“Hacked? What do you mean?”
Parson was stunned. “Are you saying you know a master hacker? I don’t have any such bug here.”
Lu Qing walked into a quiet, cramped storage room and placed his communication terminal on a level storage box.
Creak. The door closed.
Darkness swallowed the old room, and the damp, musty smell intensified in the pitch-black environment.
Suddenly, a faint blue light scattered from a corner.
The blue light hit the male’s well-defined jaw, catching the lenses of his glasses and scattering a cold luster.
“I know a little.” Lu Qing set his glasses case aside with one hand while his fingers danced rapidly on the virtual screen, bringing up the interface.
A small voice chat box appeared on the virtual screen, flickering intermittently. Parson’s voice sounded like it was coming from far away, hollow and unclear.
“What… you know a little… wait… don’t joke around… knowing ‘a little’ won’t… break through their… Randy family’s firewall!”
Parson’s voice cut in and out because Lu Qing was adjusting the network connection.
He lowered his eyes to think for a moment, then rattled off a string of numbers to Parson: “XXXXXXXXX”
Parson: “?”
“That’s my other terminal number. Let’s talk there; hacking into a system while on this channel isn’t safe. I might get traced.”
“Oh, okay… tell me the number again… I didn’t hear it, it was too fast…”
After Parson entered the number, he suddenly realized, “Wait, no, I was talking about you… are you really going to invade like this?”
“Yes.”
Lu Qing’s response was always gentle and affirmative, just like he was now—like a small, seemingly weak blade of grass, swaying in the wind, yet resilient and stubborn, clinging tightly to the soil, unmoving no matter who tried to pull it.
It really was… he had no choice but to trust him.
Parson let out a long sigh and rubbed his forehead in worry. I hope the Randy family’s network defense is weak.
I’ll be thankful if we don’t get caught.
Successfully connected to the other terminal, Parson’s voice was still intermittent.
Lu Qing listened to Parson without changing his expression, inputting characters into the terminal.
The virtual screen had an on-screen keyboard. To give users a more tangible feel while typing, the designers had included basic keystroke sounds.
You could even download sound packs online.
Lu Qing hadn’t adjusted the settings; he used the default “falling stone” sound. His ten fingers tapped on the keys in an orderly, rhythmic “thud, thud, thud.”
The rapid tapping sounds fell deep into Parson’s eardrums. It was rhythmic, oddly giving him a sense of calm.
It sounds… at least he’s really fast at typing.
Parson couldn’t help but close his eyes. The slightly heavy, stone-like tone scraped against his ear canals, making him feel at peace.
“Done.”
Lu Qing’s voice was gentle, but it startled Parson. He rubbed the bridge of his nose and glanced at the time.
Ten minutes? I can’t believe I was listening to the sounds for that long… wait?
Parson’s body jolted forward. He was in his study, the safest place in his home, unlikely to be wiretapped. He was certain that the digits he saw flash past just now represented exactly ten minutes. He hadn’t miscalculated—good, it was now eleven minutes.
“Are you… kidding me?” Parson stared at the mark of eleven minutes, his lips moving as he blurted out the words.
Could it be a trap they set? Because they knew someone would try to invade their information bank?
That wasn’t impossible.
“Are you sure the hack was successful? Were you discovered?”
The skin around Parson’s vocal cords couldn’t stop trembling. He swallowed hard in anxiety, his palms sweating. Ten minutes was just too unbelievable. Or were bugs who knew hacking just this strong?
Lu Qing took off his glasses and closed his eyes to pinch the bridge of his nose.
Wearing the lenses always made him feel exceptionally tired. However, staring at tiny, fast-moving characters for a long time was a strain on his right eye, so he had gotten into the habit of wearing them to see the screen more comfortably.
“I’ve seen the internal systems of the Randy family in books; they aren’t complex. They’re easy to crack.”
That was all Lu Qing could say. Bugs who hadn’t studied this subject wouldn’t understand the principles, as it wasn’t a mandatory course in bug schools.
“…Is that so? That’s good.”
Parson let out a long breath. It seemed his prayers had been answered—the Randy family’s firewall wasn’t strong, and with Lu Qing’s luck, he had managed to break in.
Lu Qing read at a glance, skimming through the useless, discarded files. The Randy family’s internal system was filled with these half-true, half-false virtual files, likely designed to fool intruders while they transferred important data to a backup system.
But the difficulty of identifying these files wasn’t high for Lu Qing. Soon, he had picked out several files regarding the Randy family’s bad records.
Lu Qing checked the contents and selected only the file regarding Brute.
The other bugs in the Randy family had nothing to do with him; as long as no fundamental interests were involved, he couldn’t be bothered to touch them.
At the same time, Anliev was busy pounding away at the poster’s firewall, attempting to crack their IP address.
As time went by, it was visible to the naked eye that the hacker on the other side was panicking; their defenses were becoming sluggish and full of holes.
This was a real-world offensive and defensive battle, a foreign enemy invading the Imperial Capital, attacking various lines of defense. Wherever it was weak, they attacked until it was completely crushed.
It was clear that the hacker on the other side was relatively weak in defense. At first, they could trade blows with Anliev by attacking as a form of defense, but as time dragged on, they were only capable of attacking, not defending, and slowly, the vulnerabilities appeared.
Finally, they were broken through one by one!
“Dammit!” The slender female slammed his glass.
The fragile glass shattered on the floor with a crisp sound, igniting more impatience and irritability in the female’s heart.
“You dog, die, die, die, die.”
The female cursed violently, pushing everything on the desk to the floor and kicking a chair leg until it snapped.
Long, ragged breaths escaped his mouth, short and sharp. The female turned to look at the two host machines that were being crushed, anxiously putting his fingernails into his teeth, biting down again and again.
“Male… my male will be angry… if he knows I was suppressed… damn it, damn it…”
The female turned his head to look at the terminal, his eyes cold and vicious.
If it weren’t for that stupid bug failing to properly complete the acquisition mission arranged by his male, would they have sent him to do this thankless task?
You dog, you stinking bug with a brain full of lard!
Beep… beep…
“Hey, hey, what are you doing? Disturbing my peace.”
The male’s muddled, viscous tone sent the female’s rage to its peak, and he lashed out immediately: “You spineless, stupid bug! Why didn’t you tell me there were two master hackers on the other side?”
“W-what?”
Brute was a bit confused by the shouting. Aside from that time in the village, his male father and brother had never shouted at him like this.
“Who are you?!”
Brute was getting fired up too. He hadn’t been back in the family long; he had just taken a bath and was enjoying a nap in bed with his favorite female when some bug he didn’t know started yelling at him.
The female laughed in extreme anger: “Who? Have you forgotten who you were in contact with today? Huh?”
Brute’s muddled brain cleared up: “Are you the one under that Lord’s…?”
“Heh, I’m running around busy for you with other bugs, and you? You’re sleeping comfortably in the back. Does Lord Randy know his son is like this?”
The female’s tone was truly unbearable. Brute gritted his teeth, feeling aggrieved, but thinking that this bug belonged to that Lord, he couldn’t afford to offend him, so he suppressed his gloomy expression and didn’t rebuke the female for his disrespect.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. When I was in contact with you, I was still on the run.”
“Heh.” The female laughed, but his face was distorted: “Do you know that the videos of you molesting commoner females, whipping and reselling them, and having group parties with your rowdy friends have been discovered by bugs?”
All of Brute’s anger and grievance were instantly emptied by these words. His mind was blank, completely empty.
When it finally hit him, his voice shook uncontrollably: “I… have been…?”
“Ha. Yes, you stupid bug.”
The female felt a perverse sense of satisfaction hearing the male’s trembling voice, but as he thought of his own male, his face darkened again.
“It can still be salvaged.”
The female frowned, saying impatiently: “The forum’s IP address has been cracked. That poster is probably about to be caught, so there’s no saving that. If it comes out later that you know the poster, don’t admit it, not even if you die.”
“I know.” He wasn’t stupid.
“Another hacker has taken those files of your crimes. I really don’t know how your brain grew, putting the videos in your own folder, terrified that other bugs wouldn’t know.” The female gnashed his teeth. He had been careless too, thinking this would be simple. There were only a handful of bugs in the world who could beat him, so how did he run into two at once?!
“Luckily, I moved some into my own system, but the remaining crimes are enough to keep you in the Star Prison for a long time.”
Brute panicked: “What should I do? I’m a noble male! How can I be, how can I be arrested!”
“My method is this: while this hacker is letting his guard down because he’s broken through my defenses, I will secretly breach his path and find his IP address!” A cruel arc curled the corner of the female’s mouth. “When that happens, follow the address and catch him. As long as your men are fast enough, he definitely won’t be able to react.”
His hiding and attacking capabilities were definitely among the strongest. As long as he wasn’t surrounded by those two bugs at the same time, even they wouldn’t be able to find him in such a short time!
“Good!” Brute gritted his teeth. Then I’ll just have to ask my brother and male father for help!
My male father dotes on me; he told me not to worry today. If he knows I’m going to be thrown in jail, he will definitely help me!
Lu Qing was about to get up when he saw several small, irregular color blocks appear on the virtual screen out of the corner of his eye.
He sat back down, raising an eyebrow at the mottled blocks.
Perhaps a normal bug would mistake it for an unstable signal.
But Lu Qing re-entered the system.
At the same time, Parson’s urgent voice came through: “Check the Doudou Livestream quickly! There are so many netizens on your homepage saying you’re a plagiarist! The comments section is a war zone!”