Confrontation

Back in the dorm, Sun Cheng felt icy all over, as if he had just crawled out of an ice cave.

There were three hundred-yuan bills in his pocket, forcibly stuffed there by Fourth Brother, who probably knew he really was broke now.

That small bit of concern warmed Sun Cheng's heart, but it still could not dispel the bone-deep chill.

Sun Cheng was now absolutely certain that he had been set up. There was a strong chance that someone he had always considered a brother had stabbed him in the back.

His experiences in the other world had not only broadened his horizons, but also matured his mindset considerably.

Otherwise, if this had happened a week ago and he had discovered something like this, Sun Cheng could not help thinking that he might have foolishly gone straight to Liu Kun's door and demanded answers.

After closing the door and pouring himself a glass of water, Sun Cheng carried it back to his computer and quietly sat down.

He needed to calm down and sort through his thoughts.

Although he was still unclear about the details for the time being, the direction everything pointed in was already obvious.

Someone had laid a trap for him. Liu Kun was probably only an accomplice. Sun Cheng had known him for years, after all, and he did not believe the guy's acting could be so flawless that he had managed to deceive him from their first meeting until now.

With that deduction, things became rather interesting.

Sun Cheng had enough self-awareness. A few years ago, he had indeed relied on his solid foundation to stand out among tens of millions of exam candidates and gain admission to South Capital University of Technology, one of the country's top science and engineering universities.

But with his aptitude and talent, he was not particularly outstanding among the clusters of prodigies and rampant geniuses at South Capital University of Technology.

At the very least, the university offered millions in scholarships every year to encourage its students, but since enrolling, apart from luckily getting one in his sophomore year, he had never had anything to do with scholarships again.

It could be said that before his startup project, Sun Cheng had merely been an inconspicuous member among the thousands of fourth-year students facing graduation at the university.

So who exactly had their eye on him?

And why had they targeted him?

That truly was a baffling question!

If it was because the startup project had tempted someone into foul play, then ever since South Capital University of Technology introduced the University Startup Incubation Program, the school had sponsored no fewer than eighty or a hundred startup projects every year. Their batch alone had more than a hundred and thirty, including projects like voice-controlled speech, bike-sharing, and in-vehicle systems—projects whose promising prospects were obvious from their names alone.

Compared to those, their mobile operating system emulator might have been less difficult, but its appeal was also several orders of magnitude lower.

The more he thought about it, the less he could make sense of things. After burning through his brain cells for a while, Sun Cheng could only stop wasting his effort and turn on his computer screen.

Before going out, in order to finish downloading the iOS system, he had booted up his computer and kept the download running.

The result was fairly satisfying. The campus network's download speed was terrible, but given enough time, he had still managed to download the latest version of iOS.

Sun Cheng had already looked up some guides online that afternoon, so before leaving, he had also added a virtual machine and several testing programs to the download queue along with the iOS system.

After installing and loading the software, he learned as he went due to his weak foundation. Fortunately, thanks to the abilities inherited from "Frenzy," he got the hang of it without much effort and began tinkering with it.

"Mm, there's no mistake here. The vulnerability has not yet been discovered..."

"When running the XX program, there is still a certain chance of causing the A9 processor to overheat..."

"The XX vulnerability still exists. If controlled by someone, it can be used to remotely make uninterrupted emergency calls..."

Continuously comparing them against the iOS vulnerabilities in his memories, Sun Cheng verified them line by line. Before long, he confirmed with delight that every vulnerability in the iOS system he had inadvertently cracked while using Frenzy's body in the other world was real. Moreover, over eighty percent of them had yet to be fixed by Apple in the latest version of iOS and were very likely still undiscovered.

That meant the money-making plan he had pinned his hopes on was viable.

He hurriedly looked up Apple's bug bounty program online, but Sun Cheng was quickly disappointed.

Apple was undoubtedly stingy. Although its public bug bounty covered five categories of vulnerabilities, a flaw found in the firewall preventing unauthorized programs from launching could earn a maximum reward of two hundred thousand dollars. Other reward categories included vulnerabilities in the Secure Enclave that leaked confidential information, worth up to one hundred thousand dollars; vulnerabilities granting access to iCloud accounts on Apple servers, worth up to fifty thousand dollars; and vulnerabilities allowing access to user data outside the security sandbox, also worth up to fifty thousand dollars.

Of course, that was only what they claimed. Receiving even half of the stated amount would be considered quite good.

Looking over what he had found, only three of the vulnerabilities Sun Cheng detected could fetch a high price. The rest would earn at most fifty to three hundred dollars from Apple, an amount so small it was pitiful.

By comparison, he had specifically browsed the vulnerability acquisition platform Zerodium that afternoon. The bounties it offered for major vulnerabilities were five times higher than Apple's.

After calculating things in his head for a while, Sun Cheng quickly made up his mind. He would sell some of the more critical vulnerabilities he had found to Zerodium in batches, while throwing the minor vulnerabilities Zerodium did not care much about to Apple to earn a little reputation and compensation for his effort.

He acted as soon as he decided. He quickly sorted some of the vulnerability code he had discovered into two folders. For several less serious vulnerabilities, he included complete verification steps. For the critical ones, however, he only marked their names. Not only did he omit the key verification steps, he did not even indicate where the vulnerabilities were located. Then he sent them to Zerodium's official email address.

After finishing that, he immediately used his Apple account to send Apple an email as well.

All that remained was to wait for the two companies to contact him.

It took more than an hour to finish everything. Just as Sun Cheng was about to breathe a sigh of relief, he suddenly heard a knock on the dorm room door, followed by an unfamiliar male voice filled with vigor. "Is student Sun Cheng here?"

Sun Cheng used to be fairly popular, but after he started his business and began borrowing money everywhere, he had fewer and fewer friends. By now, apart from people urging him to repay debts, the only ones who would still actively seek him out were probably his former dormmates.

The voice sounded unfamiliar. He thought carefully for a while but could not recall who it belonged to, so it was definitely not an acquaintance.

Assuming someone from a nearby dorm had come to borrow something, Sun Cheng answered, casually closed the browser, and went over to open the door.

Two young men stood outside, one tall and one thin. Neither looked much older than him.

Sun Cheng did not recognize them. After studying them for a few moments, he finally asked, "You are?"

"It's inconvenient to talk outside. Let's go in and discuss it."

The slightly shorter young man looked quite amiable, with a warm smile on his face. But the moment he spoke, Sun Cheng frowned. Leaving aside how his eyes made Sun Cheng feel as though he were being looked at like prey, his habitual tone of ordering others around and his attitude as though he were the owner of the place made Sun Cheng deeply uncomfortable.

Before Sun Cheng could answer, the taller and more muscular of the two pushed his way into the room without a word.

Sun Cheng became even more displeased, and his tone turned cold as well. "Don't be in such a hurry to come in. We don't know each other, so it would be better to clear things up first. Who are you? What do you want with me?"

"Heh heh!"

The short young man chuckled. He did not stop until they entered the room, and the tall, burly man behind him promptly shut the door. Only then did he say, "I was thinking of Sun Cheng's interests just now. My name is Xiao Hong. Friends who do me the honor call me 'Young Master Hong.' Sun Cheng may not know me, but you should know Student Aid Loan, right?"

After saying that, he gave the tall, burly man beside him a look. The man immediately poured several IOUs and photocopies of ID cards out of the document bag in his hand.

Student Aid Loan was the campus lending service Sun Cheng owed quite a bit of money to.

So when he heard the man calling himself Young Master Hong mention it, his eyes narrowed involuntarily. "I was wondering who it was. So it's Young Master Hong. Forgive my poor manners. What brings you to my humble abode today? Did you come to chat?"

As for his debts, he truly was not that worried.

Although Sun Cheng had been desperate to borrow money before, he still had some sense. He had carefully examined every IOU and only signed after confirming there were no exploitative terms. The earliest principal repayment was still two months away, and by then, he obviously would no longer be short of that little money.

As for the interest, he had just paid it not long ago. Otherwise, he would not have been broke before the middle of the month, unable to afford even food.

"Heh heh..." Xiao Hong studied him up and down with interest for a while, then said with a smile that did not reach his eyes, "Then I'm afraid Sun Cheng will be disappointed. In fact, we're here to collect a debt!"

"Debts must be repaid, of course, but it has to be according to the contract!"

Sun Cheng looked at him calmly, without the slightest emotional fluctuation on his face. "I still have two months before I need to repay the principal on my Student Aid Loan. As for the interest, I transferred it according to the contract last week."

"Good. Well said!"

Xiao Hong smiled and applauded, but there was even more mockery in his gaze. "Now that the rule of law is flourishing in our republic, naturally we must honor signed contracts! But we are here precisely in accordance with the contract!"

He took a copied contract from his tall companion and handed it over. Sun Cheng accepted it and saw that it was the contract he had signed with Student Aid Loan when he took out an entrepreneurship loan in the name of his startup project.

His brows furrowed slightly. Without even flipping through it, he stared directly at Xiao Hong. "What do you mean? I still have ten months before I need to repay the principal on the entrepreneurship loan. As for the interest, I already sent you this month's payment along with last week's!"

"I heard your startup is over!"

Xiao Hong no longer bothered to hide the ridicule in his eyes, and his voice sharpened as well. "It seems Sun Cheng did not read the contract carefully. According to Clause 1 of the contract appendix, when the borrower cannot ensure the continued operation of the project, in order to protect our legal interests, we have the right to demand early repayment of the principal!"

"So Student Aid Loan has decided to terminate this loan agreement with Sun Cheng ahead of schedule. Now, please return the fifty thousand yuan in principal!"

As soon as he finished speaking, without needing any signal from Xiao Hong, the tall, burly man beside him sneered and strode forward, cracking his knuckles loudly. It was clear that if Sun Cheng did not pay up, he intended to give him a good beating.

Sun Cheng's eyes contracted. Only then did he remember that there really was such a clause in the contract he had signed.

But although he was even more furious inside, Sun Cheng showed no trace of panic on his face.

He crossed his arms over his chest and sneered without concealing his sarcasm. "Oh? Your information network is pretty efficient. I only announced it this morning, and you came knocking by evening. Quite the methods you have. The monitoring trojan on my computer was installed by you people, wasn't it?"

Having deliberately mentioned the trojan, Sun Cheng indeed saw Xiao Hong's gaze flicker.

Unfortunately, the man was crafty too. Not a trace of unease showed on his face. Instead, he looked at Sun Cheng with an expression of complete bafflement. "What is Sun Cheng talking about? Are you trying to dodge your debt?"

"Liu Kun is one of your people, right? Now I even suspect that Huo Miao suddenly jumping ship back then was your doing too. Impressive. You went to all that trouble setting a trap to screw me over. I'm just very curious—what about an ordinary college student like me was worth all this careful planning?"

Since Sun Cheng had already confirmed it was him, how could he possibly be fooled by just a few words? He remained completely unmoved and continued pressing him with aggressive questions, thoroughly seizing the initiative.

His attitude was so forceful, and he had already noticed so much, that Xiao Hong was genuinely unable to handle it for a moment.

However, Xiao Hong quickly came to his senses and immediately became angry from embarrassment. He said coldly, "A debt must be repaid. No matter how much nonsense you spout, you still have to pay what you owe. Let me make this clear today: either fulfill the contract and pay up immediately, or borrow money to pay it off! Otherwise, your family can repay the debt for you!"

After saying that, the enraged Xiao Hong pulled out another brand-new IOU and flung it over. Sun Cheng snatched it out of the air with quick reflexes. One look made his expression turn even colder.

It turned out to be an IOU they had drafted long ago. In order to repay the fifty-thousand-yuan principal owed to Student Aid Loan, he would borrow another one hundred and twenty thousand yuan from some company he had never even heard of, at monthly interest of three thousand yuan, to be repaid within six months.

This was worse than loan sharking. Only now did Sun Cheng finally understand what kind of trap he had fallen into.

This was no campus loan at all. They were clearly a pack of man-eating monsters wearing a legal disguise. Once someone fell into their jaws, they would be trapped in an endless cycle of "debt collection, unable to repay, borrowing more, owing even more," until in the end, even if the whole family sold their cars, houses, kidneys, and bodies for him, they might still be unable to repay the debt.

Sun Cheng's heart trembled as he read it, while fury blazed in his chest. Right in front of Xiao Hong, he tore it into several pieces and casually tossed them into the trash can.

"...This morning, I casually cast out some bait, and by tonight you couldn't resist taking it. Do you really think I'm an idiot? Since I know I've been trapped, do you think I'll keep letting you lead me around by the nose?"

He sneered mockingly at Xiao Hong. "Let me make this clear too. If you want me to repay the money, fine. Either follow the contract and wait ten months, or bring your legal counsel to talk to me tomorrow. Tonight, I'll prepare the progress report and plan for the startup project. Tomorrow, I'll invite the school leadership, and we can have a proper discussion!"

"You refuse a toast only to drink a forfeit!"

Xiao Hong snorted coldly. But when he looked at Sun Cheng again, there was less mockery in his eyes and more gravity.

As if his words had been a signal, the tall, burly man beside him immediately rushed over to Sun Cheng and grabbed him by the collar, lifting him up.

"Let me warn you first..."

Although being held by the collar was extremely uncomfortable, Sun Cheng still looked calmly at Xiao Hong, the one in charge, and pointed down with his right hand. "This is [South Capital University of Technology], the nation's top institution of higher learning. It isn't some street corner for thugs like you. Go ahead, try beating me. I guarantee I'll call the police, and I'll tell them everything I know. Believe me, there are definitely cameras on campus that can record you. I'm really looking forward to seeing what happens when your loan shark operation disguised as 'campus lending' gets exposed by public opinion..."

He smiled at Xiao Hong, his words pointed. "You dare lend money in South Capital, so I imagine Young Master Hong's family has some connections. How exciting..."

"Fuck!"

Xiao Hong's face darkened, and killing intent showed openly in his gaze. For a moment, he had truly been intimidated by Sun Cheng, who was like a piece of gristle that could not be chewed.

After hesitating for a moment, he finally snorted and gave the tall, burly man a look, telling him to put Sun Cheng down. Then he said viciously, "Fine. I didn't see it before, but you, Sun Cheng, are quite something. But don't be happy too soon. What I want cannot run away. I'll let you off today, but starting tomorrow, you'll suffer! Da Jun, let's go!"

With that, the door slammed shut with a loud bang. After both men shot him one final hard look, they left without turning back.

PS

This campus loan plot actually came from something around me. An author I know who is currently in college got deeply trapped in campus loans.

He borrowed several thousand yuan, then was manipulated, threatened, and trapped by them. In the end, he paid back more than thirty thousand yuan altogether, and his family had to help repay it.

I have no other intention in writing this. Although I made some artistic adjustments, the general scheme is still the same. In short, I hope none of you casually touch that kind of thing. It's evil as hell.