Chapter 529: Into Prison (7/10, Autumn Subscription)

Jing Yan tried to make a sound, but found he couldn't; his face was deathly pale, and his body collapsed to the ground in an instant.

Hands shaking, feet shaking, his whole body shaking—shaking with fear.

"What's going on… what exactly is going on?"

"He's dead? How could he be dead?"

"And the way he died is… exactly the same as in the game!"

A chill surged into his heart, his hands and feet went ice-cold, and Jing Yan trembled all over.

"Boss?!"

"Boss, what's going on?"

The others had only heard Jing Yan's phone clatter to the floor, and before they realized what had happened, they saw Jing Yan looking as if he'd seen a ghost, his face ashen with terror, collapsed on the ground and trembling all over.

They hurriedly helped Jing Yan up and asked what had happened, but Jing Yan said nothing—only pointed at his phone with a trembling hand.

The crowd looked at the phone and found it had just fallen to the ground, shattering the screen; by now it had gone black and was rebooting.

The phone's build was decent—at least only the screen was cracked, the motherboard was fine.

"Boss, come on, it's just a thousand-yuan phone. If you want one, you could buy dozens in a minute—no need to be this heartbroken over it?"

The others were also a bit puzzled—could this cheap phone hold some juicy secret? Some keepsake from a first love? For a moment, the way everyone looked at Jing Yan turned a little strange.

Who would've thought Boss Jing Yan was so devoted in matters of the heart.

Jing Yan couldn't care less about what others thought—he was scared out of his wits, okay?

After calming down a little, he immediately took the phone of the person beside him.

He had someone unlock it, then Jing Yan directly dialed that person's number. While waiting for the other end to pick up, his hands trembling, he pulled out a cigarette and lit one.

"Boss, let me light it for you."

"Mm."

By now the others could tell something was off about Jing Yan's mood. For a moment the office fell silent, with only the phone's dial tone—beep, beep, beep—going on and on.

Jing Yan didn't even know how many calls he'd made; cold sweat just kept pouring from his forehead.

After finally losing patience and smashing the phone, while the others stood too scared to even breathe, he began transferring money to the brutally killed Huangmao, with a note asking what had happened to him.

The money was sent in several batches, but there was no response at all.

Taking a deep breath, Jing Yan knew he probably needed to go see for himself.

Of course, sending someone else to investigate would work too, but… such a terrifying thing had happened right before his eyes—Jing Yan had to admit, he was scared.

If things were as he suspected, what lay behind this meant far too much!

It was a matter of grave importance. He had someone book a flight on the spot, then went into the game to say a word to Fang Yue, entrusted Xiao Xuedou to Tian Dan Zhi Yuan Wu for safekeeping with all due solemnity, and Jing Yan curled up inside the Green Division and logged off.

After logging off, he rushed straight to the nearest phone store, bought a current-season flagship phone, and waited impatiently at the airport.

Watching the seconds tick by, Jing Yan felt every second stretch into a year.

Restlessly scrolling through his phone, he searched for any news about deaths in "Blue Sea," but there was nothing.

Until… while he was scrolling through a niche forum, someone suddenly posted a set of pictures—a corpse covered in full-body corrosion marks, brutally killed in a room, still wearing a Game Watch on its wrist—onto the forum.

And in the caption, only five words repeated over and over.

"Don't play the game! Don't play the game! Don't play the game! Don't play the game!"

Jing Yan's pupils contracted; he was about to scroll down and reply to the post to ask what was going on.

The website suddenly refreshed on its own, and the post vanished.

Jing Yan stared blankly at his phone, a bone-piercing chill running from his head down to his feet.

He suddenly felt he was in the middle of a vast conspiracy.

And the scale of this conspiracy's layout, the strength of the forces behind it, was beyond anything an ordinary person could imagine.

"Sir? Sir!"

For a moment, Jing Yan was seized by a tremendous panic.

When Jing Yan came back to his senses, he realized it was an airport staff member, asking if he was a passenger on this flight.

Jing Yan checked the time and only then realized the plane was about to take off.

He nodded at the staff member, stood up, and boarded the plane.

Half an hour later, Jing Yan got off the plane.

He took a cab straight to Huangmao's home.

Previously, to prevent outside personnel from running off, Jing Yan had the real-life information for all three of them.

He never imagined it would be used for something like this.

"You're going to Wanjun Road?" the driver said oddly. "Can't go there—it's been blocked off."

"Why?"

"They say it was a gas explosion, someone got blown up at home. Weird, isn't it? Lately, more and more people have been dying at home. And whenever one person dies, the whole street gets locked down—god knows what these managing guilds are even doing."

Hearing the old driver say this, Jing Yan's heart gave a sudden lurch.

Could it be…

His palms and the backs of his hands were drenched in sweat. He took a deep breath, insisted the driver drop him near Wanjun Road, and got out himself.

Looking at the security company personnel stationed outside, Jing Yan found a small hotel and asked around for information.

Sure enough… recently, similar incidents of gas explosions at home had been very frequent, and the families were ready to sue the gas company into bankruptcy.

But… no one seemed to think deeper. Every single person who died at home from a gas explosion was actually wearing a Game Watch on their wrist.

If no one noticed the anomaly, no one found the angle to dig in, naturally they couldn't connect these incidents together.

But Jing Yan had noticed—he could no longer ignore these questions.

All the clues seemed to link into a single line, filling him with a deep, genuine fear.

"Tengli Group… what exactly are you trying to do!"

After nightfall, Jing Yan quietly slipped past the security personnel and snuck inside. He found Huangmao's home—an old two-story residence.

He climbed to the second floor, smashed open the window, pulled back the curtains and looked inside—Jing Yan's pupils contracted.

The floor of the room was covered in dried bloodstains, as if someone had suddenly exploded on the spot right there in the room.

Holding up his phone, he turned on the selfie mode like a video call, and aimed the angle based on his memory. The moment Jing Yan paused in front of the desk, he trembled.

This was it… this angle, this position.

Huangmao had been right here, chatting with him, and then—bang—his body exploded, and the tragedy happened!

How could this be…

After spacing out for a moment, Jing Yan's brain began to work.

He didn't linger. Instead, he silently retreated, avoided the security personnel, left the cordoned-off street, booked a return flight overnight, didn't even bother checking into a hotel, and prepared to head home.

He needed to think carefully about how to both protect himself and stop Tengli Group's insane actions.

He boarded the plane smoothly and thought it over for the entire flight.

After landing, Jing Yan headed straight for the Jianghai City headquarters of the Network Association.

If there was anyone who could sanction Tengli Group, there was only one—the power of the authorities. The Network Association was the official organization that governed all operating networks, and Tengli Group, as the publisher of the Death Game, was naturally under the Network Association's supervision!

"I want to report Tengli Group!"

When he faced the Network Association's officials and explained everything he had seen and heard, along with his speculations.

He… was thrown in prison.

(End of chapter)