Online Game: My Decay Drives the Entire Server Crazy

Chapter 102 Punishing Illegal Parking Owners: Deteriorating Car Locks Teach a LessonOn the day Auntie Zhou’s Bluetooth headphones arrived, Lin Ye’s studio took on another new order. It wasn’t a power-leveling order from the game, but one brought personally by Old Sun, the property manager of the residential area. Old Sun had been standing in the first-floor lobby of the Unscrupulous Business Center for a long time, clutching a thick stack of complaint records, and hurried to meet Lin Ye as soon as he came downstairs.

”Brother Ye, I’m really at my wit’s end, so I’ve come to ask for your help. There’s an owner in Building 3 named Zhao who runs a chain of hotpot restaurants. He has quite a large business, but his parking is just too overbearing. His black business van has been blocking the fire lane for over half a year. We in property management have posted countless relocation notices, and he agrees nicely to our faces, but parks right back there the next day. Last month, an elderly person in Building 2 had a sudden medical emergency, and the ambulance couldn’t get in. The stretcher had to be detoured through the side gate, which caused a delay of several minutes before they reached the hospital. The owners have filed joint complaints countless times. We’ve called the police; he moves it when the traffic police arrive, but parks it right back once they’re gone. I’m truly out of options with him.”

Lin Ye took the complaint records and flipped through them. The earliest complaint was dated over six months ago, and the pages were filled with owners’ signatures and handwritten messages of anger. One line was written in shaky, elderly handwriting: ’My spouse had an episode last time, and the ambulance couldn’t get in; they almost didn’t make it.’

Lin Ye closed the complaint records and said, ”Take me to see it.”

Boss Zhao’s black business van was parked right in the middle of the fire lane, its body polished to a shine. Several property management relocation notices were tucked under the windshield wipers, some already yellowed and curled, clearly ignored for a long time. Lin Ye walked around the car once, took photos of the license plate and its position with his phone, and then opened a tiny program on his phone. It was a cross-dimensional energy synchronization control port that Ghost had specifically written for him. The interface was simple, with only a target lock-on box and a few adjustable parameters. He locked the target onto the van’s central locking control system, selected Car Door Lock Decay for the skill parameter, set the trigger condition to automatically unlock three seconds after locking, and set the shutdown condition to automatically deactivate after parking correctly in a regular parking space.

Once the settings were complete, he turned off his phone and said to Old Sun, ”It’s done. Just wait for him to come back and move the car.”

Old Sun was stunned for a moment. ”No need to call him? No need to post a notice?”

Lin Ye said, ”No need. He’ll move it himself.”

That afternoon, Boss Zhao returned from the hotpot restaurant and, as usual, parked his car in the fire lane, turned off the engine, got out, and pressed the remote key. The car door locked with a click. He pulled the door handle to confirm it was locked and turned to walk toward the building. Just three steps away, a crisp click sounded behind him, and the car door lock popped open on its own. He looked back, frowned, and pressed the lock button again. Click, it locked. Three seconds later, click, it popped open again.

He stood by the car and tried locking it repeatedly, but every time it would automatically pop open three seconds after locking. Thinking the remote key was out of battery, he took the spare key from his pocket and tried once, but it still popped open after three seconds. He switched to the mechanical key, inserted it directly into the lock cylinder, and turned it manually. Within three seconds of letting go, click, the lock automatically popped open again. He crouched down to inspect the lock cylinder; there were no signs of tampering, the windows were intact, and nothing inside the car had been disturbed. The lock itself showed no signs of mechanical failure; it simply refused to stay locked no matter what.

A crowd gradually began to gather. Several neighbors returning from work passed the fire lane and couldn’t help but chuckle as they saw Boss Zhao crouching by his car, repeatedly pressing the key while the doors locked and unlocked. An old man walking his dog stopped to watch for a while and said slowly, ”Boss Zhao, has this car of yours recognized its true master? It knows it’s shameful to park in the fire lane, so it’s unlocking itself.” A burst of laughter erupted from the surroundings.

Boss Zhao’s face turned beet red, but he still refused to move the car. He packed up the valuables in the car, and since it wouldn’t lock, he simply didn’t lock it, turning to walk away. Lin Ye stood in the shadows of the Building 3 entrance and tapped his phone again. This time, he changed the skill parameter to Automatic Window Descent, synchronized with the door lock trigger.

Boss Zhao had only taken two steps when a low hum came from behind him—all four windows slowly rolled down at the same time, retracting neatly into the doors until not a single one was left. The crowd burst into even louder laughter. The old man with the dog added slowly again, ”See, I told you it’s recognized its master. Not only does it not lock the doors, but it also opens all the windows. This car has gained a soul.” Boss Zhao’s face went from beet red to ashen. He turned back to the car, standing in the fire lane and staring for a long time at his van with its four windows wide open and doors unlocked. Finally, he looked up at the window on the third floor of the Unscrupulous Business Center that was always lit. Without saying a word, he pulled the door open, sat inside, started the engine, and slowly backed the van out of the fire lane, parking it in a nearby regular spot marked with white lines. The door locks returned to normal, the four windows automatically rolled back up, and everything was as if nothing had happened.

The next morning, Old Sun, the property manager, installed a new sign at the entrance of the fire lane that read: ”No Parking Here—Your Car Doors May Know the Rules Better Than You.” From then on, Boss Zhao never parked in the fire lane again. Later, he sent a message in the owners’ group: ”I’m convinced by the person who made my car doors open the windows on their own. From now on, if anyone parks illegally in the fire lane, I’ll be the first to go and persuade them. Don’t ask why; just say I’m afraid the windows will roll down on their own.”

After this incident, the reputation of the Unscrupulous Business Center was firmly established among the local residential areas. Previously, people had only heard that there was a game studio upstairs that helped people recover unpaid wages and deal with noise issues, and some were skeptical, thinking it was just a gimmick by young people. Now, having witnessed the eerie scene of Boss Zhao’s black van with all four windows down and doors unlocked, no one doubted it anymore.

Owners from several nearby residential areas began contacting the studio. Some hoped for help dealing with modified motorcycle gangs racing late at night, some wanted to request handling barbecue stalls occupying the sidewalks, and others just came to ask if they could add an anti-theft automatic lock to their electric scooters. Su Qinghan categorized and organized the orders by priority—those endangering public safety were placed at the top for priority handling, while neighborhood disputes were first suggested for resolution through negotiation. Only if there was a long-standing grievance and negotiation was ineffective would Lin Ye personally intervene. Ghost wasn’t idle either; he made a complete record and comparative analysis of the energy consumption data from the Reality Synchronization each time Lin Ye acted. From the palm-sized ball of dark purple light during Auntie Zhou’s speaker incident to the multi-parameter linked control of Boss Zhao’s car door locks that lasted for several hours, Lin Ye’s Reality Synchronization intensity had climbed another notch in a short period.

”The effective range has now expanded to about 2.5 kilometers, and the target precision is as stable as before, but the ability to control multiple targets simultaneously is improving.” He closed the report and said to Lin Ye, ”Boss Zhao’s car door lock system has over twenty electronic nodes. You controlled the door locks, the window lifts, and the remote key’s receiver end simultaneously. Three logic links were running in parallel, yet the energy consumption increase was very small compared to a single link. Your Talent is also automatically evolving in reality.” Su Qinghan lowered her head and organized these two cases into a brief Reality Synchronization application guide, distributing it to all core members of the studio. After reading it, Fatty Wang remarked with emotion, ”In the past, applying a debuff in the game meant an instant kill, but in reality, it’s about teaching a lesson slowly. In the game, you can respawn after dying, but in reality, a change is for a lifetime.”

Lin Ye didn’t join their discussion, but sat quietly by the window. He had refilled his teacup for the third time, and the color of the tea was already so faint it was nearly transparent. Behind him, on Ghost’s holographic screen, the abnormal IP from a remote town on the US Server, marked as ”Priority Observation,” lit up once more with a very brief access request after being silent for several days. The target of this access was precisely the encrypted storage node of the Reality Synchronization application guide that Su Qinghan had just distributed internally. Ghost added a record to the tracking log—”Observing party’s access to the encrypted node unsuccessful; Honeypot Tracking Script triggered automatically”—and then temporarily switched the screen to another set of more urgent work arrangements for the week: the verification results for the illegal construction in the south city’s fire lane were still waiting for the final set of on-site photos.