Chapter 601 - Who Is The Real Mastermind?
If this was in her past life, Iris would have continued to fight head on till the end in order to defeat the unknown hacker who made her blood boil and ignited her competitive spirit. However, everything was different now.
It wouldn’t be odd for the infamous Vetrov family to be connected to one of the most formidable hackers in the world, so she as Fantom didn’t need to act so cautious when hacking during her past life. Her past family’s criminal notoriety was also a kind of a safety net for her back then. Even if this was the case then, the Vetrov family still fell from their top position in the criminal underworld and was annihilated.
Having experienced the dangerous darkness of the criminal underworld firsthand in her past life, she didn’t want to risk the safety of the loving family she built with Jin Liwei in this current life of hers. Jin Liwei might be a powerful and influential man but he stood openly in the light, not in darkness. It would be a grave sin for her to destroy his sterling reputation including three generations of Jin heads just because she was exposed as an infamous hacker. Not to mention that there were many entities from all around the world who were hunting for both her hacker identities, Fantom and Drakon. She made a lot of enemies from hacking. They might threaten, or heavens forbid, hurt Jin Liwei and their family once it was found out that she was either Fantom or Drakon.
Too dangerous.
This was why she could only sigh in regret and start retreating when the battle with the unknown hacker was just starting to heat up. It was already clear to her that the opponent was someone formidable. He or she wouldn’t be an easy opponent to beat even for someone like her. However, it wasn’t only her who felt challenged. The unknown hacker should also be finding it difficult to beat her.
It would be too risky to continue battling, especially right now that she had so many things on her plate: her currently weakened body still recovering, her uneasiness about Ketchup, the corrupted part removed from Ketchup’s system, and finally, the identities of the real mastermind(s) behind Tian Kong’s terrorist attack targeting her.
As if on the same wavelength, the unknown hacker also retreated and didn’t pursue her. Iris felt a little disappointed but thought that this was for the best in the current situation.
’I’m sure we’ll battle each other again.’
After completely erasing all of her traces and securing her retreat, she began examining the evidence she managed to unearth. They proved that there was indeed a mastermind who instigated Tian Kong to kill her. The problem was that the evidence she uncovered were incomplete and didn’t reveal the identities of the real mastermind(s). Even the voices in the call recordings she obtained were choppy and had been heavily disguised to sound like robotic voices. Despite this, her progress was miles ahead compared to the slow pace of the police. At least, she managed to acquire actual evidence no matter how incomplete.
Iris tilted her head to the side, thinking about what she should do next.
’Should I release these findings to the public? To the police? Or maybe both?’
She frowned, feeling her police allergy acting up.
’Maybe I should gather more evidence on my own first before sharing my findings to outsiders...’
Her thoughts were interrupted when one of her computers notified her of the latest public updates in the police investigation regarding the bomb incident. She began reading.
Her eyes widened after a few moments before raising an eyebrow. An excerpt of the latest news article said:
"Bomber Tian Kong, obsessed fan of internationally-acclaimed multi-award-winning musician Iris Long, breaks his silence for the first time since the police arrested him for attempting and eventually failing to murder Iris Long and fellow fans by blowing them up with a bomb at a mall show. Tian Kong confesses to the police that he and Zhu Ning were lovers.
"For those of you who don’t know who this woman is, Zhu Ning is a former mistress of Long Industries’ President-CEO Long Tengfei, father of Iris Long. Zhu Ning recently got into a catfight with Iris Long’s mother, Spanish Viscountess Wei Lan, and threatened to kill the mother and daughter in front of many witnesses who caught the incident on video.
"Tian Kong claims that Zhu Ning manipulated him using her mature womanly charms and took advantage of his youth to twist his admiration for Iris Long into a crazed obsession. According to him, Zhu Ning was the one who instigated him to murder Iris Long...."
Iris leaned back on her comfortable ergonomic seat to think about the alleged affair between Tian Kong and Zhu Ning. She didn’t expect this kind of development in this case at all. There were even "evidence" that popped up after his "confession" to prove that he and Zhu Ning were indeed lovers.
One particular evidence caught her attention. It wasn’t released to the public but she accessed it from the police’s currently vulnerable system.
"A sex video?" she murmured, her eyebrow rising higher.
Iris turned off Ketchup’s senses before playing the sex video. Now both of her eyebrows rose. She was actually impressed that the man in the video looked exactly like Tian Kong—maybe it was really him—and the woman looked so much like Zhu Ning.
If the video was real, then Zhu Ning’s name should be written on her virtual black notebook guarded by Ketchup. But if it was fake, then the person who directed and created the video was frightening in his or her ability to manipulate a lie and successfully make it appear as if it was the truth.
After feeling impressed, Iris quickly felt disgusted and stopped watching. Then she closed the video. She loved making love with Jin Liwei but she had no interest or whatsoever in watching other people have sex. That kind of thing wasn’t her cup of tea.
Iris closed her eyes to think about what she learned today. After a few minutes, she opened them again.
"Who is the real mastermind? Is it really Zhu Ning?"
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