Chapter 223: Balancing the Scales 04
After posting, Kui Xin didn’t pay attention to what the players said, did, or how they reacted. She began seriously recording useful information in the backend.
First, she reviewed players who had publicly shared their information, as those individuals had preliminarily qualified to enter her personal section. Kui Xin required each player to state their real identity in the First World and provide a general range of activities in the Second World. In fact, knowing just the former allowed her to grasp their movements quite well; Kui Xin could use this information to check all their data in the First World and confirm its authenticity—from their birth records to addresses and contact numbers, nothing could escape Kui Xin’s data search.
However, there was one thing that required special attention: while Kui Xin could verify the authenticity of their First World information, she could not do the same for their Second World information… But that wasn’t a significant issue; as long as the First World information was true, even if there were problems with the players entering her personal section, Kui Xin could use that information to conduct targeted cleansing.
Verifying the authenticity of the First World information provided by players was a detailed job.
Players typically hide their identities in the real world, placing extra emphasis on information confidentiality. It was difficult for Kui Xin to confirm if someone was a player based on chat logs or mobile search records.
Certain ill-intentioned players might use the identities of real, existing individuals, while they camouflaged themselves behind the scenes.
To determine if the person displayed on the information is the same as the player, there were indeed methods…
While recording information, Kui Xin saw two interviewers in the massive private message backend: one was Scalpel and the other was Golden Ring.
Both of them had shared their personal information, and they directly indicated that their activities in the Second World were based in White Whale City. The information of these two people in the First World needed to be scrutinized closely.
Kui Xin sighed and began her “work” for the night.
…
At three in the morning, players who had submitted personal information applications and were still awake received a sudden vibration on their mobile phones. A strange text message popped up.
At first glance, the message looked like a spam advertisement, but upon closer inspection, it read: “The game you reserved has begun testing. Players gather, the Black Snake personal guild awaits your joining. Download the game by clicking the link below. To unsubscribe, please reply with TD.”
This message was followed by a link.
Late at night, all the players who received this text message felt awkward.
“Damn, what a genius! This is how you verify?!” The trio of Yu Qiwen, Xie Gankqing, and Yuan Lu, who had panda eyes from lack of sleep, all exclaimed in surprise.
Yuan Lu covered his face: “Unbelievable! If this message goes to non-players, they would ignore it as a marketing scam text. With anti-fraud campaigns so effective now, no normal person would click a link from an unknown source; only players of Crimson Soil would check that link.”
Yu Qiwen said: “Really, how did Black Snake come up with this method?”
“I’ll click to take a look,” Xie Gankqing said.
Xie Gankqing first submitted his personal information to Black Snake, intending to explore the situation but unexpectedly received a reply that same night.
He clicked the link, and a flashy, somewhat garish page appeared. The screen flickered erratically, clearly not a legitimate website; even a normal person mistakenly entering it should have exited immediately. Staying for even two more seconds could lead to the phone getting a virus or falling victim to scams.
Xie Gankqing knew this site wouldn’t be so simple; he noticed a very inconspicuous progress bar loading at the bottom of the page. After three minutes, the progress bar reached the end, and the flashy page abruptly faded, leaving a simple black background with white text.
The page displayed several input boxes for name, gender, ID number…
This was another deterrent mechanism. Those unaware of the truth would certainly not input their personal information on a questionable website; only players would!
Xie Gankqing filled in the information and clicked confirm.
The webpage flashed, leading directly to a facial verification channel. Xie Gankqing held his phone up to his face and took a couple of shots. The screen displayed: “Verification passed!”
He exited the website and refreshed the player forum twice, trying to click on the personal section “Black Snake,” and with a swoosh, he got in.
Black Snake had opened his section for him!
Yu Qiwen exclaimed, “Bro, you made it! You really made it!”
There were already posts in Black Snake’s personal section, but only a few scattered posts, most of which were meaningless exclamations.
Xie Gankqing steadied his emotions and looked at Yuan Lu and Yu Qiwen: “Do you want to join now, or wait for me to check the situation?”
Yuan Lu pondered, “Let’s wait. Now that you’re inside, we have you as an information source. Black Snake didn’t mention a deadline for recruitment; we should be able to join at any time in the future.”
Yu Qiwen’s excitement gradually subsided. He assessed: “Black Snake must have a top-level hacker. That hacker retrieved the identity information of those who submitted applications and built this website to verify those who joined the personal section. Anyone who completed the entire verification process can be confirmed as a living person in the real world, and this information is tightly controlled by The Shadowless Organization, greatly reducing the chance of unidentified individuals infiltrating the personal section.”
“What if a player controlled someone, got them to complete the entire verification, and then hid their identity?” Yuan Lu speculated.
“That would be a low-probability event. Nonetheless, we shouldn’t shy away from potential risks,” Yu Qiwen said. “Moreover, completing the entire verification provides a clue. At the very least, it proves that person had contact with the player, allowing us to trace them from this lead, making it much simpler to follow the trail. Since there’s a super hacker in The Shadowless Organization, continuously tracking information on certain individuals shouldn’t be difficult.”
Yuan Lu: “Makes sense.”
“A good start; everything is falling into place.” Xie Gankqing said, “You two hurry and rest.”
Yu Qiwen rubbed his eyes: “I can’t take it anymore. I’m really exhausted. I need to report tomorrow, and I haven’t even packed my things…”
“That player girl from your university, have you kept in touch?” Yuan Lu asked.
“Yeah, we mostly just checked in when we returned. We haven’t talked much,” Yu Qiwen said. “Once we start university, we can continue to get to know each other; we’re both in the same college, Information Engineering College. She’s in AI, I’m in computer science.”
“Seems like a pretty fateful connection; keep in touch, consider it a good bond,” Xie Gankqing said.
Yuan Lu stretched: “I can’t stay up late anymore… A couple of days ago, my mom asked why the three of us have been so clingy and mysterious lately.”
Yu Qiwen shrugged: “It all started from a damn game.”
As he walked away from the computer toward his guest room to sleep, Yu Qiwen thought for a moment and sent a message to Kui Xin, who was soon to be his university classmate: “Have you joined the personal section?”
Surprisingly, she wasn’t asleep and quickly replied: “No… I don’t want to get involved in this, I just want to live a calm life.”
Just want to live a calm life? Yu Qiwen pondered for a moment and realized her attitude had always been this way—very detached, very settled.
“Then let’s do our best in university together,” Yu Qiwen replied with a polite remark.
Kui Xin also courteously responded: “Let’s do our best together.”
…
The next morning, Kui Xin was awakened by the squeaking noises of the mutated little white mice. They had gone completely mad, frantically gnawing at their cage and making an increasingly aggressive racket.
With a bad mood, Kui Xin got out of bed, grabbed a blade, and went to the bathroom. She quickly dealt with the mutated mouse and poured alcohol over it, opening the bathroom window to burn the mouse’s body, leaving everything clean and neat.
After washing her face, she suppressed her irritation. This morning, she didn’t plan to go for her morning exercise; she needed to pack her things.
Going to university meant she needed to bring clothes. Kui Xin took out the old clothes from her closet and tried them on, sadly realizing one fact—they were mostly too small.
In other words, she had grown taller, gained muscle, and her body had significantly changed.
Kui Xin measured her height and found that it was now completely in line with her Second World self; stretching her muscles, she felt a surge of strength throughout her body.
This was good news, but it wasn’t entirely so.
She packed the clothes that she could still wear into her suitcase, planning to buy some new clothes in a couple of days.
She didn’t pack too many things because day-to-day necessities could be purchased in the campus supermarket, and more importantly, she probably wouldn’t be able to stay at school for too long; she might need to apply for a leave of absence. Bringing back too many things would be a hassle.
A valid reason was required to take a leave of absence. If the school leadership asked Kui Xin why she was taking leave, would she dare to say, “Teacher, I’m going to protect my home?”
The leader would certainly reject her leave application outright.
It would be best to obtain a medical report proving that she had a condition requiring her to recuperate at home; that way, she could smoothly apply for a leave without raising any suspicions.
After finishing her packing, it was already noon. Kui Xin changed her clothes and combed her hair, gathering it into a high ponytail, wearing a black T-shirt and white shorts, and tying a sports waist bag for her phone around her waist. As she instinctively put a blade into the waist bag when storing her phone, she suddenly realized that the subway doesn’t allow dangerous blades, and bringing a knife to her teacher’s house might lead to misunderstandings… So she regretfully set the blade aside.
Kui Xin arrived at her teacher’s door and rang the doorbell. Familiar footsteps quickly approached from within.
Teacher Wang opened the door with a smile, but upon seeing Kui Xin outside, she was momentarily taken aback.
“…Xiao Xin?” There was an uncertain hesitation on her kindly face.
“It’s me, teacher,” Kui Xin said.
Teacher Wang scrutinized her several times, then, as if waking from a dream, said: “You’ve changed a lot in just a few weeks; I almost didn’t recognize you. Come in, come in! Dinner is already prepared.”
Taken aback, Kui Xin walked in and asked, “Have I changed that much? I have indeed grown quite taller these past few weeks.”
“Very much so.” Teacher Wang turned back to look at her and smiled, “Your features have sharpened a bit, you’ve slimmed down, and you’re taller—looking quite grown-up now. Most importantly, your aura has changed; it’s almost unrecognizable!”
“Aura?” Kui Xin’s feelings were complex.
Changes happen subtly; Kui Xin looked at her face every day and couldn’t detect any minor differences in herself. However, Teacher Wang had not seen her for a while and was very sensitive to her changes.
Initially, Kui Xin’s body in the First World and the Second World was different. The first distinction was appearance, which stemmed from different growing environments, age, and the experiences of physical growth; these differences caused her features to not be an exact match, only similar about seventy to eighty percent. The second difference was in body type—one was that of a recently adult girl, and the other was that of an adult female warrior, a significant disparity.
Finally, the last distinction was in hairstyle. People say a hairstyle determines appearance, and it indeed has a significant impact on a person’s external image. Her hair was long in the First World and short in the Second World.
While washing her hands in the bathroom, Kui Xin looked at her reflection in the mirror and tugged at the corner of her mouth. After Teacher’s hint earlier, she carefully studied the young face in the mirror and recognized her changes.
By changing her hair, she was almost identical to her Second World self.
Kui Xin rubbed her face and deliberately made a cold expression.
Now the similarity truly reached one hundred percent; it was as if the reflection in the mirror was the cold-blooded killer cultivated by the Investigation Bureau’s Security Officer in the Second World, Mechanized Dawn.
