066 Black

As usual, the triple plea: votes, recommendations, and bookmarks!

“First, open the blue file and let everyone see the code inside. No need to scroll all the way—just enough for everyone to confirm it’s code, then close it.”

“Next, right-click and copy—move all the files to the desktop, then return the USB drive to me.”

“Create a new folder, cut those files, and paste them into it.”

“Yes, right-click again—see that option with a 5? Click on it, just like you would with copy.”

Following Yang Tang’s instructions, Lawyer Mao did as he was told. Everyone present watched as a progress bar popped up.

Once the progress bar had finished, Yang Tang clapped his hands and said, “Gentlemen, the encryption is now complete. Where’s your verification program? Bring it out and give it a try!”

The technical staff from Chenxun and Qiandu were quick to act. They compared the newly packaged cascade code with the cascade code from the original PowerSaver installation package they had been using. The results were identical.

Yang Tang was delighted with this outcome. “You can also try installing the new package on your phone for a test run, or put it through a few hours of stress testing!”

That, of course, was a must.

Several hours later, by one in the afternoon, all tests had been completed. Yang Tang formally handed the USB drive containing the code to Zhang Yujie, deputy director of Chenxun’s technical department.

“All right, Mr. Yang. Next up is the transfer to your designated account. I trust the bank can have it done within half an hour!” Passing the USB drive to a trusted subordinate for a final check, Zhang Yujie took Yang Tang by the arm and steered him toward the lounge. “Let’s have a few drinks, grab a bite to eat, and celebrate a little!”

Yang Tang wasn’t much for this kind of celebration, but since the money hadn’t hit his account yet, he had no choice but to join Zhang Yujie and the others in the lounge, eating, drinking, and making small talk.

“Mr. Yang, I have to admit, when I was your age, I was just a freshman in college, barely learning how to surf the web!”

“Oh? Is that so? I’m not even eighteen yet, Mr. Zhang—did you start college that early?”

“Heh, not really. I moved twice and skipped two grades, so I ended up in college ahead of schedule, almost by accident!”

“That makes it all the more impressive!” Yang Tang offered a polite compliment.

Zhang Yujie waved it off. “Across the whole of China, there are plenty of kids who start college a few years early, but someone like you, Yang Tang, not even eighteen and already self-made with several million to your name—that’s truly rare!”

“I’m just lucky to have come up with this program, that’s all,” Yang Tang replied modestly. In truth, having acquired the Hacker King, he no longer thought much of the PowerSaver’s source code. Among its hundreds of thousands of lines, there were at least twenty-five or twenty-six spots ripe for deletion or improvement.

Half an hour later, after a final confirmation that the USB drive’s code was sound, both Chenxun and Qiandu transferred 2.15 million yuan apiece into Yang Tang’s designated account. For companies whose cash flow routinely exceeded a hundred million, moving a few million was as easy as an ordinary person transferring a few hundred. If the bank wouldn’t process it, well, they could just take their hundreds of millions elsewhere.

“Brother Yang, don’t say I didn’t warn you: you’d better pay taxes on this 4.3 million on time!”

“Thanks for the reminder, Zhang. I’ll be on my way.”

Yet after leaving the office building, Yang Tang didn’t head straight for the tax office. Instead, he agreed with Lawyer Mao to go together the next day to take care of the taxes and settle his legal fees as well.

Parting ways with Mao, Yang Tang headed straight for the computer mall.

“What’s your price on the Qingluan ZX029?”

“Qingluan? Which configuration are you after?”

“Top of the line, of course.”

“That’ll be sixty thousand.”

“Come on, I checked online—fifty thousand tops, and you’re quoting sixty? Trying to fleece an out-of-towner?” Yang Tang turned as if to leave.

The young salesperson hurried to stop him. “That’s the online price. In-store, it’s at least fifty-five thousand. If you’re really interested, I can give you a five percent discount!”

Yang Tang curled his lip. “A five percent discount is still over fifty thousand. By the way, do you have any 970 cards here?”

“970? Laptop graphics cards? Yeah, but they’re not cheap. You want one?”

“Give me two.”

“Two?” The young man was startled.

“Don’t worry about it. Just get me two cards.”

That’s right—on a whim, Yang Tang decided to assemble two laptops: one to fulfill a promise to He Jiani, the other for himself.

Actually, the first digit in 970 indicates the card’s generation, the second its performance tier. Market-wise, 980s and even 1080s were already beginning to appear. But in the eyes of the Hacker King, a laptop’s performance didn’t just depend on having top specs—compatibility between components, data transfer rates, heat dissipation, and the interplay between the motherboard, graphics card, and the initialization programs all mattered.

Thanks to antitrust laws, no single manufacturer in the world could produce every computer component. Even with standardized interfaces, plugging a graphics card from one company into a motherboard from another could still cause minor issues. It’s like having the same brand of power sockets at home—one hair dryer might fit snugly into one outlet, but loosely into another.

That’s the subtlety of standardization. Even with fully automated production lines, such issues persist. Otherwise, rockets in America wouldn’t explode on launch, and those spacecraft are the most precision-engineered devices around.

All these factors meant that assembling a smoothly running laptop required Yang Tang to put in some effort, selecting each component and the right chassis.

Fortunately, the Hacker King lived up to his name. Master of both hardware and software, Yang Tang needed just two hours to pick out two sets of laptop components he deemed suitable. He also bought the necessary tools and materials for assembly and returned to his hotel.

By six in the evening, two brand-new laptops were ready. One was destined for He Jiani, so Yang Tang didn’t use hot welding between the components; the other, for his own use, he did reinforce with hot welding at certain connectors.

Next was the operating system. For He Jiani’s laptop, Yang Tang installed the latest version of the Tenglong system and patched some system vulnerabilities for her. For his own, he downloaded a streamlined open-source system and made a few tweaks for temporary use.

Yang Tang then jumped through several proxy servers to download some open-source hacking tools, applied his own modifications as the Hacker King, and packaged them up, ready to be deployed at any moment.

However, to monitor someone like Detective Mo Wuwei from the criminal investigation bureau, Yang Tang still had plenty of work to do.

First came the issue of addresses: four groups of 256 numbers, totaling about 4.3 billion. In this world, China was powerful enough to stand on equal footing with the Americans, claiming 1.5 billion for itself.

So the Europeans kept clamoring for new standards, while Latin America and Africa were worse off—a mess, really. It was like a public restroom: if someone’s not done, you can’t go in; chaos and crowding everywhere.

Unfortunately, for China’s own population of over a billion, even 1.5 billion addresses weren’t quite enough. The American system assigned one address per device, so a single person might have one at home, one at school, and another at work.

China, with its population pressures, simply couldn’t follow the American model. Otherwise, before a new standard was adopted, China would run out of usable addresses.

So even with billions of addresses, individuals couldn’t have one each. Especially in public places, universities, research institutions, and ordinary government offices, using local networks with external access was the most practical solution.

For the moment, Yang Tang had to set aside the awkwardness of being in a high-end hotel with a private connection. Not every hotel room had an independent line; only the most expensive rooms in the most expensive hotels did. Yang Tang and his group had been staying there for days—suddenly asking to switch or check out would draw too much attention.

So, with time to spare before dinner, Yang Tang took his new laptop and strolled to a nearby plaza. There, he used the public wireless, hopped through several proxies, and slowly browsed the criminal investigation bureau’s public website.

Eventually, on the forum page, he spotted a newly posted bit of useful information: “For spring outing registration, please click the following link.” He clicked the link, which led to a login page requiring an employee number and backup password.

A closer look at the login page and its parent page made Yang Tang smile. Whether it was a phishing page or just carelessness, neither page was encrypted.

“Let’s give it a shot—no harm in trying. With all these proxies, I can always bail if anything happens!”

With that in mind, Yang Tang quickly copied the backend code for both pages, added a “packet capture module” to the login page, and generated a new page almost indistinguishable from the official one. Then he changed a zero to an uppercase letter in the parent page’s redirect link, and that was that.

Now, whenever an employee of the criminal investigation bureau clicked the link, they’d land on Yang Tang’s new login page. Logging in would take them to the real spring outing registration, but the “packet capture module” would also package and send their credentials to an overseas server.

By the time he finished, dusk had fallen.

With the city lights just coming on, Yang Tang tucked his laptop under his arm and strolled back to the hotel. He joined his father, mother, He Jiani, and Fang Yuhua at their reserved table in the Chinese restaurant to celebrate.