77: Chapter 77 The Long Clan Crisis Erupts; Chen Fan Takes a Different Approach

9:00 AM, the top-floor conference room of the Long Group.

The two sides of the long table were clearly divided. On one side was Long Corporation's own technical team, led by Zhang Zhaoming, all looking haggard with heavy bags under their eyes.

On the other side were five middle-aged men and women in dark suits with a professional air, wearing "Zhaoshu Technology" ID badges on their chests.

Leading them was a woman in her early forties with short hair, gold-rimmed glasses, and an indifferent expression.

Her name was Shen Wei, a co-founder of Zhaoshu Technology and a true heavyweight in the domestic network security field.

"President Shen, that's roughly the situation." Long Zaitian personally introduced everything that had happened over the past two days. "We need to complete the system repairs and the investigation for the mole within three days. I have heard of Zhaoshu's capabilities and hope this collaboration yields a good result."

Shen Wei pushed up her glasses and didn't respond immediately. The team behind her had already opened their portable equipment cases, and three specialized analysis terminals quickly booted up, data streams scrolling frantically across the screens.

"President Long," Shen Wei finally spoke, her voice as calm as a machine, just like her persona, "before we begin, I need to confirm a few things."

"Please, go ahead."

"First, are you certain the attacker is an external party and not... an eruption of the system's own logical vulnerabilities?"

"I'm not sure if it's an internal or external party," Long Zaitian said.

"Second, regarding the 'mole' you mentioned, do you have any specific suspects?"

Long Zaitian was silent for two seconds. "The five members of the Technical Department's core development group all have the authority to access the tampered code. But as for who specifically, we need you to investigate."

"Third," Shen Wei looked directly at Long Zaitian, "if our investigation points to a... result you don't want to see, can you accept it?"

This was a sharp question.

The air in the conference room suddenly grew tense.

Long Zaitian looked at her and said slowly, "With me, there is only the truth. There is no 'wanting or not wanting to see it'."

"Very well." Shen Wei nodded and turned to give her team instructions. "Launch the 'Traceability' program and lock the timeframe to the last three months. Focus on scanning all modification records, permission logs, and abnormal access behaviors in the core codebase."

The fingers of the Zhaoshu team moved so fast on their keyboards they left afterimages.

The Long Corporation technicians watched from the side, their expressions becoming increasingly grim—the logs they had struggled with all night without making sense of were being rapidly parsed, categorized, and labeled by Zhaoshu's analysis tools. Hidden anomalies were being dragged out, and suspicious access paths were being reconstructed.

The difference in efficiency was like night and day.

Two hours later, Shen Wei's deputy looked up. "President Shen, we've found several anomalies."

"Speak."

"First, there was an abnormal late-night access to the core codebase. The IP address was masked as an internal development server, but the behavioral pattern didn't match the normal development workflow. The visitor downloaded the source code for the underlying modules of the communication protocol."

"Second, there were fifty-seven tentative scans from overseas proxy servers, all targeting non-critical ports of Long Corporation's external services. These scans were intercepted normally by our firewall and didn't trigger alarms, but it seems the scanner... was using these scans to reverse-engineer our internal network topology."

Shen Wei turned and looked at Long Zaitian. "President Long, have you offended... anyone from the military recently?"

Long Zaitian's pupils constricted slightly. "What do you mean?"

"This level of Directed Energy Attack isn't something an ordinary hacker can pull off," Shen Wei said calmly.

Silence filled the conference room.

The military?

Long Zaitian's fingers tightened unconsciously.

"President Shen," Long Zaitian spoke slowly, "what if the attacker isn't the military, but... the founder of a private tech company?"

Shen Wei was stunned for a moment, then shook her head. "Impossible. This kind of technology isn't something money can buy, nor is it something a few genius engineers could develop out of thin air. It must be supported by a complete and mature military-industrial technical system."

She spoke with absolute certainty.

"Continue the investigation." Long Zaitian stood up. "In three days, I want to see a complete attack Traceability report. Also, when can our system recovery plan be completed?"

"We've conducted an assessment. Completing the repairs will take about a week," Shen Wei said flatly.

"Can it be faster?" Long Zaitian's tone was somewhat urgent. If operations were halted for seven days, the total loss would be at least several billion.

"President Long, there is no team that can solve this problem faster than us." Her status in the industry gave Shen Wei a lot of confidence; even as the service provider, she didn't sound the least bit sycophantic.

—

Chen Fan stood in the center of the Star of Fortune factory area, beginning preparations for Engineer Li's Heat-shield tiles.

"Hao Zi," he called out to Lin Hao, who was about to run toward the workshop, "I'll oversee the production of the fifty sets of Heat exchange units for Engineer Li. You have another task."

Lin Hao braked and turned around. "What task?"

"It's time to get moving on the medical device company," Chen Fan said. "Qingyue has already compiled the list of critically short equipment, but she can't handle all the legwork like site selection, business registration, and initial team building on her own. Go help her."

Lin Hao's eyes lit up, but then he scratched his head. "But I don't know the first thing about the medical field..."

"You don't need to understand the technology," Chen Fan patted his shoulder. "Qingyue understands the technology, but she's never opened a company. It's easy to run into pitfalls with business and tax matters. You followed me through the registration of Star of Fortune and have been managing the production line for so long; you're familiar with the processes and practicalities. You two will be partners—she'll set the direction, and you'll clear the obstacles."

He paused and added, "Also, keep a few things in mind when choosing a site: first, it must have convenient transportation but not be too conspicuous; second, leave enough space for future expansion; third..." He lowered his voice, "it's best to choose a place near Old Master Qin's home. If anything happens, it'll be easier to look after each other."

Lin Hao understood. Chen Fan was laying out the medical device company as another strategic branch, aiming for both rapid development and maintaining concealment and security.

"Got it, leave it to me!" Lin Hao patted his chest. "I'll make sure the groundwork is laid out perfectly for my sister-in-law... oh, no, for Dr. Su!"

Chen Fan smiled and pulled up an electronic map on his phone, circling three areas. "I had Xiao Zhi do a preliminary screening of these places; the surrounding facilities and transportation are all good. You two can head out today to take a look and get a feel for them. Also—"

He pulled up a list of contacts. "These people are veterans in the medical industry I asked Old Master Qin to look into. Some are retired, and some are still within the system, but their connections and experience are substantial. Once you've decided on a site, you can try to reach out to them and see if we can hire them as consultants."

Chen Fan's gaze became serious. "Our primary goal in starting this company isn't to make money, but to solve real problems. Especially for those devices where foreign countries have us by the throat and domestic patients are in urgent need—we'll make all of them."

Lin Hao nodded heavily. "Understood! This is meaningful work; I'm fired up to do it!"

"Go on then." Chen Fan checked the time. "Qingyue should be on duty at the Community hospital; go straight there to find her. You can take my car."

Lin Hao responded and jogged away.

Chen Fan took a deep breath, clearing all distracting thoughts.

Now, he was going to complete the most important thing of the day—

Successfully delivering those fifty sets of Heat exchange units.