56: Chapter 55 Prelude

The freshness brought by the new cyberware made the trio's state visibly high-spirited.

After several consecutive days of adaptive training, Jackie drove his brand-new "mizutani shion" to take Misty for a ride in the Badlands, enjoying their time alone—it could also be considered a final relaxation before the operation.

In the villa in North Oak, only Lin Yi and V remained, each enjoying the last bit of tranquility before the storm.

The afternoon sun shone through the floor-to-ceiling windows, casting slanted patches of light onto the expensive synthetic carpet.

Lin Yi sat in front of the workbench, a data cable extending from the port at the back of his neck and connecting to the terminal.

Data streams surged like a waterfall on the holographic screen, and he was making final modifications to the underlying protocols of his Optical Camouflage.

"Nesting a layer of dynamic digital camouflage on top of the existing deflection field," he muttered to himself while typing on the virtual keyboard, his tone more like he was organizing his thoughts, "Fooling the naked eye and cameras isn't enough; it also has to interfere with infrared and thermal imaging—most importantly, it has to make a hacker's remote scan feel as disgusting as stirring a pot of asphalt mixed with sand with a spoon."

On the sofa not far away, V lay in a posture of near-lethargic laziness.

She wore loose loungewear, her smooth calves swaying carelessly behind her, her toes occasionally hooking the tassels of a sofa cushion.

The mobile terminal in her hand was lit up, displaying the book Lin Yi had shoved at her, "Cyberhacking from Entry to Grave—Lin Yi's Annotated Edition," though her gaze drifted more often toward the focused silhouette at the workbench.

The dense code and schematics on the screen made her eyelids heavy, and she finally couldn't help but speak up.

"Yi, what are we doing next?"

Her voice carried a hint of post-nap huskiness, the end of her sentence drawn out softly, "Don't tell me... it's me going to contact those lunatics from the Voodoo Boys again?"

She paused, a hint of imperceptible resistance creeping into her tone, "That business with Evelyn before... it didn't feel very pleasant."

Lin Yi had just finished compiling a key node, released the data cable, and his wheeled chair slid silently in front of the sofa.

Watching V sprawled there like a cat sunbathing, he couldn't help but reach out, cupping her cheeks with both hands and gently kneading them like a ball of soft dough.

"That's right."

His eyes flashed with a sly light, "Among the three of us, only your skills, reaction time, and adaptability are up to this job.

Think about it—the famous V, voluntarily appearing weak to the enemy, combined with that deceptive face of yours..."

His gaze swept over her cheeks, puffed up from his kneading, and her slightly pouted lips, "You could definitely trick those xenophobic idiots into a limp."

"What were you... just busy with... stop kneading!"

V was being kneaded so much she couldn't speak clearly, and could only glare at him.

Seeing her looking like she was at his mercy yet still trying to maintain a fierce demeanor, Lin Yi felt a surge of warmth; he leaned down and sealed all her remaining protests with a brief but deep kiss.

Their lips parted.

The flush on V's face spread from her cheeks to her earlobes, her eyes dewy, and that little bit of moodiness from before had long since flown away.

"I was just working on an upgrade for the Optical Camouflage," Lin Yi explained, sending a data packet over, "Patched it to further enhance stealth, especially against electronic reconnaissance and remote intrusion.

Sent it to you. Want to go down to the testing range and try it out?"

V's cybernetic eye flashed with a faint light as she received and quickly browsed the contents of the protocol expansion pack.

The lazy expression on her face was swept away, replaced by undisguised excitement.

She sat up from the sofa, moving with an agility that didn't match someone who had been sleepy just a moment ago, slipped on her slippers, and grabbed Lin Yi's wrist, "Let's go! Come into the room—no, come to the basement with me!"

The basement had long since been converted by Lin Yi into a fully functional testing range.

The surrounding walls were covered with sound-absorbing materials, and the room was filled with various optical probes, thermal imaging sensors, motion detectors, and data collectors simulating Netwatch nodes.

This was something he had specially built after the operation at Konpeki Plaza—the solutions provided by [Insight] were, after all, just theoretical; data is cold, and it must be verified in actual combat.

"This basically covers the mainstream anti-infiltration monitoring methods on the market, plus some military-grade ones."

Lin Yi pointed to the equipment, "By my estimates, after loading the new protocol, conventional infrared and thermal sensing will completely fail, and motion capture will be strongly interfered with.

A hacker's remote scan—the efficiency will drop by at least 70 percent, and your signal will look like a mangled mess of pixels on their end."

"Talk is cheap, let's see the mule or the horse in action!"

V finished loading the protocol and activated the Optical Camouflage.

Her figure instantly became blurred and transparent, eventually blending perfectly into the environment—only the extremely subtle distortion of the air hinted at her existence.

Lin Yi retreated to the control console and activated all the monitoring equipment in sequence.

On the screen, the infrared imaging was blank, the thermal sensing signal was so weak it was indistinguishable from environmental noise, motion sensors occasionally captured barely identifiable micro-disturbances, and the network scanning ports fed back nothing but garbled code and latency.

V performed high-speed movements, silent lurking, and rapid traversal through the sensor-dense area within the limited space.

After more than ten minutes, except for a few military-grade probes that triggered weak alarms at extremely close range, the entire monitoring network was almost completely blind to her.

The test ended.

V deactivated the camouflage, a flush of excitement on her face, her breathing not yet fully steady, but her eyes shining brilliantly: "That's amazing, you're awesome, Lin Yi!—It feels like I've really become a ghost."

Lin Yi was just about to respond when V suddenly changed the subject, her gaze shifting from excitement to a more dangerous, alluring appraisal.

She approached him step by step, her finger lightly poking his chest.

"By the way, Yi."

She drew out the end of her sentence, "I suddenly remembered—when someone got out of the car yesterday, wasn't he being very arrogant? Hmm? A 'kid's body bag'? Openly challenging this girl's 'subordinate' status in the family?"

Lin Yi looked at those golden eyes, mixed with embarrassment and eagerness, and knew he couldn't dodge this.

Rather than being on the receiving end, it was better to take control.

"V—"

"I don't mind you calling me V when we're outside."

V interrupted him with feigned displeasure, lifting her chin slightly, "But at home... what should you call me?"

Lin Yi complied readily, a slightly roguish smile appearing on his face as he lowered his voice: "Alright, Lily.

I suddenly have an idea—look, don't we both have this good stuff installed now?"

He pointed to the Optical Camouflage implant sites on each other, "Once the camouflage is on, neither of us can see the other.

Like this... then like that... what do you think? Dare to try?"

After hearing his whisper in her ear, V was stunned for a moment.

Immediately, a crimson flush burned from her cheeks all the way to her neck.

She punched him in embarrassment, but her eyes were shining incredibly bright, mixed with a great sense of shame and an equally strong eagerness.

Finally, she squeezed four words through her teeth: "You're so good at this..."

Before the words had even landed, her hand had already actively gripped his wrist.

On the stairs leading to the first floor, two figures, blurred to the point of near-transparency, flashed by.

A unique verification match regarding "family status" was about to unfold silently under the cover of the Optical Camouflage.