5: Chapter 5 The Unseen Benefactor, the Mastermind

...

On the subway heading to the city center, a youthful and beautiful girl yawned sleepily, her right hand habitually refreshing a webpage.

#Must See! A Bank President Holds an Orgy; These People Actually Attended...#

#Must See! Coastal Sea Investment Leaders Actually Colluded with Him...#

Huh??

The girl's eyes suddenly widened. Her first reaction was that she was seeing things; this wasn't the Americas, and how could such an explosive headline appear on the front page?

She rubbed her eyes, but the headline didn't disappear. Now fully awake, she clicked on it without hesitation. Whether it was clickbait or not, she admitted she was hooked.

After opening it, she found that aside from a folder, everything else was blank. This unusual scene made her heart pound as a thought surfaced in her mind:

A hacker attack!

After taking screenshots to share and starting a screen recording, the girl opened the folder. Over a dozen absurdly debauched video and image files, along with appalling transaction records, appeared before her eyes. Like a bomb, it blew the girl and everyone watching away.

The traffic to the headline website began to skyrocket like an explosion!

—

Headline Headquarters,

Du Wei brewed a cup of light tea and began another leisurely day. As a senior operations engineer for this top-three news website in the continent, there was little left for him to struggle for.

“Aaaagh—!”

A pig-slaughtering scream from outside the office caused Du Wei to spill half his tea.

“What's all the fuss about!” The balding middle-aged man opened the door angrily.

“Brother Du, we've been hacked,” a young man replied in terror.

Du Wei was furious. “Start the self-check and refresh. Do I really need to teach you this?”

As a major website, it naturally attracted many malicious gazes, so a time-saving and labor-saving intelligent self-check program had been created. Du Wei had contributed greatly to it. After years of optimization, he dared to say that this intelligent self-check program could handle 99% of network attacks.

“Brother Du, it's useless. Xiao Tou crashed directly, and the content this hacker posted is incredibly explosive!” As the flat-topped young man said this, his expression was somewhat strange, and a glimmer of excitement was hidden in his eyes.

What?!

Du Wei was shocked to hear this. He rushed to the busy crowd in two steps and checked the operation logs of the intelligent program, Xiao Tou:

[09:35:12, Encountered unknown attack]

[09:35:13, Detected attack source from multiple dynamic IPs; attack traffic growing exponentially]

[09:35:15, Level 1 firewall activated, starting to set up fake node traps]

[09&%#Xiao@!abcde123hei^&((д) ]

Du Wei: ...

In less than a second, Xiao Tou's core algorithm area suffered a heavy blow. Who was on the other side? A top-tier computer team of hundreds?

What kind of opponent did the company offend to make them willing to spend so much? And what did this group of hackers do?

Du Wei looked, Du Wei was puzzled, Du Wei was shocked!

“Brother Du, what should we do?” The young man could already imagine the company leaders' crazed reactions. “Should we shut down the servers first?”

Du Wei looked at the sex-for-money trades exposed by the hacker, and how they had designed 'pig-butchering' scams targeting out-of-town businessmen to swindle funds. In the last two years alone, they had amassed ten billion!

A long-lost hot-bloodedness suddenly rose in his heart. Once upon a time, he too had fantasized about doing something this crazy.

“We can't solve it. Report it up.”

Du Wei took a sip of tea and spoke as if it were none of his business.

...

Even without Xiao Hei's subsequent involvement, these two headlines stayed pinned at the top for nearly half an hour. Countless netizens had already seen the content. In a short time, this incident, later known as 'Coastal Sea Gate,' became known across the entire continent.

It was creating a massive stir!

I Am A Potato: "Holy crap, what did I just see? My eyes! This is the biggest gossip I've seen this year... in my life!"

Injured Fox: "Isn't this that really popular A-list star? How did she go to Coastal Sea for a concert and end up in bed?"

Brother Wei: "Forward and save it; it's going to be gone soon."

Tomorrow Will Be Better: "I'm from Coastal Sea. It's gone crazy here; the streets near the municipal building are packed with people!"

Love Trade: "The person at the end is truly miserable, nearly 2 billion taken away. That bank president who gave the loans is rotten to the core; who knows how much he benefited."

Flying Maggot: "I want to know which hacker is so badass to leak all this. An absolute idol!"

Candy Joy: "Master, I am your disciple! Quickly, take me with you to save the world."

—

In the breakfast shop, the small wontons were steaming fragrantly.

“Son, is what you're saying true?”

A hint of the foolishness belonging to a middle-aged man appeared in Lin Tianxiong's eyes as he looked at the USB drive in his hand with uncertainty. “You created a game engine?”

It wasn't that he didn't believe him, but this was simply too incredible—more absurd than a worker telling him they'd dug up a vampire's nest.

“I made it with some friends. It also lists the descriptions for the new patented technologies.”

Inventing a team behind the scenes? Being the mastermind in the shadows?

Lin Fang told him part of the truth, portioning out the freshly served wontons and eating them in large mouthfuls. “Dad, don't ask any more. He doesn't want money, and he doesn't want to be known.”

These words choked Lin Tianxiong just as he was about to ask more. He frowned in confusion; a coal miner didn't believe there were people who sought no reward,

Unless... Lin Tianxiong glared at his son. But how did he do it, and why didn't he want people to know?

He couldn't figure it out.

Who could understand? After a foot soak, everything was fine. An unmet benefactor had even appeared online, leaking the hard evidence directly. He had heard people discussing it all along the way; those bastards were definitely finished.

“Son, then help me thank him properly.” Realizing the boy was helping him, Lin Tianxiong stopped dwelling on it and chuckled.

“Just say whatever he wants.”

Then he slapped the table and shouted loudly, “Everyone, I'm happy today! Eat as much as you want, it's on me!”

The small hole-in-the-wall eatery with only three tables immediately erupted in enthusiastic cheers.

Save what should be saved, spend what should be spent; just a small gesture would do.

—

By evening,

—A task force has been established to conduct a thorough investigation into the officials involved in Coastal Sea, resolutely letting no one off...

Lin Fang glanced at the latest news and stopped paying attention. He didn't know what would happen to the big shots in the end,

And he didn't need to know right now.

On the laptop screen in front of him, a little black cat wearing black-rimmed glasses was looking at Lin Fang with large, watery eyes.

This was a new image Xiao Hei had found for himself.

“Xiao Hei, is there anything on my wrist?” Lin Fang was confirming.

As he spoke,

The laptop's camera seemed to flicker.

[Xiao Hei has looked many times; there is nothing on Boss's wrist]

“It's nothing. Go back to your studies.”

The little black cat blinked and left, carrying a book in its mouth.

Lin Fang touched the Black Watch. The solid tactile sensation told him it wasn't a hallucination. He had actually expected Xiao Hei not to see it, because it couldn't be seen in photos either. This Black Watch seemed unobservable.

Where did it come from? And how could he obtain those omnipotent plunder points?

Lin Fang looked at its final function,

Plane Exploration!