Chapter 821: Chapter 821: The Boldness of the Skilled

“I’m much better now, just a little cold.” Li Qiao exchanged a few pleasantries with Zong Yue. Seeing that her complexion was good and her eyes much brighter, she smiled and said, “I still have some things to take care of, you go back to the company first.”

Zong Yue stepped back, nodding, “Then take care to keep warm, it’s gotten quite cold recently.”

Just as Li Qiao was getting into the car, Zong Yue ran over to knock on the window, “By the way, Qiaoqiao, do you have time this weekend?”

“Something up?”

Zong Yue replied with a smile, “It’s about Mo Mo. She just finished her mock exams this week. Mom asked me to take her shopping for some clothes, do you want to join us?”

Li Qiao happily agreed, “Sure.”

She indeed hadn’t seen Mo Jue in a while.

It was two days until the weekend, by then she could ask about her recent situation at school.

…

In Secret Hall, Li Qiao and Luoyu stepped off the helicopter, the time just past eleven thirty.

Zuo Tang, dressed in training garb, was waiting at the valley entrance for her. They hadn’t seen each other for many days, and she came over with a smile, “Madam.”

Li Qiao didn’t know when it had started, but the people of Secret Hall had begun to address her as madam instinctively.

Li Qiao smiled back at Zuo Tang, “Has he arrived?”

Zuo Tang and Luoyu nodded and followed Li Qiao’s pace, reporting truthfully, “The leader hasn’t arrived yet, he asked me to take you to Cheng Mo first.”

In the information room, Cheng Mo was already waiting at the entrance upon hearing the news.

Seeing Li Qiao step out of the elevator, Cheng Mo adjusted his glasses and nodded in greeting, “Madam.”

Li Qiao’s gaze casually swept through the valley’s grand hall, and suddenly noticed that in the corner of what used to be the Intelligence Center’s glass room, there was now a small medical room.

It seemed to be recently set up.

All sorts of medical equipment were numerous, and in the corner… there was even an ornamental aquarium.

Zuo Tang observed for a moment, then gently explained to Li Qiao, “That’s the research lab of the Medicine Hall, which just moved here recently, specifically researching a species called the blue-ringed octopus.”

Li Qiao withdrew her gaze and looked at Zuo Tang, “Blue-ringed octopus?”

“Yes.” Thinking she was unaware, Zuo Tang patiently enlightened her, and added with a smile at the end, “Their poison is said to be incurable, so the leader has arranged for the research team to analyze the pathology in an attempt to develop an antitoxin serum.”

Li Qiao pursed her lips, her gaze returning to the aquarium, “Is that a blue-ringed octopus inside?”

Zuo Tang nodded, “It was air freighted from Australia last week.”

Li Qiao lowered her eyelids, her heart burning with fervor.

Shang Yu, oh Shang Yu, always doing so much for her without her knowledge.

…

After a while, Li Qiao and Cheng Mo went to the information room.

As an idle person with nothing to do, Luoyu carried a chair over and sat down boldly in front of the information room, opening a WeChat mini-game, Jump Jump.

In the information room, the sound of keyboards was incessant, as several dozen members of the Staff Team worked with serious expressions to outmatch their opponents’ hackers.

Cheng Mo led Li Qiao to the back to a single workstation, pulled out a chair to sit down, and whispered, “In the past few days, the number of hackers hired by the other side has increased significantly, attempting to counterattack our system operations.”

Li Qiao pushed the external keyboard in front of Cheng Mo, “Log into your account.”

Cheng Mo was not a talkative person, although puzzled, he still quickly logged into his hacker account.

Li Qiao opened the virtual map, looking at the crisscrossing sources of attack, she narrowed her eyes, “Which target that you found earlier is being intercepted?”

Cheng Mo pressed the keyboard shortcut, zooming into one of the Neon lines, “I have communicated with the other party using decimal encryption as you instructed, but I haven’t received a reply.”

Li Qiao glanced at the visualization data graph in the top right corner, the number of attacks exchanged between both parties had already surpassed one hundred thousand.

She didn’t speak again, focused as she typed a string of code.

Cheng Mo watched intently, his brows quickly furrowing, “Madam, SQL injection attacks need to be inserted into a Web application, attacking directly from the source isn’t very effective.”

“Mhm,” Li Qiao continued typing code, responding absently.

The moment the attack was launched, a fluorescent-colored attack source shot across the virtual map towards the strait on the opposite side.

Li Qiao’s computer skills might not match Cheng Mo’s, but she excelled in breaking new ground.

An SQL injection attack that baffled everyone, even other hacker members couldn’t help but click on that attack source, their attention diverted to Li Qiao’s operations.

Less than three minutes later, the opposing side cracked Li Qiao’s attack source. Noticing this, Li Qiao smiled wantonly and launched a Rootkit toolkit to forcibly obtain the other party’s root permission.

Cheng Mo’s eyelid twitched, “Madam, hide the backdoor, otherwise the command to obtain permission will be tracked by the opponent…”

Before he could utter the last two words, the counterattack program from the other side had already followed through.

Cheng Mo, leaning on his forehead, fell silent: “…”

Madam, if you want to expose the hackers’ location, you could just say so. Why stir up such a commotion?

At this moment, the hacking members in the information room started whispering among themselves. Using Rootkit tools to forcefully obtain permission was taboo if not hiding backdoors; their madam… was audaciously skillful!

Just as Cheng Mo was about to instruct the other members to dismantle the tracking program by force, Li Qiao’s computer screen suddenly popped up a black code box with a word on it: “Kid?”

Li Qiao continued typing on the keyboard, replying with a few words, “What’s the situation?”

The program counterattacking from the other side turned out to be a chat tool hidden under the tracking path.

Cheng Mo’s suspended heart slightly settled, he touched his forehead and whispered to the hacker members in the front row, “First, patch the vulnerabilities.”

Li Qiao kept typing as she replied, “No need, the program will self-destruct in three minutes.”

Cheng Mo awkwardly responded, “Oh…”

Shortly after, the door to the information room opened, and Cheng Mo looked up briefly before quickly getting up and walking over.

Li Qiao didn’t notice the change outside, she continued launching attack sources while communicating with the other party through the chat tool.

A tall and straight figure walked in slowly, lifting the hem of his coat and bending down to take a seat.

Li Qiao, immersed in the world of code and having uploaded the virus data, soon the black chat tool conveyed another message.

“Stabilize the Staff Team, the relationship between the two brothers has deteriorated, the elder Xia requests an exhumation which was refused, the husband and wife are in a cold war over their daughter, the old man forcibly advances the marriage, the elder Xia resists in vain, the poison, the second Xia is down.”

Three seconds later, this cryptic message automatically vanished, the chat interface flickered twice, and then the program shattered and self-destructed.

Li Qiao’s fingers paused on the keyboard, there was no need to retract the Rootkit attack source, everyone saw the attack line disappear mysteriously from the virtual map.

Even the countertracking program from moments before was gone.

Li Qiao curled her fingers and leaned back into the chair, “Add a honeypot attack trap and collect the Neon line attack source we just used.”

No sooner had Cheng Mo, who was standing behind the chair, said nothing than Shang Yu’s voice with a magnetic chuckle floated into the ear, “Domain spoofing would be more effective.”