Chapter 99 Mysterious Codename "Zero": A Dimensional Reduction Attack on the External Network Firewall

The roar from the receiver made John's eardrums numb.

It felt as if the Samsung general's spittle could travel through the international cables and spray all over his face.

John held the receiver half a foot away, his facial muscles twitching uncontrollably.

"Smith! You've completely disgraced The Pentagon!"

The roaring from the phone made the coffee cup on the mahogany desk tremble.

John loosened his silk tie, leaving a red mark on his neck.

He hung up the phone.

He turned to glare at the Cybersecurity Bureau Chief, who was huddled on the sofa, his eyes bloodshot.

The plump Bureau Chief held a tablet in his hands, his fingers trembling as he tapped the screen.

"I—I've found it..."

He swallowed dryly, his Adam's Apple bobbing up and down.

"Sir, the one leading the counterattack isn't that little girl from the Chinese Academy of Sciences at all."

John walked over, his leather shoes crunching a shard of glass on the carpet.

"Then who is it? Can China just conjure up a hacker legion out of thin air?"

The Bureau Chief turned the screen around.

On the pitch-black background, there was only a solitary white Arabic numeral "0".

It looked eerie and chilling.

"A phantom from the Dark Web, codename Zero."

The Bureau Chief's voice drifted, as if he were recounting a haunted urban legend.

"Three years ago, he single-handedly hacked into the FBI's database. Then he vanished into thin air."

He wiped the oily sweat from his forehead, his hands shaking so much he could barely hold the tablet.

"He was actually secretly recruited by Xinghai Technology!"

The night in Donghai City grew deeper.

In the core server room of Xinghai Technology, the air conditioner hummed, puffing out white mist.

Lu Jingming unscrewed a bottle of mineral water and tilted his head back to take two gulps.

The ice water slammed into his stomach through his throat, causing goosebumps to rise.

Chu Xuan squatted by the main control console.

He held a crumpled tissue in his hand, wiping the sweat off his face haphazardly.

"Boss Lu, the cyber police outside haven't tracked us down, have they?"

He leaned his parted hair forward, peering into the darkest corner of the server room.

"That brother in the hoodie, his typing speed is smoking, won't he burn out our own motherboard?"

The lights were off in the corner.

Only the eerie green glow from three vertical screens illuminated a slender figure.

He was wearing an oversized black hoodie, the hood covering most of his face.

In his hand, he held half a can of ice-cold cola.

His ten fingers danced across the modified mechanical keyboard.

The clacking sounds merged into one, like a torrential downpour hitting a tin roof.

Xia Weiliang, biting on a lollipop, strolled over and glanced at his screen.

"Zero, your multi-threaded packet writing is too crude."

She curled her lip in disdain and kicked an empty soda can on the floor with her toe.

"Feeding junk data to The Pentagon doesn't require wasting so much computing power."

Zero didn't look up.

A disdainful snort came from beneath the hood.

"As long as it can crush them to death, who cares if it's crude."

His voice was raspy from not speaking for a long time, like sandpaper rubbing against rough wood.

His finger struck the Enter key heavily.

A stream of green code instantly breached one of the Americans' peripheral firewalls, exploding on the screen.

Lu Jingming walked over and placed his mineral water bottle on top of the server case.

The bottom of the plastic bottle made a light "clack" sound.

"The fire at The Pentagon has been stoked enough."

His gaze swept over the frantically jumping data nodes.

"Since the Americans like to play with capital blockades, we must make these financiers taste the pain."

Lu Jingming tapped his knuckles twice on the table.

"Zero, turn your people around."

He pulled up an indifferent smile at the corner of his mouth, revealing half of his white canine teeth.

"Go take a stroll through Silicon Valley and Wall Street. Lock up their purses for me."

Zero stopped typing.

He looked up, his hood sliding off halfway, revealing a pair of long, narrow eyes reddened from staying up late.

He picked up the can of ice-cold cola and tilted it into his mouth.

His Adam's Apple bobbed twice as he swallowed the fizzy cola.

"Gotta pay more."

Lu Jingming laughed out loud and patted his thin shoulder.

"Well done. Your year-end bonus will be an unreleased supercomputer mainframe."

The command slipped silently into the North American continent along the submarine fiber-optic cables.

Like an invisible viper.

California, Apple headquarters building.

Cook had just finished pacifying a few difficult board members and picked up a freshly brewed hot latte.

Before he could bring it to his lips.

The alarm in the hallway let out a loud "Awoo" wail.

The lights on the entire floor flickered twice and then all went out at once.

Only the ghastly green light from the emergency exit along the wall remained.

A technical director stumbled through the glass door of the office in the dark.

"Boss! The internal network has collapsed!"

He had run too fast and crashed headlong into the corner of the sofa, hissing in pain.

"Someone has stuffed hundreds of thousands of encrypted shells into our core database! The servers are all locked down!"

The technical director clutched his thigh, his voice tinged with a sob.

It was the same situation over at the Google building.

The prototype in Andy's hand went black, turning into a hot black brick.

Engineers were desperately trying to pull the network cables from the walls, but it was useless.

The virus had long since climbed through the backdoor of the local area network and infested every computer at every workstation.

But the most critical place wasn't in Silicon Valley.

It was in Manhattan, New York.

The NASDAQ trading center hall.

The air was thick with the smell of hairspray, sweat, and cheap perfume, so stifling it made people want to vomit.

Hundreds of traders in red vests stared fixedly at the trading board.

The giant electronic display board above flashed stock prices in red and green.

Suddenly, the jumping numbers froze.

Just like an old video recorder that had jammed.

"Why can't I place this order!"

A trader smashed his mouse frantically, the buttons making a "click-clack" snapping sound.

"The matching system is lagging! Damn it!"

The seconds on the giant screen showed visible stuttering.

Orders that usually executed in milliseconds.

Now hung for a full three seconds before refreshing.

In the financial market, three seconds could bankrupt a nation.

The algorithms of the high-frequency trading programs were all in chaos.

Buy orders and sell orders collided, erupting into a massive amount of error data, causing the system to enter an infinite loop.

"Shut it down! Quickly, request to pull the plug!"

The trading supervisor was so anxious his tears flew, squatting on the ground with his hands on his head.

"This isn't just lag! This is someone stuffing stones into our veins!"

Washington, Department of Commerce office.

John leaned against the cold wall.

He splashed cold water on his face, droplets dripping from his chin onto the collar of his expensive suit.

The four secure landlines in the room rang alternately like they had gone insane.

The red lights flashed until his eyes ached, and the corners of his eyes twitched violently.

With trembling hands, he grabbed the receiver of the secure dedicated line on the left.

Just as he put it to his ear.

An eardrum-shattering roar slammed directly into him.

"John! Is your head stuffed with dog shit!"

Mr. Morgan, one of the top three financial magnates on Wall Street, had completely abandoned his aristocratic decorum.

Curses spewed out through the airwaves, making John's eardrums ache.

John swallowed dryly, his throat parched and burning.

"Sir, the Cybersecurity Bureau is currently dealing with the attack from Xinghai Technology, please..."

"Dealing with it, my ass!"

Morgan smashed something on the other end of the line, making a crisp shattering sound.

"The trading matching system has been lagging for a full five seconds! Five seconds! Hundreds of millions in options in my hands have evaporated!"

The magnate's roar was filled with hysterical madness.

"Do I give you so much campaign funding every year just for you to provoke a lunatic capable of paralyzing Wall Street!"

John opened his mouth, but couldn't squeeze out a single word.

His legs were cramping, and he could only rely on the wall to keep from sliding down.

The shirt on his back was already soaked through.

The voice on the phone dropped an octave, revealing a predatory ferocity.

Like a rusty saw pressed against John's neck.

"John! I don't care what method you use! Even if you have to go kowtow to that Chinese person!"

Morgan gritted his teeth, his heavy breathing slamming into the receiver.

"You must get our trading system back to normal within ten minutes! Otherwise, you'll be feeding the fish in the Potomac River by tomorrow morning!"