Chapter 358: Chapter 253: Blazing Inferno (Part 2)

The security expert operated for a while, then softly sighed and shook his head: "No, the underlying system is completely damaged, the data cannot be recovered."

Hope shattered, Future felt a pang of sadness in her heart and began to wipe away her tears while squatting on the ground.

Su Mo felt heartache as well, placing his hand on her shoulder to comfort her: "It’s okay, we have plenty of time later. I’ll give you more funding to buy better equipment, and we’ll slowly make up for the lost progress."

After thinking for a moment, the security expert turned back and offered an initial plan: "Director Su, I suggest not repairing these infected devices, just physically destroy them and replace them with new ones to prevent any residual viruses."

"Hmm, understood. But on your side..." Su Mo was halfway through speaking when he suddenly stared straight at the security expert’s computer, "Is your computer... is this situation normal?"

"Hmm?" The security expert looked at the computer.

The software used for capturing virus source code had disappeared at some point, replaced by endless chaotic symbols wildly scrolling across the screen.

"...What’s going on?" The security expert was shocked, continually trying to input command symbols, but they were of no use.

The chaotic symbols kept scrolling and finally stopped, beginning to uniformly transform and decode into a common language.

The entire screen only displayed two words:

[Go Die]

Shangguan Li frowned and asked, "What’s happening?"

The security expert looked dazed: "Our firewall has also crashed... This is impossible. This is the firewall our team just upgraded, how could a vulnerability be discovered so quickly..."

Su Mo fixed his gaze and pointed at the computer shouting: "Hey, it’s smoking, that’s not right!"

Black smoke was emerging from the computer’s cooling fan outlet, growing larger.

Quick-eyed and hand-swift, Shangguan Li hastily pulled the security expert away.

Su Mo immediately pounced on Future, covering her.

"Bang!" The notebook computer that Mo Xue brought suddenly exploded, with all sorts of shattered components flying around.

"Bang, bang, bang, bang—" Besides the computers that were unplugged, those still on in the lab exploded one after another, with electronic sparks flying everywhere.

Fortunately, these explosions were not powerful, only the black smoke smudged everyone’s face.

"Cough, cough, cough..." Su Mo waved his hand to disperse the smoke in front of him and asked with a grim expression, "What’s happening? Were they rigged with bombs?"

The security expert adjusted his skewed glasses and swallowed: "No, the virus controlled the power to overload operations, causing overheating and damage... This virus can attack not only software but hardware as well."

Shangguan Li pressed on: "So what do you think? Can you handle it?"

The security expert wiped the sweat off his forehead, hesitated for a moment, then lowered his head saying: "Sorry, two directors, the person who created this virus is above my skill level, far above... I can’t even capture a sample of the source code..."

Shangguan Li suddenly felt embarrassed.

Came grandly with people, thinking they were here to save the day.

Only to be completely defeated by the enemy on the spot.

Embarrassment reached a new level.

Even though Shangguan Li didn’t help much, Su Mo still expressed sincere gratitude: "It’s okay, thank you for your hard work. I’ll figure something out later. Future, it’s about lunchtime, take our two guests to the restaurant for something to eat."

Future had cried all morning, and her emotions had slightly recovered. She wiped away her tears, nodded, and took Shangguan Li and the security expert away.

Su Mo temporarily entrusted the matters of the team to Dongdong and others, then drove the black Ark towards Anmi New District.

Since the technical aspect was not working, he might as well go directly to capture Qi Ling herself.

Even if he couldn’t capture her, there should be some clues at Qi Ling’s home, which is certainly better than staring blankly at Edge Mansion.

Flying over Anmi New District requires special permits, so without time for formalities, Su Mo had to, like yesterday, drive through the tunnel on the ground to Qi Ling’s home.

As he was driving, he suddenly saw someone walking a black Labrador.

"Screech—"

He braked sharply at the roadside, leaned out to scrutinize the dog, and quickly recognized it: "Pipi?"

"Woof!" Pipi barked at Su Mo, also recognizing the guest its owner brought back yesterday, continuously wagging its tail.

Su Mo got out of the car and approached Pipi, who was anxiously circling around, making whimpering noises from its throat.

The person walking the dog was a middle-aged woman, she asked: "Hello, are you its owner?"

Su Mo shook his head: "I am not. Do you know this dog?"

The woman shook her head: "I don’t know. I woke up this morning planning to walk my own dog, and when I went out, I saw this Labrador tied to my door with a note left by someone asking me to adopt it. It was quite baffling."

Su Mo: "The note... can I see it?"

The woman took a note out of her pocket: "Here it is."

Su Mo opened it and glanced at it.

It’s Qi Ling’s handwriting, unmistakably.

She actually gave away her pet dog, what’s she up to?

Su Mo asked further: "Ma’am, you live around here, have you seen a girl, about 1.67 meters tall, very beautiful, with silver hair and amber eyes?"

The woman pondered: "Silver hair, amber eyes... Oh, oh, oh! I remember now, this is her dog. We’ve met while walking dogs a few times."

She seems to be called... Qi Ling, right? A very warm and friendly little girl. Are you her boyfriend?"

Su Mo was speechless: "No, with her... it’s hard to explain briefly, did you see her today?"

The woman shook her head: "No, when I went out, I only saw this dog, fed it a bit, and then you came."

She pointed farther away, "I remember she lives up the mountain there, driving there should take about ten minutes... Hey? What’s with the smoke over there?"

Su Mo turned to look, and his expression froze.

Black smoke was rising from the distance on the mountain, and judging by the location, it was exactly Qi Ling’s villa.

"Leave Pipi with you for now; please take care of it." Su Mo hurriedly climbed into the black Ark and started the engine.

He couldn’t afford to worry about the prohibition now, directly activating the levitation mode and flying straight towards the villa at the fastest speed.

Upon reaching the mountain peak, the sight before him made Su Mo’s heart sink.

The originally magnificent and beautiful villa was engulfed in billowing black smoke, with flames continuously spilling from the windows, leaping firelight everywhere, the entire building burning fiercely.

It was clear that whoever was here knew he’d come, burning the villa in advance to erase traces?

Su Mo clicked his tongue and maneuvered the black Ark down.

In the front garden of the villa, there was a pond. He jumped in, soaking himself completely, and then took off his jacket to cover his nose and mouth, rushing straight into the burning villa.

His water-soaked clothes wouldn’t burn easily, and the "Dragon Flame Blood Code" he’d obtained earlier endowed his body with strong high-temperature resistance, allowing him to move freely in the fire.

The fire had been burning for a while; those beautiful furniture pieces, cozy decorations, were all blackened.

The wardrobe he visited yesterday, with the exquisite and cute clothes, shoes, and socks, were also burned to tatters, hanging on mannequins with flames dancing around.

The villa was very large; yesterday Su Mo only went to his guest room for sleeping, not visiting other places, so he could only search room by room.

He checked every room on every floor, but found neither anyone nor any useful clues.

He arrived at Qi Ling’s master bedroom and looked around.

Aside from normal furniture, there wasn’t even a computer.

That didn’t make sense.

Qi Ling was a hacker working with viruses, there must be a lot of hardware equipment.

And with such a short time, she definitely couldn’t transfer them all, otherwise there’d be no need to burn down the house.

There must be some important clues here, that’s why Qi Ling would use such an extreme method as arson to erase them.

Su Mo began reconstructing the villa’s three-dimensional structure in his mind based on previous observations.

Suddenly, he stared straight at the northern wall of the master bedroom.

He discovered something odd in the three-dimensional structure in his mind.

The walls of other rooms were of normal thickness, but the north wall of this master bedroom was exceptionally thick.

And not just a little thick, thick enough to accommodate a room.

Inside... there’s a hidden room!

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