Chapter 5: Trojan Horse

I don't know how long I had been unconscious before I was startled awake by a loud noise that suddenly came from the neighboring dormitory.

Sun Cheng, his consciousness still somewhat hazy, subconsciously groped around for a moment before grabbing a cold object and bringing it up to his face.

Struggling to open his bleary eyes, he looked at his phone: "8:23 AM, April 14th. Am I late?"

Rubbing his aching brain, Sun Cheng tossed the phone to the side and immediately closed his eyes again.

"... I am Frenzy... a Mechanical Life from the planet Cybertron..."

After ruminating for a while on the fragmented, chaotic memories still lingering in his mind, Sun Cheng stretched and muttered, "... So it was just a dream after all..."

That made sense!

Only in a dream could such an absurd thing happen!

Still, it really was a strange and incredible dream!

Sun Cheng, whose memory had unexpectedly not been forgotten upon waking, could still clearly remember that in the dream, he had turned into 'Frenzy,' a mechanical spy from an extraterrestrial mechanical civilization—the planet Cybertron.

Together with his partner—Barricade—he had infiltrated a scientific research institution in the United States and, using a computer at that institution as a port, hacked into that world's internet.

"What an absurd dream. How could a person turn into a mechanical Warrior?"

Laughing at himself, Sun Cheng got up and climbed out of bed, pulled the last cigarette from a crumpled pack on the corner of his computer desk, and stuck it in his mouth. Just as he found his lighter and prepared to light it, he heard bursts of playful noise and couldn't help but walk to the window. Looking down through the balcony at the young college students exuding endless youthful vitality under the bright morning sun, a flash of envy and regret crossed his eyes.

If only everything could start over, how good that would be!

This was a thought that had been circling in Sun Cheng's mind for the past half-month.

Because once upon a time, he too had had such vibrant days, and had had many, many friends who could stay up all night with him talking about dreams, games, or gossip.

But unfortunately, now, they were all gone!

Lighting the cigarette, he took a mechanical drag, turned around with a heavy heart, and quietly looked at his dormitory, which now only held him. After a long while, he let out a soft sigh amidst the smoke.

"Serves me right!"

He cursed himself under his breath. Since he was already late, Sun Cheng decided not to go at all. After finishing his cigarette in a leisurely manner, he noticed that he had a foul odor on him from drinking too much and falling asleep on the bed the night before, so he took a washbasin to the room across the hall to take a shower. After finishing his washing up, he changed into a new set of clothes.

Once done, he returned to the room, grabbed a pack of instant noodles, tore it open, placed it in a lunchbox, poured hot tea over it to soak, and then carried it to his computer desk.

The computer desk in front of him was a mess. Three empty small liquor bottles still had the lingering smell of alcohol, and next to the bottles were a plate of cold appetizers and a plate of sour and spicy shredded potatoes with only a few strands left. Everything exuded a sense of poverty, which made Sun Cheng's heart feel heavy again.

Sighing, he set the noodle box down, bent over to pick up the trash can, and dumped all the trash from the desk into it.

After doing this, he found a rag, wiped the desk clean, sat down at the computer desk, and turned on the computer.

"Hm? Did it crash again?"

Seeing that his IBM laptop, which he had bought less than a year ago, had frozen during the startup process, Sun Cheng frowned slightly.

Come to think of it, this laptop of his had been having quite a few problems lately, frequently crashing for no reason, which was truly baffling.

He had taken it to a shop for repairs, but the repairman had tested it right in front of him for half a day without finding any issues.

He had tried reinstalling the system, but when it wanted to crash, it still showed no mercy, which had truly caused him a headache.

Generally, there are only a few reasons why a computer crashes frequently: too much dust, hardware failure, software incompatibility, or system problems.

Hardware failure and excessive dust could be ruled out first. As a senior student majoring in Micro-electronics at 【Nandu University of Technology】, Sun Cheng had a habit of regularly dismantling the machine to clean and inspect the hardware, and his last check had been just a few days ago.

As for software incompatibility, there really wasn't much software on Sun Cheng's computer, and he had tested all of it; there was simply no issue with compatibility.

Then the only remaining possibility was a system problem.

Thinking about it carefully, it was hard to say for sure about system problems.

Although the operating systems of most computers in the country had been updated to Win7, Win8, or even Win10, there were still many people like Sun Cheng who were still using the XP System that had long been phased out by the market.

Like most of his countrymen, the reason he hadn't chosen to upgrade his system was that he had been using XP ever since he first touched a computer. After getting used to the XP System, although he felt Win7 wasn't hard to use after trying it a few times, it was still a bit awkward, so he just never changed it.

"It really is a child without a mother. I'll check the forums later to see if there are any new patches..."

Sun Cheng immediately shut down the laptop and only turned it back on after a few minutes. As soon as his gaze fell upon the screen, he was stunned.

"Huh, why can I understand all these English characters?"

He was truly shocked by his new discovery!

As for his English proficiency, Sun Cheng actually knew better than anyone. Although he had passed Level 1 last year and received the 【National Professional English Level 1 Certificate】, it had been more than half a year since the exam, and he had already returned most of the English vocabulary he had learned to his teachers.

Not to mention, not only did he understand the English at this moment, but he even understood the startup principles of the programs. Sun Cheng knew better than anyone that his true level of Computer Science was only slightly better than a complete novice.

"This..."

Rubbing his eyes in disbelief and finding it was still the same when he looked again, Sun Cheng, wanting to test it out, felt a stir in his heart and hurriedly pressed the F8 key to enter Safe Mode.

The XP System installed on his computer was an old version that his former roommate had collected. Compared to the fully localized versions that were popular in the country, it still used English in many places.

If it were any other time, even after entering the all-English-annotated Safe Mode, Sun Cheng wouldn't have known how to proceed with the next step.

But now, his state was a bit strange.

After entering Safe Mode, he only had to glance at it, and the meaning and function of every line of pure English options were clear to him; his mind was even constantly flooded with various interpretations of how to use them.

For a moment, it was as if he had become a different person. His left and right hands tapped on the keyboard non-stop, and he could even distract himself to control the mouse for selections. The operating system, which had previously been profound and difficult for him to understand, now seemed completely open to him; every character and every line of code held no secrets.

After tapping on the keyboard for a while with a clatter, Sun Cheng finally controlled the system to enter a comprehensive, in-depth self-check of the software and hardware.

Seeing that the self-check program had started, he finally came to his senses and sat in front of the computer in disbelief, staring wide-eyed at his own hands, then looking at the computer screen, his eyes full of shock.

"This... did I really do this?"

Everything that had just happened to him was just too strange!

If one could explain Sun Cheng being able to understand the English characters in the system programs by saying he hadn't completely forgotten his English knowledge, how could one explain those computer skills?

In that instant, it was as if a super-consciousness had appeared in his Brain. Even the XP System, which not even the top hackers in the country would dare claim to have fully mastered, held no secrets before that consciousness; it could even be described as childish and ridiculous.

Sun Cheng knew better than anyone what his computer skills had been like before. As a Micro-electronics major, although he was much better than the average person, he was not on par with professionals.

Not to mention, he didn't believe that there was any expert in the field of computer science in the world who could summarize dozens of ways to improve the XP System in the short one or two minutes spent fiddling with Safe Mode. This was simply too incredible.

Just as he was racking his brains thinking about what had happened to him, the laptop in front of Sun Cheng suddenly emitted a "ding" prompt. He took a look and couldn't help but frown.

It turned out the XP System had completed its in-depth self-check, but still hadn't found any abnormalities.

Unwilling to give up, he had no choice but to temporarily put aside the investigation into what had happened to him. With another series of clattering clicks on the keyboard, he pulled up the abnormal crash logs hidden within the system files and flipped through them for a while. Sun Cheng's face sank, "There is an inaccessible folder in the C drive system? Every time the computer crashes, it's when it's scanning my computer files while connected to the internet?"

After all this time, it turns out his computer was just infected with a virus.

Still, he had finally figured out the reason for his laptop's frequent crashes lately.

Just as he was preparing to delete the virus file in safe mode, Sun Cheng suddenly remembered his inexplicably skyrocketing Computer Science skills and couldn't help but become interested in this virus on his computer, which he didn't know when he had contracted.

He immediately noted down the name of the folder where the virus was located, then chose to restart the computer directly from safe mode.

After the computer booted up, Sun Cheng immediately clicked on the C drive, found the suspicious folder hidden among the numerous system files, and tried to open it, only to find that access was indeed denied.

If it had been a day ago, he really would have been helpless against this thing.

But now, Sun Cheng only frowned slightly.

It was indeed not his imagination; the moment he realized the suspicious folder could not be accessed, various solutions inexplicably surfaced in Sun Cheng's mind, and with his decent foundation in Computer Science, he confirmed after a brief review that these solutions were indeed feasible.

He immediately chose the simplest one, first switching out to set his computer permissions to the highest level before accessing the folder again; this time, there were no surprises, and he opened it with ease.

"xe? It's actually a Trojan..."

After checking the file's source code, Sun Cheng's brow furrowed even tighter, "The installation date is February 24th; isn't that the day I reinstalled the system on my computer?"

He carefully flipped through the source code for a while longer, and soon his face turned gloomy.

"It can't be wrong, the Trojan was installed on my computer along with the system... could it be..."

He suddenly bent down and rummaged through a drawer under the computer desk for a while.

After a good while, he finally found an old 2GB flash drive and held it up in front of him, his eyes drifting.

"I hope it's not what I think it is."

Muttering softly to himself, Sun Cheng's expression was extremely ugly; having lost his appetite for food, he directly turned off the computer in front of him, put the flash drive into his pocket, grabbed his phone from the bed, and hurriedly picked up his keys before heading out the door.