Chapter 155 The Invasion of the Ghost

Twenty-five days until ignition.

At two in the morning, a wind rose over the Gobi Desert. Fine sand was swept up, forming flowing curtains in the moonlight, like countless ghosts moving through the night.

In the control room, Li Xiao had just finished another round of data verification. She rubbed her stinging eyes and stood up to stretch her stiff neck. Outside the window, the silhouette of the tokamak-3 loomed in the moonlight like a sleeping giant.

She yawned, preparing to go pour a cup of coffee.

Just then, a tiny notification box popped up on the screen.

"System Log: Abnormal access record detected."

Li Xiao stopped in her tracks.

She walked back to the screen and clicked on the notification. The log showed that three minutes ago, there was an access request from the Air conditioning control system attempting to connect to the data interface of the Cooling Water Control System. The request was blocked by the firewall, but...

Li Xiao's brow furrowed.

The Air conditioning control system?

She pulled up the details of that access request. The source IP showed it was a node in the base's internal network—the main control module of the air conditioning system. This module was usually only responsible for temperature regulation; why would it proactively access the cooling water system?

She opened the air conditioning system's operation log and checked it line by line.

Everything was normal. Temperature, humidity, and wind speed were all within the set ranges. There were no abnormal commands or suspicious operations.

But that access request definitely existed.

Li Xiao hesitated for a few seconds before opening the system's low-level logs.

This was a feature she had only enabled a few days ago—recording all internal system communications, regardless of whether they were blocked by the firewall. Old Han had specifically instructed her before leaving: "The Ghost might have been caught, but he could have left a backdoor. You need to keep a close eye on things."

On the screen, dense records began to scroll. Most were normal internal communications, but Li Xiao's gaze fell on a few of them.

04-07 02:13:17 | AC System → Cooling Water System | Access Request | Blocked

04-07 02:13:22 | AC System → Cooling Water System | Access Request | Blocked

04-07 02:13:27 | AC System → Cooling Water System | Access Request | Blocked

Once every five seconds, three times in a row. Then it stopped.

Li Xiao's heart skipped a beat.

This wasn't a common error. Someone was probing.

She immediately opened the air conditioning system's remote diagnostic interface—the vulnerability the Ghost had exploited before. She checked the interface's access records and found that just three minutes prior, an external IP had attempted to connect to this interface.

IP Location: A certain country in Southeast Asia.

It was the same region as the IP the Ghost used previously.

Li Xiao's palms began to sweat.

The Ghost was caught, but that IP was still active.

What did this mean?

She took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down. Then, she opened an encrypted communication window.

At three in the morning, Fang Lin was jolted awake by the phone ringing.

She glanced at the caller ID and answered immediately: "Li Xiao?"

"Director Fang," Li Xiao's voice was very low, but tinged with tension, "that IP has appeared again."

Fang Lin sat up abruptly: "What IP?"

"The same region as the Ghost's before. A certain country in Southeast Asia," Li Xiao said. "He tried to come in through the air conditioning system's remote interface but was blocked. However..."

She paused, her voice even lower: "I suspect he's already inside."

Fang Lin's pupils contracted slightly: "Inside? What do you mean?"

Li Xiao bit her lip: "Even though we patched that vulnerability in the air conditioning system, if he planted a backdoor beforehand—not through a vulnerability, but by directly embedding code—then patching the vulnerability is useless."

Fang Lin was silent for three seconds.

Then she asked, "Can it be detected?"

Li Xiao shook her head: "It will take time. Maybe days, maybe weeks. And if the backdoor is hidden deep enough, it might never be found."

Fang Lin stood up and walked to the window. Outside, the city slept in the night, with scattered streetlights outlining the streets.

"Li Xiao," she said, "from now on, you will do only one thing—keep your eyes on the cooling water system."

Li Xiao was taken aback: "The cooling water?"

"Yes," Fang Lin said. "If he really wants to sabotage the ignition, the most direct target is the cooling system. Without cooling, the Divertor and the First Wall won't last three minutes. The ignition will surely fail."

Li Xiao gasped: "How do you know?"

Fang Lin didn't answer.

She thought back to the intelligence report she had received three days ago. It had only one line:

"Target: Cooling System. Code Name: Black Sparrow."

Four hours later, in a rented room in a certain Southeast Asian country.

A young woman sat in front of a computer, staring at the data stream on the screen. Her face was ordinary, and she wore a simple T-shirt and jeans, looking like any other young person working hard in a big city. But her eyes were as cold as winter stars.

She was "Black Sparrow."

The Ghost's accomplice, and also his apprentice.

Three years ago, when the Ghost first invaded the Tokamak Base network, she had followed and learned from him. Those vulnerabilities, those backdoors, those hidden infiltration techniques—the Ghost taught her half, and she figured out the other half herself.

Three months ago, the Ghost was caught. When the news reached her, she was eating instant noodles. Her chopsticks stopped in mid-air; she froze for three seconds, then continued eating.

Cry? She didn't cry.

She had known for a long time that in this line of work, one could be locked up at any moment.

But she wasn't locked up, so she had to finish the job.

That was the rule.

On the screen, lines of code scrolled slowly. She was doing one last thing—activating the backdoor the Ghost had left behind.

That backdoor wasn't in the air conditioning system, but on the main control chip of the Cooling Water Control System. The Ghost had planted it three years ago using the most primitive method—physical implantation.

Back then, he was an engineer for an air conditioning equipment supplier. Under the guise of after-sales maintenance, he had entered the base once. During that single visit, he had attached a chip smaller than a fingernail to the circuit board of the Cooling Water Control System.

Inside the chip was a piece of code that had been dormant ever since.

Now, it was time for it to wake up.

Black Sparrow typed the final command.

A green notification box popped up on the screen:

"Backdoor activated successfully. Awaiting trigger command."

She smiled.

A very cold smile.

On the Gobi Desert, Li Xiao was frantically checking the Cooling Water Control System.

She pulled up all the data she could—temperature, pressure, flow rate, valve status, pump operation parameters. Every curve was smooth, and every number was within the normal range.

But she wasn't at ease.

Fang Lin's words were like a thorn stuck in her heart:

"If he really wants to sabotage the ignition, the most direct target is the cooling system."

She opened the low-level logs and began checking all communication records of the cooling water system line by line. Starting from three months ago, she flipped back day by day.

Normal communication records were dense.

Abnormal ones... none.

Nothing at all.

But the more there was nothing, the more Li Xiao felt something was wrong.

If someone had really gotten in, how could they leave no trace at all?

Unless—

Unless those traces weren't in the logs at all.

Li Xiao's hand stopped.

She remembered a course she had taken in university about hardware-level attacks. The professor had said something she always remembered:

"The most formidable hackers don't attack software or networks; they attack hardware directly. If you tamper with the chips, even the gods couldn't find it."

Li Xiao's back was instantly drenched in cold sweat.

She picked up the phone and dialed Fang Lin's number again.

"Director Fang," her voice trembled slightly, "I suspect the problem isn't with the software."

Fang Lin was silent for a second: "What do you mean?"

Li Xiao gritted her teeth: "It might be hardware. Someone tampered with the chips."

On the other end of the line, Fang Lin was silent for a long time.

So long that Li Xiao thought the call had been disconnected.

Then, Fang Lin's voice came through, terrifyingly calm:

"I understand. This matter stays between you and me. Don't tell anyone, including Lin Mo."

Li Xiao was stunned: "Why?"

"Because if it really is a hardware problem, there's only one thing we can do—monitor it throughout the entire process before ignition," Fang Lin said. "Telling Lin Mo will only distract him. What he needs to do now is get the fire started."

Li Xiao opened her mouth, and finally, only one word came out:

"Okay."

Hanging up the phone, Li Xiao stared at those seemingly normal curves on the screen, feeling for the first time that those numbers were so untrustworthy.

Outside, the sky had already brightened.

A new day had begun.

But she knew that in those unseen corners, someone was waiting.

Waiting for the moment of ignition.

Waiting for that dormant piece of code to be awakened.