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

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

Qian Weiguo's chair fell to the ground with a dull thud. Everyone awake in the control room stood up.

Chen Ping took three steps to stand behind Gu Weizhen, staring at the green dot on the screen.

Who is using this terminal?

Qian Weiguo's lips trembled slightly as he grabbed the equipment ledger from his workstation and flipped it open. His finger traced the roster and then stopped.

"DZ~M04... is a dedicated remote maintenance machine for AetherX's original engineers. It's usually locked in the maintenance room, and I have the key."

When was the last time the manufacturer's engineer logged in?

Qian Weiguo turned to the journal page, the color draining from his face inch by inch.

"It was on the 17th of last month. But that was a routine firmware upgrade."

Gu Weizhen's fingers were already typing rapidly on the diagnostic terminal, and the SH~X02's firmware trust chain began to reverse engineer all the communication records of DZ~M04.

The data stream cascades down like a waterfall on the right side of the screen.

"Wait a minute." Gu Weizhen suddenly locked the screen and zoomed in on a piece of hexadecimal code.

Chen Ping leaned closer.

"What is this code?"

Gu Weizhen didn't turn around, but tapped two columns on the screen, three rows apart.

"The above section is the debug port activation command in the AetherX~7200 factory firmware. The following section..."

pause.

"The following is a frequency modulation command. The attacker is using a backdoor to tamper with the AC frequency parameters of the power grid."

Chen Ping's back straightened instantly.

Grid frequency. 50 Hz is the standard operating frequency of the Chinese power grid. A deviation exceeding 0.5 Hz will cause the protection device to trip. A deviation exceeding 2 Hz will cause abnormal vibration in the generator rotor. A deviation exceeding 5 Hz will result in physical damage.

"How much off-center is it now?"

Qian Weiguo rushed to the main control console and brought up the frequency monitoring interface.

"49.72. It's already off by 0.28 Hz."

"What about the offset rate?"

"Accelerating by 0.04 Hz per hour."

Chen Ping did the math in his head. At this rate, the deviation would exceed the 0.5 Hz yellow line in less than six hours.

This isn't stealing data, it's not paralyzing the system. This is burning out the generator.

"Gu Weizhen, can we disable this frequency modulation command at the firmware level?"

Gu Weizhen's hand hovered above the keyboard, remaining still.

"Yes. But the firmware write protection mechanism of AetherX~7200 has a feature - once an external modification command is detected, the backdoor program will automatically trigger data self-destruction to erase all traces of the attack."

"In other words, cutting off the command also means losing the evidence."

"right."

There was a three-second silence in the control room.

Chen Ping turned to Qian Weiguo.

Does the dispatch center have a physical means to manually sever external communication with individual nodes?

Qian Weiguo was stunned for a moment, then realized what was happening.

"Yes. Each server rack has a hardware network isolation switch at the back. Pulling it down will physically disconnect the external communication lines, but the internal LAN remains connected."

"Disconnect DZ~M04 from external communication."

Chen Ping's words were very brief.

Qian Weiguo didn't move.

"After disconnecting, AetherX's original remote maintenance channel will also be cut off. If firmware issues arise later, their personnel won't be able to get in."

Chen Ping stared at Qian Weiguo.

"Qian Gong, do you think now is the time to worry about the future?"

Qian Weiguo gritted his teeth, turned around, took a bunch of keys from his waist, and rushed quickly toward the adjacent maintenance room.

Fifteen seconds later, a dull metallic spring sound came from the maintenance room.

The external communication indicator light on the DZ~M04 changes from green to black.

Gu Weizhen stared intently at the screen. The data stream for the frequency modulation command had stopped; the last data packet was interrupted, its payload content incomplete.

"External communication channel has been interrupted. Command issuance has ceased."

"What about frequency?"

Qian Weiguo's deputy was updating the data on the main control panel.

"49.73. Increased by 0.01 Hz. The offset has stopped."

Chen Ping let out a long breath, but he didn't relax.

"Gu Weizhen, before the attack chain self-destructs, make a complete mirror backup of all firmware logs, communication records, and backdoor activation codes on DZ~M04. Not a single byte can be lost."

Gu Weizhen was already squatting in front of the DZ~M04 rack, using the Corefire diagnostic probe to directly connect to the motherboard's JTAG interface, bypassing the operating system layer, and directly extracting the firmware image from the hardware layer.

The data transfer progress bar slowly crawled across the SH~X02 screen. 87%……92%……96%……

"Finish."

Gu Weizhen removed the probe and locked the storage medium into the anti-static box.

"There's one more thing."

Gu Weizhen opened a comparison window on the diagnostic terminal. On the left was the backdoor activation code that had just been extracted, and on the right was a known sample from the Corefire Labs database.

Two code snippets are displayed side-by-side on the screen.

Chen Ping walked over. Although he couldn't understand every line, he understood one thing: the structure, naming conventions, and even comment styles of the two code snippets were almost identical.

"Where did this one on the right come from?"

Gu Weizhen brought up the file properties in the right-hand window. The source was clearly marked—"Zhou Zhixing's portable hard drive, encrypted partition B, toolkit number ZZX~037".

Chen Ping's spine felt cold, vertebra by vertebra.

Zhou Zhixing. The man who has already been taken away by the Sixth Bureau of the Ministry of State Security. In his toolkit, there was an activation code for a backdoor that was exactly the same as the one used in the Su Jiang power grid attack.

This is no coincidence.

"Take a photo, archive it, encrypt it, and send it to Director Pei of the Sixth Bureau. Use your lab's secure channel."

Gu Weizhen nodded and began the operation.

Chen Ping took two steps back and dialed Zheng Xian's encrypted number.

"Zheng Xian, tell Director Pei that the attack tools used by the Sujiang power grid and the toolkit on Zhou Zhixing's hard drive are from the same source. The reach of the shadows extends further than we thought."

There was a two-second silence on the other end of the phone.

"Understood. Pass it on immediately."

hang up.

On the large screen in the control room, the red nodes turned green one after another. Gu Weizhen's team had begun to verify the firmware trust chain of the remaining fifteen AetherX~7200 servers one by one, marking, isolating, and blocking all lurking backdoor activation codes.

Xiao Zhou was bending over under rack number three to replace a jumper, Lao Zhao was squatting at his workstation in the corner writing an evidence report, and Xiao Lin was drawing a system recovery path diagram on the whiteboard.

Qian Weiguo stood in front of the control panel, watching the frequency curve slowly return to the normal range of 49.95 Hz. He turned his head, glanced at Gu Weizhen, then looked at the silver SH~X02, his lips moved, but he ultimately remained silent.

Four hours later, the backdoors of all sixteen core nodes were blocked.

The power rationing order in the northern industrial zone of Xingzhou City was officially lifted at 2 p.m. that day.

Zhang Shoucheng rushed into the control room with his phone in hand, staggering as he went.

"Director Chen, Secretary Shen's car from the Provincial Party Committee is already on the highway and will arrive at the dispatch center in forty minutes!"

Chen Ping was half-squatting on the ground helping Gu Weizhen organize the cables when he heard this, and slowly stood up.

The Secretary of the Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee came in person.

The iron door to the control room was pushed open from the outside. Zhang Shoucheng's secretary poked half his body in and whispered a message.

"Secretary Shen has arrived ahead of schedule."

Chen Ping turned his head away.

A short, middle-aged man stood at the door, wearing a dark blue jacket, with his hair shaved very short and his temples gray.

Shen Zhaokun didn't look at anyone, walked straight to the large screen in the main control room, stared at the power grid topology diagram that had turned completely green, and stood there for ten seconds.

Then he turned around, glanced around at everyone in the room, and finally his gaze fell on the silver SH~X02.

"Is this the core of the Southern Continent?"

"Yes." Chen Ping stepped forward.

Shen Zhaokun walked up to Chen Pingfang and extended his hand.

"Director Chen, you've connected the electricity to the 34 million people in Jiangsu."

Chen Ping grasped that hand.

Shen Zhaokun didn't loosen his grip, lowering his voice so that only the two of them could hear him.

"Sujiang aims to be the first province to adopt the Chipfire standard's province-wide adaptation solution."