Thriller Night Talk

Chapter 170: The true identity of the ‘Grandmaster Tianyuan’

Translator-Rhapsodite

Editor- Koneko, Proofreader- Spring Flower

The phrase ‘Grandmaster Tianyuan was a fraud’ kept floating on the first page of the forum board, quickly attracting a large number of replies.

After all, this was expected since most people hadn’t been able to enter the Two Pole Gate, and there was always a strong curiosity and a thirst for the unknown.

.

When everything used to be kept silent, everyone else assumed it was something that couldn’t be talked about or asked.

But, once someone lifted the lid, it was like a breached dam with no way to seal it again.

When the post was first published, most people would still question whether the OP’s claims were true or false.

However, as the hypnosis of ‘Grandmaster Tianyuan’ lost its effectiveness, an increasing number of people were starting to express the same thought in the post, which was that they were definitely deceived.

If it was just one person posting, it would be difficult to determine the truth which could come from different perspectives. But soon, there were two, three, four… and even more people commenting saying that they also had the same feeling.

Previously, when the ‘disciples’ who entered ‘Tianyuan City’ were repeatedly hypnotized, they would develop an irrational, brainwashed-like fanaticism and obsession towards ‘Grandmaster Tianyuan’.

However, when the calming charm of Bei Quan took effect, they woke up from their extreme blind faith.

As more details were gradually revealed, The ‘Two Pole Gate’ quickly turned from a path to immortality that everyone pursued, into a real-life farce that everyone wanted to stay away from.

The forum gathered supernatural and mysterious event enthusiasts from all over the world.

Since the forum’s domain was located somewhere that requires the use of a VPN, there weren’t many Chinese-language users, the ones who did speak the language were mainly exchange students or were overseas Chinese.

This post really became sensational.

The thread had become a mess, with hundreds of posts in just an hour, pushing it to the top of the hottest section, inevitably attracting the attention of onlookers from other sections.

Soon, translations in various languages started to emerge, explaining the whole story to curious viewers who couldn’t understand Chinese.

In just four days, the terms ‘Two Pole Gate’ and ‘Tianyuan City’ quickly spread throughout the forum, becoming hot topics among supernatural enthusiasts worldwide.

At this point, most people already believed that it was a deliberate scam.

There was no cultivation in dreams, and no one can become immortal.

They were curious about how the ‘Two Pole Gate’ and ‘Tianyuan City’ were created, and who exactly was ‘Grandmaster Tianyuan’.

For a while, the ‘Two Pole Gate’ section was filled with new posts in various languages, and everyone was discussing these two questions.

Some said it was a sorcery from Taiwan that could enchant souls in dreams; some said it was a government conspiracy, using newly developed spiritual weapons to brainwash people; others said it was collective sleepwalking, perhaps an unconfirmed hysteria…

The power of the public’s opinion was immense.

Many people, out of curiosity, followed the instructions in the posts and tried to see the ‘Two Pole Gate’ in their dreams.

But they were just curious.

No one believed in that ‘world’ anymore.

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On September 7th, Tuesday, at 9:35 in the morning, Wei Fuyuan’s phone rang.

He glanced at the note and became immediately alert, instantly handing the phone to Bei Quan.

The phone was a special contact phone for the “Special Seven Field Service”.

He pressed the answer button.

“Bei Quan, we’ve made progress on the matter you’d asked us to investigate.”

Qing Zhu always got straight to the point.

“I’ve sent the information to Xiao Wei’s email, take a look.”

Bei Quan responded, “Okay,” and thanked him before hanging up the phone. He instructed Wei Fuyuan to open his email to check for the message.

The email was short, with only two words in the body: ‘Suspect’s Information.’

However, the collective attachments were quite large, being over 300MB in total.

Wei Fuyuan printed out each attachment and discovered that they contained detailed information about a specific person, as well as other specific intelligence gathered by the ‘Special Seven’ investigators.

Since the truth was revealed on the forum, the ‘Two Pole Gate’ and ‘Tianyuan City’ had become a suspenseful joke.

Most users mentioned them with a sense of curiosity.

But the ‘Special Seven Field Service’ cyber intelligence personnel hacked into the forum server and tracked those messages. They noticed that one IP frequently changed aliases and desperately tried to maintain the reputation of the ‘Two Pole Gate’ and ‘Tianyuan City’ amidst the doubts and insults.

The biggest advantage of an anonymous forum was being able to change aliases during arguments.

However, the user’s IP behind the alias cannot be faked.

In theory, after nearly two weeks of calming down with Bei Quan’s talisman, those who entered ‘Tianyuan City’ and listened to the sermon should have snapped out of their hypnotized state.

And for those who were still outside the ‘Two Pole Gate’ and hadn’t been able to enter ‘Tianyuan City’ on the map, the spiritual interference they had experienced was not strong enough to make them fall into obsessive blind faith.

Thinking rationally, the only person who would go to such lengths to defend ‘Grandmaster Tianyuan’ was likely to be the mastermind behind it all.

So, the “Special Seven Field Service” traced the person’s IP address and found their true identity.

“Ran Qu, male, 34 years old.”

Jiang Nan’an quickly skimmed through the person’s information and exclaimed:

“Looking at their experiences, they are somewhat similar to mine.”

The information includes Ran Qu’s three-inch ID photo, as well as several life photos taken from various social platforms.

In the photos, the man had a very ordinary appearance, with a thin face, a wax-yellow complexion, prominent cheekbones, with a tired and haggard look about his person.

If such an appearance could be considered ‘average’ on a healthy person, then on someone clearly showing signs of illness, it could only be described as a ‘suffering look’.

Looking at his life experiences, in a certain sense, Ran Qu does indeed have similarities with Comrade Xiao Jiang, who grew up in a temple.

He was an orphan in reality.

At the age of two, Ran Qu’s father passed away due to illness, and his mother left him alone getting remarried elsewhere.

Ran Qu went on to live with his grandparents, and after they passed away, he was handed over to his eldest uncle.

Ran Qu’s eldest uncle was said to have some supernatural abilities.

However, after growing up, Ran Qu did not follow in his uncle’s footsteps but instead went to a technical school and became a programmer once he finished.

Since then, his life had been extremely ordinary, so ordinary that it was unremarkable.

After graduating, Ran Qu worked at several companies, doing website architecture for online shopping, game programming, and app development.

Although the life of a programmer was tough, the income was decent.

However, Ran Qu was indeed an unfortunate person. Despite working hard for many years, he couldn’t save much money.

A few years ago, his eldest uncle’s family had a car accident while on a trip. One person died and three were injured. The medical expenses were like a bottomless pit, impossible to fill no matter how much they tried.

Then three years ago, Ran Qu, didn’t know if it was due to exhaustion or some other reason, fell ill. It turned out to be autoimmune hepatitis, and when it was discovered, his liver function was already severely damaged.

The doctor told him very gently that based on his current condition, the prognosis was quite poor.

Jiang Nan’an finished reading Ran Qu’s resume and felt a little sympathy.

“However, just because his eldest uncle has supernatural abilities, doesn’t mean he can create ‘Two Pole Gate’ and ‘Tianyuan City’.”

Bei Quan took out two other pages of paper and handed them to Jiang Nan’an, “Take a look at these.”

Jiang Nan’an read the papers and immediately became aroused.

Those two pages were screenshots of a game scene: although the modeling was very rough, the iconic spiral white tower and hanging stairs were too familiar: at least 70% similar to ‘Tianyuan City!’

“Fuck!”

Jiang Nan’an couldn’t help but exclaim, “Where did this come from?!”

“This is a game that Ran Qu had participated in making before.”

Bei Quan explained, “However, shortly after the project started, the game was canceled, with the production team disbanding. Ran Qu also left the company.”

He smiled slightly and pointed at the screenshot, “So, besides the few people who were involved in the game’s production, no one else knew about the existence of ‘Tianyuan City.’”

Wei Fuyuan and Jiang Nan’an nodded together, “So, that’s how it is!”

They had previously speculated that the creator of ‘Tianyuan City’ probably couldn’t independently design a complete city, so they would draw inspiration from elsewhere.

They didn’t expect Ran Qu to directly transplant a game he had previously worked on into the dream, which was quite a simple and easy concept.

Since there is evidence of the modeling, the possibility of Ran Qu being the mastermind is very high.

Wei Fuyuan secretly admired the investigative abilities of the ‘Special Seven’ group, to be able to find such crucial clues from such trivial online messages.

He thought for a moment and asked, “But, why would he do this?”

Logically speaking, Ran Qu was seriously ill, so whether it was for a living or for treatment, the most urgent thing should be to seek wealth.

But, since he can create the ‘Two Poles Gate’ and ‘Tianyuan City’ in the dream, there should be a more direct and efficient way to make money.

Why go through such a convoluted path?

Bei Quan shook his head candidly, “I don’t know.”

With a slight smile, he added, “Perhaps we can directly ask him for a clear answer, right?”

——That would be great!

Wei Fuyuan and Jiang Nan’an both clenched their fists silently upon hearing this.

They had been frustrated for nearly half a month, having to enter the same dream and listen to the nonsense scriptures from that old man in ‘Tianyuan City’ every night.

It was even more mentally exhausting than having nightmares every night.

Especially for Wei Fuyuan.

In order to facilitate entering the dream, the three had to sleep together every night, with someone else standing guard beside them.

With Jiang Nan’an, Zhu Ling, and Tian Jia Xin as third wheels, Wei Fuyuan couldn’t even ask Bei Quan for a goodnight kiss, not to mention doing other various bedtime exercises!

It was almost unbearable…!