Chapter 2 Stage Two Task Objective: Prevent the Second Murder Case Caused by Cognitive Bias Curse

Task Time Limit: 1 Hour

Task Reward 1: An S-grade completion rating grants a Superior Skill Scroll *1, an A-grade completion rating grants a Rare Skill Scroll *1, a B-grade completion rating grants a Common Skill Scroll *1

Task Reward 2: 200 Game Coins

Task Failure Penalty: Increased Difficulty of the Next Scenario Task

Accept/Decline

"Hmm?"

Li Ang frowned, glanced at the equally astonished Tang Rannuo, and his mind raced.

A Superior quality scroll, at Li Ang's current level, was enough to serve as the final reward for a standard task.

This also meant that the stage two task objective he had now accepted was probably the final stage of this task.

"The highest level reward is a Superior scroll,"

Tang Rannuo narrowed her eyes, gently tapping the ceramic wall of her coffee cup with a metal spoon. "But considering the remaining one-hour time limit, and the failure penalty is making the next scenario task more difficult...

What do you think?

If we quit now, we can just take the stage one task reward and retreat unscathed."

The Accept/Decline option for standard tasks lasts for a maximum of three minutes. If a decision is not made after three minutes, it will be defaulted to Decline.

Moreover, according to the explanation on the luntan, in stage two cooperative tasks with two or more people, even if someone chooses to quit, the remaining person can continue to carry out the task.

Li Ang didn't rush to answer, but calmly asked, "Can your friend who specializes in mysticism find the specific source of the curse?

Or the specific location of recent curse energy fluctuations within Yin City?"

"I'll ask."

Tang Rannuo lowered her head and tapped on her phone. After a moment, she shook her head. "No, the curse no longer exists on this webpage.

Finding the specific location where the curse took effect recently is even more unrealistic.

Even the Special Affairs Bureau has not yet been able to deploy a monitoring system that can detect all extraordinary energy fluctuations within Yin City."

"Tsk..."

Li Ang tapped the table with his finger, silently staring at the webpage image on the tablet, adjusting the image parameters back and forth.

In the lower left corner of the screen, he found a clue.

Before his death, Xia Junqiang had been engaged in a heated discussion on the anti-996Lise page with four other programmers, and he could barely distinguish the platform IDs of those three programmers.

Seeing that the three-minute time limit was approaching, Li Ang silently chose to accept the task.

At the same time, Tang Rannuo, who had been staring at him, also heard the system prompt, indicating that the other teammate had chosen to accept.

Without hesitation, Tang Rannuo also chose to confirm acceptance of the task.

After clicking confirm, she silently raised her coffee cup and took a small sip, to conceal the large amount of cold sweat seeping out of her palms.

In this kind of real-world standard cooperative task, she had to consider her teammate's choice.

Now that this somewhat boorish, seemingly unsophisticated young socialite teammate had chosen to accept, if she chose to reject the task, then the two of them would break their teammate relationship, and the other party could directly attack her.

If she lost in the fight, the consequences would be unimaginable....

Tang Rannuo had already chatted with her best friend, asking her to come and provide support as quickly as possible.

Now was not the time to directly tear apart the facade...

Similarly, if the other party chose to reject, then Tang Rannuo could only reject the task—even if she could win in the fight, she probably wouldn't have time to complete the task objective.

'At least I'm temporarily safe until the task is completed or failed.'

Tang Rannuo thought to herself, but her face showed no expression. "Do you have any ideas on how to complete the task?"

"Mm."

Li Ang nodded, used friend communication to contact the information broker Mule, and sent 10 game coins to him, asking him to send over two software programs.

The first software could lock down the real-world address of a fixed IP based on the webpage information flow,

The second software was similar to the Eternal Blue ms17-10 network attack tool (developed by the White Eagle Security Agency NSA, leaked onto the internet in 2017), which could load vulnerabilities and hack into computers.

Once successfully hacked, this network attack tool could do whatever it wanted,

Recording the input and output information of other people's computers, monitoring the screen in real time, turning on the microphone to record audio, turning on the camera to monitor the user in front of the screen...

This was also why Li Ang used tape to cover his computer's camera and block the microphone—hacking techniques were hard to defend against.

What if someone one day took a picture of his handsome face picking his nose, and posted it online, attracting a group of fangirls and fanboys, and forming a fan club?

Soon, Li Ang used the hacker software to find the real-world IP addresses of those four programmers through their luntan IDs,

And based on the IP addresses, hacked into their computers, turned on the cameras, and saw the scenes in front of the computers.

By sheer coincidence, all four programmers were working with heavy dark circles under their eyes, wearing different colored plaid shirts and T-shirts, their hairlines receding in a fairly uniform way.

Three of them were in other cities, and only one was in Yin City.

Li Ang used the citizen information automatic inquiry system to find the real identities of the four programmers,

Then, he took a disposable phone from his backpack, walked out of the coffee shop, and used different voice imitations to make a police call to the local official departments of the three programmers in other cities.

The content of the calls was very simple, just to fabricate charges against these three programmers, anything from burglary to kidnapping to extortion.

At that time, the local officials would definitely send agents to investigate these three programmers who had interacted with Xia Junqiang—if the coders had any extreme reactions, the official agents could also subdue them.

All tasks issued by the system were within the player's ability range. Moreover, the solutions to the tasks were not unique.

This stage two task was to "Prevent the Second Murder Case Caused by Cognitive Bias Curse." It was impossible for two players to rush to other cities within an hour,

But they could control those programmers who might be suspected of being cursed by calling to report them.

Hmm... if they weren't cursed and weren't trying to commit a crime, then the officials would definitely release them.

Misunderstandings, they were all misunderstandings.

As for the only programmer in Yin City, he had the greatest possibility of being cursed (because he was closest to the players), and the players might need to personally go over to control the situation.

After making up his mind, Li Ang broke the disposable phone, put the broken pieces into his backpack, had Tang Rannuo call a taxi, and the two went to the last programmer's workplace.