world addresses of these markets and found it was an offshore company registered in Bulgaria. By hacking into a surveillance camera at a nearby intersection, he saw a building reduced to ashes, completely burned to the ground.