Chapter Eleven: What Is a Hacker

Half an hour later, after returning home and sharing his first breakfast since reincarnation with his parents, Jiang Xiwen shouldered his schoolbag and headed off to school.

The sun had fully risen, and the streets and alleys were gradually filling with people. The hustle and bustle was everywhere, but most conspicuous were the students hurrying to morning study, walking in small groups and nibbling on buns, steamed bread, radish cakes, or fried dumplings.

When Jiang Xiwen arrived at school, the classroom was alive with noise. Some students on duty were playing with brooms, others were loudly reciting their texts, and of course, there were those who hadn’t finished their homework, frantically referencing their classmates’ work and scribbling away.

From the moment he entered the classroom, Zhang Ya treated Jiang Xiwen as if he were invisible, not sparing him a glance, nor showing the slightest sign of anger. Yet her haughty demeanor was more pronounced than usual, which suited Jiang Xiwen just fine—one less trouble to deal with.

After morning reading and calisthenics, Jiang Xiwen did not return to the classroom. The enormous poster on the school’s bulletin board gave him the perfect excuse to skip class.

Provincial Computer Competition for Secondary School Students—no grade restriction. Registration venue: Computer Classroom. Contact teacher: Qi Huanchang.

A heaven-sent opportunity! Jiang Xiwen strode purposefully toward the computer classroom in the school’s laboratory building.

As he reached the doorway, just as he was about to enter, a middle-aged female teacher in a white lab coat stepped out. “Student, there’s no computer class this morning. What grade are you in, and why are you here?”

“I’m in my third year of junior high, here to find Teacher Qi and sign up for the competition training,” Jiang Xiwen replied.

“He’s inside. Here are shoe covers—hurry up so you don’t miss your class.”

“Understood, teacher.” With a bright, sunny smile, Jiang Xiwen put on the shoe covers and entered.

The spacious room was spotless, the air conditioning set just right. Fifty computers were arranged in neat rows. In his previous life, Jiang Xiwen had only visited this room a few times; it wasn’t until university that he truly became acquainted with computers.

For this era, the school’s computer lab was remarkably well-kept, Jiang Xiwen silently praised, but he couldn’t see Qi Huanchang anywhere. Just as he was about to ask, an excited shout came from the farthest corner: “Okay, finished!”

Jiang Xiwen turned to look—Qi Huanchang jumped from in front of a computer, his joy unmistakable. That computer was evidently superior to the others, placed on a higher, specialized desk, which was why Jiang Xiwen hadn’t noticed Qi Huanchang sitting there before.

Jiang Xiwen decided to tease this amusingly rotund teacher and said deliberately, “Teacher Qi, even though you’re in charge of the computer room, you can’t break the rules—yelling like that, where’s your decorum?”

“Sorry, won’t happen again,” Qi Huanchang replied without thinking, clearly used to saying this over and over.

“Ah, Teacher Qi…” Jiang Xiwen said as he walked closer.

Before he could finish, Qi Huanchang recognized him. “Haha, it’s you! Come here, I have something good to show you.”

Seeing Qi Huanchang so excited, so different from his demeanor yesterday at the Tianxing Computer Room, Jiang Xiwen grew curious. He hurried over and looked closely—the computer screen showed the DOS system’s PS interface, nothing special.

“Try pressing any key,” Qi Huanchang’s cheeks trembled with delight, his expression childlike.

Jiang Xiwen saw nothing unusual and casually entered a letter. The computer suddenly rebooted.

“Qi, it’s just a virus, what’s the fuss?” Jiang Xiwen laughed. “Just kill it.”

“It’s my own virus program! Of course I’m excited—it’s my first virus!”

Had they not been in the computer classroom, Jiang Xiwen had no doubt this chubby teacher would have shouted with glee. He remembered the thrill of writing his first virus, though he was better at keeping his emotions in check. When he became a true hacker, he realized that to reach the top, one needed a calmness beyond most people, to keep the mind clear and agile.

“Want to be a hacker? A little virus like this isn’t nearly enough,” Jiang Xiwen said indifferently. He saw that Qi Huanchang was a born computer enthusiast—writing viruses could improve programming skills, but Jiang Xiwen didn’t want him to follow the path of destructive hacking, so he chose to dampen Qi Huanchang’s spirits a bit.

In his frenzy, Qi Huanchang saw Jiang Xiwen’s expression and immediately retorted, “You know about hackers? Big talk! If you’re so great, try manually removing my virus.”

When it came to computers, the chubby teacher was just a big kid. Jiang Xiwen said nothing, sat down, and began inspecting the machine.

Apart from PS, the computer contained a virus file and several small games, as well as installed Turbo C—Qi Huanchang had used it to write the virus. When the cursor landed on Turbo C, Qi Huanchang nervously said, “Don’t use that to look at my source code.” Then, embarrassed, corrected himself, “Though you probably wouldn’t understand it anyway, so go ahead.”

“Is it so precious? I’ll wipe out your homemade virus in no time,” Jiang Xiwen said, launching each of the games, but found nothing amiss.

Thinking through the mechanism that caused the computer to restart, Jiang Xiwen opened Turbo C.

“No way, Xiwen, you really can code! I thought you’d just delete my virus. Clearly, you didn’t just learn from your uncle for one summer!” Qi Huanchang’s surprise replaced all other emotions.

“I often write viruses like this for fun, then write antivirus programs to kill them—it’s like playing chess against myself. You should try it if you have time,” Jiang Xiwen said, deliberately guiding Qi Huanchang. If Qi Huanchang truly had an interest and talent in virus writing and invasion, he’d be better off pursuing network security. Having only known him a day, Jiang Xiwen could already tell that Qi Huanchang’s temperament wouldn’t let him settle for being a secondary school computer teacher. He probably enjoyed the relaxed schedule, free from frequent classes, giving him plenty of time to study programming.

Qi Huanchang’s round eyes grew wider and wider; he was now completely convinced that the boy before him was a computer prodigy. Jiang Xiwen’s C code was concise—at best, Qi Huanchang could write at that level, and only with full knowledge of the virus’s source code.

Though utterly astonished, Qi Huanchang was not nervous. The virus he wrote didn’t simply infect PS to cause a reboot. Jiang Xiwen’s antivirus program only targeted the reboot virus infecting PS, which gave Qi Huanchang a small measure of relief—he wouldn’t be bested so easily by a kid.

A quick little program was written, and after running it, the virus was immediately eliminated. Out of habit, Jiang Xiwen restarted the computer. He didn’t believe Qi Huanchang could write a virus that regenerated after reboot, but double-checking had become second nature for someone who’d once been a hacker.

Years ago, Jiang Xiwen himself wrote a Trojan virus. Even if the opponent was skilled and managed, through a series of complicated steps, to remove the Trojan, when the infected computer restarted for the fifth time, the virus would be triggered anew.

Most people checked by rebooting twice after cleaning a virus, but Jiang Xiwen’s virus once gave a rival hacker quite a headache—and that hacker’s reputation exceeded his own by far.

After observing Jiang Xiwen’s reboot, Qi Huanchang showed little pride. He knew his virus wouldn’t be destroyed by Jiang Xiwen’s program, but seeing a fifteen-year-old reach such a level, he, who was hailed as a computer genius at Nanshen University, couldn’t help feeling defeated.

But an even greater sense of defeat was coming. After the computer rebooted, Jiang Xiwen immediately pinpointed the issue. Qi Huanchang had learned the nested virus trick from Tianxing Computer Room yesterday, using one virus to trigger another. The initial virus was hidden within one of the games, harmless in itself and generating no files, making it even harder to detect than the Golden Cicada virus.

This chubby teacher really had some skill. Jiang Xiwen quickly added a few lines to his original program, ran it again, and finally eradicated the virus completely.

Qi Huanchang’s face turned ashen, his astonishment tinged with resignation, unable to utter a single word.