Xiang Qian pulled open the door to the small bar's private booth. The cabin on the other side was quiet. Perhaps it was the cramped quarters; the wounded soldiers had all closed their eyes to pretend to sleep.😾♛ ★😾
Vector had tucked herself into the farthest corner, staring intently at a laptop. The faint tapping of her fingers on the keyboard was the only sound besides the engine.
"What are you doing?"
Xiang Qian's quiet question made Vector jump.
"Writing a mission report." As if afraid of waking her sleeping comrades, Vector lowered her voice too, while discreetly lowering the laptop screen.
Xiang Qian nodded, unconcerned. The Spear Bureau was a classified organization, so mission reports naturally needed to be kept confidential. Vector's behavior wasn't surprising.
"You've got a pretty varied job on the Special Task Force. Gathering and analyzing intelligence, writing mission reports, and opening portals for tactical maneuvers when necessary. Quite the talent!"
Vector replied in a dry, dismissive tone, "I'm still a rookie. I wouldn't call myself talented." She had the feeling Xiang Qian was hinting at something; his tone seemed a little off.
"You're definitely talented!" Xiang Qian sat down beside Vector with his glass of wine. "You said earlier that this joint counterterrorism operation was your first field assignment. How long have you been with the Special Task Force?"
Vector quietly shifted her computer to the side. "Not even a month... A little over half a month, I guess!" She wanted to brush him off and get him to leave, but she was afraid that would arouse his suspicions.
Xiang Qian nodded thoughtfully. "Your captain's putting so much responsibility on a rookie's shoulders. She must think highly of you."
"Maybe..." Vector eyed Xiang Qian, flustered as she tried to change the subject. "You seem pretty close to our captain."
"Yeah, I've known her for many years," Xiang Qian said. "Why?"
Vector hesitated, then ventured, "You seem a little afraid of our captain."
"Hmm?" Xiang Qian looked at Vector and saw the flames of gossip burning in her eyes. "I feel like you're thinking something naughty."
"I'm just... curious!" She did want to distract Xiang Qian, but Vector was genuinely curious too. The way Xiang Qian and the Weather Witch interacted was really strange.♙💣 ♦🐟
Xiang Qian was speechless. "You should be curious about something else. For instance, you've been with the Special Task Force for over half a month. Aren't you curious why people call your captain 'Sky Team'?"
"Isn't it because her nickname is 'Weather Witch'?"
Xiang Qian chuckled. "So you really don't know. That nickname is only half the reason."
"What's the other half?"
Xiang Qian took a sip of his wine, keeping her in suspense until Vector gave him an impatient look. Then he said, "The other half is her real name—Xiang Tian."
"Xiang..." Vector gaped and reflexively pointed at Xiang Qian. "You mean, the same Xiang as yours..."
Xiang Qian caught on. "Right, the same Xiang as mine." He leaned closer, as if sharing a secret. "She's my older sister. We've known each other for twenty-seven years."
Vector's face grew hot with embarrassment over her earlier gossiping.
"Have you never asked her real name since joining the Special Task Force?"
Vector shook her head uneasily. "I didn't dare. The captain... is a little strict, and she's pretty mysterious. I was afraid to ask."
"Yeah, she's been fierce since she was little." Xiang Qian sounded like he still had some lingering fear.
The two fell silent.
Vector could tell Xiang Qian intended to stay there, and she felt increasingly guilty. After hesitating for a while, she steeled herself and tried to send him away. "C-Consultant Xiang, I still have to finish this report..."
"Oh, right..." Xiang Qian pretended to realize, then looked back at Vector with a knowing smile. "Besides writing reports, checking intelligence, and opening portals, you're also responsible for electronic attacks during operations when necessary, right?"
Vector nervously pressed a hand against the laptop on her knees. "How did you know?"
"It's simple. This computer you're using was designed for the bureau by the Five Elements Laboratory." Xiang Qian's smiling eyes made Vector even more flustered. "It was specifically optimized for electronic intrusion, signal monitoring, and information theft."
Vector looked horrified. She glanced up at Xiang Qian, realized he wasn't joking, then looked down at the laptop beneath her hand. It felt like she was holding a hot
Embarrassment spread across Vector's pretty face. She wondered whether she should confess and ask for leniency, but Xiang Qian didn't give her the chance.
"I've been chatting with you all this time. Did you manage to break through my firewall or not?"
"Ah!" Vector cried out, caught red-handed. She clamped both hands over the laptop—the evidence of her crime—and blushed bright red with embarrassment and unease.
Under Xiang Qian's gaze, Vector spent three long seconds in silence. She didn't dare meet his eyes, glancing nervously around instead. Then she noticed that the comrades who had supposedly been dozing had all cracked their eyes open to peek at her.
Vector sent them a desperate look for help, but... the moment those men met her gaze, they all promptly fell asleep.
"I-I wasn't..." Vector's face was bright red.
"Weren't what? You didn't do it on purpose?" Xiang Qian wore a thoroughly malicious smile. "The intrusion program started up automatically, did it?"
"No... I actually..." Vector stammered.
"You were just playing a joke?" Xiang Qian supplied the excuse for her. "That's not very convincing." He mercilessly cut off her words and backed the girl into a corner.
"I'm sorry. I was wrong." Vector's voice was quieter than a mosquito's.
"Then do you know what you did wrong?" Xiang Qian remained unmoved. "The computer you're using was designed by me, and I wrote the underlying architecture of the intrusion program. The satellite link providing your intrusion path is maintained by the Five Elements Laboratory. Even the wireless signal booster you secretly stuck to the door of this bar booth was made by the Five Elements Laboratory."
Xiang Qian tossed Vector a signal device smaller than a tie clip.
Vector was on the verge of tears. With every sentence Xiang Qian spoke, her face grew redder and her head dipped lower. Before he'd even finished, the girl's face was burning, and she was practically trying to bury her head in the floor.
"As a hacker, your performance was painfully unprofessional," Xiang Qian continued, rubbing salt in the girl's wounds. "You did no research or preparation before launching an attack. You just got a sudden impulse and acted on it. The moment you launched your attack, the terminal server providing your computing power sent an alert straight to my computer."
"Didn't expect that, did you? My tablet's security clearance is much higher than your laptop's in the Spear Bureau's terminal server."
"You're holding a cane and hitting yourself in the foot. A thief picks a lock, opens the door, and discovers a prison inside—saving the cops a whole lot of trouble." Xiang Qian had no filter. He rattled on and delivered a merciless verdict on Vector's actions. "Compared to you, even someone who tries to fool themselves by covering their ears is smart."
Vector was mortified and furious, grinding her back teeth in secret. She thought she was beginning to understand why so many people in the bureau disliked Xiang Qian.
Why did I have to sit here and listen to this living hedgehog go on and on?
Why does the plane's deck have to be made of alloy? I can't even dig through it. If only I could make a hole and jump out!
Could I open a portal and teleport myself away?
"You're just relying on having higher clearance than me," the girl protested.
Xiang Qian laughed. "That's right. I do have higher clearance than you, because I led the design of the entire Spear Bureau electronic information system and its security programs. Well... that includes the system on the laptop in your hands. I'm the one protecting it."
Vector was ready to shut down again.
"Not convinced? Do you think your skills are good enough, and that losing because of system clearance doesn't count?" Xiang Qian teased her maliciously.
Vector turned her head away, fuming, and said nothing.
"In electronic warfare, hardware determines the lower limit, while skills and software determine the upper limit," Xiang Qian said, carrying on as if to himself. "Most people tend to glorify individual skill, without ever considering that hardware is actually the foundation of electronic attacks."
"No matter how skilled a hacker is, if your highest ceiling can't even reach the threshold of my lowest, what makes you think you can launch an attack?" Xiang Qian's tone had changed from mockery to something more like deliberate instruction.
Vector understood all this, of course. Top hackers always had plenty of "zombies" at their disposal, and official "red hackers" like Vector had no shortage of supercomputers to help them mount attacks.
But... she still didn't want to hear his voice!
"Didn't you say I was bullying you by relying on my higher clearance?" Xiang Qian handed the tablet to Vector. "Why don't you see for yourself? Even if I gave up my privileges, could that little piece of junk in your hands break through my firewall?"
Vector was still angry, but when she saw the tablet in his hand, she couldn't resist her curiosity. To a technician, unfamiliar high-end equipment was incredibly tempting—even getting to touch it would be exciting.
After wrestling with herself for a while, Vector finally couldn't resist. She took the tablet and turned it on. Her pretty face immediately flushed red again.
The window flashing on the screen was unmistakably an intrusion program interface, with familiar strings of commands scrolling through it.
Vector recognized her own work at a glance.
So after all that, not only had she failed to break through his firewall, but he'd turned the tables and monitored her...
"The command design and choice of attack route were actually pretty ingenious," Xiang Qian said, offering insincere comfort.
Vector gritted her teeth, tapped the intrusion window away, and began examining the tablet's system. One piece of data after another appeared before her eyes, and the more she saw, the more astonished she became.
"Well? Do you still think the theory that skill comes first is right?" Xiang Qian asked with a smile.
Vector put down the tablet and shook her head, crestfallen.
The hardware in this tablet was almost on par with a large server, and Xiang Qian and the Five Elements Laboratory had formidable expertise in electronic security systems. Unless a hacker used a supercomputer to assist, there was no way they could break through this little tablet.
At least, Vector didn't think she could.
"And that's not just its own hardware. Through a direct satellite connection, I can also tap into the laboratory's supercomputer whenever I want. You should know that the Five Elements Laboratory's supercomputer is much more advanced than the Spear Bureau's central server."
Xiang Qian gave Vector a charming smile, then finally revealed his true intentions.
"Would you like to see it?"