Miss Hacker, You Don't Want to Turn into Fireworks, Do You?

"You lot..."

After a brief silence, Gu Yi put on a brave face and shouted, "I don't care who you are, breaking into a private residence is illegal!"

"Need me to find you a lawyer?"

Xu Shi sneered, using his pistol to lift her chin and force her face toward the ransom email on the screen. "And stealing other people's private information and blackmailing them is legal?"

"Ghk..."

Faced with evidence as solid as a mountain, Gu Yi lowered her head awkwardly.

There was nothing to argue about in the first place. Her stalling was meaningless... One look at the serpent-eating-its-tail emblem on their combat suits told her that Serpent Coil had come for her.

She'd been caught!

Before she could wallow in regret, Xu Shi leaned close to her ear and continued reading at an unhurried pace.

"Gu Yi, female, nineteen years old, codename 'Black Rabbit,' ranked fourth on the global hacker leaderboard, 'Invader-T.'

"Over the past four years, she has stolen internal information from nearly a hundred companies in Night Sin City, earning herself an S-class wanted listing from the Inspection Bureau..."

At those words, Miss Black Rabbit was completely dumbfounded.

Th-That was impossible!

As a wanted criminal, caution was a required course.

Not only did she regularly change residences, but she had never left any information online beyond her codename.

Otherwise, there was no way she could still be free to this day... Maybe she could go dance in front of the Inspection Bureau right now, and those idiots still wouldn't realize she was the person they were looking for.

So how the hell had she been exposed?

Were those damned conglomerates really that terrifyingly powerful?

Of course, Gu Yi could never have imagined that Xu Shi was the only one who knew these things, because they had been written in the original novel... But that did not stop her from feeling deeply disgusted by the man before her—a handsome man in a shirt and suit jacket, wearing gold-rimmed glasses—even amid her fear.

Her decision to become an electronic kidnapper had not been solely for money. More than that, she enjoyed the sense of accomplishment that came from toying with people.

After stealing their data, she would leave taunts like "trash fish," "garbage," and "waste," then watch her victims rage in torment while still having no choice but to obediently transfer the money... She could never get enough of scenes like that.

But this time, the tables had turned.

Not only had she fallen into the conglomerate's hands, they had stripped her bare down to her underwear.

For a hacker, how was that any different from taking a dump in the street?

A crushing sense of shame surged through her, and Gu Yi wanted to bite Xu Shi to death.

Still, it was strange. This guy was clearly quite handsome—at least, the best-looking man Gu Yi had seen in her nineteen years of life.

Yet there was an inescapable wickedness about him that made him unpleasant no matter how she looked at him.

What was that word again... A villain's face?

But Gu Yi had no mind to dwell on that. A moment later, she came back to herself and asked, "You captured me... because there's something you want me to do, right?"

"For example, find that other group of hackers?"

Shame aside, she had not lost her ability to think.

They did not seem to intend to hand her over to the Inspection Bureau. Though they had pressed a gun to her forehead, they had not pulled the trigger, nor did they seem to be planning any extrajudicial torture... It was highly unusual, completely unlike the usual style of those damned conglomerates.

But when she considered what had happened to Serpent Coil earlier, everything suddenly seemed explainable.

"Correct. Miss Gu is very smart."

Xu Shi snapped his fingers. "I need you to find their exact location. Can you do it?"

"...If I find them, will you let me go?"

Gu Yi pursed her lips and tested his attitude.

"If you can't find them, I definitely won't let you go."

Xu Shi pulled her up and forcibly pressed her into the chair. "Now is not the time to make demands. You're not qualified to do that... Tell me, how long do you need?"

Gu Yi paused, then let out a resigned sigh.

A defeated prey had no right to bargain. If she wanted to seize that precarious sliver of hope, the only way was to do exactly as they said.

"About... half an hour?"

After recalling the situation in her mind, Miss Black Rabbit hesitantly gave her estimate. "They're decrypting remotely in coordination, so they may not be gathered together... I need to find them one by one."

"Fine. You have half an hour."

Xu Shi nodded lightly, casually took the white ring from the waist of a nearby combat operative, fiddled with it for a moment, then snapped it around Gu Yi's neck without giving her any say in the matter.

"What is this?!"

The icy sensation spread from her neck, and Miss Black Rabbit's heart clenched.

"Red Ant, a multipurpose portable bomb developed by Serpent Coil."

Xu Shi smiled playfully and made a light little exploding gesture with his hand. "I set a countdown. If you haven't completed the mission by then, then... boom~"

"...You -civilized language-, you conglomerate dog -civilized language-!"

Gu Yi realized what he meant and could not help swearing. "How can you bully people like this?! If you've got the guts, just kill me..."

Just how awful was this guy?!

Xu Shi did not get angry. He merely placed a hand on her shoulder and looked down at her, his voice suddenly turning cold and sharp.

"Swearing counts toward the time too."

"..."

Miss Black Rabbit still gave in.

Less than two seconds after meeting Xu Shi's gaze, the suffocating pressure in his eyes shattered the last of her stubbornness.

She did not want to turn into fireworks... Gu Yi shivered involuntarily and trembled as she moved to the computer.

As for why they had been capable of finding her but still needed her to find someone else... she had no time to think about that.

She should figure out how to survive first...

The apartment fell silent again, leaving only the clattering of the keyboard.

The room soon became stiflingly hot, so Xu Shi waved the others away and sat on the bed nearby to act as her supervisor.

It had to be said that this Miss Hacker was quite cute. She truly deserved to be the heroine of the original novel.

It was just that her outfit was impossible to approve of—messy street-style clothes, pointless little accessories... Her hair had also been dyed a rebellious dark blue with cheap hair dye. She looked exactly like a delinquent girl.

Or perhaps calling her a bratty little girl would not be inaccurate?

After all, her figure was rather lacking. Even with her clothes soaked through with sweat and clinging to her body, there was not the slightest hint of a bust...

While he was mentally mocking her, Gu Yi reported a string of numbers.

"42., -71..."

"That was pretty fast."

Xu Shi clapped his hands lightly. "Su Lin!"

"Yes."

Su Lin answered, casually pointed with a finger, and said, "You five, come with me."

Before leaving, she did not forget to call over the combat captain who was staying behind. She lowered her voice and gave him an instruction.

"Protect the young master. If he comes back missing even a single hair, I'll take your life."

The chill in her tone made the combat captain shudder even through his tactical helmet.

"...Understood!"