After breaking up with my boyfriend, I made a fortune and rose rapidly in my career.

"AetherX~7200".

These words made Chen Ping's heart tighten. Before the sound of the plane tree leaves hitting the glass had even faded, Chen Ping had already called Gu Weizhen.

"Weizhen, put aside what you're doing. The Jiangsu Province power grid dispatch system has been hacked, AetherX~7200, firmware layer intrusion."

The keyboard clicks on the other end of the phone suddenly stopped.

"How long has the attack been going on?"

"Seventy-two hours. The other side's security team cannot find the entrance."

Gu Weizhen remained silent for three seconds.

"I need to bring the SH~X02 with me. It's a backup verification device, and all the diagnostic modules for the Chipfire firmware trust chain are on it."

"How long will it take before we can depart?"

"Two hours. But there are specific requirements for server transportation: shockproof, temperature-controlled, and escorted by dedicated personnel."

Chen Ping hung up on Gu Weizhen, took out his phone and found the phone number of Zhao Mingyuan, the executive deputy director of the Provincial Public Security Department.

Although the official appointment document for the deputy secretary-general has not yet been issued, the provincial party committee standing committee has basically agreed to the matter, and Zhao Mingyuan could not possibly be unaware of this.

"Director Zhao, this is Chen Pingfang. We need a four-person team from the Special Police Detachment to arrive at the Corefire Laboratory in two hours to escort a core piece of equipment and technical personnel to Xingzhou, Jiangsu Province. They will use the high-speed rail special channel."

Zhao Mingyuan only asked one question: "Does the Provincial Party Committee know?"

"When Secretary Deshan visited the Chipfire Laboratory, his exact words were, 'Be prepared for a protracted battle.' With the power outage affecting 34 million people in Jiangsu Province, does Director Zhao consider this a war?"

There was a pause on the other end of the phone.

"The person will arrive within twenty minutes."

Chen Ping put down his phone and called Zhang Shoucheng back.

"Director Zhang, I'm leading my team to depart tonight and will arrive in Xingzhou tomorrow morning. Please arrange two things. First, grant us physical access to the power grid dispatch center in advance. Second, obtain a complete mirror image of all system logs since the attack began; not a single byte should be deleted."

Zhang Shoucheng's voice trembled slightly.

"Director Chen, on behalf of Jiangsu Province..."

"Save the polite words for when we meet. Let's get this done first."

hang up.

Chen Ping locked his office, went downstairs, and started his car.

It's a 17-minute drive from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to the Chipfire Lab. When we arrived, Gu Weizhen and three core team members were already moving the SH~X02. The silver cabinet was fixed to a shock-absorbing bracket, covered with an anti-static film, and had temperature and humidity monitoring patches affixed to the four corners.

The SWAT team arrived faster than Chen Ping had anticipated. Two black SUVs pulled up at the south gate of the laboratory building, and four plainclothes SWAT officers got out. The leader was a short-haired man in his early thirties with an inconspicuous badge pinned to his chest.

"Director Chen, Director Zhao has given instructions that we will follow your orders throughout the entire process."

Chen Ping nodded and turned to Gu Weizhen.

"How many people are you bringing?"

"There are four of us, including me. Xiao Zhou is in charge of firmware analysis, Lao Zhao is in charge of network forensics, and Xiao Lin is in charge of system recovery plans."

Is that enough?

Gu Weizhen patted the side panel of the server rack, his hand landing steadily.

"If it's the known vulnerability family of AetherX~7200, that's enough."

The group traveled to Nanzhou High-Speed ​​Railway Station in three cars. Lin Shaofeng had contacted the railway department in advance, and tickets for the special train passage had been purchased, with space reserved in the compartment for equipment.

At 9:11 p.m., the train departed from Nanzhou Station.

Chen Ping sat by the window in the private room, a system architecture diagram sent by Zhang Shoucheng resting on his lap. The Jiangsu Provincial Power Grid Dispatch Center used the Xingchen-2 system, with core processing nodes equipped with AetherX~7200 servers, totaling sixteen servers distributed across three server rooms. After the attack, the dispatch system's automatic load balancing module repeatedly crashed and restarted, resulting in two days of rotating power outages in the northern industrial zone of Xingzhou City.

Gu Weizhen leaned over from the opposite seat and pointed to a label in the lower right corner of the architecture diagram.

"This location is the remote maintenance interface. The AetherX~7200 firmware has an undocumented debug port, which is disabled by default at the factory, but can be activated through a specific firmware upgrade package."

"Is it related to the third wave of attack simulated during the Corefire demonstration?"

"The logical chain is almost identical. But there is one difference: the attack on Sujiang's side lasted for 72 hours without stopping, which means that the attacker chose to stay for a long time, rather than the kind that attacks and runs away. This is not an ordinary APT; someone is staying in the system for a long time."

Chen Ping folded up the architecture diagram and stuffed it into the inside pocket of his jacket.

After the train passed Lin'an Station, the city lights outside the window became sparse. Gu Weizhen's three young team members were debugging a portable diagnostic terminal in the next compartment, the faint sound of keyboards filtering through the cracks in the door connecting the carriages.

At 6:40 a.m., the train pulled into Xingzhou Station.

There were more people waiting on the platform than Chen Pingfang had expected. Zhang Shoucheng stood at the front, with heavy dark circles under his eyes and one button on his suit jacket fastened incorrectly. Behind him was the chief engineer of the Jiangsu Provincial Power Group Dispatch Center, a man with gray hair, whose name tag read "Qian Weiguo". Further back were two police cars from the Xingzhou Public Security Bureau, their blue lights flashing.

Zhang Shoucheng came forward and placed both of Chen Ping's hands on his when they shook hands.

"Director Chen, thank you. Thank you very much."

Chen Ping pulled his hand back.

"Let's go to the scene first."

The convoy passed through Xingzhou city and arrived at the power grid dispatch center in twenty minutes. The building had a concrete exterior, and two temporary security checks had been added at the entrance.

The group entered the main control room, and Qian Weiguo walked in front and pushed open the fire door.

The control room was filled with the strong smell of coffee and sweat. A dozen or so technicians were scattered at their workstations; some were asleep, while others were still staring at the logs flashing on their screens. On the large screen on the wall, one-third of the nodes in the Xingzhou power grid topology map were flashing red.

Qian Weiguo stopped SH~X02's cart.

"Wait a moment."

Chen Ping stopped walking.

Qian Weiguo turned around, crossed his arms, and looked at Gu Weizhen and the silver server rack.

"You're going to connect an uncertified device to the State Grid's core dispatch node? Who will be responsible if something goes wrong?"

Everyone awake in the control room looked up.

Zhang Shouchang blushed.

"Old Qian, now is not the time to talk about procedures..."

"That's precisely when we need to talk about procedures," Qian Weiguo said, turning to Zhang Shoucheng. "A power grid serving 30 million people, and a bunch of people from another province come here, pushing some machine of unknown origin, and they want to connect it? What if they mess it up? Who will be responsible?"

The control room fell silent.

Zhang Shoucheng opened his mouth to speak, but Chen Ping raised his hand and pressed it down.

Chen Ping walked up to Qian Weiguo, took out a folded A4 sheet of paper from the inside pocket of his jacket, unfolded it, and handed it to him.

There were only three lines of text and two signatures on the paper.

"Chen Pingfang, Deputy Secretary-General of the People's Government of Nanzhou Province, hereby pledges his commitment to the emergency repair of the power grid in Jiangsu Province: If the power grid dispatch system deteriorates further due to equipment or operational reasons after the Xinhuo team joins the system, I will bear full responsibility and accept any punishment."

Signature. Date.

It was handwritten by Chen Ping on the high-speed train; the handwriting was steady, and the ink from the fountain pen still had a glossy sheen from not being completely dry.

Qian Weiguo stared at the paper for five seconds.

Zhang Shoucheng wiped the sweat from his forehead.

Qian Weiguo returned the military order to Chen Pingfang and stepped aside.

"The access point is in rack number three. My people are monitoring it the entire time."

Before anyone could speak, Gu Weizhen pushed the SH~X02 toward rack number three.

The access process was initiated. Fiber optic patch cords, power lines, and diagnostic probes were all ready. Gu Weizhen squatted behind the cabinet, connecting the cables quickly, each cable making a crisp sound as it was inserted.

Three minutes later, the front panel of the SH~X02 lit up with a green light.

Gu Weizhen typed the first command on the diagnostic terminal, and the Corefire Firmware Trust Chain began scanning all sixteen core nodes of the Xingzhou Power Grid Dispatch System.

The data stream scrolls rapidly across the screen.

In the fourth minute, Gu Weizhen's fingers stopped moving above the keyboard.

Chen Pingfang noticed it.

"What's wrong?"

Gu Weizhen's Adam's apple bobbed, and he slowly turned his head to look at Chen Pingfang.

"The source of the attack has been located."

"Where?"

Gu Weizhen pointed to a flashing green dot on the screen. That dot wasn't in an overseas IP range, nor in any external network area. It was lit up in the very center of the power grid's internal topology diagram, marked with a local device number.

"DZ~M04. A legitimate maintenance terminal inside the dispatch center."

Qian Weiguo suddenly stood up from behind his workstation, knocking his chair to the ground.

That terminal is in the maintenance room next to the main control room.