You were supposed to have a fake marriage with the diva, so how did you become her father?

After Wang Anguo left, Lu Ran sat in his office in a daze for about five minutes.

He rarely daydreams. When things come one after another, he handles them quickly. When there's nothing to do, he'll proactively find something else to do.

But today was different. He sat in his chair and stared at the canopy of the sycamore tree outside the window for a long time. The treetops swayed gently in the September breeze, and the edges of the leaves had begun to turn yellow.

He recalled Wang Anguo's mention of an "honorary position".

He didn't ask which specific level it referred to, nor did he think about it in detail. But he remembered Wang Anguo's words—"Reduce intermediate links and have formal authorization."

This means that in the future, if there are similar issues, he can directly connect without having to wait for multiple layers of transfers.

And this also means that what he did was indeed seen.

It was already dark when he got home that night.

Shen Yuege wasn't in the living room. The light in the study on the second floor was on. He changed his shoes and went upstairs. As he passed the study door, he glanced inside and saw Shen Yuege sitting at her desk in front of an open laptop with a sheet music on the screen.

She was looking down as she turned the pages, unaware that he was standing in the doorway.

He didn't disturb her, went downstairs to the kitchen to pour himself a glass of water, and sat on the sofa in the living room for a while.

The TV wasn't on, and the living room was quiet, with only the hum of the refrigerator compressor and the occasional sound of cars coming in from outside the window.

He finished his water, put the cup on the coffee table, went upstairs to his study, turned on his computer, and brought up the backend data panel again.

He decided to broaden his focus further.

The blank areas were his main focus, but in addition to those areas, there were some other locations that, while not completely blank, contained some unusual data characteristics.

For example, the location request density in some areas is significantly lower than that in similar surrounding areas, but it is not zero.

For example, in some areas, the number of environmental images collected is disproportionate to the number of location requests, with a significant shortage of images.

For example, in some areas, user trajectories show a regular detour pattern. No one crosses that area directly; everyone circles the edge in an arc before continuing forward.

He marked each of those areas and made a list in his notebook.

The locations on the list are scattered: two in Japan, three in the United States, two in Europe, and one in South America.

He didn't rush to conclusions; he simply recorded them first and then continued to review the data reports in the background.

When he turned to the third page, he noticed a record that he hadn't paid much attention to before.

That record belongs to a user account with a high account level and activity spanning several countries. In the past week, the login location jumped from Tokyo to Seoul, and then from Seoul to Taipei.

This kind of cross-regional movement is not uncommon in games; business travelers who frequently travel for work will also follow similar patterns.

However, the account's activity times are a bit off. Most players are active in the evening and on weekends, but this account's login times are evenly distributed between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. on weekdays, with much lower activity on weekends.

Lu Ran opened the account's detailed history and took a look.

The capture logs show that he caught quite a few rare creatures in the past two weeks, but the number of environmental collection photos uploaded is almost zero.

This is quite different from the behavior of ordinary players. Most players will take a picture of the environment and upload it after catching a rare creature, because that operation only requires clicking a button, and after uploading, the encyclopedia page will have an additional "Environment" label, making it look more complete.

This account has never taken a single photo.

He took a screenshot of the account's ID and activity history, put it in a newly created folder, and wrote a note saying "Suspected non-ordinary player".

He didn't rush to conclusions; he simply saved the data and waited for more samples to be available before making a judgment.

Over the next two days, he discovered several more accounts with similar characteristics.

Some accounts are mainly active in specific areas, such as only in the Tokyo metropolitan area, but their coverage is extremely wide, covering almost every corner of Tokyo. Such coverage density does not seem like the normal activity range of ordinary players.

Some accounts log in at extremely regular times, logging in and out at fixed times every day with almost no fluctuations, as if someone is operating according to a schedule.

Some accounts never participate in social functions, never speak, never form teams, never participate in territory activities, and only walk around, catch creatures, and upload pictures.

These accounts are fine individually, but they become interesting when viewed together.

There weren't many accounts in total, maybe a dozen or so, but they were distributed across multiple countries and were all concentrated near the key areas he had previously marked.

He looked through their activity records and found that several accounts had stayed in the same location at very short intervals, as if they were taking turns checking the status of the same location.

Lu Ran did not alert those accounts.

He didn't make any tags or modify any parameters; he simply retrieved their activity data from the backend and archived it separately.

He knew in his heart that those people might not know they were being observed when he did this.

They open the game, log in, walk around, catch creatures, and upload pictures—all exactly the same actions as ordinary players. The only difference is that they don't know that someone in the background can extract and analyze this data separately.

On the fourth day, the backend showed that another batch of location signals had been added near the wall in Area 3 of Japan.

This time, the data was closer to the inside of the wall than ever before, with one signal almost touching the bottom of the wall.

Lu Ran clicked on the user information corresponding to that signal and found that it was a new account, registered less than a week ago, with a low level and very simple activity history. It had been active in that area since the day it was registered.

He didn't upload any environmental photos, but the location data itself speaks volumes.

Lu Ran organized the new data and sent it, along with the previous list of accounts suspected of being non-ordinary players, to Wang Anguo.

His email was brief, stating only that he had discovered several accounts with unusual activity patterns and suggesting continued monitoring.

Wang Anguo did not reply to the email, but Lu Ran's phone rang that afternoon.

"Mr. Lu, we've also noticed those accounts you mentioned," Wang Anguo's voice came through the receiver, a half-tone lower than usual. "What you discovered matches the information we have. I can't say exactly which match right now, but I can tell you one thing—we checked the phone number ranges registered to two of the accounts, and they belong to the dedicated communication network of a certain country's embassy or consulate in that area."

Lu Ran unconsciously tightened his grip on his phone.

The network of embassies and consulates.

This means that the actual users of those accounts are not ordinary players, but rather those playing the game with a specific purpose.

They may be testing the game's data collection capabilities, or they may be confirming whether the geographical information of those areas has been widely covered.

In either case, it all points to one thing—those people are indeed playing the game, and they are indeed using it for other purposes.

"Are they still logging in?" Lu Ran asked.

"They're still there. And we've observed that since your new version adjusted the refresh frequency, the activity of those accounts has increased. Their interest in those areas seems to be synchronized with changes in the overall player base's enthusiasm."

Upon hearing this, Lu Ran made a judgment in his mind.

Those officials weren't passively playing the game; they were actively following in the footsteps of the players.

They follow whichever direction the players gather in. They're not interested in the creatures in the game; they're interested in why players are gathering in that location.

The direction in which they gathered happened to coincide with the location of the legendary creatures that Lu Ran had refreshed.

"So how should I cooperate next?" he asked Wang Anguo.

"Maintain the status quo," Wang Anguo said. "Don't adjust any parameters, and don't mark those accounts in any way. Let them continue logging in and engaging in normal activities. The more data they collect, the more valuable it will be to us."

Lu Ran understood.

Those people thought they were observing the players, but in reality, their act of observation was being observed themselves.

Every time they log in, every time they walk a certain distance, and every time they stop at a certain location, they leave a record on their activity trajectory.

Those records are mixed in with those of ordinary players and appear to be no different on the surface, but as long as someone specifically filters them, they can pick out the data with abnormal patterns.

He continued to monitor the activity of those accounts for the next few days.

Two accounts appeared near the wall of Area 3 in Japan on the fourth day. One account went from south to north, and the other went from east to west. The two tracks intersected outside the southeast corner of the wall, then each stayed for a while before returning along their original routes.

The two accounts were almost perfectly positioned near the intersection, with the distance between their stopping points less than ten meters.

Lu Ran extracted the two trajectories separately and drew a simple route map on his notebook.

The intersection of the two lines was right next to a large tree on the outside of the wall. He had seen the location of that tree several times in the previous image collages; it was one of the few obvious landmarks on the edge of the wall.

The tree has a large canopy, and its shadow should be clearly visible on satellite images. It is indeed the ideal reference point for someone wanting to pinpoint a location unnoticed.

He took a picture of the diagram and saved it on his phone, then sent it along with a summary of the activities from those days to Wang Anguo. This time, Wang Anguo replied quickly, with just two words: "Received."

By the second week, the amount of data in the backend had increased to another level.

The number of environmental images collected in Area 3 of Japan has reached nearly fifty. The overall picture of the wall pieced together from those images is becoming more and more complete. Even several obvious repair marks on the surface of the wall and a section of barbed wire that appears to have been added later can be seen.

Although there are fewer pictures of that area in the western United States, there are still more than twenty. Two of them show the roof of a building inside the wall. Although the images are blurred and only the outline of a light gray flat roof can be seen, the arrangement of the ventilation pipes on the roof is enough to make people judge the size and general purpose of the building.

Lu Ran organized and archived the new data, and then went through the list of suspected official accounts again in his notebook.

He discovered a new change in the activity patterns of the two accounts registered on the embassy/consulate's website in recent days—they began to expand their activities in another direction.

Previously, their trajectory was mainly concentrated in the vicinity of a few key areas, but in the last two days, it has begun to extend to the surrounding areas, as if they are mapping terrain data over a larger area.

He stared at the trail extending outwards for a while, then picked up his phone and sent a message to Wang Anguo: "Those accounts are starting to expand outwards. Maybe they're not satisfied with the current data coverage, or maybe they want to confirm the boundaries of this area."

Wang Anguo replied after a few minutes: "We've noticed it too. Are you able to track changes in their activity range backstage?"

"Yes. As long as they don't cancel their accounts or change devices, all their activity patterns are fully recorded in the background. If you need more precise location data, I can extract their activity patterns separately to generate a heatmap for comparison, differentiating it from the data of ordinary players."

"Then let's do it. Send me the results as soon as you have them."

Lu Ran put down his phone and leaned back in his chair.

He glanced out the window. The evening in Shanghai in September was already starting to get cool. The clouds on the horizon were tinged with a pale orange by the setting sun. Looking out the window, he could see the glass curtain walls of several office buildings in the distance reflecting the last rays of the setting sun.

He lowered his head and brought up the activity tracks of those accounts on the computer screen again, zoomed out, and looked at their distribution from a global view.

Those tracks are scattered across the maps of several countries, each point representing a login and each line representing a movement.

They blended in with the tracks of ordinary players, appearing indistinguishable. But he knew that the people behind those tracks were doing things they thought were going unnoticed.

He closed the background page, shut the computer, and stood up to stretch his neck.

The joint made a soft clicking sound, which lasted for a couple of clicks before stopping.

Most of the lights in the corridor were off, with only a few emergency lights casting a dim yellow glow.

When he passed by the tea room, he saw that the door was closed, no one was inside, and the indicator light on the water dispenser was off, probably because someone turned it off when they left.

He walked to the elevator and pressed the down button. When the elevator doors opened, a cleaning lady was standing inside, carrying a bucket of water and a mop. When she saw him come in, she moved aside to make room for him.

He stood in the elevator watching the floor numbers drop down one by one, his mind still preoccupied with those accounts and tracking information.

Some people are still somewhere, opening their phones, waiting for the game to finish loading, waiting for the map interface to refresh, and waiting to take the next step.

They are unaware that their trajectory is being extracted individually, unaware that changes in their activity range are being recorded, and unaware that what they are searching for is exactly what others are searching for.

The elevator doors opened, and he stepped out.

It was already quite dark outside, and the streetlights were on, casting a warm yellow glow on the parking lot.

He walked to his car, opened the door, got in, and placed his phone on the passenger seat as he started the engine.

The screen lit up briefly and then went dark again.

There was no new information. He shifted gears, slowly drove the car out of the parking lot, and merged into the evening traffic.

...