Marvel?

While Mo Fei was thinking, dozens of computer users experienced data loss. Sent emails, instant messaging conversations, file transfers, and more had vanished. Some of the content was especially sensitive, even illegal, leaving the senders terrified.

They had no idea whether the recipients had received the messages. Those with nothing to hide simply resent them after getting no reply for half a day, while those with guilty consciences were consumed by anxiety.

Paul sent two messages in a row to his online girlfriend, Alice, but they vanished without a trace. He was utterly dejected, frantically hammering at the keyboard and sending Alice a flood of aggrieved messages, leaving Alice completely bewildered.

"Paul, what's wrong with you? You didn't reply to me for so long, and when you finally did, it was nothing but complaints. Did you send those by mistake? Were they meant for some other woman?" Alice's words left Paul stunned.

"Of course not! You're the only one in my heart. But I sent you two messages earlier, and you never replied. My heart was breaking! Crying o(╥﹏╥)o!" Paul hurriedly replied.

"What? Why didn't I receive them?" Alice asked in confusion. Then she took a screenshot of their chat history and sent it over. Paul stared at it dumbfounded before taking a screenshot of his own chat window and sending it to Alice. Alice looked it over. "All right, darling. It was probably a network issue, so don't be sad. But I still don't want to meet you yet. It's too soon!"

While the two of them went back and forth, Mo Fei made a decision. He would first find a computer and use it as a platform to see what he could do to it, or perhaps learn through it. He also needed to investigate other things. He still had no clue whether he remained in his original world or had traveled to another one. That was something he had to figure out.

Mo Fei considered the dozens of data streams he had absorbed. Some were rather dangerous; they might have powerful firewalls or antivirus software. Mo Fei was quite afraid of that. After all, he was most likely just a set of data now, and firewalls and antivirus programs might well be his natural enemy. So he needed to find an ordinary person whose computer would not have an overly advanced defense system.

With that in mind, Mo Fei ultimately chose Paul. Just from the messages this guy sent, he could tell Paul was a shut-in, with loser vibes practically overflowing from him. Paul should be much safer. Mo Fei remembered the route and headed straight back. Just then, another streak of light came crashing toward him. After absorbing it, he found that his path had been correct. Is my memory really this good? Or have all these locations already been recorded by me?

It was strange—very strange. Why did he clearly know the exact location, yet still feel so uncertain? His choices were perfectly accurate, but he still could not be sure in his mind. "I can't figure it out!" Mo Fei fixed on the direction and took a step. In the next instant, he arrived at the endpoint. That was right, the endpoint: inside Paul's home computer. There was no road ahead. The moment he arrived, Mo Fei saw countless streaks of light flashing and moving about, but none traveled far.

They simply appeared, moved, and disappeared repeatedly within a fixed range. "This looks like a place where data is processed. For a computer, that should be the CPU." Mo Fei had not studied computer science, so he could only make a rough guess. In his impression, the place in a computer with the most data was the central processor.

Mo Fei believed that if he wanted to control a computer, controlling its central processor should do the trick. But how was he supposed to do that? His lack of computer knowledge left him at a loss. In the end, he had no choice but to absorb those streaks of light and see what they really were.

Paul's computer was doomed. He had a firewall and antivirus software installed. Copyright-related laws were much more complete in America, and pirated goods were absolutely illegal. Yet Mo Fei's actions did not trigger either the firewall or antivirus software, nor did he encounter any danger. He easily intercepted those streaks of light and absorbed a vast amount of information.

Paul, meanwhile, was miserable. "It crashed? Why isn't it responding?" He shook the mouse and pounded the keyboard, performing a flawless series of moves that accomplished absolutely nothing. Every operation was intercepted by Mo Fei at the CPU. Paul was incredibly frustrated. "What the hell is going on today? Losing data was bad enough, and now my computer has crashed too?"

With a mournful expression, Paul had no choice but to make a decision: a warm reboot, pressing Ctrl, Alt, and Del at the same time. It was still useless. "WTF?" Paul exploded in rage and viciously pressed the cold reboot button beside the power switch on the computer case.

A cold reboot was much more brutal. It directly cut the power before restarting the computer, easily causing unsaved information and files to be lost. Paul was furious. He had been far too unlucky today. Why was nothing going his way?

Mo Fei suddenly discovered that all the streaks of light had disappeared. But it did not last long before they reappeared. By then, he understood much more. Absorbing so much information just now had given him a preliminary ability to control a computer.

A CPU included the arithmetic logic unit, registers, and control unit, among other components. Mo Fei stopped absorbing data because the operator was obviously furious now. He had finally found this place, and for the moment, gathering information was the most important thing.

Mo Fei pointed in one direction, and a streak of light shot from his fingertip. It was a control command. First, it pinned Paul's chat window to the top permanently, preventing Paul from seeing any other pages that might pop up under Mo Fei's control. Then he launched another streak of light. "Let me use Baidu to see where exactly I am." But Mo Fei was soon dumbfounded. The speed was unbelievably slow, and the feedback indicated that the page was having difficulty opening.

"Am I really an intelligent system? I actually forgot this is America. I should be using Google!" Mo Fei hurriedly canceled the previous command and opened Google Search instead. The first thing he checked was the date.

This time, the speed was very fast. The exact date appeared immediately: February 2, 1997. It filled Mo Fei with sorrow again. "Looks like I really did travel through time. At the very least, I traveled through time. I died in 2018! Let's check the trending news and see whether this is still my original world." Mo Fei was sad for several seconds. Ever since awakening, he had spent every moment in shock. He was getting used to it.

The top trending news read: "Mr. Tony Stark once again secured this year's largest share of military orders with his outstanding designs, sending Stark Industries' stock price soaring once more. Its competitor, Hammer Industries, could only obtain some of the remaining shares. Mr. Tony Stark stated that Stark Industries does not manufacture that garbage!"

Please vote with recommendation tickets! This is a new book's promotion period, and there are not many words yet, so everyone can let it build up for a while—but please throw those votes at Lazy!