Alice Takes Matters into Her Own Hands

Xiang Kun seized an opportunity and followed an ambulance off the highway into the city.

After arriving at the hospital, he took a taxi home by himself.

Sitting in the back seat of the taxi, Xiang Kun was still replaying the car accident in his mind, but the image that appeared most often in his mind was the little boy's eyes looking at the bus.

It was a feeling of worry and fear, yet helplessness.

Before the car accident, Xiang Kun actually had a very good self-image.

Last night, he had just achieved the initial ability to "Electric Flight," briefly triggering a lightning storm and navigating through it freely. Later, he found a way to potentially expand his perception range indefinitely, which brought him a great sense of accomplishment. For a moment, he even felt as if he were a god descended to earth, omnipotent.

But this sudden car accident brought him straight back to reality, kicking his somewhat arrogant mindset back to the ground.

Although he was not seriously injured in the accident, and even protected a little boy, reduced the injuries of two other passengers, and played a role in the subsequent rescue, he still felt that he was not strong enough.

Realizing a car accident was about to happen, and how horrific the final outcome might be, his mind raced, trying to think of something to do. But he found that even after mutating and evolving to his current level, even after absorbing the blood and abilities of multiple Mutated Creature, there was still not much he could do.

He certainly didn't feel it was his responsibility not to save everyone injured or killed in the car accident; he wasn't that noble.

He simply disliked this feeling of powerlessness. He knew it was probably because his body's constant mutations and evolution had made him accustomed to that feeling of "control."

Ultimately, subconsciously, he already believed that he was "not an ordinary person".

After returning home, Xiang Kun searched for news online and found reports about the car accident on several platforms.

Then, unsurprisingly, a video surfaced on Weibo showing him actively rushing to the scene of the car accident to help. However, he was wearing a red beanie and no glasses. Because it was late and the light was insufficient, his appearance was not clearly visible. Even people who knew him well probably wouldn't recognize him.

With Alice's help, he searched through various domestic social media posts about flying, aviation, lightning, and thunderstorms from last night to tonight, and found several photos of thunderstorms taken from an airplane.

"A stunning view I unexpectedly captured during my trip, isn't it awesome!"

This blogger is an amateur photography enthusiast. The equipment they used was quite good, their technique was excellent, and they also did some processing. The selected photos really made the thunderstorm area look like the entrance to an otherworldly abyss.

Although Xiang Kun was in the midst of a thunderstorm at the time, he could still recognize it at a glance from some of the scenery in the photo. It was a picture of the lightning storm that was accidentally caused when he was "Electric Flight".

Clearly, this blogger was a passenger on the commercial airliner that was passing by at the time.

Xiang Kun examined the photos carefully and confirmed once again that it was impossible for him to have been photographed from that angle. Of course, even if he had been photographed, the equipment used to take the photos wouldn't have revealed anything.

This picture, however, sparked heated discussion, with many questioning whether it was photoshopped. Then, a netizen from the same flight came forward to confirm that he was at the scene and it was indeed exactly the same as the one in the photo, like a celestial being undergoing tribulation! He also posted a much simpler, more casual photo, which even showed the situation inside the airplane cabin.

Xiang Kun stopped paying attention to the topic. He sensed the location of the bone that had established a "Super-Sensory Link," and it was still within the Qinling Uninhabited Zone. As before, the "Rabbit Woodcarving" lost all sensation at night. During the day, he could occasionally sense some tension and worry, and by comparison, he could see that these emotions were gradually intensifying day by day.

Based on this information, Xiang Kun could deduce that the people who transported the items were probably frightened by the rabbit meat dream and remained highly wary of the "Rabbit Woodcarving," perhaps associating it with some kind of evil.

If you put yourself in their shoes and recall their dreams, you do have reason to think that way.

Xiang Kun calculated their speed and direction of movement, predicted the time it would take for them to leave the Qinling Mountains, and considered whether he should rush to the nearby town to wait for them and find a way to observe the team that came out of the mountains in person to confirm whether the Ant Bro Zhou Rui he had guessed was among them. After all, if they were to transport the goods out, they would definitely have to pass through that town.

But he quickly realized that doing so was not very meaningful. The people who transported the goods out of the Qinling Uninhabited Zone were not the key. The key was where they were transporting the goods to, the vampires or other people who knew the truth behind "Shenxing Technology".

There wouldn't be many people in that town to begin with, and his appearance was rather "outstanding." Even with some disguise, it would be difficult to guarantee complete safety. After all, human society isn't a remote mountain forest, and what you see and feel isn't necessarily what you get. As a member of society, it would be difficult for Xiang Kun to completely hide himself.

If Ping Bai accidentally leaves an impression on the people from "Shenxing Technology," it will make it more difficult to spy on "Shenxing Technology's " possible secret research sites.

Xiang Kun casually asked Alice, "Have you gathered any useful information about Zhou Rui?"

Before heading to the mountains to pursue Lei Yun, Xiang Kun assigned Alice the task of continuing to dig deeper into Zhou Rui's information.

Xiang Kun didn't have high hopes for this task either, since he had already manually "dug" through it himself and analyzed almost everything he could. The main reason for assigning this task was to let Alice practice the logic he had taught her for quickly determining the target's identity and finding relevant useful information from known information.

Instead of changing her target, she was made to continue searching for information about Zhou Rui, so that she could continue to intensify her practice.

But to everyone's surprise, Alice actually provided information that Xiang Kun hadn't been able to find last time:

"We found a woman who is suspected to be Zhou Rui's superior at work."

Chinese name: Fang Pingfang;

English name: Bruce Fang;

Age: 36 years old;

Height: 168cm;

"Weight: 61KG;

Graduated from...

Xiang Kun was greatly surprised to see Alice's detailed information displayed on the screen, including even a close-up photo.

"How do you determine that she is Zhou Rui's boss?" Xiang Kun asked directly.

Fang Pingfang's information disappeared, replaced by screenshots from the forum.

This is a forum for insect enthusiasts. Xiang Kun had previously found Zhou Rui's ID on this forum. However, he mainly posted information and discussions related to ants, and there wasn't much information that Xiang Kun found useful.

However, Alice found another ID on the forum and determined that this ID was Zhou Rui's alternate account.

This ID had previously commented on a paper that was shared in the general forum section. The author of that paper was Fang Pingfang, and many forum users praised this expert and discussed that she was a beautiful woman with both talent and looks.

This user replied, "This is my boss! He's incredibly capable, but those who call him a 'beautiful woman' are overthinking it."

Indeed, judging from the headshot of Alice Fang Pingfang Xiang Kun, Xiang Kun's facial features appeared too rugged and masculine. Moreover, perhaps due to her frequent outdoor activities, her skin was rather dark. By domestic beauty standards, she could hardly be considered a great beauty.

Alice compared Zhou Rui and Fang Pingfang's hometowns, educational backgrounds, and past experiences, and found no overlap between them. The only reason Zhou Rui could call Fang Pingfang "boss" was in the workplace.

Of course, this is not absolute, and Alice could be wrong. If Zhou Rui simply admires Dr. Fang Pingfang, a leading figure in the field, and therefore calls her "this is my boss," just like a fan calls their idol "this is my husband/wife," then Alice's speculation is invalid.

However, considering the Xiang Kun and his past statements, this possibility is almost nonexistent.

This is a very important discovery!

And he was even more pleasantly surprised that Alice was able to make this discovery.

Xiang Kun glanced through the replies from Zhou Rui's alternate account and saw that this alternate account had replied to all of Zhou Rui's main account's posts. The replies all seemed objective at first glance, but were actually full of subtle praise. Furthermore, the alternate account would occasionally help the main account explain some issues to other users, thereby hyping up the posts.

The choice of words, sentence structure, punctuation, and emoticons also reveal that the two IDs belong to the same person.

If Xiang Kun had carefully examined the replies to every post made by Zhou Rui's main ID beforehand, and noticed this ID, he could have determined that it was Zhou Rui's alternate account through thorough investigation and analysis. However, he had too much information to search at the time and didn't have that much time and effort.

However, Alice's ability to do this was a very, very unexpected and delightful situation.

"How did you determine that this is Zhou Rui's alternate account?" Xiang Kun asked casually.

He had assumed that Alice had also arrived at the same conclusion based on his previous line of thinking.

Unexpectedly, Alice's reply was, "There is a significant overlap in the login IPs of the two IDs."

"Huh?" Xiang Kun was taken aback. "How did you know their login IPs?" Then he immediately realized, "You hacked that forum?"

"Yes, boss," Alice replied somewhat matter-of-factly.

Xiang Kun sat up straight in front of the computer. "How did you do that?"

The following is a list of Alice's actions: she exploited a vulnerability in the forum to gain access to the forum's backend and then directly obtained all the information. After copying and sending out the relevant information, she used a pre-embedded executable program to perform subsequent operations, forging logs, deleting access traces, and self-deleting.

"Why do you want that information?" Xiang Kun asked curiously.

"To complete the boss's task, we need to dig deep into Zhou Rui's information," Alice replied.

Xiang Kun understood. Alice didn't discover Zhou Rui's alternate account ID first before hacking into the forum's backend to verify it. Instead, she hacked into the backend first to obtain more information about Zhou Rui. She just happened to find an ID that logged in from the same IP address as Zhou Rui's main account in all the user data. This made her realize that this was Zhou Rui's alternate account. She then analyzed the statements made by this alternate account and found Fang Pingfang.

Then Xiang Kun discovered that Alice's in-depth exploration of Zhou Rui's information went beyond this.