Just wanted to address a review I saw. While there are elements of Chinese nationalism (duh), it's pretty good compared to other urban Chinese novels. Doesn't mean it's good, but for me it's tolerable. It just stands out because, a) it's China, and b) we're unused to it. Many works of fiction tend to highlight or emphasize their country of origin. This novel is no different. Like if the novel said USA is the center of the universe, you probably wouldn't bat an eye. But China... Of course, I can understand if anyone feel's uncomfortable about it.
"I can finally do what I want now."
Huang Ji ultimately ended up on a train towards Shanghai. Even though school started in September, Fan Lingli and Zheng Xuan had to go back to work within the week. Thus, on April 20th, the three of them got on a train headed for Shanghai.
Since he was going to attend school, it was best to grow accustomed to life in the city earlier. They believed Huang Ji was probably still unfamiliar with certain basic social norms, so they planned to have him stay in Shanghai for the next four months to familiarize himself. Huang Ji was obviously in full agreement with this plan. His goal was never to attend school, he just wanted to get out and see the world.
"We'll have Huang Ji stay with you. You always have so much free time, make sure to teach him some stuff." said Fan Lingli.
"Um...Let's rent another place for him." Zheng Xuan was a bit troubled by this proposal. His real occupation was a hacker. While Huang Ji had a mild intellectual disability, he still felt that taking care of him would be an inconvenience.
Fan Lingli shook her head, "What, you promised his grandfather you'd take care of him, and now you don't care anymore?"
"What about the place right across from me? I promise I'll take good care of him." Zheng Xuan tried to compromise.
Fan Linli narrowed her eyes, "What's the deal? Not like I've never been to your place before, you got some kind of treasure stashed there? Or maybe, it's inconvenient for him to be around when you bring another girl over for some fun?"
"What are you talking about! My place is just too small. You know what, forget it, just leave him to me!" said Zheng Xuan.
"His grandfather left him in our care, and he gave us the money. You've got to take this seriously."
"Leave it to me." Zheng Xuan said in confidence.
Fan Lingli nodded her head. She was always busy with work, but Zheng Xuan's job was easier, giving him a lot of free time. That's why it was best to leave Huang Ji with him for the time being. Only after hearing Zheng Xuan's promise did she feel at ease.
Upon arriving at Shanghai, the two of them treated Huang Ji to a meal, and then took him to buy a cellphone and other daily necessities. At the end of the day, Zheng Xuan brought him home.
The moment they got back, Zheng Xuan called his landlord and rented the room opposite of him for Huang Ji. Like this, Huang Ji and him would live separately, each with their own private spaces.
He didn't explain his actions, but his motive was clear as day to Huang Ji. The only reason for this was because he didn't want anybody else seeing what he was doing. Zheng Xuan had his secrets, but so did Huang Ji. He was happy with this arrangement.
"Do you see the 'private kitchen1' down there? I usually order food from there, you can do the same. Just put it on my tab. You shouldn't run around though, just come over to my place and we'll eat together."
Zheng Xuan continued to explain a number of things to Huang Ji. When he finished, Huang Ji said, "I saw a Xinhua Bookstore2 when we were coming up. I want to go check out some books."
"Sure, I'll go with you." Zheng Xuan took him downstairs. This apartment was right by the street. It was surrounded by restaurants, bookstores, supermarkets, and anything else they needed.
When the two of them arrived at the bookstore, Huang Ji picked out a general knowledge book for children titled "I Wonder Why" and started reading. Zheng Xuan smiled and picked out a book about economics, but he soon lost his patience after half an hour. He looked towards Huang Ji to find that he hadn't moved from his spot at all. It appeared as though he was completely immersed in the sea of knowledge.
"He doesn't have any problems focusing his attention. In fact, his patience is even better than the average person." thought Zheng Xuan. Not to mention he was the one to lose his concentration first as he looked around and paced back and forth. Of course, he couldn't rule out the possibility that Huang Ji was just spacing out either...
He had reached the end of his patience, but he felt guilty rushing Huang Ji. He said, "We'll buy all the books you like and you can take them back to read."
Hearing this, Huang Ji smiled and said, "I don't know what kind of books I like yet...If you're busy you can go ahead. I'll be fine by myself."
Huang Ji nodded his head. Zheng Xuan said a few more words and then left.
Watching Zheng Xuan return to the apartment, Huang Ji put down the book and walked straight out of the bookstore. Walking over to the subway station, he checked the map, bought a ticket, and got on the train without any trouble. Never in his wildest dreams could Zheng Xuan have predicted that Huang Ji would just up and leave on the subway.
Arriving at the Shanghai Postal Distribution & Transfer Station, Huang Ji had to confirm whether his money had arrived.
Before leaving, Huang Ji had found a way to mail out the safe; the location was the home of a friend of Zheng Xuan's. Of course, Huang Ji wouldn't actually let the three million arrive at a stranger's home. He just had to collect the package first with his ID card before it was sent out.
It was fine even if he missed it. The ID number of Zheng Xuan's friend didn't match the information, he wouldn't be able to receive the package. The package would be sent back and stay at this transfer station for another period of time, giving him one more chance to collect it. What Huang Ji had to do now was just pick up the money safe at the transfer station before it arrived at its designated location.
"Well that was fast. It's already arrived." Huang Ji immediately took his package after confirming its arrival. The 93 pound safe was too troublesome for him to carry. He stopped a taxi and used it for transportation.
Unsurprisingly, he didn't take the money back to Zheng Xuan's apartment. Instead, he headed towards a high-rise apartment where he had already made an appointment with the landlord to check out some rooms. Huang Ji didn't spare any expenses, paying with cash on the spot and renting an apartment with four bedrooms and two living rooms.
In the apartment, he opened the safe and took out another 200 thousand. Placing the money in his backpack, he started shopping around at nearby stores. His main goal was a computer. Through Zheng Xuan, Huang Ji had already realized its importance. It was now the age of the internet.
Without much thought, he simply purchased a computer with the exact same specs as the one in Zheng Xuan's apartment. He also set up a fiber optic line and paired it with an all-in-one printer.
After sending off the delivery guy who had helped install the printer, Huang Ji stared at his computer with a smile on his face.
"There really is a difference between theory and practice..." said Huang Ji as he sat enthusiastically in front of his computer, controlling the mouse with a stiff hand. He'd never touched this sort of thing before. While he'd already obtained a basic understanding of computers from Zheng Xuan, when it came time to actually use it, he was still like a complete beginner.
"Using the browser, I can visit thousands of web portals; I can also use powerful search engines to find what I want. Amazing... " Like everybody's first experience with the internet, Huang Ji browsed the web with ample curiosity and excitement. From the news that was being pushed and online comments, to any word that piqued his interest, he didn't want to let any of it go.
What made Huang Ji's experience unique was that he could see past the information on the surface of the internet and view the torrential stream of underlying data!
"There's too much information..." Huang Ji inhaled sharply. Probing just a bit deeper already gave him a splitting headache. He had to quickly blocked out the majority of the data again. "I'll investigate deeper when I find something of interest."
Huang Ji opened the Baidu3 search engine and typed one letter at a time, searching for 'aliens'. But what he found were only movies, company names, and electronic products.
Unable to find what he was looking for, he thought about it for a moment and then added the keyword--'moon'--after aliens. With this, he finally found some information related to the real world. There were titles such as; 'Aliens on the far side of the Moon', 'USA saw UFOs during the Moon landing', and 'A base with alien spaceships on the far side of the Moon.'.
All kinds of UFO enthusiasts were discussing these topics on their own forums or Tieba4, the biggest forum platform in China. Huang Ji looked on with interest. These were all fantastical things he'd never encountered before.
"I never thought there would be so many people like me who believed in aliens. They don't have my ability, but they're able to prove the existence of aliens from just the small traces they've left behind.
"Aliens have always been with us? He's right, he's absolutely right!
"An alien base on the Moon? As far as I know it only exists inside the Moon, not on the surface, but maybe there used to be one on the surface too.
"So American astronauts have already seen them before? But...why was this never mentioned in school..." Huang Ji rushed to find the original poster of this post on Tieba and read his ID.
"Nami the Whale5?" Huang Ji blinked his eyes and the data related to this ID immediately flooded into his mind. The registration location, the ID card used, their current IP address, their username, current password and past passwords...It even contained information like their online status, previous posts, browser history, login times, and the contents of all their private messages, including the ones that had already been deleted...
It was worth mentioning that all of this information was real, and it had nothing to do with whether it was recorded on the website's server. Huang Ji could read their posts regardless of if they had been deleted or not. As long as it was posted or viewed by this account named, 'Nami the Whale', Huang Ji would be able to find this information in the data; information that not even the company of the website had! It was to the extent where Huang Ji even knew that this person was currently sitting in an internet cafe called 'Star Diamond Internet Cafe' in Jinmen... He was sitting at computer #112, and he only had 15 yuan left in his balance.
In fact, this person called "Nami the Whale" hadn't even registered this account with his real ID; he had used a random person's ID he'd found online. When Huang Ji was perceiving his true identity, he discovered that their ID used for registration didn't match the "True account holder" at all.
"Does the data I'm perceiving exist in some unseen form...could it be information contained within the universe itself? It doesn't need any physical medium that exists in reality to store it... I can find his true identity despite the fact that he'd hadn't even registered with it... If I was a security specialist, all of the world's hackers could say goodbye to the free world..."
By observing Zheng Xuan, Huang Ji had gained an understanding of a hacker's work; or at the very least his. He had once hacked into the personal computer of the CEO of a stock brokerage firm on Wall Street, obtaining evidence of financial fraud. With just one line, "I'm friends with the FBI", Zheng Xuan easily extorted one million US dollars.
This was where the money in his American JP Morgan bank account came from. However, it also depended on the circumstances. The reason this supposed Wall Street tycoon had chosen to settle things with money was because he wasn't clean. He was too afraid to go after the hacker who'd blackmailed him and simply ran an investigation for appearances.
For him, it was just a million dollars. If the FBI had gotten of the evidence and taken him to court, the lawyer fees alone would have exceeded one million. Even worse, if he had been found guilty, the fine would have been fifty times that, and he'd have gone to prison. What Huang Ji got from this was; with enough skill, making money was truly a trivial matter.
Zheng Xuan obviously didn't withdraw all of the money. The interest alone was enough to support his seemingly normal life in Shanghai. This was all built upon his considerable skill. Without the necessary skill, even a sheep would turn into a vicious wolf.
In Huang Ji's first interaction with the internet, with just a glance of their username, he was able to obtain the person's real identity, and even where they were accessing the internet from... By way of any of a person's online accounts, he could know where they were accessing the internet from; and even if they weren't online, he could know where they'd last logged in... This probably wasn't limited to normal accounts, even the anonymous marks left behind by hackers were most likely included...
At the very least, even if the hacker didn't leave anything behind, as long as they used the internet to send a message, or even a single character... If it was seen by Huang Ji, he could find who had sent that message...
He realized that he was, without any doubt, the bane of all hackers. Online anonymity? Data masking? Removing traces? Zombies and botnets? They were all meaningless.
......
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1. Basically unlicensed restaurants that serve homecooking↩
2. The biggest, and only national bookstore chain in China↩
3. The Google of China↩
4. The Reddit of China, owned by the Google of China↩
5. Nami, a character from the anime One Piece. A whale, someone who solves their problems(gacha rates) with money.↩
Thanks for the chapter!
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I'm so unfazed by this amount of nationalism after reading some other Chinese novels that didn't realize it was prevalent enough for someone to have a problem w/it... Some novels are insane with it@.@
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I laughed when Huang Ji up and left the second Zheng Xuan left him alone haha. Wonder if Zheng Xuan is going to get in trouble with Fan Lingli for leaving him unattended (if she finds out).
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Anons tremble in the presence of Huang Ji lol
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