Volume 1, Chapter 42: Fang Mo's Other Identity

Although Ning Yuelan was teasing Fang Mo with flirtatious remarks, she was probably still feeling unwell due to her period.

Coupled with the fact that Fang Mo had been bustling about earlier, cleaning the sheets and bedspreads while she was out of the room, the woman was genuinely exhausted.

By the time Fang Mo finished boiling another kettle of hot water, intending to let her soak her feet and relax, Ning Yuelan had already drifted into a deep sleep.

Seeing this, Fang Mo clicked his tongue.

Staring at her glowing, sleeping face, his heart skipped an uncontrollable beat.

Sister Yuelan is truly so breathtakingly gorgeous!

Even with a slightly haggard complexion, it still failed to conceal her peerless elegance.

Noticing that Ning Yuelan was still wearing thin, cool silk stockings, Fang Mo hesitated for a moment before gently reaching out to peel the over-the-knee stockings off her legs and tossing them aside.

"Hiss!"

The feel of her silk-clad legs was exceptionally smooth, and Fang Mo inevitably found his thoughts wandering.

Priding himself on having extraordinary self-control, he was nevertheless sweating profusely from sheer tension, terrified that a too-sudden movement might startle the woman awake.

Fortunately, listening to the steady sound of breathing beside him, Fang Mo let out a sigh of relief.

"A woman having her period is mostly caused by uterine cold leading to abdominal pain. I still need to let Sister Yuelan soak her feet to warm up her body."

With that thought, Fang Mo gently placed those two fair, straight jade legs into the foot basin.

Ning Yuelan's little feet were warm yet cool to the touch, feeling just like fine, uncarved jade.

For a moment, Fang Mo found them hard to put down and almost gave in to the urge to stroke them.

The very next second, however, he gave himself a slap on the cheek.

"What the hell am I thinking? Damn it, I really don't want Sister Yuelan to take me for some kind of pervert..."

The next moment, after settling those well-proportioned little feet into the basin of water, Fang Mo slumped down to sit on the floor, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

"Sharing a room with an absolute beauty like Sister Yuelan is truly a form of torture."

Memories of their three kisses during the day flashed through his mind, giving Fang Mo the surreal feeling of being in a dream.

His gaze unconsciously drifted toward Ning Yuelan's full, alluring lips.

Ruddy and smooth, soft and sweet.

Skin that seemed to break at the touch, delicate facial features—the dream of twenty million men across Jiangcheng turned out to be my wife, Fang Mo's wife...

"It really is somewhat unbelievable."

Just then, Fang Mo's phone suddenly rang. He pulled it out, but the screen was completely dark!

Yet the buzzing sound was coming from right on his person...

Fang Mo slapped the back of his head hard, as if remembering something, and dug out a second cell phone from a concealed pocket inside his jacket.

Sure enough, it was this phone that was vibrating.

"Strange, why are they calling me?"

Probably even Ning Yuelan, who had been quietly keeping tabs on Fang Mo's life, never expected her little husband to possess a second phone.

The next moment, Fang Mo tiptoed out of the bedroom, cast a cautious glance around to ensure there were no surveillance cameras nearby, and finally answered.

"Hello? Didn't I say not to contact me casually under normal circumstances? What happened?"

"Boss, that message you posted in the organization's chat last time—did you really say you're getting married?"

Fang Mo shrugged. The usual reticence on his face vanished, replaced by a profound depth.

He intentionally lowered his voice. "Yeah, I'm leaving the organization's affairs to you guys from now on. I plan to retire; after all, that kind of lifestyle isn't really suited for me anymore."

"Especially having to drag me out of bed in the middle of the night just to save China over and over. I'm no deity, and I have no obligation to keep maintaining the security of the virtual world forever."

Hearing this, the other end of the line fell silent for a moment.

Had Ning Yuelan witnessed Fang Mo's expression at that moment, she would have been utterly astounded!

In her wildest dreams, she could never have imagined that Fang Mo was hiding yet another identity from her.

That's right, Fang Mo had a second identity.

On the dark web, his codename was... 'Zheng'.

This codename was practically regarded as a god of China's virtual world, an absolute legend of a generation.

Whether foreign forces attempted to hack into the Bank of China to steal lists of wealthy VIP clients, or fraud syndicates tried to rake in fortunes in China by exploiting information gaps, these scoundrels would invariably be easily unmasked in the real world by 'Zheng' the moment their tracks were exposed.

Relying on his formidable hacking skills, 'Zheng' had saved China in the virtual world more times than could be counted. It was precisely the existence of this unshakable pillar known as 'Zheng' that struck terror into the hearts of foreign hacker syndicates, deterring them from harboring any schemes against transactions in China's virtual world.

"Boss, we've got a crisis!"

"You have to help us, because this time it concerns not only the stability of China's foreign exchange, but also the fortunes of hundreds of thousands of wealthy families."

What on earth?

Fang Mo blinked, startled. This was the first time he had ever heard his subordinates report for duty in such a grave tone.

"What happened?"

The voice on the other end was bitter.

"During a transaction at the Bank of China, foreign hackers targeted our system. Using transaction source code and some unknown method, they actually managed to breach the firewall of the Bank of China and steal digital currency data."

"In just a few short minutes, the Bank of China suffered losses in the hundreds of billions. What's more, these guys were extremely cautious; they used overseas underground banks to launder the money, converting the digital currency into foreign exchange spread across thousands of bank accounts. With our current technology, it's completely impossible to trace."

"If you don't step in, tomorrow we might see top-tier Chinese billionaires going bankrupt one after another, and the Chinese Yuan will experience a catastrophic devaluation."

"Boss, this is a genuine bloodbath. The joint official letter from the Five Great Families of Beijing has already been sent to your inbox—didn't you see it?"

Hiss!

Hearing this, Fang Mo couldn't help but draw a sharp intake of breath.

The situation was this massive this time?

The firewall of the Bank of China had actually been cracked?

"How is that possible? The firewall program for the Bank of China was written by me! It gets updated and upgraded every single year. How on earth do you guys maintain it? How could it possibly be breached?"

Fang Mo asked his biggest question with a furrowed brow.

"That foreign faction used a disguised account to masquerade as a major exchange VIP client in the Bank of China's transaction column. The bank's counter clerk had no idea it was a phishing account."

"After reconciling the ledger, the opposing party used that single transaction record to crack our source code."

Fang Mo slapped his forehead. He had completely forgotten about the possibility of forged accounts.

The program he had painstakingly designed actually contained such a colossal loophole.

Thinking about it this way, it really was Fang Mo's own oversight. In other words, the opposing syndicate wasn't necessarily overwhelmingly superior in raw hacking skill.

They were, however... undeniably shrewd.

Fang Mo took a sharp breath.

"Send me that transaction account first..."

"Never mind, just text it to my phone."

Halfway through his sentence, Fang Mo remembered why he hadn't seen the joint letter from the Five Great Families: his computer had been smashed to pieces by that foolish woman Lin Xihan. What was he supposed to use to view it?

"I'll see if I can find any clues to pinpoint their IP from the disorderly transaction logs."

"Understood, Boss. All of our people are currently in Jiangcheng—it's a very beautiful city. If you plan to join this operation, might we ask for the privilege of meeting you in person? After all, this might be our final mission."

Pfft!

Fang Mo almost spat out a mouthful of blood.

What the heck?

You're all in Jiangcheng?

That's right. Although Fang Mo was the head of the organization, in reality, these top-tier hacker elites hailing from all over the country had never actually met face-to-face.

The people calling him belonged to China's Ministry of Public Security—technically an independent technical unit.

They called themselves—the Dragon Squad.

Of course, the members of this organization certainly hadn't joined of their own free will.

Most of them had stumbled into restricted firewalls and supercomputers they had no business touching, only to have their IP addresses locked down upon discovery.

Fang Mo had exhibited extraordinary hacking talent by the age of fourteen. Being young and ignorant back then, out of sheer curiosity, he had casually hacked into one of China's supercomputers.

Although he successfully broke in, before the supercomputer could be completely overridden by Fang Mo's code, it managed to lock onto the young man's IP address.

That very day, over a dozen men dressed in black descended directly upon Fang Mo's home.

"Young man, were you planning to hack the supercomputer to launch nuclear missiles and trigger World War III?"

A high-ranking military official in a Zhongshan suit stared at him with a stern expression.

To be honest, Fang Mo's age at the time left virtually all the heavy hitters present utterly stunned.

A mere teenager had hacked a supercomputer?

It was enough to make countless computer geniuses at Tsinghua and Peking University blush with shame!

"Your actions have severely violated the law. You understand what kind of terrifying consequences could have resulted if your little curiosity had led to a misoperation, don't you?"

That day, a five-star general in a Zhongshan suit handed over a contract.

"Now you have only two choices before you: either join us to redeem yourself, guarding the undercurrents of China's digital world as a way to repay today's rash behavior until you reach adulthood, or... spend the rest of your life never touching a computer while sitting safely in a prison cell."

Do I fucking have a choice?

At the time, ten thousand metaphorical horses were stampeding through Fang Mo's mind.

And so, under the watchful eyes of several top-tier bigwigs from various sectors of China, a fourteen-year-old Fang Mo signed an employment contract laden with draconian clauses.

The Dragon Squad... was officially born.