The Code Abyss: Deadly Game Commands

Su Yan is a cool-headed, perceptive game security analyst, secretly determined to uncover the truth. < Lu Chengxiao > (Male lead: CEO of tech giant Xingtu Interactive Entertainment and the mastermind behind the game Ashen Night)

A full-dive game called Ashen Night bursts onto the scene and monopolizes the market within three months of launch. But on the night of its celebratory banquet, news breaks of the bizarre death of its first player. The victim’s death matches the penalty for failing the game’s “final mission” exactly. There are no signs of outside interference at the scene, only a string of eerie game code. Su Yan, a game security analyst whose older sister’s disappearance three years ago is closely connected to Ashen Night, takes the initiative and joins the investigation. She discovers that before his death, the victim triggered a hidden storyline that had never been made public. The man controlling everything behind the scenes is Lu Chengxiao, CEO of Xingtu Interactive Entertainment. Mysterious and inscrutable, Lu Chengxiao refuses to discuss Ashen Night’s hidden mechanics, yet repeatedly intervenes as Su Yan investigates, sometimes helping her and sometimes testing her. As the investigation deepens, more players die through “in-game penalties.” Each case points to a fatal flaw in the game’s code, and behind that flaw seems to lie a conspiracy spanning three years. Su Yan carefully advances through the overlap between virtuality and reality. Lu Chengxiao’s true motives, the truth behind her sister’s disappearance, and Ashen Night’s deadly secret gradually emerge from the haze of code. A life-and-death game of cat and mouse begins, unfolding between keyboard and reality.