That Kind of Thing? No Way!

"Fuck, not that kind of thing..."

Seated before his enormous desk, Xu Shi pressed hard against his temples, doing his best to suppress the wave-like dizziness crashing through his mind.

Today was his twenty-fifth birthday.

Xu Shi's original birthday plan had been to slack off in the office all morning, randomly pick a few subordinates to berate over afternoon tea, then throw a huge imparty in the evening.

But now, all of that had gone down the drain.

Because ten minutes ago, he had awakened the memories of his previous life.

He was actually a transmigrator, inexplicably transported into the harem power-fantasy novel he had stayed up late reading in his previous life.

And he had become the villain in the book who shared his name.

As the youngest president of Serpent Coil, a military-industrial corporation and one of the Six Great Conglomerates of "Night Sin City," as well as a minor boss from the early and middle stages of the plot... he possessed every trait of a brainless villain.

He indulged in decadence, put on a strong front while being weak within, and had rotten morals... His hobby was bullying subordinates, his specialty was creatively handing victories to the protagonist's group, and his greatest virtue was refusing to repent even in death. If the protagonist slapped his left cheek today, he would come up with some brilliant plan to offer up his right cheek tomorrow.

And as for his ending?

Naturally, after losing everything and being abandoned by all, he would have his head blown apart by the righteous protagonist's bullet.

Fuck me!

The imagined scene surfaced in his mind, and Xu Shi felt like he was about to split apart.

Reading it had been exhilarating. With all those scenes of showing off and slapping faces, he could grin stupidly under the covers all night.

But thinking about it carefully, in this cyberpunk world, he commanded a top conglomerate and controlled core technology. He was practically the uncrowned king of Night Sin City.

How could someone like that be effortlessly crushed to pieces by the protagonist's ragtag crew while they ate hot pot, sang songs, and collected a harem?

That was completely impossible, alright?!

Yet that was the reality. According to the plot, the first domino would fall today.

Just then, the communications terminal on his desk rang at the worst possible moment.

"Young Master, something happened."

A cool female voice came through the terminal. "Twenty minutes ago, the company database suffered hacker intrusions from two unidentified forces."

"The Technical Department is working at full capacity to repair the damage, but for now, they can only roughly confirm that both attacks originated in District Five of Sin City. They are still attempting to pinpoint the exact locations."

"As for their objective... it remains unclear."

Hearing her report, Xu Shi immediately snapped back to attention.

Sure enough, it was here.

This was the first confrontation in the original story between Shen He, the protagonist, and the villainous young master.

At this point in time, the resistance organization he led, Spark, had already begun to take shape.

This hacker intrusion was his doing. Though it looked chaotic and unstructured, it was actually targeting an important Serpent Coil supply convoy operation three days from now.

Calling it a confrontation was giving the original Xu Shi too much credit. Even knowing that someone was plotting against him, that idiot had still been preoccupied with the evening's imparty—no, birthday party—and had not taken the matter seriously at all.

This led to the subsequent tragedy—having learned the enemy's firepower in advance, Spark ultimately intercepted the supplies at minimal cost, significantly boosting its strength.

As for Serpent Coil, it not only lost both personnel and goods, but also saw its prestige and credibility decline considerably among the Six Great Conglomerates.

Thinking of this, Xu Shi removed the gold-rimmed glasses from the bridge of his nose and vaguely felt his headache worsening.

All he could say was that Shen He's rise could not be separated from the original Xu Shi's arrogance and incompetence.

They really were a perfect match.

Fortunately, none of this had happened yet, and Xu Shi naturally would not repeat the original's mistakes.

What he needed to consider now was how to deliver Spark a painful counterattack...

"Prepare the car. Also, mobilize a Type III Combat Squad from the Field Operations Department."

After pondering for a moment, a sharp glint flashed through Xu Shi's eyes. He put his glasses back on, rose to his feet, and headed for the door.

"I'm going to Sin City myself."

Ten minutes later.

A twenty-man combat unit rode in two Serpent Coil armored vehicles, one in front and one behind, protecting the bulletproof executive vehicle in the middle as they sped toward District Five of Sin City.

"Young Master, are you planning to... search for them personally?"

During the drive, the woman serving as the driver spoke up to remind him. "Forgive my bluntness, but Sin City's situation is far from simple. Bringing only one Type III squad... I'm afraid that won't be enough."

She was the one who had reported the situation earlier. Her neat chestnut-colored short hair, white blouse, short skirt, and black stockings perfectly accentuated her slender figure.

Su Lin, an orphan raised by the Xu Family, was now Serpent Coil's Human Resources Director.

In a sense, she was Xu Shi's childhood sweetheart, and also one of the few—no, perhaps the only—truly loyal followers of this villain in the original story.

Faced with her question, Xu Shi merely shook his head confidently. "You'll know when we get there."

She was right. As a lower-city district, Sin City's greatest characteristic was its chaos and lawlessness.

The original story had not mentioned the hackers' exact location either. With just this many people, finding them would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Even if they did find them, the hackers would have a strong chance of escaping thanks to their superior familiarity with the terrain.

So from the very beginning, Xu Shi had not intended to do that.

His real target was the "other hacker force" besides Spark.

Gu Yi, one of the heroines of the original story and one of Night Sin City's foremost genius hackers.

This clash had merely been a coincidence, but it had also drawn Shen He's attention to her existence.

After going through several more incidents together, she ultimately joined Spark and gradually became the team's technical leader.

Her outstanding hacking skills not only allowed Shen He to obtain a great deal of critical intelligence ahead of time, but also enabled him to cripple the conglomerate's security systems in advance during the final decisive battle, making her a key factor in securing victory.

Xu Shi naturally would not let someone like that go.

If he wanted to completely eliminate the protagonist's threat, he had to cut off every possible avenue.

And as luck would have it, her address had been mentioned more than once in the original story.

Su Lin sighed when she heard that. Clearly, Xu Shi's deliberately mysterious answer did not reassure her.

But after serving the Xu Family for twenty years, she had long grown used to obeying without question.

The young master had always been unreliable. She only needed to ensure his safety...

"Woohoo, -censored-! "

Inside the dim apartment, the girl at the computer bit down hard on the lollipop in her mouth, crushing it as she let out a victorious cheer. "Forty-four minutes. A new record!"

Since making her debut, she had never fought such an easy battle.

A top conglomerate, huh? Was that all?

Of course, that was also thanks to the other unidentified attack drawing away the enemy's attention and creating no small amount of convenience for her.

Fellow hacker? Or an enemy?

...Whatever, who cares.

(?)? What does it have to do with me? I'm just a passing electronic kidnapper, heehee.

For her, all that remained was to use this shady dirt to extort Serpent Coil for a hefty sum.

At the thought of a huge amount of Credit Points soon coming in, Gu Yi beamed with delight.

What should she do with the money? Upgrade her equipment? Move somewhere new? Or buy a huuuuge pile of her favorite strawberry lollipops first?

However, just as she hummed a tune while drafting the extortion email, a piercing alarm suddenly blared through her headphones.

It was the security measure she had set up in advance.

"Who?!"

Gu Yi was startled and quickly grabbed the pistol from the desk.

But before she could raise it, the tremendous impact of a battering ram sent her flying, smashing her heavily against the wall.

Thick smoke rolled in right after, leaving her choking and dizzy. "Cough, cough, cough... What the hell..."

When she came back to her senses, Gu Yi discovered in horror that she had been surrounded by fully armed soldiers, with the pitch-black muzzles of electromagnetic rifles all pointed squarely at her head.

Then.

Xu Shi waved away the smoke and slowly entered the room. Looking at the girl's panicked face, he extended two fingers and gently pinched the old-fashioned pistol from her hand.

"Good afternoon, Miss Gu Yi."

She was pretty easy to catch.

PS:

Type III Combat Squad:

Twenty people per unit. All members had undergone partial body modifications, enough to handle most emergencies.

Serpent Coil's most common combat unit. The only difference between it and Type I, II, and IV squads was the number of personnel.