Chapter 114: Operation Begins

Something has happened!

Sun Cheng immediately realized that something must have occurred on the other side!

After calling out more than ten times in a row without receiving any response from the other side, Jierboyi also immediately realized there was a problem.

"I'm sorry, Doctor Hammond. I must go over and take a look..." He said to Hammond, whose face was equally grim, with a cold and stern expression, "This might be the worst-case scenario..."

Jierboyi looked down at the watch on his wrist, then glanced at the sky outside the Yanjiu Zhongxin, which was turning pitch-black due to the torrential rain, waiting for Hammond's consent.

The suddenly severed connection, along with the brief sound of gunfire that had just come from the other side of the radio communicator, made the elderly Hammond realize the severity of the problem.

Because his grandson and granddaughter had also lost contact, the elderly businessman was clearly panicked; his lips trembled as he instructed—or perhaps 'begged' was more appropriate—him, "Kewen, I'm counting on you. You must ensure everyone's safety!"

Jierboyi nodded heavily, then ignored him, picked up the radio communicator, twisted it to a certain frequency, and said, "This is Jierboyi. Laifusi, take your weapons and get your men ready. Hachi and the others have lost contact..."

"I understand, boss!"

Quickly putting away the radio communicator, Jierboyi nodded slightly to Hammond, then walked out of the Yanjiu Zhongxin without looking back, disappearing into the wind and rain.

Another incident had occurred. Although the host, Hammond, tried his best to cover it up, the atmosphere of the banquet was clearly less cheerful, and even when guests gathered around to try to chat with him more about cooperation, he made many excuses to decline.

Time and again, most of the people present sensed that something was wrong. The banquet soon ended hastily, and Hammond called over several security personnel to drive everyone back to the villas.

Upon returning to his lodging, Sun Cheng made an excuse to decline the invitation from the other two venture capitalists staying in the same villa, and went straight back to his room and locked the door.

Pulling the curtains halfway but not completely covering the window, Sun Cheng walked to the window and looked through the gap at the howling wind and rain outside. His gaze sank into the darkness outside, and after a long while, there was finally a response!

"How did it go?"

Suppressing the excitement in his heart, he asked somewhat nervously.

As Sun Cheng's voice sounded, the screen of the ultra-thin laptop that had been sitting quietly on the nightstand in the room suddenly lit up, and at the same time, a cold electronic voice followed, "Utilizing the discovered vulnerabilities, a total of 67,492 Bitcoins were obtained and have all been sold on 114 trading platforms. It took 69 hours, 47 minutes, and 52 seconds, with an average transaction price of 1,892.74 USD. The funds obtained are currently being laundered through international bank transfers into the stock markets of four designated countries..."

The second transaction with the vulnerability acquisition platform Zerodium had already been completed on the night before his birthday.

The two transactions brought Sun Cheng a total profit of 470,000 USD. This was a not-insignificant return, but compared to the major move he was about to make in the real world, it was merely a drop in the bucket.

Originally, the bag of diamonds and jewelry worth tens of millions of dollars that he had unexpectedly brought back this time was quite good, but it was not an easy task for him to sell that batch of diamonds and jewelry in reality. Although Sun Cheng could use some online channels to create fake receipts and purchase vouchers, this would undoubtedly consume a lot of time and still carry significant risks; if someone were to really investigate, it would easily expose his true identity.

After deciding to go abroad, he considered it back and forth for a long time before giving up the idea of taking them abroad to sell.

However, since the jewelry brought back from the other world could not be sold, Sun Cheng, who was planning to achieve some success in reality as well, had a headache. With the help of Hanyi and Fuchou, he did indeed have many ways to make money in reality, but they were all shady, illegal methods.

After considering it back and forth, Sun Cheng formulated a new money-making plan the day before his birthday: using Hanyi's hacking capabilities to rake in money from the internet, and his target was none other than the king of virtual currencies, Bitcoin.

The reason for targeting virtual currency instead of directly looking for bank vulnerabilities to rake in money was that even if the latter lost just a few hundred dollars, it could cause a big news story. After all, it concerned a country's financial security and would definitely be investigated. Moreover, Hanyi and Fuchou had much lower capabilities compared to his Frenzy Body in the other world, and Sun Cheng was afraid of accidentally leaving behind any traces.

By comparison, virtual currency was much safer. Even if it caused a huge stir, in the eyes of the media, it would just be a hacker problem, and the level of social and public attention would be significantly lower than if a bank had an incident.

Moreover, the scale of Bitcoin was truly not small. As the world's most robust virtual currency, the global Bitcoin market scale reached nearly 20 billion USD.

Sun Cheng was no stranger to Bitcoin. As one of the top science and engineering universities in China, there were many students at Nanjing University of Technology playing with Bitcoin. Some had made a small fortune, while more had come up empty-handed, but it did make him aware of Bitcoin.

As a virtual currency written in code, Bitcoin was originally just a hyped-up concept and had never been synonymous with security. In recent years, various news stories about Bitcoin vulnerabilities and gray-market transactions had emerged one after another.

Therefore, once Sun Cheng determined to rake in a sum of money by any means necessary, he set his sights on Bitcoin at the first opportunity.

After estimating the gains slightly, Sun Cheng couldn't help but show a smile on his face. "Well done," he did not stint on his praise.

In the end, he was still influenced by the real world; he did not dare to plunder as crazily as he did in the other world.

Even after Hanyi discovered some Bitcoin vulnerabilities, Sun Cheng only had it control the registration of thousands of accounts, with each account receiving a few dozen Bitcoins. Even if discovered by the major platforms afterward, it would only involve those vulnerabilities, and any further investigation would likely be just like usual—unable to be traced any further.

With such a huge sum of over 100 million USD in funds, there was no doubt that after he finished dealing with the Nublar Island matter and returned to the country, his career in reality could immediately unfold.

However, this joy vanished from Sun Cheng's face as soon as his mind turned to the events that had happened on the island today.

"The matter on the island also brooks no delay. Hanyi, prepare to start the operation..."

"Yes!"

Following his calm command, Hanyi writhed for a moment and quickly transformed into a ferocious insect-type Decepticon.

"Hammond should be at the Yanjiu Zhongxin now. Go, bring me the Amber on Hammond's cane, and by the way, copy and bring me all the data that might be stored in the Yanjiu Zhongxin. Try your best not to expose yourself!"

"Yes, Master!"

After Hanyi responded to him with a cold electronic voice, Sun Cheng opened the window, revealing a gap large enough for it to pass through.

The moment the window was opened, the howling wind mixed with moisture poured in from outside, quickly dampening his clothes.

Hanyi, whose form resembled a fly, possessed a pair of thin metal wings. As a Decepticon Scout, it also possessed the ability to fly, though in the gale brought by the torrential rain, it was no better than human aircraft.

So, after spreading its wings and flying out of the room, Sun Cheng clearly saw its body flying close to the ground, and it soon disappeared into the night.

"Master..."

Just a few minutes after Hanyi disappeared, Fuchou, which had been maintaining its Camera form, suddenly transformed back into its insect form on its own and flew to his side. "A pinhole camera I placed inside the villa just captured this scene..."

It projected a set of light screens in front of Sun Cheng, which clearly recorded a nimble figure who, after looking around for a moment, quietly left the villa and disappeared into the night.

Sun Cheng looked closely, and his eyes narrowed instantly. "It's her!"