The Funeral Parlor's hacker

How could a hacker make a name for herself in a short time?

The fastest way was naturally to attack the government systems of a certain major Western nation, publish major corporations' dirty secrets on the dark web, and then announce that she had done it. She would instantly become famous across half the world!

...Or infamous as its enemy.

Nymph would not even need to act personally. The AI system she had written could easily breach the Federation's strongest firewall, and all Tsugumi had to do was press the confirm key.

It was like the news Chen Xiao had seen in his previous life, where Bharat's fighter jets suffered a six-to-zero defeat against Tianya. The other side only needed to hear the system prompt in the cockpit, press the launch button, and head straight home.

Meanwhile, the Bharat pilots had gone off to pay their respects to Kobe before even catching sight of the enemy.

But Tsugumi had not started with anything that big.

She simply registered an account called [Funeral Parlor], with an avatar depicting four Apocalypse Virus ribbons intertwined like a DNA helix.

Then she joined the [Bug Bounty Program] website jointly established by Shenzhou's major internet companies, casually had the AI system automatically scan some server systems for "simple" vulnerabilities, and submitted the patches.

After all, her goal was only to help Chen Xiao make money. She had no intention of creating unnecessary complications.

So at first, nobody paid much attention to this rookie hacker.

Except for the companies' technical staff, who were utterly awestruck by the server vulnerabilities Tsugumi identified and the patches she submitted.

Unfortunately, the technical jargon coming out of their mouths might as well have been an alien language to management. Thankfully, they could at least understand that these things would make their websites more stable.

So after extensive testing confirmed that the patches provided by [Funeral Parlor] had no problems, the internet companies readily prepared to pay up.

Unlike companies in certain novels, they did not deliberately make things difficult for a rookie hacker like Tsugumi just to save some money.

But...

Whether by coincidence or sheer bad luck...

Just as both sides had agreed on a price and the payment was about to be transferred, the company's servers suddenly came under a hacker attack!

"The website's servers are under attack? Who's arrogant enough to try hacking right in front of me?!"

Tsugumi, who had been looking forward to collecting her money, was furious.

She had barely finished patching their systems before someone came along to attack the servers. Wasn't that a slap in her face?!

So before the website's technical staff could retaliate, [Funeral Parlor], still connected to their staff, made the first move.

She drove the opposing hacker team out of the servers in an instant, without even giving them time to leave a virus behind-take a shit, so to speak.

Her speed was jaw-dropping.

"Holy... We haven't even started doing anything, and this [Funeral Parlor] expert has already kicked them out?!"

The website's technician had taken to calling Tsugumi an "expert" outright.

He suspected that the user behind the [Funeral Parlor] account might be some anonymous dark web hacking legend who had decided to patch their vulnerabilities for a little spending money.

And that was not all. After driving every enemy hacker out of the servers, Tsugumi used Nymph's AI system to effortlessly trace the attackers' location and dig up their information.

"This hacker team... Cyber Flying Dragon? What a tacky name!"

After muttering that complaint, Tsugumi continued tracing them.

"The signal came from Guangdong Province, and they're connected to an internet company under the Gao family there?"

The mention of the Gao family in Guangdong Province did not immediately ring a bell. Then Tsugumi remembered that Chen Xiao had borrowed several people's abilities at once to deal with that family's third young master.

Afterward, she had complained that it was like using a cannon to kill a mosquito. Perhaps Chen Xiao had done it deliberately so he could go home and play "kissy-kissy" with the girls he had picked.

"But why are they attacking other internet companies? Their third young master has already turned into a Down syndrome case. Shouldn't they be hurrying to find the culprit?"

Not that they would ever find him in their lifetimes.

Tsugumi chuckled softly at that, then had the AI system gather the latest information on Guangdong Province's Gao family. She discovered that they had indeed sent someone to Magic City to investigate, and had even paid a hefty sum to hire an expert from the Mystic Sect-a Haji Gao.

But the Gao family back in Guangdong Province was not doing particularly well. Their overly rapid expansion in earlier years had made them outrageously arrogant, on par with the idiotic villains in urban novels about domineering CEOs, and they had offended plenty of people.

So when the others saw that the Gao family might face utter disgrace, they decisively kicked them while they were down. They even mobilized independent media accounts to label the family as carriers of hereditary "Down syndrome."

Some went further, claiming that the Gao family descended from Northern Qi's Gao clan, which explained their hereditary "madness." Gao Chen turning himself in had apparently been an awakening of his bloodline.

"Huh, this looks pretty entertaining."

Tsugumi stopped to read for quite a while, finding the stories invented by the Gao family's attackers thoroughly amusing. What she did not know was that the Cyber Flying Dragon team, far away in Guangdong Province, was already drenched in sweat.

"Seriously, what is this [Funeral Parlor] doing?! They've already hacked into our system, so why aren't they making a move?"

With their hands off their keyboards, the Cyber Flying Dragon hackers felt as though they had been dragged to a guillotine, only for the blade to refuse to fall.

Anxiety spread wildly through the cramped room.

Only after Tsugumi finished enjoying the gossip in distant Magic City did she remember that she needed to teach the Cyber Flying Dragon team a lesson.

"Mm, might as well knock those nouveau riche down a peg, too."

With that, Tsugumi gently pressed the confirm key with her right index finger, like a fighter pilot who had just heard the system prompt [Please launch the missile].

And that casual counterattack...

Unexpectedly made the name [Funeral Parlor] famous.

Crackle, pop-!!!

The next instant, the Cyber Flying Dragon team's computers overloaded, turning into piles of scrap.

Not only that, the servers of the internet company run by the Gao family's eldest young master suffered a devastating blow. Every website using those servers crashed as well!

"Boss! We'd better call the fire department. This fire... isn't something we can put out by typing on our keyboards."

The Gao family's technical staff could only despair as they watched sparks constantly flying from the server equipment.

But even more despairing were the members of the Gao family, who nearly fainted in anguish as they watched their company's stock price plunge off a cliff.

"No! My company... My money... How could... It's all gone... Ack-!"

Old Master Gao, seeing the business empire he had built with his own hands on the verge of collapse, coughed up blood on the spot and was rushed to the hospital.

"Dad!"

"Grandpa!"

"Master!"

At this point, nobody cared about the culprit who had turned Gao Chen into the Tang Family Third Young Master. Whether the Gao family could even survive was now a serious question!

This was also one of the reasons the representative the Gao family had sent to Magic City was suddenly recalled. A mere casual counterattack from Tsugumi had left all their businesses on the verge of falling below the kill threshold!

One move had nearly destroyed an entire wealthy business dynasty.

[Funeral Parlor] was truly terrifying!