Chapter 9: Crushing Victory, Five Minutes in Total!

Gu Ci paused in her steps, licked her lips, and suppressed the irritation pressing at her brow. “I’m going to the restroom,” she said.

Inside the restroom stall, she closed the toilet lid and retrieved a silver Rubik’s Cube from her backpack. Her slender, elegant fingers tapped a few times on the cube before she pressed her fingerprint to it.

Immediately, the cube began to reassemble itself automatically.

Three seconds later, a sleek, exquisitely crafted silver laptop materialized in her hands.

Lines of white code flickered rapidly across the black screen. Gu Ci’s fingers flew over the keyboard, summoning line after line of cryptic symbols onto the display.

Five minutes later, everything was done.

She considered unwrapping a piece of candy, but remembering where she was, she gave up on the idea.

After a moment’s thought, she typed a few more lines of code and hit Enter.

A small token of thanks, nothing more.

The corners of her mouth quirked up. With a final command, the laptop transformed back into the Rubik’s Cube. She tossed it casually into her backpack and left the restroom.

——————————————————————————————

On the twenty-first floor of a certain building, a scruffy young man was furiously typing at his computer.

Five years ago, a legendary hacker known only by the codename “Er” had suddenly appeared in the hacking world.

Within half an hour, Er had cracked the firewall of “Celestial Pivot,” a site revered by hackers everywhere, and proceeded to comb through all the information on the site as if searching for something specific.

The top hackers of the site tried to stop him, only to be utterly outmatched and left in the dust.

After tearing the site apart, Er had simply walked away, leaving behind a battered website and a community facing warnings and tests from information hubs and organizational agencies around the globe.

According to their inside sources, nearly every major information center and organization department in the world had been attacked by Er at roughly the same time. Several network hubs were nearly crippled.

The most crucial part was that each information hub suspected Er was one of their own. But how could they explain? Would they admit that even “Celestial Pivot,” a site boasting the world’s elite and long considered the pinnacle of the field, had almost been brought to its knees?

And so, with one battle, Er became a legend—an unassailable god in the hacker world.

Over the years, countless challengers had tried to surpass him, only to be defeated time and again. They also noticed that Er’s traces were becoming harder and harder to find each year.

This time, several top hackers from the global leaderboard had joined forces, preparing meticulously for three months. Finally, they had found a faint clue to his location.

Just as they were about to breach Er’s freshly set firewall, hackers from different corners of the world cheered in unison, their excitement palpable even through the internet.

However...

Within a single minute, the cheers fell silent.

They watched helplessly as the firewall was not only repaired but reinforced before their eyes.

Three minutes later, an overwhelming torrent of garbled code flashed across their screens at a dizzying speed.

The opponent’s brutal and relentless counterattack shattered their formation in an instant, leaving them in utter disarray.

The speed of those flying fingers was simply inhuman.

When the dust finally settled, the young man felt as though a century had passed.

He glanced at the clock. Five minutes in total.

Afterwards, no one felt like saying anything. It wasn’t long before everyone drifted away.

The young man stood up, walked to the window, and, with trembling hands, lit a cigarette. His eyes, ringed with exhaustion, nearly brimmed with bitter tears.

He couldn’t fathom why he kept subjecting himself to this, why he insisted on taking part in something so masochistic.

Little did he know, it wasn’t over yet.

The next day, as he took his laptop to a meeting, an enhanced version of the “I want O Bubble” jingle blared at maximum volume, impossible to silence, nearly sending him to an early grave on the spot.

But that, of course, is another story...

Back at the mall, it didn’t take Gu Ci long to pick out everything she needed.

Then, with a newfound seriousness on her face, she headed for the adjoining pet supplies section.

Qin Yu couldn’t help but find it odd.

He had assumed Gu Ci was here at Xinghui City to buy clothes, but most of her purchases were daily necessities. She only chose three or four outfits before heading straight into... the pet supplies shop?

He followed her in and saw her crouched in front of the counter, meticulously selecting a pet bed.

From his vantage point, he could even catch a glimpse of the conflicted expression on her face.

It was as if he were seeing a ghost.

He’d noticed how indifferent she’d been while picking out things for herself, but now, watching her earnestly choose pet supplies, it was as if she’d become a different person.

To top it off, the young master was also crouched down beside her, helping her select with equal seriousness.

Because of this, the two of them were soon deep in lively conversation.

Qin Yu could see that Gu Ci, who had been rather cold toward the young master, had visibly softened her attitude.

In the end, Gu Ci even ordered two glass tanks, each eight meters long and six meters wide, though he had no idea what she planned to do with them.

At the counter, after tallying up the prices, the cashier’s smile grew even brighter. “Hello, sir and miss. That will be 2,375,000.”

Qin Yu was left gaping.

Goodness, the things she bought for herself barely amounted to a fraction of the total—nearly all of it was for the most exotic pet supplies.

He stood by, perfectly content to watch Gu Ci pretend to pay for everything, only to finally accept Rong Ye’s generosity in the end.

He meant no harm—it was just something he’d seen many times.

Sure enough, as Rong Ye was already taking out his bank card, Gu Ci was still leisurely rummaging through her backpack.

Just as the cashier reached for Rong Ye’s card, Gu Ci looked up and said coolly, “You pay for yours.”

Rong Ye had just picked out a small cake, freshly made and boxed, costing only 158 yuan.

Qin Yu wasn’t surprised.

Gu Ci might say she’d pay, but would Ye really let her?

Yet in the next second, Gu Ci pulled out a card from her bag.

A black card, edged with a faint gold trim, its quality instantly apparent.

Qin Yu almost mistook it for a black card.

But on closer inspection, there was a difference. “Gu Ci, who gave you this card?”

“Someone else,” she replied.

She’d been told it could be used at any Xinghui City mall in the country.

Qin Yu laughed. “Did you get scammed? Black cards don’t look like that.”

He nodded toward Rong Ye. “Look, that’s what a real black card looks like.”

Gu Ci didn’t explain that it wasn’t a bank card. She simply asked the cashier, “What’s the discount on this?”

The cashier, having heard the talk of black cards, hadn’t paid much attention at first—after all, seeing one from Rong Ye was enough to make her numb. Another one hardly seemed surprising.

It wasn’t until Gu Ci mentioned a discount that she realized this might be a member card for their mall.

She looked closely, and her eyes widened with excitement, nearly speechless.