Chapter 183 - 182: Hacker, Morning Star of the Isolated Island

As Chen Yuran and Yulian stared at each other, sizing each other up, and occasionally glimpsing at him, the corner of Li Jing’s mouth twitched.

At this moment, silence was golden.

These two, it seemed, had some misunderstandings about his character.

"You two, that’s enough."

Saying wordlessly, Li Jing introduced Yulian.

"Yuran is my neighbor and my colleague. Moreover, she is the bureau chief’s daughter."

After that, he looked at Chen Yuran.

"Yulian is my friend, as well as a Great Demon living in East City. She is here at the invitation of my uncle to assist me in the case."

With Li Jing’s introduction, Yulian and Chen Yuran immediately looked at each other again, scrutinizing each other.

The director’s daughter?

Does that mean...

The girl in front of her is Chen Jing’s daughter?

Yulian was surprised.

Chen Yuran looked at her with all sorts of surprises.

A great demon living in East City, Li Jing’s friend?

And she was invited by her own father?

After looking at each other for a while, Chen Yuran walked over, stretching out a hand in friendship.

"I apologize, Miss Yu, I may have misunderstood you before, I thought..."

Before she could finish, Yulian reached out her hand for a gentle handshake, apologizing.

"It’s me who should apologize. I mistakenly thought you were Li Jing’s girlfriend."

Seeing the two of them shaking hands and getting to know each other, Li Jing asked.

"Yuran, did you rush over here to find Xiao Ai?"

"Yes."

Chen Yuran replied, saying.

"I’m still investigating the unusual funds in the accounts of those two guards from the Examination Institute. I’ve changed my approach and gained a clue. I wanted Xiao Ai to help me look into it."

Upon hearing this, Li Jing raised an eyebrow slightly, then relieved.

The unusual funds of those two guards from the Examination Institute are definitely connected to the evil cultivators, but not necessarily directly connected.

The source of the funds, may involve another party.

Continuing the investigation is necessary.

However, Yulian was somewhat interested listening to their conversation.

Xiao Ai?

Is there a fourth person in the villa?

This...

That doesn’t make sense!

If there were another person, she should be able to sense it.

Without thinking, Yulian cast her gaze towards the guest room Li Jing had previously entered.

Li Jing had originally not planned to let Yulian know about Xiao Ai’s existence, but since Chen Yuran suddenly appeared, it seemed impossible not to introduce her.

Seeing Yulian staring at the guest room, Li Jing explained.

"Xiao Ai is not a human, but a cutting-edge Artificial Intelligence. Her assistance in searching network information is incredibly useful."

"Cutting-edge Artificial Intelligence?"

Yulian blinked.

She, of course, knew about Artificial Intelligence.

But the term "cutting-edge" was a bit vague.

Modern AI skills are immature.

Often the so-called AIs are intellectually disabled - they can only run preset programs and are of little use.

"It’s complicated to explain, you’ll understand if you come take a look."

As he spoke, Li Jing walked towards the guest room.

Curious, Yulian followed him.

As she stepped forward, her arm tightened.

???

Three question marks popped out. Yulian turned her head.

What she saw was Chen Yuran, laughing as she took her arm.

What is this situation?

Yulian was a bit dazed.

Before she had regained her senses, Chen Yuran smiled subtly.

"I beg your pardon for asking, Miss Yu, what kind of monster are you?"

"Oh, I’m a white fox demon."

Yulian answered subconsciously.

"A white fox?"

Chen Yuran showed an understanding look, tightened her arm around Yulian’s, and quietly sent a voice message to Li Jing.

"Would you dare to have Yulian transform for me?"

Getting the message, Li Jing rolled his eyes and chose to ignore it.

This girl is acting up again.

Yulian, with her arm taken by Chen Yuran and following behind, was puzzled.

She pondered, she just met Chen Yuran.

Why is she so clingy all of a sudden?

Women do get along better with other women.

But isn’t it a bit much to get all friendly after just exchanging a few words?

Dazed, Yulian followed into the room and saw two huge screens, one horizontal and one vertical. She carefully looked at them, but couldn’t make sense of anything.

When no one’s around, Xiao Ai’s operations were all controlled backstage.

Due to the supercomputer’s main body being upstairs, all Yulian could see now was a control panel and two screens.

Li Jing, seeing the two women come in, called out without hesitation.

"Xiao Ai, come meet Yulian."

With his words, the supercomputer’s vertical screen lit up and Xiao Ai’s virtual image appeared, blinking at Yulian.

"Hello Miss Yu, it’s nice to meet you."

Upon seeing the lively Xiao Ai on the screen, Yulian was taken aback.

She knew her stuff.

Though it was just a simple greeting, Xiao Ai’s emotionally charged tone and incredibly lifelike gestures showed just how advanced she was.

Just as she was about to return the greeting, Xiao Ai stepped down from the screen.

!!!

Yulian’s eyes widened.

She...

Could actually step down from the screen?

At that moment, Chen Yuran chimed in empathetically.

"It’s just a holographic projection, don’t be too shocked."

"..."

Yulian.

She could recognize a holographic projection.

That’s why she was shocked.

She wasn’t very familiar with artificial intelligence.

But holography, her company spent quite a bit of budget on it.

She’s in the entertainment media business, not just dealing with internet celebrities of all sizes but also launched projects related to entertainment technology.

Virtual idols, or 2D characters, are becoming more prevalent.

In this field, the development of holography was definitely the trend.

Any media companies with foresight would invest in the development of holography.

However, none of them have technology mature enough to simulate what was in front of her eyes.

Xiao Ai’s holographic projection looked just like a real person standing there!

If she hadn’t watched Xiao Ai stepping down from the screen, she wouldn’t have noticed that she’s merely a virtual character.

This technology was probably decades ahead of the industry!

She quickly glanced at Li Jing, but held her tongue before speaking.

She wanted to speak out, but knew she shouldn’t.

Being as smart as she was, she easily figured out that such exclusive technology could only come from the Hua Country Research Institute.

Only the Research Institute would have advanced technology that hadn’t been made public yet.

Ordinary folks wouldn’t have access to this.

Even if they did, they wouldn’t be allowed to use it publicly.

Li Jing’s background...

Seemed quite deep!

It’s one thing to be associated with someone strong like Chen Jing, but to also have a strong connection with the Research Institute and privately use unreleased technology...that’s another.

Li Jing had no idea what Yulian was thinking.

If he did, he would’ve laughed.

Xiao Ai did come from the Research Institute, but it was more of an accident.

As for the holography...

Although it’s from the Research Institute, it was purchased from the dark web. It was not given by the Research Institute.

Seeing that Xiao Ai had greeted Yulian, Li Jing looked towards Chen Yuran.

"Yuran, what are you trying to investigate?"

"Some hackers who take bribes to do jobs."

Chen Yuran replied while mentioning a few names.

"Xiao Ai, can you help me look into these people? The patrol system showed that they live in West City, but their addresses are empty. Please find a way to figure out their current whereabouts."

"Okay."

Xiao Ai responded as countless data quickly flashed across the horizontal screen.

In less than two seconds, tens of thousands of IP addresses popped up on the screen.

"I can’t confirm where exactly these people Miss Yuran mentioned are, but by tracking the IP addresses registered to their residential addresses and through port association, I was able to find their anonymous social networking accounts."

Xiao Ai spoke up.

"There is a total of over 60,000 dynamic IPs that have logged into these accounts, among which half point to North City’s Huiguang Network data center. Miss Yuran, you may discover something if you take a trip to Huiguang Network."

"Huiguang Network?"

Chen Yuran narrowed her eyes, not willing to let go of Yulian as she looked towards Li Jing.

"I’ll go to Huiguang Network. You don’t need to worry about this. Just focus on investigating the evil cultivators. If there’s any progress, I’ll let you know."

With that, she hurriedly left.

Chen Yuran has always been swift and decisive when it comes to work, something Li Jing was accustomed to.

Turning to Yulian, Li Jing said.

"If there’s anything you want to look up, you can ask Xiao Ai to help. As long as the information is available online, whether it’s business-related to your company or anything else, we can have the results quickly."

"This, I..."

Yulian hesitated.

She had already witnessed the extent of Xiaxi’s capabilities earlier.

In just a few seconds, it had uncovered an unnamed social media account through a few names and had tracked more than sixty thousand dynamic IP addresses, identifying exactly where each IP was located.

This efficiency was off the charts.

Even the top hackers probably couldn’t dig up this much information in such a short time.

With Xiaxi present, Yulian had many queries that she wanted to address.

After all, she ran an entertainment company. Their operations were broad and they had many competitors.

Biting her red lips, Yulian softly said,

"Maybe, could you step out for a bit? I want to check some things related to the company’s operations."

"Alright, I’ll wait outside while you familiarize yourself with Xiaxi."

Li Jing smiled, giving Xiaxi a signal to grant Yulian certain authorization.

He was uninterested in Yulian’s business operations.

If she wanted him to step out, he would.

...

More than an hour later, Yulian emerged from the living room with a satisfied look.

Li Jing was currently watching TV on the living room sofa.

Seeing Yulian come into the living room looking refreshed and rejuvenated, Li Jing looked puzzled.

It was clear that Yulian had gained a lot during that last hour.

Li Jing didn’t bother to ask about it.

Yulian’s entertainment company.

The ’behind the scenes’ of an entertainment company.

Anyone who knew, knew. It wasn’t all clean.

Yulian didn’t mention what she had gained as she sat down next to Li Jing, and with pursed lips, she looked at him.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"What kind of question?"

Li Jing looked up.

"I just saw Miss Chen earlier, and she seemed very amiable and seemed to want to get close to me."

Yulian said, lowering her voice.

"Does she... have a wrong sexual orientation?"

Li Jing’s mouth twitched, and he quietly said,

"It’s not about the sexual orientation, she simply craves your body."

He added,

"By body, I mean your original form as a fox demon. She cannot resist fluffy small animals, especially when it’s a cat or a dog. She would want to take them home."

"..."

Yulian.

Li Jing had spoken so explicitly that of course she understood.

But she never expected that Chen Jing’s daughter would have such a special hobby.

According to what Li Jing said, it seemed that Chen Yuran was quite "sick."

Even though she was a Fifth Boundary Big Monster, Chen Yuran wanted to take her home?

After a moment of silence, Yulian said,

"Miss Chen’s hobby is really quite unique."

Li Jing simply remained silent.

Just then, his mobile phone vibrating on the coffee table alerted him.

Picking up his phone, Li Jing found a message from Xiaxi, who was in the guest room.

"Master, I’ve found the traces of the four Great Demons in the photos. They have been active along the eastern coast of North City recently. The club where the photos were taken is a high-end one named ’Minglun’, located near the eastern coast."

After reading the message, Li Jing’s brows furrowed.

He knew the eastern coast too well.

Back in his days at the Assistant Inspector Department, his Patrol Ninth Group was in charge of the regular patrols in the eastern coastal areas.

Why would these four Great Demons be active near the eastern coast?

The first thing that came to Li Jing’s mind was the 107th Small Secret Realm.

But this hypothesis was quickly overthrown.

The entrance to the 107th Small Secret Realm had long been closed, and it had nothing to do with Chen Jing.

If they had designs on the Small Secret Realm, it would make more sense to target the Management Bureau. Trying to trip up Chen Jing wouldn’t be of much use.

So, what exactly were they after?

Li Jing pondered.

Finding the four unpredictable Great Demons would be very difficult.

Simply relying on the areas where they had been active as reference and directly seeking them out was pure luck.

The eastern coastal area was vast, they would need to figure out their goal to find them quickly.

After some thought, Li Jing typed a message.

"Can you compile the locations where they have been spotted on surveillance and provide me with a regional map?"

Not long after sending the message, Xiaxi replied with a map of the eastern coastal area marked with red dots. Each dot was labeled with the date and time.

Receiving the map, Li Jing’s brow furrowed even more.

On the map from Xiaxi.

The four Great Demons had a very broad range of activities, leaving their footprints all over the eastern coastline.

The earliest traces of their appearances were more than ten days ago.

In terms of timing, it coincided with those two Great Demons from the West City who exposed themselves and stirred up the underground black market.

After inspecting the area map for a while, Li Jing found that the surveillance captured the four Great Demons early on the coastlines of the Eastern Coast, within the area of the Patrol Ninth Group’s ’Flying Immortal’ squad’s responsibility.

Then their tracks followed along the coastlines upward, to the upper sections.

In the course of their journey, they had approached the coastal area several times.

Finally, their tracks halted near the Sky Blue Sea Bathing Beach and retreated back to the lower sections.

Just from the tracks, it seemed like they were looking for something.

But without a doubt, things were not that simple.

Taking into account the factors related to Chen Jing and the Blue Sky Sea Bathing Beach, Li Jing thought of a possibility.

These four Great Demons, they were staking out.

According to Chen Jing’s speculation.

The complicated design behind the incident was related to him, but not directed at him, it was intended to divert his attention.

Now, to the Blue Sky Sea Bathing Beach.

Though the entrance to the 107th Small Secret Realm has been closed for half a month and the beach has resumed business, due to the consecutive opening of the Secret Realm entrance within a short period of time, it was heavily monitored by the Management Bureau and the Research Institute.

The four Great Demons’ activity tracks deliberately avoided the Blue Sky Sea Bathing Beach, evidently to prevent encounters with the monitoring networks of the Management Bureau and the Research Institute.

Based on these two conditions, the stakeout of the Great Demons was quite clear.

Why were they staking out?

To ensure that certain unscrupulous activities under time pressure could be carried out flawlessly, they planned clear and suitable retreat routes in advance according to the dynamic conditions of the surrounding area.

This, Li Jing was quite familiar with.

Before he crossed over, there was a popular large-scale online robbery game called "For the Sake of Love" which he was obsessed with for a period of time.

During that period, in order to avoid dragging down his teammates, he studied diligently.

Staking out was a necessary part of every robbery.

Having considered staking out, Li Jing’s train of thought suddenly opened up.

If they were just robbing property, it wouldn’t have disturbed Chen Jing, and there wouldn’t be a need to deliberately prevent him from noticing.

The four Great Demons staking out for the sake of robbing property was too much of a small play.

And on the Eastern Coast, there was nothing worth stealing.

If something were worth stealing, it would be better to rob the Spiritual Objects Market instead.

Li Jing opened the map on his mobile phone, moved the map to an overseas location, moving to an isolated island across the sea from the Eastern Coastline.

This island was named Morning Star, which was very well-known.

Not because the scenery of the island was particularly good, but because there was a notorious high-security prison on the island.

The prison was named after the island, and those held there were serious felons from all over the country with cultivation levels of at least Four Realm and their crimes were not punishable by death.

Morning Star Prison was a one-way entry, guarded by very powerful forces.

It has three Fifth Boundary stationed, and the island itself is shrouded year-round in a one-way-entry defense formation.

Any who were imprisoned would never be able to leave again.

The defense formation only ever opened for newly imprisoned serious criminals or when there were staff turnovers.

Morning Star Prison was not under the jurisdiction of North City, and not even under the jurisdiction of Jianghai Earth Realm.

But their relationships were close.

If something were to happen to Morning Star Prison, Chen Jing would certainly be alerted.

Looking at the location of Morning Star Prison on the map, Li Jing silently clicked his tongue.

After all the fuss, the opponent’s plot was aimed at Morning Star Prison.

A prison break was one thing if it happened elsewhere.

But the Morning Star Prison was not easily tampered with.

No one knew how many people were held in Morning Star Prison, but there were definitely a lot.

If anything were to happen there, heaven knows how much chaos would ensue.

He pulled out his Immortal Message to contact Chen Jing and sent the four characters of ’Morning Star Prison’ over.

Not long after the message was sent, Chen Jing replied.

"I understand. I’ll keep an eye on that side."

Receiving the reply, Li Jing let out a deep breath and looked at Yulian.

"Let’s go, we’re heading to the Eastern Coastline."

Yulian, sitting by his side, had remained quiet while Li Jing had been absorbed in studying his phone. At his words, she simply replied with an ’Mm’, rising to her feet without asking anything more.

She had experienced it during the exchange with Chen Jing at the Patrol Bureau at noon. She had been involuntarily involved in a sensitive incident.

Some things she was better off not knowing too much about. It was better to just follow Li Jing and act dutifully as a tool, waiting for the matter to be resolved so she could extract herself from the situation.

...

In a few minutes, Li Jing had arrived at the lower section of the Eastern Coastline with Yulian, landing on a beach.

After glancing across the sea, Li Jing took out his mobile phone and called Kong Wu.

The main objective of the Great Demons was staking out, which has been more or less confirmed.

But this doesn’t mean that they could be found in a short time.

The only thing that could be confirmed at present was that they had been active in the lower section of the Eastern coastline in the last two days.

It would be difficult to find them by following the procedure strictly.

Now was the time to make use of the available connections.

The call connected shortly, and Kong Wu answered with surprise.

"Li Jing?"

"Yes, it’s me."

Li Jing responded, then said,

"I’m looking for four suspects who recently have been active in the lower section of the Eastern coastline. I hope to get the Assistant Inspector Department’s assistance. I’ll send you their photos in a while. I request Captain Kong to arrange, ask the surrounding assistant inspectors to watch out. If found, do not approach carelessly. Inform me at once."