The apartment’s main door had always been a little difficult to open. The key always got stuck while turning. A couple of times Xu Qichen was sure that it had gotten stuck permanently. In the end, he always had to spend a lot of effort just to enter the apartment.
After failing repeatedly, Xu Qichen put everything down and tried opening it with the other hand.
“You have to pull it out a little.”
The sudden voice made Xu Qichen spin around, only to see his roommate behind him.
“Watch,” his roommate stepped forward and grabbed the key, “Don’t push it all the way in, pull it out a little, then you can twist it easily.”
The door opened with a click. Xu Qichen quickly thanked him.
“It’s only normal that you haven’t got the hang of it yet. I also learnt this after half a year.”
As they changed their shoes in the entryway, his roommate suddenly said, “I’ve been living here for a while and my roommate has changed many times.” Xu Qichen looked up at him only to see him smile and say, “I finally had a friendly roommate, but I’m leaving soon. It’s really a pity.”
Leaving?
“You’re… moving out?”
His roommate stood up and dusted off his pants. He grinned blissfully as he said, “My girlfriend is graduating this year, so we’re moving in together. We’ve been looking at houses recently and everything is pretty much settled, so I will probably move out this week.”
Xu Qichen took a while before he responded with a smile, “That’s great ah, congratulations.”
His roommate patted him on the shoulder, “Thanks.” He walked to his room and was about to close the door before he suddenly opened it again and grinned at Xu Qichen, “Once I leave your boyfriend can move in, isn’t that convenient?”
This line gave Xu Qichen a shock, “What? Boy- boyfriend?!”
The other party looked at him dubiously, pointed at Xu Qichen’s room, and asked in a lower voice, “Is he not? Aren’t you and that handsome guy a couple?”
Xu Qichen shook his head like a rattle drum.
At least… they’re not, yet.
The other party seemed to mistake Xu Qichen’s denial as shyness. With a grin that said ‘I understand’, he said, “Don’t worry, this is the 21st century, even though I’m a straight guy, I’m perfectly okay with this.”
Xu Qichen frantically explained, “No, no, he’s just my junior, really!”
“Wah, so he’s even younger than you? Not bad, not bad.”
Why did this misunderstanding seem to be getting bigger?
“I won’t take up anymore of your cooking time,” his roommate went into his room grinning, “I already ate with my girlfriend, you two eat more ah.”
His personality was completely different from the first impression.
Surprisingly, he was easy to get along with.
Xu Qichen sighed and sorted out the groceries. Then he knocked on the door of the guest room.
No response.
He pushed open the door and saw Mu Yao leaning on the bed watching a movie on his phone.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
“Senior you’re back,” Mu Yao removed his earpiece, “Your meeting is over?”
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Ze Tjb rwlifv, “Rba wemt.”
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Cr fzqfmafv, atfs kfgf wlrecvfgrabbv.
Lf revvfcis ofia qjclmxs, frqfmljiis ktfc atflg fsfr wfa. Pc bgvfg ab mbnfg la eq, We Hlmtfc delmxis wjvf jc fzmerf, “Yt, ys atf kjs, P ybeuta j ybcf abvjs rb P’ii ub jcv rajga wjxlcu atf rbeq.” Ktfc tf ifoa obg atf gfijalnfis rjofg xlamtfc.
He made a small pot of soup and fried up some dishes, which the two of them ate together.
Seeing Mu Yao finish bowl after bowl of soup, Xu Qichen felt very happy.
“It’s so good, fragrant and rich.” Mu Yao smiled, “I love the taste of bone.”
Kinda like a dog?
Xu Qichen poured the remaining soup into Mu Yao’s bowl, “Be careful, it’s hot.”
Nearing bedtime, Xu Qichen was still worried about the situation with Tengyue Century, so he told Mu Yao to go to bed first while he settled matters related to the company meeting.
Mu Yao replied, “I haven’t finished the movie. You do your work, I’ll just finish it.”
Xu Qichen sat at the study table. The table happened to be positioned in a way that Mu Yao would not be able to see the screen from the bed.
First of course, he had to try plan A.
A large company like Tengyue would naturally have very good cyber security, especially for their confidential projects. Even after trying several methods, Xu Qichen was not able to get even the password of the general department database.
After working for an hour, he had gained nothing.
This was much more difficult than he had imagined.
The security of a company of this scale is not something that can be easily breached by any one person. Even in a virtual world based on a novel, that would be overly unrealistic.
Xu Qichen, who had always been very calm, began to feel frustrated. Suddenly, his phone vibrated. It was a message from a school group chat, so he simply muted the phone, but in the process he accidentally opened up the browser and the news popped up: [Tengyue Century will collaborate with XXX Research Institute to develop new drugs for rare diseases.]
Research institute…
He subconsciously found the name of this research institute vaguely familiar, so he looked up the official site of the institute. Under the [Team] page, he found the list of all the researchers and their information.
He scrolled down slowly, skimming through the information of every researcher, until the last one.
Seems like there’s nothing wrong. Did he miss something?
Hang on.
Xu Qichen quickly scrolled up again and found a professor called Yang Minghui. He clicked on that professor’s page and scrolled to the bottom.
Finally, he found what he was looking for.
In the laboratory led by this professor, there was a doctor named Shi Wei, who, in the original work, participated in the underground project of heightening demon power. It can even be said that this person was the leading force in the research and development of demon controlling drugs.
If he could hack into this person’s computer, then he would probably find the evidence he needed.
No matter what, it should be much easier to hack into his computer than the company’s database.
Xu Qichen glanced at Mu Yao, who seemed to have fallen asleep watching the movie.
In order to prevent the disclosure of his own personal information, Xu Qichen decided to use the node attack method. First, he hacked into the mainframe, then used the IP address of the mainframe as base to attack Shi Wei’s workstation.
The official website of the laboratory had Shi Wei’s work email address, which provided Xu Qichen a great opportunity. He spent a long time writing a monitoring program to try cracking Shi Wei’s password, but this method really tested his patience. Xu Qichen sat motionless in front of the computer and watched. The process of decrypting was too slow. Since he had been working all day, his eyes were sore.
As expected, not just anyone can be a hacker. Xu Qichen rubbed his eyes.
To a person like him who was a complete literary student, this experience was very new. But no matter how new it was, it only made him tired instead of excited.
Even so, in order to complete his task, he still stared seriously at the code on the screen.
The white characters were a little too bright in the dark as they rolled across the screen slowly.
Xu Qichen had once heard someone say this: “The more you try to concentrate on one point, the easier it is for you to collapse and suddenly fall asleep.” From tonight’s experience, he can prove that this statement is irrefutable.
After some time, Xu Qichen suddenly woke up. He subconsciously checked his phone.
00:41.
He slept for more than half an hour!
Xu Qichen was filled with regret. On checking, he found that the code had already stopped running.
Did it fail?
Xu Qichen quickly typed in a command. A message popped up on the screen.
[Please restart the program.]
He tried again.
The result was the same.
There was cold sweat on his forehead.
Did he really fail?
After a rather difficult psychological struggle, Xu Qichen chose to restart the program.
Then he rested his chin on his hand depressingly and wondered if he should pour himself a glass of water.
Suddenly, the screen lit up.
The program had ended.
Xu Qichen leant closer to read the words in the message box carefully. Then he read it again. And again.
He… succeeded?
He found it hard to believe.
It actually succeeded?
Repressing his excitement, Xu Qichen successfully entered Shi Wei’s work computer with the obtained password and quickly browsed through his files, to find that many of them were encrypted.
Amongst the many files, only the title of one compressed folder attracted his attention.
‘Control Psychology’.
As the creator, he naturally had an unexplainable understanding of the characters he had created.
It should be this one.
Thankfully, that very unpleasant buff drink was useful. Not only did it help him hack into the computer, but it also helped him open the triple-password protected file that was disguised as a psychology thesis.
Xu Qichen stretched his stiff fingers, copied the file, then exited the program.
The document had the signature and seal of Tengyue’s representative as well as Shi Wei’s signature. This was solid evidence.
He anonymously sent the first half of the document to Ning Zheng’s private mailbox in a picture format. This was the portion about strength testing, which involved injecting larger demons with the formula and setting them on humans when they lose control.
Although it was not direct evidence of assault, the attack test was sufficiently inhumane and could easily be linked to the recent assault cases.
He hit ‘send’.
The rest will be sent after seeing his reaction.
After all this, Xu Qichen meticulously cleaned up his traces from the computer and the Internet; to protect both himself and Mu Yao.
Although Xu Qichen had always disagreed with the so-called solitary heroism, he just wanted to fight alone whenever he thought of the original Mu Yao’s fate.
He left the study desk and found that Mu Yao was still sleeping.
What movie was that, how could he be so deeply asleep?
Xu Qichen stretched. He felt thirsty, so he went to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water.
When he heard footsteps walk a distance away, Mu Yao opened his eyes.
His phone screen lit up and he exited the movie. The bar at the bottom showed that he had only watched it for thirty minutes.
He opened the watch history and found the movie he had just watched.
Because its name was very long, it especially stood out.
[Who am I: No system is fully secure.]
Since it can be easily exposed, he deleted it.
And closed his eyes again. He felt the other party enter the room and lightly climb into the bed.
He pretended to be in deep sleep, slightly disturbed by the movement, and moved towards the cool body.
Expressionlessly, he pulled him into his arms.
thanks for the chapter! ♡
what does the movie title mean? did mu yao help xu qichen while he was asleep?
Maybe. Wasn’t the original ML student from this field?
I think he knows much than we perceive.
thanks for the chapter!
thanks for the chapter <3
FCKJEDKFJBAKJESFEAF I LOVE WHO AM I AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG AND I JUST RE-WATCHED IT JUST YESTERDAY
Too easy. Feels like a trap QAQ