Life Game In Other World
Chapter 569: Secret Eyes (Super Long - for Monthly Pass)

Chapter 569: Chapter 569: Secret Eyes (Super Long Chapter for Monthly Pass)

The moment he set eyes on the tentacles, a torrent of disjointed whispers reverberated in He Ao’s mind, as if countless thoughts were murmuring in his ear.

The whispers were so familiar; they were the very same ones He Ao had heard from that hidden entity in the mental asylum.

The shadows before him, like a curtain of tentacles, seemed to be an extension of that hidden entity’s power.

However, the shadows spreading into this study didn’t seem as sensitive as those in the mental asylum, or perhaps the power that extended into this study wasn’t as dense.

As he gazed at these shadows, besides bringing chaotic whispers to He Ao, they didn’t give the feeling of being watched up close by a terrifying higher being, like in the mental asylum.

He Ao looked at these shadowy tentacles, pondered for a moment, then turned his head toward the direction of the living room.

The entire ceiling of the living room was densely covered with slender shadow tentacles, emerging from the void above the ceiling and clinging to it like the bodies of parasitic vines covering a canopy of trees.

He Ao had just walked through these dense tentacles from the higher being before entering the study.

He Ao turned back, looking at the shadows enveloping the bookshelves like a curtain, and slowly stretched out his hand. As he was about to touch the tentacles, they slid aside like automatically parting curtains, evading his touch.

At the same time, some tentacles rose, encircling He Ao.

They were ’watching’ He Ao.

In that moment, He Ao felt as if some force was trying to peel open his brain like unfurling lotus buds, cautiously probing his deepest thoughts.

But compared to when he was directly confronting the hidden entity in the mental asylum, these attempts were rather insignificant.

The force entered his consciousness and vanished into the calm waves like dropping into the ocean.

The power carried by these tentacles seemed to be a part of that hidden entity, carrying its gaze, but the gaze wasn’t strong, and the corruption it brought was minimal.

However, this ’minimal’ is relative to He Ao.

Any ordinary person, even a low-level Transcendent, would easily become contaminated if they were under this power’s scrutiny for too long, leading to mental health issues.

He Ao paused as his hand touched the glass door of the bookcase, looking at the tentacles that were ’watching’ him.

He suddenly understood why Jess’s mother had become so emotionally unstable after his father’s death.

The forces trying to invade He Ao’s mind did not force their way in but gradually seeped in, trying to influence his thinking, probing his consciousness, and peeling back his memories.

Their approach was so gentle, like a slow-acting poison.

In a short period of one or two days, even ordinary people wouldn’t notice anything amiss.

These tentacles hadn’t just arrived; they had been here all along.

They were here after Jess’s father passed away and even before his death.

They were like pairs of eyes, present in every corner of the house, spying on Jess’s parents’ lives, their thoughts, their memories.

These were the methods the Mysterious Person had set up in Jess’s house to spy on the secret knowledge Jess’s parents knew.

He Ao deactivated his Super Memory, and the world instantly returned to tranquility.

His hand rested on the somewhat dusty glass door of the bookcase, the silent bookcase like frozen time.

In the empty house, only He Ao was alone.

But the forces constantly intruding into his mind reminded him that the tentacles hadn’t disappeared; he just couldn’t see them. They still twisted around him, ’watching’ him.

However, these tentacles were not always active; it appeared that the hidden entity’s power was also limited, so the Mysterious Person probably only set up trigger points in critical locations.

The trigger point was the bookcase; anyone who opened it would be spied upon by these tentacles. The longer one stayed in the house, the longer they would be scrutinized.

But from this point of view, since the Mysterious Person considered the bookcase to be the trigger point, it indicated that he believed the bookcase was most likely to hold the secrets.

However, there’s an issue here—how did the Mysterious Person pinpoint the location of the bookcase so precisely?

Did the shadow tentacles themselves possess a locating effect?

He Ao looked toward the living room outside, where the tentacles now hung down like the dense vines in a forest.

Or had the Mysterious Person entered this house under some identity before?

He Ao withdrew his gaze, still lacking some critical clues. The Mysterious Person’s abilities were somewhat distracting; Jess’s memories held no sign of a suspicious person.

Of course, it was also possible that the Mysterious Person had hacked the smart lock and sneaked in here.

He Ao pulled open all the cabinet doors and his fingers brushed over each book in the bookshelf. For the moment, he suppressed his doubts, stepped back a few paces, created some distance, and reactivated Super Memory.

The dense mass of shadowy tentacles reappeared in his vision. He Ao’s gaze passed through these tentacles and landed on the bookshelf behind them.

All the books and their arrangement filled He Ao’s mind.

Then he deactivated Super Memory, took a step forward, and scrutinized the books closely.

The details recorded by Super Memory were compared with the fuzzy memories in Jess’s mind.

After his father’s death, while cleaning the room, Jess had taken out each book to look through them but found no clues.

Yet the current arrangement of the bookshelf was very similar to how Jess had left it after his search.

Although his memory was a bit fuzzy, He Ao was still fairly certain that these were the same books Jess had sorted through and put back -- not one more, not one less.

He Ao pondered for a moment, then reached out, took down the books, leaving the shelves empty. He swept over the empty shelves with Super Memory, but they too were devoid of anything.

There were no special marks or hidden symbols, only natural signs of wear that didn’t reveal any deliberately left passwords.

However, this situation was not unexpected for He Ao. If the things Jess’s father left behind were easy to find, then neither Jess nor the Mysterious Person would have failed to find them.

The key to this event was ensuring that the knowledge Jess’s father wanted to impart could be seen by the enemies of the Mysterious Person who were looking for this knowledge but not by the Mysterious Person himself.

The Mysterious Person was also a Transcendent, with strange abilities and assistance from these tentacles belonging to covert entities. A common Transcendent might not be as meticulous and keen as the Mysterious Person, so what a common Transcendent could see, the Mysterious Person should also be able to see.

He Ao looked thoughtfully at these tentacles.

He temporarily left the study and entered other rooms.

The house Jess’s father had purchased was a small three-room suite: a master bedroom, a secondary bedroom, and a study.

The master bedroom, where Jess’s parents slept, was on the opposite side of the living room, while the study and secondary bedroom were on the same side.

This time, He Ao did not enter the master bedroom. Jess had turned his parents’ master bedroom inside out.

Especially after finding that final letter from his mother, he even dismantled the wardrobe and the bed to thoroughly check the crevices.

Jess had already searched through all the physical things that could be found.

Therefore, He Ao prioritized entering the secondary bedroom, where Jess had lived himself.

Jess had left his secondary bedroom clean and tidy. After marrying Tiny, he had moved out and bought a small house of his own, taking most of his usable belongings with him. What remained in this secondary bedroom were remnants of his childhood.

The decor of the secondary bedroom had barely changed. After his parents’ deaths, Jess had also looked through his old room, but not in great detail, as many of the things had been placed there by him.

Jess’s parents seldom touched his belongings. So apart from regular cleaning, the items in the secondary bedroom were almost unchanged from when Jess had left.

A few old clothes still hung in the wardrobe, some already rotting and damaged, and the whole wardrobe was filled with the smell of mildew.

When his mother was still alive, she used to clean out his wardrobe every now and then.

Back then, she would often take pictures and send them to Jess, telling him how much dust had accumulated on the wardrobe and that the clothes hung inside had not been worn for a long time, wondering whether Jess had gained weight.

Jess knew that it was his mother’s way of saying she missed him.

He Ao gathered up the fragments of synthetic fabric, tidied up and organized the wardrobe.

Then he pulled open the small bookshelf next to the wardrobe.

There were only a few simple books in the bookcase; the rest of the space was filled with various game consoles and electronic toys.

Jess too had tried to focus on reading, but who could resist the allure of a game console?

As a child, he had often been scolded by his mother for this very reason.

Whenever he was scolded, his father would stand by laughing, sometimes even picking up his phone to take a video, claiming he would play it at Jess’s wedding when he grew up.

Then his mother, in the heat of the moment, would grab his father as well and scold them both together.

In the end, his father didn’t play those video recordings at Jess’s wedding, and while sorting his father’s belongings, Jess did not find those childhood videos in his father’s cloud space.

Perhaps, his father had only meant to scare the child at the time.

He Ao picked up the game consoles. Some were completely out of power, but surprisingly, some still functioned, containing some of Jess’s favorite childhood games.

The dynamic music from the game console’s main menu echoed in the empty room, while a faint glow shimmered in the darkness.

He Ao fell silent for a moment before turning off the game console.

He picked up the books.

These books were not any sort of proper science popularization materials but were more like fantasy novels themed around ’unsolved mysteries.’

Jess could no longer remember the content of the books, and as He Ao flipped through them, he only glanced briefly at the simple, bizarre tales.

However, when he opened the last book, he paused.

Inside the book, there was a small chip.

He Ao was taken aback for a moment before realizing that it was a Virtual Receipt Storage Card.

Most of the entry tickets for tourist attractions and transport tickets in the Federation were electronic, but travel always carried sentimental value, and many people liked to collect their travel receipts. Therefore, devices for storing these electronic receipts came into existence.

Jess’s parents were among those who liked to collect electronic receipts.

Most of the time, people would download an app for storing receipts and could update it directly online.

But for those without high-performance smart bands, or children whose parents did not yet want to buy them one, there were inexpensive hardware devices that could serve as a ’ticket wallet’ for storing electronic receipts.

This storage card was one such device, essentially a custom memory card into which all the electronic receipts had to be imported using software.

Yet once stored, any smart device could read the receipts inside, like a game console.

This card was one that Jess had tucked into a book as a child, and it stored memories of trips taken with his parents.

When Jess was rummaging for things earlier, he had also found this card, but he didn’t pay it any attention and continued to search for other things.

A decade had passed, and it was unknown if the card would still work. In theory, the Federation’s storage chips could last quite a time as long as they were not broken.

He Ao picked up the game console he had just been using, powered it on, and inserted the Virtual Receipt Card.

Accompanied by a dynamic tune, the stored receipts were read out.

The most recent receipt was a ticket from when Jess’s parents took him to an amusement park, but that was over twenty years ago.

After that trip, Jess had not used this receipt card again because his parents finally bought him a high-end smart band.

There seemed to be no problem.

He Ao removed the receipt card and turned off the game console.

He held the card up close to his eyes to see if he could find any clues.

This card was one of the few belongings of Jess that his parents often handled themselves.

They had to import the prepared tickets into it using the software on their computer.

The card had a simple external structure, with a somewhat faded plastic case and conductive contacts exposed to air.

The so-called conductive contacts were metal pieces with high conductivity. Data exchange could occur when the metal pieces in the reading device’s slot made contact with these conductive contacts.

Under the ’Eyes of the Night’ ability of the terrorists, He Ao could see what appeared to be many fine vertical scratches on the conductive contacts, likely caused by frequently inserting the card into the game console, but these scratches were too faint to see clearly.

After a moment’s thought, He Ao rummaged through the storage cabinet next to him and found an electronic magnifying glass.

He turned on the magnifying glass, aimed it at the conductive contacts of the card, and the details of the conductive contacts appeared on the magnifying glass’s screen.

Then he noticed that among these dense vertical scratches, there were also a few shorter ones.

Game consoles and computers have deep card slots, and short scratches like these would not be made unless the card was inserted just a little and then abruptly pulled out. These scratches seemed to come from another device.

As He Ao pondered, his smart band vibrated with a message from Heish:

[The thing you asked me to investigate seems to have a lead. Recently, someone has been buying up large quantities of those Transcendent materials you mentioned, but their identity is very mysterious. My informants don’t have any information on them, but I have an ’old friend’ in the Plante District who works for the biggest material smuggler in Vitland, and he might know something.]

He Ao thought it over and, holding the card in his hand, replied: [Is there anything I need to do?]

Heish replied almost immediately: [No need, I am about to take a trip to Plante and will meet that friend of mine. If there’s any information, I’ll contact you right away.]

[Okay, thanks for your help]

He Ao responded with a message and then exited the chat interface. It’s best to leave professional matters to the professionals. Heish sent this message to indicate that there was progress on the matter.

Just then, he looked at the wristband in his hand and suddenly realized something.

Unlike gaming consoles, wristbands are small, so they usually employ magnetic suction hidden card slots that are closed at all times and only expand when in use.

Of course, not all wristbands come equipped with this type of card slot, generally, the slim and lightweight ones or the cheaper ones do not feature this function.

And the wristband He Ao was using now belonged to the latest flagship model from the Trison Group, which just happened to have such a card slot.

He Ao’s gaze fell on the hidden card slot, and he slowly pried it open.

The card slot was shallow but had a standard interface; the Virtual Receipt Storage Card could also be inserted normally.

He plugged the Virtual Receipt Storage Card into it, the short scratches perfectly covered by the wristband’s card slot.

It was at that moment that the wristband signaled a notification about a new device connection.

The card was read normally by the wristband, showing ordinary ticket information.

After thinking for a moment, He Ao spoke softly, "Eve, decipher this card and read it as a storage card."

"Decrypting the card’s system, please wait."

Eve’s voice responded swiftly, followed by a quick change in the wristband’s display.

The beautifully designed ticket interface was replaced by a primitive system file reading interface.

"Hidden folder discovered, would you like to expand it?"

Eve’s voice immediately followed up.

"Expand,"

He Ao nodded.

Following that, a new folder expanded into He Ao’s view.

Most of the contents of this folder were video files.

He Ao randomly opened one of the videos.

······

"Where did you think you went wrong?"

A woman’s voice, tinged with anger, echoed in the empty room.

The shaky camera, the bright sunlight, a glasses-wearing, shovel-holding, cheeks-puffed woman of seeming gentle demeanor.

A boy peeking out cautiously from behind a sofa, and the person holding the camera whose gentle, soft laughter could be heard.

"You laugh, you still laugh," the annoyed woman turned her head to face the camera, "I asked you to supervise the child’s homework, and you didn’t notice him playing games?"

The laughter behind the camera stopped abruptly.

The little boy behind the sofa showed a schadenfreude grin.

······

He Ao closed the video, and after looking at the dozens of similar video files crammed into the data card, he fell silent for a moment.

He continued to scroll down the page, at the very end of the folder, there weren’t video files, but two ticket documents and a hotel order.

The ticket documents were two airship tickets to Dawn City.

One was purchased in Jess’s name, the other in the name of Jess’s mother.

The purchase date was twelve years prior, the morning before the incident involving Jess’s father occurred.

Such long-distance routes were rare, tickets were hard to come by, and the airship was scheduled to leave about three days after the purchase date.

The hotel order was also booked under the names of Jess and Jess’s mother, from the day the airship tickets were bought to the day the airship was set to depart.

And the last entry time for this folder was also the morning before the incident with Jess’s father.

He Ao looked up, glancing around, he knew that invisible tentacles were hanging beside him.

He finally knew where Jess’s father had ’stored’ that knowledge.