Siheyuan: At the beginning, I can integrate everything!

"We have dispatched the top-tier cyber cleaner—'Ghost'."

"He will paralyze all of Future Technology's business networks. As long as you hold on, we still have a chance to turn things around."

The phone hangs up.

As Ichiro Sato gripped the receiver with the dial tone, a desperate glimmer of hope rekindled in his eyes.

"ghost"!

In the underground hacker world, this name is like a Damocles' sword hanging over the heads of all national security agencies.

It is said that he once single-handedly hacked into the Pentagon's top-secret database in three minutes using an early commercial computer.

After escaping unscathed, he casually drew the middle finger on the other person's screen.

This is the last trump card that the Western intelligence community has been holding onto!

"Zhang Huaimin...you wait! Even if you buy the heavy industry company, once your sales network is completely paralyzed, you'll still have nothing!"

Sato Ichiro gritted his teeth, staring intently at the screen like a gambler who had lost everything.

Across the ocean.

Inside a secret Western military base, hundreds of meters underground.

The temperature in the entire server room was set to an extremely low level, and countless servers emitted a low hum.

A gaunt, sunken-eyed young white man was sitting cross-legged in front of a row of screens.

He was wearing a worn-out hoodie, his fingers moving across the keyboard like blurry shadows.

He is "the ghost".

"Interesting. It's amazing that a backward place like China can build a firewall of this level."

The ghost stared at the bizarre codes on the screen that were blocking his attacks, a smug smile playing on his lips, like a hunter eyeing his prey.

"However, in the face of my 'Abyssal Worm,' the more sophisticated the defense, the more completely it collapses."

He slammed down the Enter key.

This was the ultimate virus he had spent five years developing, designed specifically for the emerging underlying logic of the Internet.

It's not a brute-force attack, but rather like a real virus, capable of self-replication, mutation, and then devouring all data from within.

In the early 1980s internet world, this was absolutely a nuclear-level, dimensional reduction attack!

"Go ahead and tear their network to shreds."

The ghost sneered and tilted his head back to gulp down a mouthful of ice-cold coffee.

at the same time.

The future technology building in Beijing, the capital of China.

The previously busy and orderly departments were suddenly plunged into an unprecedented panic.

"Mr. Yu! Something terrible has happened!"

A technical director rushed into the president's office, sweating profusely, without even knocking.

"Our company's tens of thousands of directly operated stores across the country have suddenly all lost connectivity!"

"Not only that, but data from the Hong Kong branch was also cut off, and all the financial systems crashed!"

Yu Li suddenly stood up, and the pen in her hand fell to the table with a "thud".

She rushed out of the office.

Inside the large office area, there are hundreds of microcomputers independently developed by Future Technology.

At the same time.

The screens all turned a deathly blue!

A string of scarlet gibberish jumped across the screen, as if mocking their incompetence.

"Quickly repair it! Switch to the backup server!" Yu Li ordered sternly.

"This won't do, Mr. Yu! The virus is spreading too fast. Even the backup system was infected instantly as soon as it went online; we can't stop it at all!"

The technicians were so anxious they were almost in tears.

A commercial network outage means that the flow of hundreds of millions of transactions every day in the future technology industry will come to an instantaneous halt.

If they cannot recover in time, those foreign companies that were just defeated by them will definitely take the opportunity to retaliate and tear them to pieces!

Just as the entire building was in utter chaos and the executives were frantic like ants on a hot plate.

"bite."

The doors of the private elevator opened.

Zhang Huaimin was dressed in casual home clothes.

With one hand in his pocket and the other holding a freshly baked, juicy Quanjude roast duck leg, he was a man with one hand in his pocket and the other holding a freshly baked, juicy Quanjude roast duck leg.

He was slowly and methodically munching on it.

Chen Bing followed behind him expressionlessly, but the wariness in his eyes did not lessen in the slightest.

"Chairman Zhang!"

Yu Li rushed over as if she had seen a savior and urgently reported the network outage.

Zhang Huaimin swallowed the duck meat in his mouth and glanced at the computers around him that had turned blue screens.

He was neither alarmed nor angry.

Instead, a hint of displeasure was revealed in those deep black eyes, as if their enjoyment of eating duck had been interrupted.

"Those rats in the West, they really haven't given up their thieving intentions."

Zhang Huaimin wiped his hands with a tissue and casually handed the remaining half of the duck leg to Chen Bing.

"Brother Chen, please hold this for me, it won't taste good if it gets cold."

He strode forward, heading straight for the central computer room, the heart of future technology.

Inside the server room, the technicians were at a loss as to what to do with the red gibberish.

Upon seeing Zhang Huaimin enter, everyone made way for him.

"Chairman, this virus is too strange. It seems to be alive; our antivirus program is devoured before it even gets close!"

The chief technology officer reported with a face full of shame.

"That's normal. This is a worm virus written at the lowest level of logic, so of course you can't solve it with your current silicon-based thinking."

Zhang Huaimin spoke in a flat tone.

He walked to the control panel.

Looking at the frantically jumping scarlet code on the screen.

It's like watching a bunch of ridiculous clowns put on a show.

He pulled out an extremely ordinary, even somewhat chipped black USB drive from his small pocket.

This was the moment he noticed the network anomaly.

Five thousand shock points were spent in the system space.

A super tool that directly integrates "advanced artificial intelligence firewall" and "quantum entanglement antivirus features".

To combat this early worm virus from the 1980s.

Forget about nuclear weapons, this is more like a bottle of potent insecticide.

Zhang Huaimin didn't even touch the keyboard.

"Click".

I plugged the black USB drive directly into the port on the main computer.

Inside a secret Western base.

The ghost was watching the screen with satisfaction as the nodes representing future technologies turned red one by one.

He could almost see the ten million dollar bounty beckoning to him.

suddenly!

The image on his screen suddenly froze.

Those once unstoppable scarlet codes.

It was like crashing into a wall of sighs made of pure light.

The spread stopped instantly.

"Hmm? Still making a futile struggle?"

Ghost sneered, put his hands back on the keyboard, and prepared to increase the virus's replication frequency.

however.

Before he could even type the first line of code...

"Buzz—!"

A massive and chilling torrent of data that he simply could not comprehend.

Following the network cable, it returned in an instant with a terrifying speed that completely disregarded physical distance!

This data stream carries the absolute pressure of high-dimensional artificial intelligence.

Not only did it grind his prized "Abyss Worm" virus into the most basic digital powder in a mere 0.01 seconds.

It transformed directly into an invisible sword, slashing through all the defensive shells of his top-tier server!

"This...this is impossible!"

The arrogance on the ghost's face vanished instantly, replaced by extreme horror.

He frantically pounded on the keyboard, trying to sever the physical connection.

"Beep beep beep beep!"

The alarm sounded throughout the entire underground base.

But it was all too late.

The monitors in front of the ghost flickered a few times.

It turned black instantly!

Then.

In the center of the pitch-black screen.

There are no fancy animations or complicated code.

A white pop-up window appeared quietly.

Above, written in the most ordinary English Song typeface, was a line of words that sent chills down his spine, as if he were being watched by a god.

"Your technology is outdated. Who are you, anyway?"