You should read this chapter over at Travis Translations – It’s free and the ad revenue is much better for me!
Shen Conglomerate, headquarters.
Secretary Dong fixes his collar outside the CEO’s office. Having mentally prepared himself, he knocks on the door.
“Come in.” A response comes from within.
Secretary Dong enters through the door, and sees Shen Chen sitting behind the desk with documents piled up on either side of it. He is typing on the keyboard nonstop and looking at the monitor
“Report.”
“Um,” secretary Dong seems hesitant to speak, “the project with Mr. Fang may also be suspended.”
The typing sound stops, and Shen Chen moves his attention towards his secretary, “the reason.”
“They said the progress has been stalled too long and have looked for a new partnership…”
“…” Shen Chen retracts his gaze, “understood.”
Secretary Dong exits afterwards.
Looking at the email he still hasn’t sent yet, Shen Chen closes his eyes and leans back. Then he opens his eyes upwards, staring at the off-white ceiling.
He hasn’t rested much these days. It’s as if Xiao Tiantian has disappeared from the world with all his traces gone.
The company has suffered hardships as well. Due to the stalled progress on the preliminary stages of the projects, many have been suspended. So, he can only have hire professionals to search for the person and he himself comes back to work.
Though this isn’t that bad yet. The company has seen good and bad days now. Some setbacks now wouldn’t be fundamentally disruptive to it.
Though perhaps because only bad things have been piling up recently, Shen Chen feels more and more tired. When the schedule clears up a bit, he might have to see a doctor.
Time to get back to work.
He sits straight back up, and is about to continue editing the email.
That is when the door gets slammed open. Secretary Dong is rushing back in barely a few minutes after he left.
“Mr. Shen——!”
“What now,” Shen Chen furrows his brows, “again with the projects? You don’t have to report everything to me…”
“No, not that!” The secretary’s face is paler than ever, “someone has hacked into the company system and our files are being retrieved!”
Hearing that, Shen Chen himself twitches.
He reflexively glances at his own computer, only to see that the normal screen just now has suddenly turned black. And in the pure black background floats a rather artistically designed symbol.
“X?” He subconsciously utters the symbol.
“That’s all the computers in the company would show,” the secretary seems scared, “Mr. Shen, what should we do?”
There is a progress bar right underneath the white coloured ‘X’ that seems to represent the amount of files stolen. It was at 1% just now, and the next second, it becomes 1.07%.
Shen Chen falls into thought seeing this progress bar.
Secretary Dong tries to urge again, “Mr. Shen…”
“Quiet!”
The secretary shuts up seeing his boss agitated.
Another minute later, the progress bar becomes 1.14%.
The pace is unsettlingly regular. Every minute it increases by exactly 0.07%, so, to reach 100%, it would be about 1440 minutes, or about 24 hours.
Shen Chen is not certain of the meaning of the progress bar anymore. It might mean that it would be exactly 24 hours before all data is exposed; it might just be a smokescreen in bad taste.
In any case, they must immediately react.
“Xiao Dong.”
The secretary immediately stands straight, “present!”
“Alert the IT department to immediately cut off the Internet connection and attempt to find and fix whatever bug it is.”
“Understood!”
“Also,” Shen Chen pauses as the black and white screen is reflected in his pupils, “call the police immediately. Find out who this ‘X’ is.”
It’s nearly midnight, but the Shen Conglomerate building is still lit as if it was business hours.
The IT department is working overtime to deal with this time bomb, but half an hour later, they deliver bad news.
The transfer is still ongoing even with the Internet cut off.
The virus is just like this on the surface, but it has in fact already seized control of all computers in the company. They are unable to control anything.
The internal database where crucial data is kept has traces of being accessed.
It is highly likely that the most crucial files have long been stolen and this virus is only a smokescreen.
Not long after that report, the words appearing on screen below the progress bar affirms their conclusion.
[The information will be uploaded to a cloud storage the moment the progress bar is full.]
In other words, all of the Shen Conglomerate will be accessible to the public.
This will definitely be a catastrophic blow to them.
[Customer. Something has come up recently. The restaurant will be closed for a few days, and I will inform you of our re-opening. Make sure you don’t make a visit in vain while we’re closed~]
Du You replies ‘ok’ to the chef’s message and looks back at assistant Xiao.
“Virus?”
“Yes. Apparently all the computers were incapacitated overnight. The situation seems dire and they are currently attempting to repair as much of their infrastructure as possible.”
Assistant Xiao has heard about it but doesn’t know the details.
Hearing that, Du You falls into thought.
Is the chef temporarily closing for this?
Though if it’s something related to Shen Chen, this ‘virus’ thing might be orchestrated by Xiao Tiantian.
But Xiao Tiantian disappeared all of a sudden that night. Even his own men lost him. It seems like it would be difficult to resolve this situation by dealing with the person directly.
He wanted to visit the chef’s restaurant for lunch today, looks like it will have to be cancelled.
When assistant Xiao has left, Du You contacts his agent on phone. They pick up quickly.
“Is it a good time?”
“Yes, certainly,” the man pauses before continuing, sounding frustrated, “apologies, we still have no clue on the whereabouts of the person.”
“Leave that for now,” Du You continues, “regarding the virus of the Shen Conglomerate, I want details.”
“Understood.”
A professional team would not ask the employer why.
Plus, Xiao Tiantian’s whereabouts have completely stumped and actually enervated them. They would do well to participate in a new mission to refresh their minds.
But when they actually looked into it, the professionals realise the situation hasn’t improved at all.
Because this person might be even worse than Xiao Tiantian to deal with.
Du You receives a call from the agent not a few minutes after his last call.
“Sir, just to confirm, are all the infected computers showing the letter ‘x’?”
Du You hasn’t actually seen them himself and so is not sure, and asks, “is anything wrong.”
“If it’s X, then it may be beyond our capabilities,” sounding apologetic, the man further explains, “X is a terrifying existence.”
X maybe a person or a team of unknown identity. Infamous hacker(s) so troublesome not even the police can restrain them any. They frequently operate overseas and are therefore not familiar to people of this country.
Though to people like them who operate in and are part of the grey area just beyond the law, the name ‘X’ is quite a thunderous one.
Many would maintain a respectful distance from them; many more still are avid fans of them.
Nobody has seen ‘X.’ Nobody knows their appearance(s) or name(s). They are an eerie presence, intangible, unknowable. The only consistent pattern about their action is that they enjoy breaking through security systems of various megacorporations.
Sometimes X would kindly inform them of their security holes; sometimes X would inexplicably reveal them to the public for shady individuals to exploit and result in massive losses for the companies.
There’s no profit to be gained since X is not for hire, so their moves are mystifying.
“If it were other hackers we may have an idea, but X is beyond us.”
“That’s alright,” Du You does not demand the unreasonable, “continue tracking down Xiao Tiantian.”
“Understood,” the person is silent for a moment before continuing, “sir, if I recall, the person manipulating the ticket purchase data that we caught before——the person seems to have nicknamed themselves X.”
That was when Xiao Tiantian was about to go abroad.
A ticket headed for Australia——Which, according to unsubstantiated rumours, is also where X is located.
The agent continues, “with your permission we will continue tracking down both of these events. We will contact you with new information as soon as possible once we get ahold of them.”
This reveals crucial information.
X is in contact with Xiao Tiantian on the one hand, and has hacked Shen Chen’s company’s systems on the other.
If so, it is likely that he is one of the members of the Top.
What’s bad news is that this person, like Shen Chen, seems to have already fallen for Xiao Tiantian.
So really there wouldn’t be a second member of the Top as easy to deal with as You Haoyu, would there.
Du You calls for the system.
The system twitches into action, just now still dozing off from the warm heating, “present!”
The system was agitated so much just now that its voice cracked too.
“?” Du You asks, “were you asleep.”
“Of course not. I’m always on standby.” The system discreetly wipes the drool off its corner of the mouth.
“Look up which world X is from and his real name.”
“Oh oh, understood!”
The system itself is uninterested in who the members of the Top actually are, so just the nickname couldn’t remind it of anyone. But still, the information is pointed enough for it to look up something.
It guarantees with a fist to his chest, “three days, and I will give you a complete biography.”
“Three hours.”
“Eh?” The system seems stunned, “with just one keyword, that’s a tall order. Aren’t you asking for the too unreasonable here?!”
“Three hours.”
Just now the agent has informed him of the latest situation in Shen Chen’s company as well. The virus is likely just a decoration and in fact the data has long since been stolen.
X is quite mischievous, and making a progress bar there is probably just to make them more psychologically stressed.
This means that they’re running out of time.
The system has said before that the plot to follow is that Shen Chen is driven mad after Xiao Tiantian disappears.
If this virus thing is the last straw for him, then it would be orders of magnitude more difficult to drag Shen Chen back after this.
Hearing the host’s insistence, the system looks like it wants to cry, “understood, understood,” then, with a pitiful tone, “host, don’t be sad if I die from overheating.”
“Don’t worry.”
“Can’t you at least act the slightest bit concerned?”
The system heads off to look up information while depressed.
Two hours later.
Before the system’s results are in, the agent has reported back first.
“Xiao Tiantian has been discovered. I have forwarded the GPS coordinates,” he pauses before continuing, “but, something seems off”
Suddenly disappearing a few days ago with no single trace before suddenly popping back up, as if he intentionally wants to be found by them right now.
The coordinates show him to be at a café in the countryside.
The system is still working hard at its assignment.
Should he try to rely on the unreliable system for information on X or rely on himself?
Without a shred of doubt, Du You calls assistant Xiao together and heads off.
“Wait, wait! I’m done soon!” The system does not want the current host to get in touch with the Bottom. It feels like it would definitely be a bad idea.
But its host is walking quickly along, and has entered his car by now, seatbelts buckled.
The system feels like its fragile little heart is shattering into pieces.
“Host, really, what do you plan to say when you find the Bottom?”
Though Du You does not answer the question.
TL’s notes: No matter what, though, this virus is nothing compared to the coronavirus, I’m sure. What? You don’t know what I’m talking about? What good news, the pandemic is finally over. What year is it? It’s not 2100 already, is it?
Oriental Rabbit 
Oh no. I get this is poking fun at cliche stuff, but the ‘hacking’ hurts my soul.
LikeLike