In this cyberpunk era, why are you still playing the traditional villain?

Many times, he couldn't get any information out of them. Those people were either reset to factory settings like Xu Ying, or they didn't know as much as Xu Shi did.

Thinking about this, Mr. Xu couldn't help but roll his eyes. In the end, he simply tried to get Gu Yi to design an app similar to an anti-fraud center while building the network.

Just educate the alliance members about the "Heavenly Principle" members. Everyone has superpowers, so you can just go and catch them. If you catch them, you'll get a reward of 500,000. It's simple, direct, and effective.

But who would have thought that even the usually stable Black Rabbit team could run into problems?

This was something Xu Shi hadn't really considered, after all, the little puppy himself was the fourth-ranked top hacker on "Invader-T," and now, with the changes in the plot, he had even more incredible derivative abilities, allowing him to roam freely in the Ethernet world.

If the real world is the domain of all kinds of combat-oriented big shots, then the internet is her home turf.

If she can do this alone, imagine the thousands and tens of thousands of people under her command—her expansion over the past few years has included many cities that have already entered the information age, and for the professional hackers among them, this is simply the working environment of their dreams.

How could a team like this encounter difficulties? Nobody believes it, not even me.

Anyway, we ran into a few obstacles.

The little black rabbit itself looked unconvinced, "What he, or they, do is inconsistent in scale. Sometimes it's just setting up some troublesome roadblocks in the laying of lines, but other times it directly launches a powerful virus, and even some small areas that have already been completed have experienced complete paralysis..."

"Can't find out who it is?"

Xu Shi felt a headache coming on as well.

"If I could find it, I wouldn't be complaining to you."

Gu Yi's face was full of dissatisfaction. "I even tried uploading my thoughts directly, but the results were still not good."

"Are you crazy?"

Xu Shi was displeased upon hearing this and reached out to grab her ear. "So what if you can beat someone up through the internet? What if you get a virus and become a complete idiot, then I'll have to support you?"

He knew that Gu Yi's new ability, to put it more concretely, was to codify her own consciousness, or rather, her thoughts, thereby integrating them into the World Wide Web and gaining higher privileges.

This approach has its advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is that she can dominate the internet in most cases, and her work efficiency will also be higher—controlling things directly with her mind is certainly faster and more convenient than typing on a keyboard.

The downside is that if you suffer any damage in this state, such as getting infected with a virus, or even if you encounter a capable but unaware person who deletes your consciousness as ordinary code, then that would be real mental damage.

The consequences... are the same as her physical state when her consciousness was uploaded: she'll become a semi-vegetative, silly little person who will not only drool, but may also become incontinent over time (not really).

Therefore, when he had sex with her, Xu Shi did not dare to use "threshold space" on her, for fear that she would suffer some irreversible damage.

"It hurts! Don't pull!"

Miss Black Rabbit tugged at his hand, but it softened quickly. "I was just a little impatient... I'll be more careful next time."

Actually, she was quite happy. Xu Shi's first thought wasn't whether she had found the person who caused the damage, but rather her own safety.

"Anyway, if you become an idiot, I'll just kick you out."

Having received her assurance, Xu Shi softened a little, "Miss Gu, you wouldn't want this either..."

"You bastard boss, please stop bastarding."

Gu Yi stuck out her tongue. "That's all you know how to do..." Instead of threatening me, you should help your poor technical supervisor think of a solution.

"...What can I do? Do you think I'm better than you in this area?"

Xu Shi also felt a bit helpless, "Not to mention that the current network environment is still in its infancy and is already poor, so there are still quite a few possibilities."

For example, if it's a wild hacker causing trouble—Gu Yi's large team certainly can't recruit all the technical staff, so it's to be expected that a white-hat hacker would be separated out.

Don't forget, she herself is a legitimate cyber kidnapper. Did she agree to be recruited by him without hesitation? She only agreed to work for him because of Xu's coercion and enticement.

Although these scattered individuals are certainly not as capable as Miss Black Rabbit, that doesn't mean they can't cause trouble for the technical team—many of them might not even have any legitimate reason, simply wanting to vent their rebellious feelings in this way.

However, Gu Yi must have encountered this kind of thing before, so she might not seem to be having such a headache.

and so.

There is another, more likely explanation.

"Speaking of which, you weren't exactly the absolute leader on 'Invader-T,' were you?"

Xu Shi frowned and looked at her.

Yes.

On the hacker leaderboard "Invader-T", there are three other top-tier figures listed before the name "Black Rabbit".

Although the timeline has deviated now, and Gu Yi herself has no interest in refreshing the rankings, it doesn't mean that she has surpassed these three. One can't make definitive statements.

Judging from the list alone, they certainly have enough strength to challenge Little Black Rabbit.

"That makes some sense."

Gu Yi nodded, then pouted and said, "But since the day I made the list, I haven't seen 'α,' 'Chaos,' or 'First Day' make any moves. Why are they targeting me?"

"α", "chaos" and "first day" are naturally the nicknames left by the top three bosses of "Invader-T".

"How can you be sure they didn't make any moves?"

Xu Shi retorted, "Not everyone is like you, going to someone's house to cause a scene and then ostentatiously writing 'I was here' on the site."

"But if they really did something underhanded, do you think I wouldn't have noticed?"

Gu Yi retorted, "They're all from Night Sin City. Even if they're stronger than me, I wouldn't let them run rampant right under my nose, would I?"

Especially now that she's in charge of the largest base station in the entire Night City Sin network, can anyone really commit the so-called "perfect crime"?

Anyway, she didn't think so, or rather, she never thought she was inferior to these three. If they really met, wouldn't she have a fighting chance?

"Then how can you be sure they are from Night Sin City?"

Xu Shi posed a soul-searching question.

A very strange question that tests the soul.

The reason this question is strange is that "Invader-T" seems to be an internal list of Night City. Apart from the unfortunate team "Deep Sea", which was turned into a human brain culture dish by Xie Qingyan, the rest have been actively or passively incorporated into the technical team by following the map.

But these three are still at large, which seems a bit unusual upon closer inspection—because even with their current strength, finding a fly in Night City would be a piece of cake, let alone catching people using the leaderboard, or even using physical means for a thorough search.

Unless... they weren't originally in the City of Night Sin.

Mr. Xu hadn't thought much about this issue before, but now he suddenly realized it.

He only remembered half of the original plot, so he had no impression of the top three of "Invader-T" at all, and he didn't even know their names... His original thought was that this was just a stepping stone for Gu Yi, one of the female leads, to build her resume later.

But at that time he still had a blind spot, which was that he did not know that there were other worlds outside the City of Night Sin.

Now that we consider all of this, the probability of this happening is quite high.

Because "Invader-T" is set as a "global ranking list" rather than a "Night City ranking list," even with this explanation, there is no logical fault in it—not to mention that people from other city-states couldn't make the list, there was no cross-regional network back then.

But if you follow this line of thought, you'll discover an even more interesting fact.

Before the establishment of cross-regional networks, it seems there was only one possibility for network personnel in Night City to be able to influence others even when they were in a foreign land.

A person who believes in "heavenly principles".

Finally... they've shown up?

Go WBG!

(End of this chapter)

Chapter 331 Gu Yi vs. Xia Wuyou?

2023-12-05

Over the years, Xu Shi has never dared to relax his mind on matters of "natural law".

Unfortunately, the investigation into them has not gone very far—those people have been trying to erase all traces of their existence, and with the enemy in the dark and us in the light, it is indeed difficult to make any progress.

Unexpectedly, they chose to appear in the context of the United Network.

Xu Shi's expression turned somewhat serious.

It must be admitted that this was a very insightful and to the point.

This was a genuine, overtly calculated scheme, and it just so happened to fall into one of the most crucial parts of his plan.

If the alliance is abandoned and put on hold because of their sabotage, it will be very difficult for the city-states in the alliance to communicate. What era are we living in? We can't still rely on sending letters and using carrier pigeons, can we?

But we can't just ignore them... Compared to our current substantive diplomatic cooperation, influencing or even manipulating others through the internet is clearly a more efficient method.

The memory of how Shen He, the little darling, used "Divine Descent" to bewitch the people of Night Sin City is still fresh in everyone's mind. Even though he crushed his opponent with cheat codes back then, Boss Xu still feels a bit apprehensive afterward. It's not because of anything else, but because in Xia Ke'an's prophecy, that was the opponent's only chance to turn the tide.

Therefore, this is something that should not be underestimated at all—if it is not handled properly, could it lead to an instant reversal of the two extremes? Perhaps all the efforts of the past few years will be in vain, or even worse, it could turn into something like The Matrix... a massive psychological impact, wouldn't that be just a pure Infinite Tsukuyomi?

Although this was only the worst-case scenario that came to mind, you have to consider the worst-case scenario before you do anything, right?

"Little rabbit, why don't you try counter-tracking first?"

Thinking of this, Xu Shi solemnly ordered, "At all costs, we must find out who these people are."

"If it's just because you lack technical skills and got tricked by some unknown wild hacker, then it's naturally a false alarm and everyone is happy. Maybe we can even recruit those people to our aid."

"But if it really is as I think... let me know as soon as there is any news."

"What do you mean by 'insufficient technical capabilities'?!"

Gu Yi grumbled in dissatisfaction, saying that this argument was too condescending... But the fact was that she was at a disadvantage for the time being and didn't know how to refute it. She could only secretly make up her mind to find these bastards who had embarrassed her, no matter how hard she tried.

Even if you really are in the top three of "Invader-T", I'll still teach you a lesson! It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say I'll use *civilized language* on you first, then *civilized language* on you later!

Aaaaaah! Uppercut! Backflip! Left hook! Right hook! Tornado destroys parking lot! Goat jumps! Crow flies! Mouse navigates maze! Elephant kicks! Giant axe chops down tree! Utter madness! Utter madness! Utter madness! Utter madness! Utter madness! Utter madness! Utter madness! Utter madness! Utter madness! Kill ...

She silently began to crawl in the shadows. Fortunately, Pan Ling was not there at the time and was unable to see into her crazed mind, otherwise she would have been quite frightened. As it turned out, Xu Shi was completely wrong to say that she had not changed. Miss Black Rabbit's mental state was now completely different from before.

This also reflects that the pressure she feels in her current position is not small at all. Unbeknownst to her, Miss Black Rabbit, who once vehemently denounced the corporate lackeys, has now become a frontline lackey of the corporate lackeys (not really), and is even adept at helping Boss Xu arrest people.

However, she also knew the importance of this matter, so after a brief outburst, she focused her attention on his last sentence.

"After I tell you, what are you going to do?"

"Won't you know by then?"

Xu Shi smiled and gave a perfunctory reply.

"No way, I won't do it unless you tell me."

Gu Yi stubbornly shook her head. She had matured a lot since then, and thinking three steps ahead before taking one step was a basic skill for her. She also wanted to know how Xu Shi's arrangements would go.

"Hey, you've got guts now, huh? Believe me or not..."

Xu instinctively reached for the remote control, only to discover upon arrival that the "red ants" on the other person's neck had been gone for several years.