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

In the following days, Lu Ran spent significantly more time monitoring the backstage area.

It wasn't because he was idle; it was because the activity patterns of those accounts had undergone some changes that even he hadn't anticipated.

Initially, it was the two Japanese accounts registered under the embassy/consulate number range. Their activity range gradually expanded from the area around the three walls of the district to several surrounding rural roads and villages.

The extended paths were not random; each one followed the road, stopping at intersections as if confirming its direction before choosing one to continue.

Over the course of several days, the two men's tracks covered almost all the routes within a radius of several kilometers around Area 3.

Several accounts in the US were not to be outdone.

They went even further, with one account moving from Los Angeles to San Francisco within three days, with only one night in between when there was no login record.

Later, Lu Ran checked the account's detailed location time and found that it moved on the highway during the day and stopped near a fixed coordinate point at night, as if it was spending the night at a motel.

The man's movements followed the edges of several key areas in the western United States. Sometimes he would stop in a certain place for an hour or two. He didn't move much, but he repeatedly probed the boundaries of those areas.

Lu Ran overlaid and compared those trajectories with the data of ordinary players, and found that the trajectories of ordinary players in those areas were mostly arcs, walking from point A to point B, passing by in between, without deliberately stopping.

The accounts followed different paths; they all moved in straight lines, heading straight to a certain location, staying there for a while, and then leaving in a straight line.

The difference between a curve and a straight line is immediately apparent when placed on a map.

That morning, he looked at the comparison picture several times in his office, and then sent a message to Wang Anguo with the picture attached.

Wang Anguo replied that it was consistent with the information he had: those accounts were indeed collecting more complete geographical information about the area, and their activity range was expanding much faster than previously expected.

Lu Ran thought about it and felt that this was not enough.

Since those people have actively expanded their activity area, it shows that they are indeed using this game for ground reconnaissance.

They thought they were collecting data discreetly, and no one would notice them. But every step they took left a record in the background, and Lu Ran could see these records.

This is equivalent to the enemy revealing their position on your map; you just need to place a sufficiently enticing bait in the right spot.

He reopened the bio-refresh configuration page in the background and set a new refresh rule inside those key blank areas:

Every so often, a unique, legendary creature will spawn in the most central location of those areas.

The creature's appearance has been specially designed, and it will display a unique halo effect in the game. After capturing it, a special gold-bordered marker will appear on the player's encyclopedia page, which will also display the name of the area where it was captured.

Lu Ran gave each region's unique creature a different name: the one in Japan was called "Orochi's Shadow," and the one in the American West was called "Thunderbird's Shadow."

The name sounds like an Easter egg in the game, so players will think it's hidden content deliberately planted by the game designers and won't think of anything else.

After completing the configuration, he reviewed it again and confirmed that the refresh rules would only apply to the blank areas and that no second creature would spawn within at least one month after it was captured.

This extremely low refresh rate makes those creatures incredibly rare, so rare that any player who sees a screenshot on the forum might feel the urge to "try my luck too."

But what he really cared about wasn't whether ordinary players would participate. What he really cared about were those few accounts.

If those account users were indeed using the game for reconnaissance, their most immediate reaction upon seeing this legendary creature, unique in the entire area, would likely be curiosity.

They'll want to know what's so special about that location that would make the game company put a unique creature there, so they'll go over to find out.

Once they go inside, their tracking trajectory will cross the boundary line that they had never been able to cross before.

At that time, they will not only walk into that area themselves, but also leave the precise coordinates of that location in the backend log.

Those coordinates are clearer than any satellite image because they are real people walking on real ground.

After setting the rules, Lu Ran saved the configuration and then sent a short notification to the project team, saying that the new version would add several hidden easter eggs, the specific locations of which would not be publicly guided and would be left for players to discover on their own.

Zhao Yiming replied in the group, "Are you adding new creatures again? Didn't we just add some last week?" Lu Ran replied, "Just a few this time, it won't affect the overall balance." Zhao Yiming didn't ask any further questions.

For the first two days after the new version was released, there were no significant changes in the backend data.

Those accounts continued to operate around the area as before, showing no signs of moving inwards. On the third day, the configuration for the location in the third area of ​​Japan was triggered, and the "Orochi's Shadow" spawned in the game.

The refresh time was chosen to be around 3 PM local time in Japan, which is not the most active time for players, but it is not a completely deserted time either.

The first person to discover it was an ordinary player who was walking on a country road outside the wall when a golden circle suddenly appeared on the map. He clicked on it and found that it was a creature he had never seen before, with the word "unique" at the end of its name.

He pressed the capture button on the spot, but because the difficulty of capturing that creature was deliberately increased, the creature disappeared after he failed twice, leaving only a gray uncaptured record in his encyclopedia.

He posted a thread on a Japanese gamer forum titled "I just saw a golden creature called Yamata no Kagero, does anyone know what it is?"

The post quickly received replies from people asking, "Is it a hidden boss?", "I've never seen that name before," and "Where did you encounter it?"

The poster described the approximate location, but not very precisely, only saying it was near a certain rural road.

That evening, a new reply appeared under that post.

The person who replied didn't say much, only writing one sentence: "I was in that area today too, and I didn't see it. Are you sure you're not mistaken?"

The poster replied, "I didn't misread it; I even took a screenshot."

He posted a screenshot. The picture shows the golden creature standing at the edge of the map, surrounded by gray-green blocks of color, with a glowing circle under its feet. The word "Unique" is indeed printed in the lower right corner of the encyclopedia page.

There were no new posts after that reply. However, Lu's backend data showed that the day after the screenshot was sent, several new location signals appeared at the internal coordinates of Region 3 in Japan, two of which came from the accounts he had been following.

The two signals were positioned closer to the inside of the wall than ever before. One of them was almost touching the base of the wall.

Lu Ran marked the locations of the two signals on the map and found that they were very close to each other, less than fifty meters apart, as if two people had walked to the vicinity of the same location from different directions at the same time.

The two signals didn't stay for long, only about ten minutes, before they left one after the other.

He opened the corresponding activity records and saw that the two accounts did not perform any capture operations or upload any environmental collection images during the period they stayed.

They simply stood there, confirmed the location, and then left.

Lu Ran knew that this trip had been worthwhile.

On the fourth day, a similar situation occurred in that region of the western United States.

On the day the "Shadow of the Thunderbird" spawned, two American accounts appeared near that location, their movements extending much deeper than when they had previously lingered on the edge of the area.

One of the accounts even went inside the open space, stayed there for a while, and left a clear path in and out.

Lu Ran extracted those paths and compared them with the environmental images he had collected before. He discovered that the path passed through an area that had never been captured in previous images.

After passing through, a new dotted line appeared on the map, extending from the outside of the wall to a certain point inside. The dotted line only lasted a short time on the map, as if someone walked in from the outside, stopped at a certain point, and then walked out along the same route.

He organized the data, packaged it, and sent it to Wang Anguo.

This time, he didn't write much explanation, only adding a sentence to the email body: "It's over."

Wang Anguo still hadn't replied to the email, but about an hour later he called directly.

When Lu Ran answered the phone, Wang Anguo's voice sounded a little softer than usual, as if he had just finished a long meeting. He said, "I received the data you sent. We're still verifying those new locations, but the direction is basically consistent with our previous predictions."

Lu Ran held his phone, waiting for him to say the next sentence.

Wang Anguo added, "You can keep your Easter egg design."

Lu Ran didn't ask any further questions, simply responded, and then hung up the phone.

He closed the laptop, put it back in the drawer, and then reopened the backend to take a look at the location data for Japan's Region 3.

The latest signal remained at the base of the wall, neither penetrating further nor retreating.

It's like a person who, after confirming their location, stands on the boundary line waiting for the next instruction.

Lu Ran smiled; the fish was about to take the bait.

...