51: The storm is brewing under the banner

Morning light crawled across the glass curtain wall, illuminating the newly hung "aesthetics of pain" manifesto. The edges of the wall fabric curled slightly, trembling in the air conditioning's draft. Sunlight fell perfectly on the words "Beauty is not in comfort," leaving "The moment of breakthrough" cast in shadow.

Cheng Mo's palm was still pressed against the glass, his fingertips sensing the temperature difference from the air outside. Just as he was about to turn around, he caught a glimpse of figures moving downstairs out of the corner of his eye.

The next second, an alarm blared.

It wasn't a system notification, but the physical monitoring alarm Chen Hao had installed three days ago—the facial recognition gate at the studio's main entrance was repeatedly triggering alerts for abnormal proximity. The main console screen popped up with a live feed: over twenty adults were gathered at the building's entrance, holding banners with black characters on a white background that read "Electronic Heroin" and "Give My Child Back Their Lucid Life."

Someone was pounding hard on the glass door.

"They're here," Chen Hao's voice came from the right. He was already adjusting the angles of the outdoor cameras, his fingers flying across the keyboard while his glasses reflected the constantly jumping data stream. "Thirty-seven people, average age forty-five and up, carrying uniform slogans. Highly organized. The leader in the gray jacket is registered as a Canadian-Chinese national surnamed Li."

Lin Wanqing also came over, standing on the other side of the main console while biting a lemon-flavored lollipop. Her gaze was fixed on a woman holding a banner high: "She's crying. It's not an act."

Cheng Mo didn't speak. He let go of the glass, turned, and walked toward the door. His pace wasn't fast, but every step was steady. The pull tab of a soda can in his cargo pants pocket clinked once; he pricked it with the tip of his earring, as if confirming its existence.

When the sound of the door unlocking rang out, the shouts of protest surged abruptly.

He stood before the glass door, neither opening it nor speaking, just quietly watching the crowd outside. Someone shouted "Get out," someone cursed "Heartless bastards," and an old woman held up her phone to record, the lens pointed directly at his face.

No one noticed that Cheng Mo's gaze had already locked onto a middle-aged man in the corner.

That man wasn't holding a banner or shouting slogans. He stood at the back of the crowd, clutching his phone tightly. The screen was on—it was the game interface for leap platform nightmare. The character was stuck at a classic trap level, falling repeatedly with an empty health bar. The man's eyes were red, his lips pressed into a thin line, and his knuckles were white from the strain.

Cheng Mo suddenly spoke, his voice not loud but extremely piercing: "Is your son playing on the international server?"

The entire scene fell silent.

The man snapped his head up, his gaze stabbing over like a knife.

"Which region is he in?" Cheng Mo continued. "North America Server 2? Or Asia-Pacific 6?"

"What does it matter which region he's in!" a man wearing glasses nearby roared. "What you've made is spiritual opium! My daughter logged in for seventy-two hours straight, and the doctor says she has acute anxiety symptoms!"

"Is the symptom code F41.1?" Lin Wanqing interjected, her tone calm. "Heart rate exceeding 120, accompanied by sweating and disorientation? If so, that's a normal stress response, not a pathological state."

"How dare you make excuses!" another woman screamed, thrusting her banner forward. "Look at these comments! How many parents are saying their children have changed! They don't like to talk, they wake up startled in the middle of the night, and they fail their exams!"

Chen Hao chimed in at this point: "Your daughter's average daily online time recently has been 4.2 hours, and her school assignment submission rate has dropped by 63%. However, according to public data from the Bureau of Education, 78% of high school students in this city average less than six hours of sleep. I wonder if we should be the ones taking the blame for that?"

The crowd exploded.

Those pounding the door, those cursing, and those recording with their phones all swarmed forward. A man in a windbreaker rushed to the very front, his fist slamming against the glass: "Open the door! Don't even think about closing it until you explain things clearly today!"

Just then, the man clutching the phone suddenly moved.

He shoved aside the people next to him and rushed to the front in a few steps. His palm slapped against the glass with a "thwack," his whole face pressed against it, eyes bloodshot: "My son's name is Chen Yuhang! He's sixteen this year! He goes to high school in Vancouver! He hasn't slept for three days just to beat the final level of your damn game! He said that as long as he clears it, he'll be able to hear the 'true voice'! Do you know what he's talking about? Huh? Do you know?!"

His voice rang out with a tearing quality, carrying a heavy Cantonese accent, his finger almost poking through the screen.

The others were stunned, even the cursing paused for a beat.

Cheng Mo still didn't retreat. He slowly raised his right hand, took off his headphones, and the silver earring in his right ear flashed in the morning light. He stared into the man's eyes and asked, "When was the last time he was online?"

"Last night at 11:07 PM!" the man roared. "I haven't been able to reach him by phone since! His teacher says he's skipping class! His classmates say he's hiding in the bathroom memorizing level maps! What kind of spell have you cast on him?!"

"11:07 PM..." Cheng Mo repeated softly, as if noting something down.

Chen Hao immediately lowered his head to type, pulling up the backend data: "Found a match. North America Server Three, ID 'SkyDiver_0924', cumulative online time 83 hours and 17 minutes, 4,821 deaths. His last action was attempting a jump puzzle in the 'Void Corridor' B-7 area."

"He also left a message," Lin Wanqing suddenly said.

Everyone looked at her.

She pointed to another screen on the main console: "The player wrote a hidden message in the achievement system, visible only to friends. It says—'Dad, it's not that I don't want to come home, I'm just afraid that after I go back, I'll never be able to hear a heartbeat again.'"

The man froze.

The phone in his hand slipped, nearly hitting the ground.

The scene was quiet for a few seconds.

Then, people began to whisper.

"Could there be a mistake..."

"It doesn't sound like he's being controlled..."

"Mine is actually addicted to short videos..."

Only then did Cheng Mo speak for the first time, his voice not high, but every word was clear: "You think we are poisoning your children. But what we do is allow them to hear their own heartbeats again."

"Bullshit!" the man with glasses shouted again. "You're just making money by torturing people! Look at those negative reviews! How many people are calling you perverts!"

"The more negative reviews there are, the more we must continue," Cheng Mo said. "Because that shows someone is starting to feel uncomfortable. And those who have been comfortable for too long are already dead."

The crowd grew restless again.

Just then, the sound of camera shutters came from outside.

The reporters had arrived.

Two people carrying cameras squeezed through the crowd, their lenses aimed directly at Cheng Mo's face. Flashes strobed.

Chen Hao quickly switched to intranet mode, closing all external interfaces. Lin Wanqing picked up her notebook and began recording the keywords from everyone's statements.

Cheng Mo still stood before the door, his back to the light. His shadow fell over the "aesthetics of pain" manifesto, perfectly covering the line "Pain is not the purpose."

He took one last look at the father named Chen Yuhang and said, "Your son isn't crazy. He just woke up before you did."

With that, he turned and walked back to the main console.

The door locked automatically, and the clamor outside the glass door was muffled into a blurry background noise.

Chen Hao stared at the public opinion monitoring screen: "#Electronic Heroin# has already hit number seven on the trending searches, with over 180,000 shares within two hours. There are five missed calls from partner channels; they're likely asking for our stance."

Lin Wanqing closed her notebook: "The Parents' Alliance is registered as a non-profit organization, but financial records show indirect funding from education-related listed companies. They are prepared to apply long-term pressure."

Cheng Mo sat down, his palms flat on the table as if feeling the temperature of the metal. He looked at the manifesto on the wall; the sunlight had shifted by over ten degrees, and now the entire "The moment of breakthrough" was swallowed by shadow.

He said softly, "It's not that they are wrong."

A two-second pause.

"It's that we haven't made them understand yet."

The lights came on, and the three of them sat around the main console. The server fans hummed, and the data stream began to roll again. Lin Wanqing opened a new document to organize the feedback, while Chen Hao switched to encrypted log recording mode.

Cheng Mo's finger lightly brushed his earring, not letting go.