I’m Really a Superstar

The next day.

The flames of war spread even further.

The entire Chinese Internet had been turned into a battlefield as more and more foreign hackers joined the war the Korean hackers had initiated as a revenge operation. They were profiting off another’s misfortune!

500!

1,000!

2,000!

The number of hackers taking part reached a terrifying figure!

China’s Xinhua News: “China faces its most serious cybersecurity threat!”

America’s New York Times: “The largest-scale hacker attack in history!”

On a Korean television network: “Multinational hackers hack into the Chinese Internet on a massive scale!”

Japanese media: “China’s Internet faces a devastating crisis!”

The industry, the people, the media, and the entire world were keeping up with the latest news surrounding the Great Hacker War!

…

In the morning.

At Old Wu’s parents’ courtyard house.

Wu Changhe was holding a newspaper with a very ugly expression on his face.

Li Qinqin served up two trays of steamed buns on the table. “Little Ye, it’s time for breakfast.”

Zhang Ye shouted from the west wing room, “I’ll be right out, Mom.”

Wu Zeqing came out first. “Let’s start eating first.”

“Wait for Little Ye,” Li Qinqin said as she gave her the side-eye.

Wu Zeqing smiled. “He’s busy with something. He’ll come out to eat in a while.”

Li Qinqin said, “He should still eat first even if he’s busy. Little Ye, hurry up, we’re waiting for you.”

At this moment, Zhang Ye came out carrying a laptop with him. He placed it on the table and typed away furiously while saying with a smile, “I’m almost done.”

Wu Changhe said, “Did you not sleep the entire night?”

Zhang Ye smiled and said, “I was busy with something.”

“Oh, you! You work yourself to the bone,” Li Qinqin grumbled.

A few minutes later.

When Zhang Ye finished typing the last line of code, he checked through it before happily hitting the enter key. Then he closed the lid of the laptop and said, “Alright, let’s eat.”

Wu Zeqing asked, “You’re done?”

Zhang Ye said, “Yes, I’m done.”

…

Overseas.

In a secret group chat online.

This was where the temporary command center set up by the multinational hackers was located.

“QC, hold them down.”

“Alright.”

“Joseph, we’re depending on you over there.”

“Understood.”

“The website is about to get taken down.”

“Haha, come on, everyone!”

“We’ve taken it down, we’ve taken down another one!”

“Great showing, QC! Let’s move on to the next target!”

“QC?”

“QC, reply!”

“Where’s QC? Why did he go offline?”

“JIN, what happened to QC?”

“JIN?”

“Where are they?”

“What the hell are they trying to pull!”

“QC! JIN! Reply! Reply right now!”

“This is bad, something has happened!”

One!

Ten!

A hundred!

Gradually, the hackers started going offline!

Connection outage. Communications outage—this sort of outage was the most terrifying thing that a hacker could expect because it often meant a disaster. There were too many reasons why this could have happened, like having problems with their connection, or the hackers deliberately plugging out from the Internet, or their computers crashing, or having their controls taken over by the police. If it were the first reason, that wouldn’t have been too bad. But everyone knew that this was impossible. They could have disregarded it if only one person experienced problems with their connection. But for scores or hundreds of people to gradually experience connection issues, it couldn’t have been such a coincidence!

“Sun?”

“Say something, Sun!”

“We’ve lost contact with Sun too!”

“What happened?”

“Who’s doing this?”

“Dammit, what’s happening?”

“Withdraw! Run away!”

The multinational hacker army was panicking. They had wanted to make an emergency retreat but were too late!

…

Somewhere in Korea.

Sun watched helplessly as the data on his computer’s hard drive was quickly destroyed. Moreover, it even caused permanent damage as the hard drive was overwritten with junk!

It was gone!

Everything was gone!

“Who is it?”

“Who did this?”

…

Somewhere in America.

John roared.

His BIOS had been destroyed!

His computer couldn’t start up anymore. He could not get it up and running again, and there was no way to repair it!

“Who did this?”

“Goddammit!”

…

Somewhere in France.

Joseph was panicking!

“My data!”

“What happened?”

“Who did this?”

…

Somewhere in Japan.

Oda grabbed his hair in frustration!

“Why?”

“Why did this happen?”

“My BIOS is corrupted?”

“But that’s hardware! How is it possible!”

…

At the Chinese hacker army contingent.

“Where are they?”

“Where have all the foreign hackers gone?”

“They’re not around anymore? Have they all retreated?”

“Why have they disappeared?”

…

Within an hour!

The alliance of foreign hackers was wiped out!

No one knew what had happened!

No one knew what in the world had happened!

In the blink of an eye, and with a single exchange, the entire multinational hacker army had disappeared. This baffled a lot of people!

Silence!

The previously spectacular Great Hacker War had gone quiet!

This type of silence was too terrifying. This type of unknown fear was the most torturous of all!

An hour.

Three hours.

Five hours.

Finally, on the afternoon of the same day, a piece of news shocked the world!

America issued an urgent notice!

The Korean authorities issued an urgent notice!

The Chinese Public Security Department made an emergency announcement!

The Japanese issued an urgent computer virus alert!

The network security centers of many countries all over the world made a joint announcement. They had discovered a new type of computer virus that overwrote the first 2,048 sectors of the system’s available non-removable writable disk drives. Starting from the hard drive’s master boot record, it began to fill it up with a junk sequence until the hard drive’s data became inaccessible. Furthermore, it could even cause damage to the BIOS on a majority of motherboards, resulting in irreversible and permanent damage. After studying it, this computer virus’s infection rate was found to be very high. But due to some limitations placed by the computer virus’s creator, it only spread to a specific target group. As for the specific rules of how it chose its targets to spread to, that remained unknown. This was the world’s most malignant computer virus discovered so far, and it was also the only computer virus that could cause damage to a computer’s hardware!

Although the virus was not spreading on a large scale yet, countless countries around the world still broke out in cold sweat the moment it was discovered, and they quickly issued the highest level of alert on the computer virus. This was because once it started spreading on a global scale, there would be an unprecedented disaster for the entire world!

All of the world’s cybersecurity experts.

All of the world’s media outlets.

All of the world’s hacker groups.

Everyone was startled!

“Oh my God!”

“Destroy the hardware?”

“How is that possible!”

“Holy shit!”

“Who could have created something so dangerous?”

“What kind of a computer virus is this!”

Most people had come across common computer viruses or trojans before, and the most they could do was damage the computer’s operating system and programs. Once there was an anti-virus tool made available, they could be removed, or the operating system could be reinstalled after a simple format of the hard drive. This was what everyone’s understanding of a computer virus or trojan horse was.

But a virus that could destroy the hardware?

They had never ever heard of something like that before!

Even the world-famous hackers and security experts were dumbfounded!

…

In this world, no one knew what kind of computer virus this was.

Zhang Ye obviously knew about it. And the people of Zhang Ye’s previous world also knew about it. This was one of the most malignant computer viruses in Zhang Ye’s previous world, and also the first virus that could cause damage to a computer’s hardware. In terms of its spread, harmfulness, and destructive powers, not even a hundred of the Panda Burning Incense viruses were a match for it!

That’s right!

This was the infamous and notorious CIH virus!

And it was even an improved version after Zhang Ye’s modifications!