Chapter 446: Chapter 276: Oh No, I Became the Substitute!

"Eat, eat, eat, all you know is eating. Besides eating and sleeping, what else can you do?"

Chen Ba scolded angrily, "Do you know how many private messages of player feedback I’ve received? Over thirty-five thousand! With so many players waiting for news, can you still eat?"

"That many?"

Lu’s eyes widened in disbelief, as if he didn’t expect the incident to cause such a huge uproar.

More than thirty-five thousand private messages. If all are feedback about this issue, Ba must be quite troubled, and it’s no wonder he’s so anxious and uneasy.

"Let me see..."

After being berated by Ba, Lu lost his appetite.

But he couldn’t think of any other solutions for the time being, so he picked up Ba’s phone to check the private messages in the backend, trying to look for new clues from these messages.

What a surprise!

Ba’s private messages were truly impressive, far more intriguing than Lu imagined, making him exclaim in excitement.

Some people were spewing profanities right from the start, scolding Ba, then finishing with "I’ll continue tomorrow."

Some boldly proclaimed their love, somehow knowing Ba had a thing for long legs, sending pictures of them, to which Ba replied, "Is this really you?" Only to be mocked with, "Ba, you must be starving to be fooled by two sausages."

Others penned essays, hundreds or thousands of words full of various game suggestions or ideas that seemed quite serious, but the ending "V me 50 to unlock the sequel" made Lu unable to hold it in.

And even more, well...

Swinging his finger to check the next fan message, Lu thought it would be another quirky message; he never expected this one had no leg pics or cursing but was a legitimate game bug report.

And the reported issue was about the newly released "Star Emperor 2" and the accompanying "Galaxy" Peripheral Set, and an odd bug.

...

Having spent a few hundred bucks on the Galaxy Set, it malfunctioned in less than a day, causing Zhao Yunlong to lose face in front of his online audience.

He initially planned to showcase the "Galaxy" set to his stream audience on the afternoon he received it.

But alas, the equipment malfunctioned.

When he informed the few viewers about it during his stream, he was unanimously laughed at, with everyone calling him an exceptionally rare fool.

"I can’t stand this humiliation..."

Zhao Yunlong wasn’t the kind to stomach such humiliation. He not only contacted Mirage Electronics’ after-sales service to request a return but also sent a private message to Ba, reporting the issue and hoping for an explanation.

High EQ: Give me an explanation!

Low EQ: Ba, look at the expensive peripheral you created; it’s really messed me up. Without some compensation for emotional damages, it’s hard to let this slide, right?

Of course, this was all for show.

Having sent the message, Zhao Yunlong didn’t really expect Ba to reply.

After all, it’s well known Ba receives loads of private messages daily, and among them, only those sending leg pics or flirting get replies.

Contacting after-sales was sufficient.

The main reason for sending the private message was purely to create some content for his stream, attracting more audience to watch his streams.

But he never would have expected that his private message intended to create content would actually get a reply from Ba shortly after.

"Excuse me?"

Upon receiving the reply, Zhao Yunlong was in disbelief—Ba really replied to him?

With a quick glance, it was indeed Ba!

Not only did he reply, but he also asked to add his contact information to learn more details.

Damn!

As an ordinary "Star Emperor 2" player and a rookie streamer just starting his streaming career, he couldn’t believe he’d added Ba on WeChat.

"You say that after using the Galaxy Set in a match against a player, the equipment started acting up?"

After adding the contact, Zhao Yunlong saw Ba’s message and was initially stunned, then answered decisively, "Yes, that’s exactly it!"

"And the player you battled with, is their username ’Don’t Want to Be a Pigeon’?"

"Yes, that’s the ID!"

Zhao Yunlong recalled, it seemed during the game where he used the Galaxy equipment to charge into "Path to Immortality", the opponent’s ID was indeed that name.

"Okay, could you please describe in detail the specifics of that game session, the more detailed the better..."

Zhao Yunlong had no idea that after Lu saw his private message, Tianba Studio immediately assembled a team to investigate the match between him and "Don’t Want to Be a Pigeon".

After a thorough check, everyone was shocked.

The breakthrough and root of the problem that Chen Ba and Lu had struggled to find for so long were actually in this game session; they had been inspecting a different game session before, completely misdirecting their efforts.

Simply put,

Yu Wenjie, known by the username "Don’t Want to Be a Pigeon", first played a game with Zhao Yunlong and then another game with a different player.

The phenomenon of "immortality", which spurred community discussion, occurred in the second game session. This was why Chen Ba and Lu focused on investigating this second game.

But in reality...

The reason Yu Wenjie could experience "immortality" was not due to the second session but to his first game with Zhao Yunlong.

Thanks to Zhao Yunlong’s detailed description and backend re-check of the game session, Chen Ba finally found the answer.

"Galaxy Set?"

"No! To be precise, this had little to do with the hardware itself; the problem was with the driver!"

"But how could a driver issue cause anomalies in a second game session? Normally, a driver issue would only affect the player themself, not others..."

Lu was puzzled.

Ba’s claim that it was driver-related seemed outrageous to him. What kind of driver issue could impact the game experience of other players?

To put it bluntly, what hardware driver could affect a game?

"You’re right, typically no hardware driver would affect a game or impact other players."

Chen Ba explained, "But is there a possibility that Galaxy peripherals are exclusive to ’Star Emperor 2’, both highly integrated?"

There’s another point.

The driver program of Galaxy Peripherals and the core program of "Star Emperor 2" were both made by one person.

This was the crux of the problem!

"Are you saying..."

Lu asked with a furrowed brow, "The Galaxy Peripheral’s driver program experienced an unknown bug or situation causing in-game chain reactions, eventually impacting other players?"

"Exactly!"

Chen Ba nodded, "The driver issue likely stemmed from game crashes and reboots, though the specific issue is a secondary concern."

"In short, this unknown driver bug triggered a chain reaction in the game’s core program, causing player A’s input device to replace player B’s input device..."

Zhao Yunlong used the Galaxy Set, and midway, due to game crashes and reboots, the driver experienced an unknown problem.

Because of this issue, Zhao Yunlong’s Galaxy Set became linked to the opponent he matched with in the previous game, that is, Yu Wenjie’s character.

So...

When Zhao Yunlong used the Galaxy Peripheral during Yu Wenjie’s typing and chatting, calling out the input box and method prompted him to "take over" Yu Wenjie’s character, and Yu Wenjie lost control of his character.

Returning to the original player feedback question, which was the "immortality" phenomenon seen in the video.

The answer was obvious!

Yu Wenjie did get hit, and damage was dealt. But because of this Bug, Zhao Yunlong was essentially controlling his character, so the damage was inflicted on Zhao Yunlong instead.

This also explained Zhao Yunlong’s experience of receiving "hit" feedback on his device while wearing the Galaxy Set without performing any operations.

It seemed like Yu Wenjie was getting hit, but it was Zhao Yunlong, miles away, actually receiving the damage. Naturally, Yu Wenjie wouldn’t lose health; without receiving "damage," how could he inexplicably lose life?

Instead, Zhao Yunlong, without doing anything, found his character mysteriously in a "heavily injured" condition...

Oh no, he became a replacement!