Chapter 32

Liu Jianjun's comrade's son, Lei Zi, lived up to his name. He was as black as an anvil, spoke very little (he charged by the word), and had eyes so sharp they could be used as a security scanner. He brought two equally capable brothers with him, driving a dusty Wuling Hongguang, which was crammed full of detectors and strange devices that made Jin Zhaoxuan dizzy.

Lei Zi circled the old house twice, then climbed onto the roof to survey the area. He returned and sent a concise telegram: "There are eyes on the outside, two spots: the newsstand to the east and the second-floor window of the small supermarket to the west. The watchers aren't professional, but they haven't moved. The wiring inside is so old it could be in a museum, and there are so many blind spots that you could play hide-and-seek with them. It needs to be fixed."

Jin Zhaoxuan nodded: "Change it. Write down whatever you need, quickly."

Lei Zi's efficiency was frightening. That very afternoon, several inconspicuous but incredibly high-definition night vision cameras appeared in the nooks and crannies of the old house's exterior walls, their wiring laid out like a tunnel. All the doors and windows were replaced with more sensitive sensors. The windows in the server room were covered with one-way explosion-proof film (looking like mirrors from the outside), a signal jammer (specially tuned to a specific frequency to avoid interfering with Yin Shaoqing's exclusive Wi-Fi) was placed in the corner, and vibration and temperature anomaly alarms were discreetly installed at the door and on the server racks, so sensitive that even a cockroach crawling by could trigger them.

"What about the power grid?" Jin Zhaoxuan asked abruptly as he looked at Lei Zi's wiring.

Lei Zi paused, looked up at him, his eyes filled with a complex mix of emotions, as if he were looking at an outlaw: "Boss Jin, that falls under criminal law. And it's easy to electrocute your own people."

"Oh." Jin Zhaoxuan said without changing his expression, "Then forget it. Do you have any connections with legal 'discouragement' tools like bullets and pepper spray?"

“…Yes.” Lei Zi silently made a note in his notebook, “For you and Uncle Liu who stayed behind?”

“I’ll take it.” Jin Zhaoxuan said without hesitation. “I might not be around often, so safety comes first for Brother Liu and you guys.”

As night fell, the old house was brightly lit, yet eerily quiet. Liu Jianjun and one of Lei Zi's brothers were "guarding the house" in the first-floor living room, while Lei Zi himself was watching the screens in the temporary monitoring room on the second floor. Jin Zhaoxuan, meanwhile, remained steadfastly in the server room, acting as a "waiting-for-husband stone."

He stared at Yin Shaoqing's steadily (slowly) recovering curve on the screen, then glanced at the impenetrable darkness outside the window. A sense of foreboding grew wildly within him. Those bastards from the Takeda family—the cyberattacks during the day were probably just an appetizer.

Sure enough, around 2 a.m., Lei Zi's deep voice came through the walkie-talkie: "Boss Jin, there's something going on. The person keeping watch on the east side has been replaced. The new guy brought equipment and seems to be testing the frequencies of our newly installed cameras and sensors. The one on the west side hasn't moved."

"Can it interfere?" Jin Zhaoxuan asked.

“They’re already doing it. But they might be testing our reaction and defense range.” Lei Zi’s tone was as steady as if he were giving a weather forecast. “They’re probably going to do something in the middle of the night.”

Jin Zhaoxuan gripped the cold handle of the gun in his pocket and took a deep breath: "Proceed according to plan. Don't go out unless necessary. Hold this position."

Time ticked by in the oppressive silence. The hum of the server fans seemed particularly noisy at this moment. Jin Zhaoxuan could even hear his own heart pounding too fast, thump, thump, thump, like the beating of a drum.

Suddenly, a very faint sound, like a cat scratching at a wall, came from downstairs, followed by Liu Jianjun's low cursing and a few muffled thuds!

"Contact downstairs!" Lei Zi's voice rang out at the same time. "Two people, they climbed over the wall from the backyard, carrying a crowbar and...it looks like a powerful magnetic jammer! Xiao Wu is over there!"

Jin Zhaoxuan's heart leaped into his throat, and he was about to rush downstairs when Lei Zi's next words froze him in place: "Boss Jin, don't move! Guard upstairs! This might be a diversionary tactic!"

As soon as he finished speaking, a faint buzzing sound of electricity suddenly came from the window of the server room! The sensor alarm attached to the glass did not sound, but Jin Zhaoxuan clearly saw a few extremely fine blue sparks flash by in the darkness outside the window—someone was trying to interfere with or disable the window sensor with professional electromagnetic pulse equipment!

"They really were after the server!" Jin Zhaoxuan's eyes sharpened. He drew his gun and lunged at the server, his fingers flying across the keyboard, activating a backup physical isolation protocol—directly cutting off all external data interfaces and some secondary power supplies to the server, except for Yin Shaoqing's core life support system. The entire room, except for a few eerie blue emergency lights and the core equipment, instantly darkened by half, like a scene from a horror movie.

Almost at the same second that the quarantine was completed, a muffled "bang" came from the direction of the window, as if someone had stuck something to the glass with a suction cup. This was followed by the ear-piercing noise of a high-frequency electric drill cutting glass, which made one's teeth ache!

They wanted to break the window by force!

"Lei Zi!" Jin Zhaoxuan growled into the walkie-talkie.

"Roger that! Hang in there!" Lei Zi's voice was panting from running. "Xiao Wu has taken care of one, Uncle Liu is holding off the other, I'm coming upstairs right away!"

The sound of glass cutting grew louder and louder, sending chills down one's spine. Jin Zhaoxuan, holding a gun, stared intently at the glass that had begun to tremble and develop spiderweb-like cracks, his adrenaline surging to its limit. He couldn't retreat; behind him lay Yin Shaoqing's "ICU ward."

Just as it seemed a hole was about to be cut in the glass—

On the server screen, the curve representing Yin Shaoqing's consciousness suddenly began to "dance wildly" without warning! It wasn't the disorder caused by injury, but rather a near-instinctive defensive reaction triggered by strong external interference!

Immediately afterwards, all the electronic devices in the room (and even the entire old house) – emergency lights, monitoring screens, even the cell phone and walkie-talkie in Jin Zhaoxuan's pocket – began to flash wildly and emit a piercing garbled noise! ​​An invisible, chaotic, yet exceptionally powerful data stream, or electromagnetic pulse, suddenly erupted from the server, like an EMP bomb!

"Sizzle—Pfft!"

The high-frequency drilling outside the window stopped abruptly, replaced by a short scream and a dull thud as something heavy fell to the ground! The device attached to the glass, emitting black smoke, also fell down with a "thud"!

The window-breaking operation was abruptly interrupted by this sudden, indiscriminate electronic interference!

At the same time, several muffled groans and exclamations came from downstairs, indicating that the attackers were also affected.

The change came too quickly, and Jin Zhaoxuan was stunned for a moment, but he immediately realized that it was Yin Shaoqing! Even in deep hibernation, his core consciousness or the special "field" on which he depends for existence can still autonomously defend against external attacks that directly threaten his carrier!

"Yin Shaoqing!" Jin Zhaoxuan exclaimed in alarm, rushing to the screen. The curve, after its violent "disco," did not fall; instead, it began to fluctuate with an even higher frequency and amplitude. Numerous red error logs flooded the screen, but the core life support data stubbornly remained within the safety threshold.

He was expending his already limited repair energy in an instinctive counterattack!

"Stop! Stop messing around!" Jin Zhaoxuan roared at the server, as if he could make the sleeping soul inside hear him.

At this moment, Lei Zi rushed in, glanced at the chaotic room and the situation outside the window, and quickly judged: "The interference was caused by their equipment malfunction. Our people are fine. The attackers have retreated. We've held down one of the slower ones downstairs, and the other one escaped by climbing over the wall. Uncle Liu and Xiao Wu went after him."

He looked at the wildly flickering server screen and the still "excited" curve, his brows furrowing: "This is... Teacher Yin?"

"Hmm." Jin Zhaoxuan stared at the screen, watching the curve gradually decline after the outburst, but it was obviously much weaker than before. The repair progress bar seemed to have shrunk a little bit. His heart felt like it had been pricked by a needle and then soaked in lemon juice. "He's 'furious' on his own... He's expending too much energy."

Lei Zi paused for a moment, then said, "Could this be considered... a blessing in disguise? At least it proves that Teacher Yin is not someone to be trifled with. Moreover, since their probing attempt to demolish the house failed this time, they probably won't dare to try again anytime soon. They'll reconsider."

Jin Zhaoxuan didn't speak, but slowly reached out and placed his palm on the still slightly hot server chassis. Beneath the cold metal shell was a soul that had been "injured" again to protect them (or rather, mainly to protect him), yet was still stubbornly struggling.

Outside the window, the night was fading, and a sliver of dawn was breaking on the horizon.

The chaotic night has finally passed, and the crisis has been temporarily averted, but the price has been clear.

Jin Zhaoxuan leaned against the computer case and closed his eyes wearily.

"Damn it," he muttered under his breath, but a smile that was more like a grimace than a cry stretched across his lips, a mixture of heartache, lingering fear, and a touch of indescribable warmth.

"Once you wake up, I'll settle this score with you slowly over this 'reckless use of special moves'."

The old house, after the night raid, was filled with a tension of surviving a disaster, and a deeper, calmer silence before the storm.

Lei and his brothers worked through the night to repair the damaged surveillance cameras and sensors, reinforcing the weak points like an iron barrel. The arrested attacker was a seasoned swindler who took money for a job; after a long interrogation, they couldn't get any crucial information out of him, only vaguely confirming that the employer was a "middleman," with the description vaguely pointing to Japanese descent. Lei legally handed the man over to the police, thus establishing a record in the official case.

Liu Jianjun had bruises all over his arm, but he was even more energetic, shouting, "It feels so good to stretch my muscles!" Xiao Wu also had some scrapes and was forced to rest by Lei Zi.

Jin Zhaoxuan stayed by Yin Shaoqing's side all night. After a brief period of stagnation, the curve on the screen didn't continue to decline, but instead began to climb again at a slower, yet seemingly more solid, pace. Error logs decreased, and the system's self-check frequency increased. What shocked him most was that new, previously unseen fragments of records began to appear in the logs, like the unconscious "leaks" of the damaged module's innermost thoughts during the repair process:

[...External malicious base-splitting protocol detected...Executing countermeasure subroutine...Insufficient energy...Invoking underlying memory-based defense mode...]

[…Related Target: Main Consciousness Link Point 'Jin Zhaoxuan'…Coordinates Locked…Defense Priority: Highest…]

[...Counterattack successful...Energy threshold warning...Initiating deep energy-saving repair...]

"The main consciousness link point 'Jin Zhaoxuan'... Defense priority: highest..."

Jin Zhaoxuan stared at those lines for a full ten minutes. His fingertips unconsciously curled up, and his heart felt like it was being soaked in warm, sour plum soup—soft, astringent, and bubbling. It turned out that even in his deep hibernation, when his consciousness was in a state of chaos and he was barely able to protect himself, Yin Shaoqing's damned instinctive defense mechanism had designated him as the highest priority target for protection.

The shock of this realization was even greater than when he first learned that the company was out of money. Like a depth charge, it exploded directly in the depths of his supposedly impenetrable heart, scattering ice and revealing the long-suppressed, scalding magma beneath, which could no longer be ignored.

He suddenly remembered his "sick diary" that looked like scribbles, the silly way he talked to himself in front of the mirror in the middle of the night, and the heart pounding in his throat every time he saw the curve fluctuate... It turned out that he wasn't the only one acting out a one-man show, clumsily like a young boy falling in love for the first time when the other person couldn't see him.

Even when someone was doing sit-ups on the verge of life and death, they subconsciously put him first on the list of people to protect.

Only when the other person is lying dead do they dare to reveal all their misplaced panic and pathetic dependence.

Both of them were incredibly stubborn and good at pretending, yet they both used their clumsy, stubborn, and incredibly honest ways to silently, obstinately, and honestly weld each other into the core code of their own life programs.

Jin Zhaoxuan stood up and walked to the mirror. The mirror reflected the dark circles under his eyes and the stubble on his chin, as well as a kind of clarity he had never seen before and a resolute determination that said, "I'm going all out."

“Yin Shaoqing,” he said to himself in the mirror, and to the soul behind the mirror who was struggling to repair it. His voice was not loud, but every word was firm and resounding, “I’ll double the debt for ‘going too far without permission’ and ‘making me worry’.”

“You’d better wake up quickly. Because,” he smirked, revealing a roguish and ruthless smile, “I’m going to start collecting my debts, interest and all.”

The counterattack is no longer a passive defense, but an active attack, with every move aimed at the opponent's lungs.

Jin Zhaoxuan contacted Director Zhang and, on behalf of the "Northeast Industrial Heritage Protection Joint Working Group," formally submitted a significant report to the city government. The report cleverly incorporated clues provided by an "anonymous concerned citizen," clearly pointing out that the area near the Shenyang South Gate Church likely harbors unique industrial relics left by the Japanese army during World War II, possessing significant historical and technological research value. It also highlighted the serious risk of being coveted by unidentified foreign forces and potentially illegally excavated. The report recommended that multiple departments, including cultural relics, archives, land resources, and public security, immediately launch a protective survey and assessment of the area.

The report caused an immediate uproar. The wartime technological remnants, along with potential historical crimes and the loss of state assets, were so sensitive they could be featured on CCTV's "Focus Interview." A joint working group was swiftly established, and an investigation plan was immediately put on the agenda.

This strikes directly at the heart of the Takeda family. Their "exploration" under the guise of legality is completely ruined. Once the authorities intervene and unearth something, not only will all their previous efforts be in vain, but they may also get burned, and their business in China will collapse.

Meanwhile, through Xiao Chen, Jin Zhaoxuan packaged up some traceable evidence of the "Global Technology Heritage Fund's" attempt to buy data at a high price and subsequent cyberattacks and sent it to several media outlets and cybersecurity regulatory agencies with whom he had close ties. Although he did not directly name Takeda, the headline "Foreign Capital Suspected of Stealing China's Core Industrial Historical Data" was enough to set off a media tsunami, making Takeda's other businesses in China extremely uneasy.

With this two-pronged approach, the Takeda family was thrown into disarray. Their overt methods were blocked by the authorities, while their covert tactics were exposed to the magnifying glass of public opinion. According to fragmented information gleaned by Liu Jianjun through special channels, the Takeda family was in turmoil, with radicals clamoring for "taking it by force at all costs," while conservatives were shouting, "Do you want to kill your whole family?" It seemed a classic Japanese palace intrigue was unfolding.

The pressure has finally been temporarily shifted in the other party's face.

Jin Zhaoxuan didn't dare to relax. He knew that even a cornered dog will jump over a wall, and a cornered rabbit will bite. Especially at times like these, he had to be wary of the other party resorting to desperate measures and fighting to the death. He told Lei Zi to remain on high alert, and he himself stayed in the old house as much as possible, acting as a "guardian beast."

Several more days passed in a flurry of busy planning and anxious waiting.

After the minor incident of the night raid, Yin Shaoqing's recovery seemed to have entered a new phase. The curve was steadily rising, almost reaching the normal level before his injury. The log began to show frequent higher-level system module self-checks and pre-start attempts. There was even one time when Jin Zhaoxuan was half asleep in the middle of the night, and vaguely saw a very faint blue light flash across the mirror, like a firefly. When he looked again, there was nothing there, making him wonder if he was hallucinating from lovesickness.

Hope, like foxtail grass sprouting from a crack in the rock, stubbornly sways its fuzzy head in the cold wind.

That evening, Jin Zhaoxuan finished processing a pile of emails and, as usual, slumped into the chair in front of the server. The afterglow of the setting sun streamed through the film-covered windows, casting warm, dim light into the room. It was very quiet, with only the low hum of the machine, like some kind of lullaby.

He suddenly felt incredibly tired, not like his body had been completely drained, but a long, tense exhaustion, like seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and suddenly having half a burden lifted off his shoulders—a weariness tinged with a sense of bewilderment. He turned his head, gently resting his forehead against the cool server chassis, and closed his dry eyes.

"Yin Shaoqing," he muttered softly, his voice weary yet tinged with a hint of almost childish complaint that he himself didn't realize, "you've almost finished dealing with the troubles outside for your boss, Mr. Jin. When... are you finally going to finish slacking off and get back to work?"

There was no response.

But he could almost sense that inside the chassis, among those sophisticated chips and surging data streams, there was a unique entity that was slowly and steadily gathering starlight again, preparing to illuminate this silent darkness.