Huge Bonus

The second day after returning to Boston.

Huang Xiuyuan brought a large pile of chemical reagents and swaggered into the chemistry laboratory building, where he casually conducted some experiments in a makeshift lab.

While performing the experiments, he would stop from time to time to search for news online and think about his upcoming arrangements.

Because he was in the United States, many things were inconvenient, and he had to return to his home country as soon as possible.

However, there were still many opportunities abroad; by seizing these, he could rapidly complete his initial capital accumulation, shorten the time needed for his rise, and save at least 5 to 10 years.

Given the situation of Huang Xiuyuan's family, they could provide at most 500,000 to 1 million in startup capital, and if a portion were set aside to treat his grandmother, it might be even less.

Therefore, he had to be self-reliant; buying Powerball tickets was the first plan, but it was not the only option.

After a morning of experiments and lunch at the school cafeteria, he returned to his dormitory.

At 1:30 PM, the alarm on his phone rang.

The effect of the brain inhibitor had worn off, so he took a dose from the refrigerator, injected it into his body, cleaned up the supplies, and set the alarm again to remind himself of the next injection.

On his laptop, he had secretly captured over two hundred bots; these bots were not only located within the United States but also in Europe and Asia.

Now, Huang Xiuyuan was attempting to hack into servers. His target was very clear: he specifically looked for companies that were not internet companies but whose core business was closely related to the internet.

For example, the company from which he purchased his chemical reagents; these companies had internet operations but were not proficient in the internet themselves.

Servers for this type of company were often easier to hack.

During the Fuxi Project, due to the semi-closed management, Huang Xiuyuan often learned about the outside world through the network and had also collaborated with the Honker Union on multiple occasions. Combined with some of the abilities of a Hyperthymestic, his hacking skills were among the top tier.

Although the internet of 2008 was somewhat different from that of several decades later, much of the knowledge was inherited.

Using a dozen small programs and viruses he had written himself, along with those bots, he captured four company servers over the course of the afternoon.

Unlike other hackers, after invading, Huang Xiuyuan would, in addition to collecting useful information, fix the other party's system vulnerabilities to prevent them from being hacked by others.

Generally speaking, many companies were quite passive in managing their servers, meaning they would only react once a hacker had already broken in.

Huang Xiuyuan's model, however, was symbiosis.

Hidden within the server systems were the firewalls and antivirus programs he had set up, as well as small programs that borrowed the server's computing power.

By the 26th, the number of bots and servers he had secretly mastered had formed a considerable scale, enough that he could even concentrate them to launch an attack on the internet of a small country.

At 10:00 PM that night, he took out that Powerball ticket and turned on the live television broadcast on his laptop; this was the time for the live drawing of this Powerball period.

The white balls began to roll, and soon the first white ball popped out: 21.

Immediately following were 09... 42... 02... 33; all five white balls were confirmed.

The red ball on the other machine began to roll.

12!

The number on the red ball was indeed 12.

Among the ticket numbers in Huang Xiuyuan's hand, the third set was: 02-09-21-33-42-12.

All six numbers matched, meaning he had won the grand prize for this Powerball period, taking home a massive prize of 230 million USD.

His heart, which had been hanging in the air, suddenly relaxed.

The television broadcast had not yet ended, and it displayed the number of winners; the grand prize count showed that two people had won.

That meant two people would split the 230 million, but the matter was not over yet, because this money was pre-tax income and required a 25% federal tax deduction.

The ticket was purchased in Connecticut, so according to the state's laws, he had to pay a 6% state tax and a 6.7% personal income tax.

In total, 37.7% in taxes had to be paid; 2.3 divided by 2 equals 1.15, and multiplying that by 62.3%, the final amount he could take home was approximately 71.64 million.

He put the ticket in his wallet, preparing to claim the prize tomorrow.

After calming down, Huang Xiuyuan continued to fiddle with his laptop; he did not seem overly excited about the 70-plus million in prize money.

Because this was a one-off deal, the butterfly effect would make the subsequent winning numbers unrecognizable, and the possibility of continuing to rely on buying lottery tickets to get rich was very small.

Huang Xiuyuan's idea was very simple: make a haul and run.

A night passed, and after several days of snowfall, the sun finally appeared today.

After picking up the rented car, he headed straight for Hartford. Nearly two hours later, wearing a thick down jacket, he stepped into that lottery store.

A few minutes later, the lottery store clerk exclaimed, "Oh my god! Brother, you've struck it rich! Congratulations on winning the grand prize!"

Several intern reporters who had come to try their luck also suddenly had eyes that lit up.

"Sir, I am David from the Daily Mail. Would it be convenient for an interview?"

"Hello! Sir..."

Huang Xiuyuan quickly spoke up, "I would be very happy to accept an interview, but let me get the prize money first, okay?"

"Hahaha, no problem."

"OK."

Several reporters picked up their cameras and snapped a few photos in succession, or opened their laptops to send emails to their headquarters, or made hurried phone calls.

Meanwhile, Huang Xiuyuan and the clerk, Carter, were processing the prize-claiming procedures. Carter reminded him, "Bruce, do you want to take it as a lump sum or in installments? A lump sum will have a lot of tax deducted; installments can reduce some of the tax."

"Thanks for the reminder, but I'll still choose to take the full lump sum." Huang Xiuyuan smiled on the surface, but inwardly, he was grumbling to himself.

If he actually believed the guy's nonsense, he would be a real fool; the US dollar was constantly depreciating, and taking installments was just sitting around waiting for the value to drop.

"Alright then!" Carter looked regretful, but his hands moved quickly, and he soon transferred 71.85 million into Huang Xiuyuan's personal account.

The prize money was a bit more than expected, as the 230 million figure was just an estimate, with some of the trailing digits omitted.

Seeing that Huang Xiuyuan had already claimed his prize, three intern reporters crowded around him. He didn't resist much, because things regarding lottery wins were different in the US compared to back home.

Besides, he needed these media outlets to give himself some exposure and reduce unnecessary trouble.

After each reporter asked two or three questions, Huang Xiuyuan drove back to Boston.

What followed was a wave of media hype; both online and offline, lottery players were filled with envy, jealousy, and hatred.

Upon returning to Harvard University, Huang Xiuyuan applied for graduation, then used the internet to find a few professional agencies to set up offshore accounts and offshore companies in Xiangjiang, the Isle of Man, the Cayman Islands, and Bermuda.

Once these matters were settled, he found Lu Xuedong, who was busy conducting an experiment.

"Xuedong, I've come to fulfill my promise."

Lu Xuedong scratched the back of his head, looking a bit suspicious: "Xiuyuan, you didn't ask your family for money, did you?"

"Take a look at this." He handed over a copy of the Boston Evening News.

Completely bewildered, Lu Xuedong flipped through the newspaper, then suddenly widened his eyes. He hurriedly rubbed them, asking incoherently: "You won the lottery?"

"Just luck." Huang Xiuyuan shrugged, then patted the other man on the shoulder, joking half-seriously: "You're going to be working for me for the next ten years."

Having come to his senses, Lu Xuedong revealed a rare smile: "No problem, Boss Huang."