NOVPUBChapter 120: Chapter 119 Tracker
Chapter 120 -119 Tracker
…
Chaoyang sat down in front of the computer with a steaming bowl of instant noodles, slurping a strand while staring at the screen.
If his identity as the creator of Paradise was set aside, his current lifestyle bore no difference from that of an ordinary person. To minimize time spent outside, he relied on takeout for food and beverages, while entertainment consisted of listening to music and browsing forums. The games he used to be passionate about had now lost their appeal—after all, his experiences in another world had been thrilling enough.
However, the proportion of time dedicated to entertainment was ultimately small.
Even on Earth, he still had many tasks to attend to, among which the most important was to regularly monitor the players’ movements and observe the impact Paradise had on them.
Although his Cyber Eye ability could penetrate all cyber defenses, it also meant he had to rely on his own eyes and brain to filter through the massive amounts of intelligence, which was quite exhausting to some degree.
Of course, he could abandon this monitoring or simply check emails and call logs casually, but that would clearly be neglecting his own safety. Especially considering the players of Paradise were all either wealthy or noble, their social circles could easily stir up a storm, and overlooking any changes could end up with him suffering the consequences.
This was one of the reasons why Chaoyang had always been cautious in expanding the number of players.
If every time there were a dozen or so players participating in the game of Paradise, he wouldn’t be able to keep up with checking their backgrounds afterward.
When Chaoyang finished the last bite of noodles and connected his consciousness to the network of the island prison holding Joe James, he couldn’t help but let out an “Eh?”
The surveillance footage showed that Joe James was gone.
Had the extradition process already begun?
He quickly hacked into the prison database, searching under the name Wayne James, and the result was far beyond his expectation.
The man had no information at all.
This was very strange, indeed.
Whether it was a trial, a transfer, or an extradition, none of these would cause a person’s information to vanish into thin air, just like a person moving from elementary to middle school would leave information at both schools. Now even Joe James’s imprisonment records had disappeared, meaning that the prison never had such an inmate to begin with!
Chaoyang put down his chopsticks, his expression turning serious.
The first thing he searched for was the prison’s surveillance records, but soon he discovered that the earliest record was only from three days ago. Then in the warden’s email, he found a message about upgrading the surveillance system, which indeed mentioned the replacement of the entire prison’s cameras and storage devices. This could explain why network access only went back three days.
But to say this was a coincidence would be too convenient.
The most important question remained: where had Joe James gone?
Chaoyang thought for a moment and decided to expand the search to the prison staff—he compiled all of their text messages and email records, then specifically examined the period between the third and fourth rounds of the game. After over two hours of searching, a text message from a cleaning staff member named Anklei caught his attention.
“Mom, I’ll be home late today. The laundry room suddenly lost power, and we weren’t notified in advance. I still have two big bins of sheets and a bin of prisoner uniforms to wash, so you and my sister don’t have to wait for me to eat.”
A power outage?
Chaoyang tapped the desk subconsciously. Why hadn’t the prison guards mentioned this incident?
The seaside prison was equipped with electronically controlled cell doors, and a power outage would cause all the doors to lose their ability to open and close. Although there were backup generators, if the doors malfunctioned and couldn’t be closed, locking due to the power failure, the most anxious ones would certainly be the guards present.
But what was odd was that among the more than one hundred strong surveillance team, not one had complained about the power failure.
He checked the local power utility’s briefing and found that there were no scheduled power outages on that day. There were three maintenance records, but all of them occurred in the old district of City L, none related to the prison.
Chaoyang rubbed his eyes, suddenly feeling a premonition that Joe James would never appear before people again.
New problems had surfaced.
If someone had indeed erased Joe James’s tracks without anyone noticing, who could that person be?
His first suspect was naturally Tyler.
This man was a friend of Joe James and was absent from the third round of the game. Including the interval between the third and fourth rounds, he indeed had the time to commit the crime.
However, Chaoyang had checked Tyler’s identity several times and found no obvious issues. He was born into a wealthy family in City L and had a traceable history from elementary school to university graduation. The pharmaceutical company he ran was quite ordinary, a part of his family’s business. Aside from being very rich, he and Joe James were considered different types of people.
Chaoyang could even track Tyler’s whereabouts during his absence—he was on his way to a meeting in Germany, and cameras in both locations had captured footage of him entering and leaving the airport.
If not Tyler, then who else could it be?
Anthony? He did seem to have problems with the Americans, but he didn’t have the clout to cause trouble on Britannia Island.
The likelihood of Qianyuan Meiko and Zhang Zhiyuan being involved was even lower.
Chaoyang rubbed his somewhat sore neck and leaned back in his computer chair, exhaling deeply.
Could there be someone else targeting Joe James, and had this incident been unrelated to Paradise from the very beginning?
After all, the man was an international fugitive with business interests that included illegal psychoactive drugs; he would undoubtedly have made a lot of enemies, and being silenced due to conflicts of interest seemed plausible.
An unsolicited message from a janitor flashed through Chaoyang’s mind.
“The laundry room suddenly lost power, but there was no prior notice…”
“But there was no prior notice.”
“No notice.”
A sudden shock hit him!
What if this was leading in another direction? What if Joe James’s disappearance was not due to a grudge but a public operation involving the entire prison?
Then the prison guards would naturally not discuss the power outage.
Because they knew it was destined to happen, and they needed to maintain confidentiality about the event as part of their duty.
But Anklei was different.
He was just an insignificant lower-level worker whose position was always in flux; nobody would include them in any plan.
Following this assumption, wouldn’t it mean that the orchestrator anticipated that someone would keep monitoring Joe James’s whereabouts through the prison’s own surveillance system?
Chaoyang’s thoughts shifted, and he casually opened several new online connections.
These connections led to several cryptocurrency markets—he had also been transferring the money from the Paradise game tickets to domestic accounts in batches using this untraceable currency.
The search results shocked him!
All of these trading platforms were now inaccessible!
Chaoyang then tracked down the real address of the markets, an offshore company based in Bulgaria. By hacking into the cameras at the crossroads, he saw a building turned into a burnt-out ruin.
