Chapter 571: Hidden Backdoor

These events spread rapidly within international diplomatic and intelligence circles, and the prestige of the "Pangu Guardian" was thoroughly established. Various countries soon realized that rather than arguing over details with the Long Country team, it was better to honestly fulfill the contract requirements; otherwise, the resulting losses would far exceed the cost of additional investment.

Star-Spangled Country, a secret monitoring center deep within the Pentagon.

"They have been working for three days; what have we obtained?" the Deputy Minister of National Defense asked impatiently.

The intelligence analyst shook their head helplessly: "Almost nothing, sir. All their work is conducted within a sealed workspace, all communications use a dialect we cannot understand, and there seems to be some kind of jamming equipment that renders most of our monitoring devices ineffective."

"What about the surveillance footage?"

"No substantial content," the analyst pulled up several video clips, "Look, they always operate with their backs to the camera, and core maintenance work is completed within this shielded workstation; we simply cannot see what they are actually doing."

The Deputy Minister of National Defense's expression was grim: "Are you saying that on our own soil, we are completely helpless against these foreigners?"

"Worse, sir," the Intelligence Officer added, "they seem to be fully aware of our surveillance methods and locations. Every time before entering a sensitive operation, they 'just happen' to switch to our monitoring blind spots or activate some kind of jamming device."

"Did they take anything away?"

"That is the strangest part," the analyst said, "they took almost nothing away, except for some sealed waste materials and their own tools and equipment. But we cannot be sure if they extracted data in some way."

The Deputy Minister of National Defense was silent for a moment: "Continue monitoring, send in the best cryptographers and linguists, and try to crack their dialect communication. At the same time, prepare a special team to study how to obtain more information without violating the contract."

A certain country in the Middle East, a secret conference room inside the royal palace.

"Did he really accept the bribe?" the King asked in disbelief.

The head of intelligence nodded: "Yes, Your Majesty. That junior Long Country engineer accepted the two hundred thousand US dollars we provided and promised to provide some technical data."

The King revealed a satisfied smile: "Very good, this proves they are not an impenetrable wall either. So, what valuable information did he provide?"

The head of intelligence's expression became unusually awkward: "The problem is... just at the moment he was about to act, the entire system suddenly locked up. A message written in multiple languages appeared on all terminal screens: 'System detected unauthorized access attempt, initiating security protection mode, awaiting headquarters verification.'"

"What?" the King slammed the table and stood up in anger, "How is that possible? How did they know?"

"We don't know, Your Majesty. There is no obvious monitoring equipment, and that engineer also confirmed he was not discovered. But the system just... knew. Worse, all our equipment connected to the Longxin System has been locked and cannot be used."

The King's face turned livid: "The consequences?"

"The Long Country headquarters sent a formal notice stating that the system detected 'serious breach of contract behavior' and has initiated the 'Aegis' protocol. They demand that we immediately recall that engineer and wait for the Advanced commissioner they are sending to arrive."

"What if we refuse?"

The head of intelligence gave a bitter smile: "We tried, Your Majesty. But the system is completely locked and cannot operate. Our military command system, government intranet, and oil management system are all paralyzed. It is estimated that losses have already exceeded thirty million US dollars, and they are still increasing."

The King slumped back into his chair: "What conditions did that so-called 'Advanced commissioner' propose?"

"They demand we pay five million US dollars in 'system emergency recovery fees' while accepting new contract addendums, including stricter security reviews and higher service fees. More importantly, they require us to formally admit that this incident was a breach of contract on our part and guarantee no further attempts at similar behavior."

The King was silent for a long time, finally waving his hand powerlessly: "Do as they say. We have lost."

This "Divine Punishment" incident quickly spread through secret channels to intelligence agencies around the world, becoming a shocking warning—the Longxin System seems to possess some kind of unimaginable self-protection mechanism capable of automatically detecting and countering any unauthorized contact attempts.

Even more unsettling is that no one knows how this mechanism works, nor can anyone explain how the Long Country headquarters knew the system was being breached at the very first moment. Some intelligence analysts have begun to speculate that the Longxin System might have some kind of Advanced monitoring function built in, capable of reporting abnormal activity to headquarters in real-time.

The deterrent effect of this incident on countries around the world far exceeded expectations. In the following months, almost no country dared to attempt obvious infiltration or subversion of the Long Country technical team again. The mystery and inviolability of the "Pangu Guardian" were pushed to a new height.

Penglai Base, Li Mingyuan's secret command center.

A huge electronic wall displayed a global map, on which hundreds of colored light points flickered, each representing a deployment point of the Longxin System and the location of a "Pangu Guardian" team.

"The 'Divine Punishment' operation in the Middle East was very successful," Deputy Minister Zhang said with satisfaction, "Those countries are now simply respectful to our team and no longer dare to act rashly."

Li Mingyuan nodded, his gaze sweeping over the light points distributed across various national government agencies, military facilities, and financial centers: "This is just the beginning. The true value lies not in deterrence, but in information."

"Every Longxin System device is our eyes and ears," Li Mingyuan explained, "What they collect is not just technical data, but usage patterns, user behavior, and even various information about the environment in which the device is located."

"What is the use of this data?" Deputy Minister Zhang asked curiously.

"Right now it may seem like fragments," a light of foresight flickered in Li Mingyuan's eyes, "but when a large amount of data is gathered together and analyzed and processed, they will become the most precious strategic resource. Imagine, we can predict the economic direction of a certain country, understand their military deployments, and even infer their policy changes, all based on this seemingly harmless usage data."

Deputy Minister Zhang gasped: "This... this is simply an invisible intelligence network."

"And it is completely legal," Li Mingyuan added, "All data collection was written into the fine print of the contract, just covered up with some technical jargon. When various governments signed, they might not have realized at all what this meant."

He pointed to several special light points on the map, which were distributed in some extremely sensitive locations—the Pentagon of the Star-Spangled Country, the Ministry of National Defense of Beijixiong Guo, the central banks of several European countries, and the oil management centers of Middle Eastern oil-producing countries.