I Have A Super USB Drive

by <unknown>

  As Guo Dazhuang was contemplating, he received another call.

  It was a fellow who referred to himself as X. Although he used a childish voice, he did not find it cute at the slightest.

  The other party threatened him with his identity on the dark web.

  That was right. Guo Dazhuang's name in the hacker world was King.

  King, the name stood for a monarch. Just like his name implied, King was a revered hacker.

  As one of the leading members in the largest global hacker organization, Anonymous, King had led dozens of intranet attacks. That included attacking Sony's website, sourcing WikiLeaks and even declaring war against the terrorist organization, ISIS.

  King had even infiltrated America's Regional Defense Department database and extracted information worth tens of millions of U.S. dollars. The American government had only found out about it after all of the leaked information had been purchased.

  There were many speculations online. Some said that King was an American or Oceanian, some even said he might be Middle-eastern.

  Nobody knew that King was a right and proper Mainland China citizen.

  Even though Guo Dazhuang had never used his identity as King to do anything invasive to Mainland China, there was a five million dollar bounty on his head in America.

  It would be a huge problem if his identity was exposed.

  However, the other party was vastly underestimating him if he or she expected him to simply back down like this.

  Guo Dazhuang scoffed. Based on their previous conversation, he found out that the other party wanted him to invest in a company known as "Blacklight Biotechnology". This was an opening.

  It was time for Guo Dazhuang to display his prowess. He effortlessly hacked into the government agency site and found all the information related to the company.

  "Chen Chen? Shangdu Jiao Tong University's Institute of Biological Science? 19 years old?"

  This was all it took?

  Guo Dazhuang fell into deep thought when he saw the information of the young man displayed on the computer.

  Something was wrong! Something was definitely wrong here!

  The other party must have known that he could find out everything about them with even the tiniest details. What was the motive for the other party directly telling him the name of the company?

  Guo Dazhuang frowned. Suddenly, there was a light knock on the office door.

  "Come in."

  Guo Dazhuang said plainly.

  "Boss, the meeting is starting soon."

  The new secretary gently pushed open the door, walked to his table, and informed him in a sweet whispered voice.

  "Tell them that today's regular meeting is canceled."

  Guo Dazhuang said without a moment's thought. He was not in the mood for a meeting now.

  "Understood, boss. You mean to…" The secretary bit her lips and circled the table toward him.

  Logically speaking, there was only one reason for canceling a meeting and that was to…

  When he saw the secretary lapping around the table, his heart tightened. He quickly covered the screen so the secretary could not see the contents. He then roared angrily.

  "Get out!"

  "Yes…"

  The secretary jolted. Her face instantly turned pale as she quickly excused herself.

  By the time Guo Dazhuang came to his senses, he realized he had lost control of himself. His calm composure was completely shaken by this person named X.

  This was not the time to be bothered by this. Guo Dazhuang continued staring at his screen for a long time without uttering a word.

  "This must be a cover."

  Guo Dazhuang smirked. "There's no way he'd let me find out his identity so easily. This means that Chen Chen is just a front used to throw me off."

  Guo Dazhuang closed the webpage and began looking into the anonymous email.

  Before he could even dig up anything, the fax machine beside him began operating on its own.

  Initially, Guo Dazhuang did not pay any mind to it because he had assumed it was his secretary faxing him something. When he saw the contents of the fax, he stopped what he was doing.

  The content of the fax was not work-related. It was a file.

  A file about King.

  It contained details on all of his illegally-sourced income and uncharted bank accounts. Guo Dazhuang was not sure how the other party had pulled this off. If the file were to fall into the hands of any government, he would be in big trouble.

  When he saw this, he began to panic.

  "What's going on? When did he hack into my work computer?"

  Guo Dazhuang immediately proceeded to analyze every corner of his computer using the software he had patented. He could not find any trace of a virus or trojan no matter what he did.

  Besides, there was no way all this information could be obtained just by infiltrating his computer.

  "Bsst, bsst, bsst…"

  The fax machine tirelessly spat out pieces of paper one after another. The noise was irritating him so he angrily gritted his teeth and pulled out the plug.

  In an instant, the irritating noise ended.

  "Phew." Guo Dazhuang heaved a sigh of relief.

  However, before he even had time to recollect himself, the printer began to operate on its own as well.

  Guo Dazhuang could have sworn that he had never used the printer since the day he began using this office. Yet, the printer seemed to have come to life and was now printing on its own!

  Guo Dazhuang glared at the printer and watched as it spat out pieces of A4 paper. He felt a chill down the back of his spine.

  What was printed was a picture of a man sitting in his office.

  Since the printing was in black and white, the printer was able to print them extremely quickly. One after another, they could probably be strung together to make a comic strip. Guo Dazhuang could see that the man in the picture was none other than himself!

  Judging from the angle, it was taken from one of the two security cameras in the office.

  The other party had completely hacked into the company's server.

  Guo Dazhuang realized that this was the other party giving him a warning. His attempts to track down the other party have not gone unnoticed.

  Chapter 37: Rejection |

  B*stard!

  Guo Dazhuang clenched his jaw. The charismatic appeal he had spent all these years cultivating for himself had completely vanished into thin air. At this moment, he was like a gambler who had lost everything. All that was left was irrational fear and madness.

  D*mn it, how did the opponent do it? There was no opening on his side. What kind of trick did the opponent used to infiltrate without him noticing?

  This was an embarrassment!

  He was a hacker, an elite hacker to boot. To be completely helpless before another hacker's attack, this was an absolute humiliation!

  It had been a very long time since Guo Dazhuang, better yet known as King, had tasted defeat - whether it was in terms of the real world or on the internet.

  Just like his online alias, he was destined to be the king of the cyberworld. The wind itself shall heed his call. He should be invincible!

  At this point, Guo Dazhuang unplugged the computer directly and headed toward the door.

  "Boss, where are you going?"

  The secretary by the door quickly got up and asked.

  "I have some business to attend to. You don't have to come." Guo Dazhuang pushed the secretary away with a stoic expression. The employees watched as he left the office.

  Even though the opponent had discovered his identity in the real world, it did not mean he had lost. As long as the opponent had not exposed his identity, he still had time to find the opponent's identity and even the playing field.

  Guo Dazhuang was very confident in his abilities.

  He was King, one of the leading members of the largest hacker organization in the Earth Federation, Anonymous!

  …

 
While all of this was underway, the instigator of this event, Chen Chen, was getting up in front of his computer. He got up and stretched a little.

  He had to admit, King had remarkable willpower. Unlike the other three who had given up easily, he still refused to surrender even at this stage.

  Chen Chen was not worried about his identity being exposed. He knew that to continue expanding, he was going to have his identity exposed to the general public sooner or later anyway. In that case, why bother hiding?

  After all, it would appear more natural to step into the upper-class society with a pre-established reputation as a successful entrepreneur.

  Besides, his background was as clean as they come, unlike King, who was a hacker. If word about King's identity got out, he might even have to face jail time.

  On top of that, would anybody even believe him if he just confronted them directly and said he was X?

  It was all smoke and mirrors. It was very difficult to spot someone who knew his craft.

  In the end, the four of them agreed to head to the meeting location appointed by Chen Chen. All four of them were Shangdu natives. Three hours would be plenty of time for them to make the meeting in time.

  Chen Chen looked at the time. It was about an hour and a half until the meeting. He cleaned up for a bit and also put Little X into standby mode.

  After closing the warehouse door, he set up dozens of alarms monitoring the area around the warehouse. Once he had done that, he took his newly bought scooter and headed toward the main junction.

  As a globalized metropolis, the suburb was more than an hour's ride away from the inner section of the city. Chen Chen had to depart early to not be late.

  It was during the heat of the summer and the sun was like a blinding ball of flame. Chen Chen had to use the shade from the tree for cover to ease his ride.

  It seemed like it was time to buy a car.

  Chen Chen considered for a moment. The company account still had a little over a hundred thousand so a regular car would suffice.

  There was no need to rush anyway. Soon, his checking account would have forty million.

  With Chen Chen's current hacking proficiency, he could easily turn to money laundering, gambling, bitcoin transactions or various other methods to gain significant wealth.

  It may be a little problematic to use these gained funds in Mainland China. He could remedy it by registering shell companies in other regions. The shell companies could be used as sources to finance Blacklight. This way, he could gain a significant sum.

  However, not only was there a risk of being exposed but it would also not address the benefactor problem.

  That was right, benefactor.

  As described previously, it was very easy to be targeted when establishing a company. Especially when you had a high-tech company possessing a technology with great potential. You might as well be a child in the street with hundreds of dollar bills in your pockets.

  The ones who had their eyes on you were none other than the competitors and venture capitalists.

  People described the market as a cake. Eating the entire thing alone would never work. The best option was to collaborate with others and make the cake larger and stronger. Even though in the end you would have to split the cake into slices but it would still be a larger slice than the initial cake you had.

  However, you should consider this - what if you were capable of enlarging the cake just by relying on your resources?

  In practice, this sort of solution would never work. It was a naive view of the capitalism structured industry. The core essence of the industry was still a pack of wolves splitting the game among themselves. It was ridiculous that people just accepted it as part of a natural process.

  If you choose to not accept any investments, your opponents would pull out all the stops to obstruct your path. In the end, they would ruin your cake and you would not have anything left on your plate.

  It was either that or they would join forces and make the same cake you were making. Then, they would use their superior combined resources to overpower you.

  This was a widely known unspoken rule.

  To avoid such a scenario, Chen Chen had to accept investment from other parties.

  King, SB, CZH, and ZF. The four of these were the candidates Chen Chen had filtered after entering the dark web as Little X.

  The four of them were from Shangdu, had no complicated background, and had came to their success by themselves.

  Each one of them owned enterprises and their net worth was above billions.

  In that case, instead of waiting for a venture capital firm to come to Chen Chen, he would rather take the initiative and choose his own investors.

  That was how the current situation came to be.

  Naturally, Chen Chen was not going to hog everything for himself. Since he was going to enlist help from others, he was going to split the profits. Two percent equity of Little X Translator would be a substantial amount of compensation.

  Chen Chen estimated that this product which was ahead of its time could make twenty to thirty billion at the very least.

  Even though this group of people was irritated now, the matter would become entirely different once they had understood the potential of the software.

  There was no such thing as enemies so long as there was mutual benefit.

  With their help, Chen Chen's company would continue to gain traction.

  As Chen Chen was concocting his plans in his mind, his phone suddenly rang.

  He stopped his scooter by the side of the road and took out his phone. It was Xia Yin calling.

  It had been four months since Chen Chen left the school. In the beginning, Xia Yin would occasionally call Chen Chen. The calls had been getting less frequent recently as Chen Chen was always indifferent toward her.

  "Hey senior, what's going on?" Chen Chen picked up the phone and revved up the scooter again.

  "Chen Chen, I have good news for you. Our thesis was just published!" The excitement in Xia Yin's voice could be heard through the phone. "The school just organized a meeting to commemorate me and Wang Wei's efforts."

  "Congratulations."

  Of course, Chen Chen knew when it was going to be published since he was the corresponding author. However, the only reason he went through all that work was so that it would help him in his process of applying for the university student business loan.

  After having accomplished his goals, Chen Chen could not care less about the two articles back then.

  "Oh yeah, when will you be free? How about I treat you and Wang Wei to celebrate this victory?"

  Xia Yin continued.

  "Sure." Chen Chen smiled. "I'll come if I have time."

  After several short exchanges, Chen Chen excused himself by saying that he was driving.

  Chen Chen was aware of how Xia Yin felt about him.

  The only problem was that Chen Chen had the USB drive belonging to a different world. What he was after was not some lovey-dovey stuff. He wanted to attain his heart's desire with the help of the USB drive.

  Cutting it off once and for all would always be the most efficient method...

  Chapter 38: Meeting |

  Chen Chen arrived at Mickey Cafe ahead of the others.

  As a high-class cafe, Mickey Cafe had specialized boxes that its competitors did not have. Each box had its respective theme. Chen Chen had already made a reservation for the wonder house themed box several hours ahead.

  After arriving, Chen Chen checked the time and called a waiter over. He instructed the waiter to cut off the power in the box upon receiving a signal in the form of a text message from him.

  The waiter had never heard of such a bizarre request but the customer's will was their command. The waiter pocketed Chen Chen's hundred dollar tip and thumped his chest to say that he would get it done.

  After that, Chen Chen closed the blinders in the box and turned on all the lights. He started waiting patiently.

  After about ten min
utes, there were approaching footsteps…

  …

  "How many pax, please?"

  The waiter greeted Zhan Fei with a smile when he stepped into Mickey Cafe.

  "I'm meeting someone. My name is Zhan Fei."

  Zhan Fei looked troubled. Perhaps it was because he was being threatened and he was in no mood to be courteous to the waiter.

  "Alright, the name of your box is Mickey Wonderhouse. There's already a gentleman inside. It's down that way."

  The waiter politely pointed the way for Zhan Fei. At the end of the corridor, there were several doors closed shut.

  Zhan Fei scoffed before quickly walking in front of the door. After a moment of hesitation, he mustered the courage to pull open the door.

  The inside of the box was not very bright.

  Even though it was mid-noon when the sun was the strongest, the thick curtains in the box shielded it from all sunlight. There were several fluorescent lamps overhead.

  Under the illumination of the room, Zhan Fei could see a medieval European styled roundtable. A young man who looked around twenty-year-old was observing him silently.

  Zhan Fei had never been a believer in abstract things like an aura. The way he saw it, aura just came with the way people dressed. Let anyone who was attractive and fit put on glamorous clothes and they would give a false impression of having this so-called aura.

  It was until now when Zhan Fei had realized that perhaps there existed something as mystical as an aura.

  The youngster before him looked around twenty years old, which was considered pretty young. Yet, his eyes were illuminated like stars in a pitch-black night.

  Zhan Fei felt like he was being pulled into a black hole when he locked eyes with the youngster…

  In terms of appearance, the youngster was average. He was also dressed commonly. However, there was something different about him that was difficult to be put into words.

  If he had to describe it, he would describe it as an aura similar to confidence.

  The supreme confidence the youngster had given him a distinctive color. Even though he was dressed commonly and his appearance did not stand out, he was able to radiate energy far more charming than any celebrity!