Evening self-study at Haicheng University of Medicine.
In the Nursing Department's Third Class, Yang Chen whispered to Chu Tian, who was fiddling with his phone.
"Hey, classmate, help me fix my computer."
Chu Tian, eighteen years old and a university freshman, had chosen nursing for one simple reason: everyone said male nurses were in high demand, making it easier to land a job after graduation.
The reality matched the rumors. The country *was* short on male nurses. But Chu Tian never expected the gender imbalance to be this extreme.
Of the thirty one students in the Nursing Department's Third Class, only two were male: Chu Tian and a guy named Li Kang.
Maybe because most of his classmates struggled with technology, Chu Tian had earned a reputation as the "computer guru" after helping a classmate reinstall her operating system. Now, anytime someone had tech issues, they came to him.
Seeing Yang Rong's hopeful smile, Chu Tian sighed. "What's wrong this time?"
"I don't know," Yang Rong said, sliding her laptop toward him. "Weird pop-ups keep appearing, even after I close them. Look!"
Chu Tian glanced at the English-language pop-up and barely resisted facepalming. A virus. Of course.
'She must've disabled 361 Antivirus again.'
[Note: 361 Antivirus is a parody of 360 Safeguard, a popular free Chinese antivirus.]
He'd used Yang Rong's computer before and knew her habit. She'd close every program in the taskbar she didn't recognize, including the antivirus.
Sure enough, the 361 icon was missing from the corner of the screen. Chu Tian reopened it and said, "No big deal. Just a virus. We'll scan it."
"A virus?" Yang Rong paled. "Will deleting it break my computer?"
Chu Tian stared at her like she'd asked if water was wet. "Relax. It'll be fine."
He clicked Quick Scan. Within a minute, the antivirus flagged a trojan. With a few keystrokes, he removed it and handed the laptop back. "Done. Stop downloading sketchy stuff that's how you get viruses."
Yang Rong beamed as the pop-ups vanished. "That was so fast! It's awesome having a hacker genius as my classmate!"
Hacker genius?!
Chu Tian's eye twitched. At best, he was tech-savvy. How had she jumped to hacker?
But explaining the difference to someone who didn't even know how antivirus worked was hopeless.
Just as he reached for his phone, a flood of computer knowledge exploded in his mind code, algorithms, security protocols as if a hidden vault of expertise had unlocked.
In seconds, he went from novice to omniscient.
'What the?'
Stunned, he whipped his head toward Yang Rong, who blinked back at him, her smile blindingly white.
"Classmate," he said slowly, "did you… do something?"
"Huh?" She tilted her head. "Like what?"
He studied her for three long seconds before shaking his head. "Never mind."
The dismissal bell rang. Chu Tian shoved his phone in his pocket and bolted from the classroom.
---
9:20 PM
Back in his rented apartment near campus, Chu Tian lunged for his desktop.
Unlike most students, he'd been on his own since junior high, when his parents died in an accident. To support himself, he'd taken up ghostwriting for web novel authors.
The pay wasn't much $1.50 per thousand words but it covered his expenses. After evening classes, he'd write until 1 AM, churning out ten thousand words to earn about $15 a night.
The dorm's noise and strict curfew had driven him to rent this cheap, aging apartment. Silence was worth the cost.
---
Thirty minutes later, Chu Tian gaped at his screen.
In half an hour, he'd hacked into corporate servers, breached four major banks, and even slipped into state-secure databases.
'I could access anything with an internet connection.'
But how?
Why was he suddenly a god-tier hacker?
Chapter 2
Although Chu Tian was seen as a computer guru by his classmates, he knew his actual skill level. At most, he was slightly more tech-savvy than the average person. The title of "computer guru" was pure exaggeration.
Yet now...
"What the hell is this..."
Frowning at his screen, Chu Tian muttered, "Did I have some sort of enlightenment? Or did some hidden part of my brain suddenly unlock all this computer knowledge? How did I suddenly become this skilled?"
Unable to comprehend his sudden expertise, he opened his browser and navigated to the Hacker's Forum the largest domestic hacking community. While mostly populated by novices and lurkers, genuine hackers occasionally appeared to share knowledge. More importantly for Chu Tian, it was where people frequently posted paid requests.
As a three-year forum veteran, Chu Tian knew exactly where to find money-making opportunities. He clicked straight to the 'Request' section where dozens of posts appeared:
"Little Red Riding Hood : Looking for safe PUBG hacks to carry my girlfriend. Any experts make game cheats?"
"Motionless In The Bridal Room : Can anyone check my girlfriend's chat records? Think I'm being cheated on."
"Stepmom Sun : Need help finding my boyfriend's hotel records. Any experts available?"
After scanning the requests, an idea struck Chu Tian - he should create a hotel registry search tool. Nearly a quarter of the requests were for hotel records, indicating strong demand. Typically, such searches cost at least $15, but real hackers rarely bothered with such small jobs.
Decision made, Chu Tian minimized his browser and began coding furiously. By 11 PM, he'd finished. Returning to the forum, he created an untraceable account: "A Handsome Guy Who's Unwilling To Reveal His Identity." He posted his new software and, using his admin-level access (gained by hacking the forum backend), pinned the post for visibility.
"Fifty dollars per search is reasonable," Chu Tian muttered as he stretched. "Should get some takers." He headed to wash up, unaware of the commotion he'd started.
---
Meanwhile, in a spacious Yunnan apartment, a bespectacled man lounged on his couch watching TV when his phone alerted him. Frowning at the notification, he hurried to his high-end computer setup - three specialized machines arranged in a semicircle.
Logging into the Hacker's Forum, he found the pinned post: "A Handsome Guy Who's Unwilling To Reveal His Identity: Sharing hotel registry search software. $50 per check."
"Well well," the man chuckled, pushing up his glasses. "Someone actually hacked our backend. Impressive." His amusement faded when attempts to unpin or delete the post failed. "I can't remove it?"
Thirty minutes of furious hacking yielded no results. Every tracking attempt led to dead ends at overseas servers. Even testing the software himself (which generated payment QR codes) revealed nothing - the money vanished untraceably.
"Damn it!" he finally exclaimed. "Who is this guy?" For the first time in years, the forum admin felt outmatched. Refusing to concede, he adjusted his glasses and resumed typing with renewed determination.