Chapter 900: Chapter 356: All 8 Ended Up in the Hospital
You have to understand.
Up till now, every single thing they did always came with unpredictable danger.
Yet in these ten minutes...
everything seemed to have quieted down.
"Did you guys... smell something burning?"
All of a sudden.
The youngest hacker sniffed the air and couldn’t help reminding them.
The other four froze and looked at each other.
They reacted quickly.
Because...
the burnt smell in the air was getting stronger and stronger.
It was even a bit choking.
"Shit! The trash can’s on fire!"
The five followed the smell and saw fierce flames blazing in the trash can.
The cause...
seemed to be a cigarette butt somebody had thrown away.
And.
Right next to the trash can, just their luck, there were piles of blankets, paper and other flammable stuff.
In just an instant.
The fire spread and began to rage wildly.
"Put it out, quick!"
Their pupils contracted violently as they shouted.
In their office...
they stored tons of files, along with the business secrets they’d obtained through all sorts of illegal channels.
Worth a fortune.
If this fire really took off...
it wouldn’t just be their lives in danger; all those files and trade secrets would go up in smoke.
Their boss would definitely kill them when he got back.
"Don’t panic, this office building has a fire suppression system. As soon as it detects smoke, the sprinklers kick in and put the fire out automatically."
One hacker was relatively calm and pointed at the sprinkler system on the ceiling.
But...
the other four couldn’t help swallowing, doubtful: "You sure... this thing actually works?"
By now the flames in the office were getting bigger and bigger.
The smoke was thick as hell.
But the fire suppression system still hadn’t started.
Might as well have been for show.
"Run, now, what are you waiting for, New Year’s Eve? Forget the files, or we’re all gonna die here!"
With that shout.
Everyone snapped out of it.
They bolted.
And rushed for the office door.
However...
at this critical moment, they discovered the office door wouldn’t open, for some unknown reason!
"Fuck!"
Someone’s face flushed red as he spat out a curse.
When it rains, it pours.
This was basically forcing them down a dead end.
But...
on death’s doorstep, their survival instinct exploded.
They started trying everything they could to smash the door.
A few minutes later.
After thick smoke had filled the entire office area, they finally managed to break the door down.
And fled.
Once they’d escaped with their lives.
They collapsed on the ground, gulping in fresh air.
A look of post-disaster relief crept over their faces.
Some of them...
had reddened eyes and actually felt like crying.
"Being alive... feels damn good."
"Who the hell did we piss off? How are we this unlucky?"
"What do we do now? How are we gonna explain this to the boss?"
"I don’t think we can. The boss is still lying in the hospital. If he hears about this..."
"..."
The five hung their heads and sighed.
Their faces grew even uglier.
The office fire was raging now, with no sign of dying down.
Before the fire trucks got there...
their files were basically all going to be ashes.
"I’ll call the boss."
In the end.
One of the less injured hackers pulled out his phone and quietly dialed their hospitalized boss.
The call connected quickly.
But what came through was a hoarse, agonized voice.
"B-boss, what happened to your voice?"
The hacker on the phone swallowed, almost jumping in fright.
A few seconds later.
The voice on the other end replied, complicated: "The doctor gave me the wrong IV medication and damaged my throat."
For some reason.
The five could even hear a hint of grievance through the phone.
"Boss, here’s the thing, I’ve got something to tell you, you’ve gotta brace yourself."
The hacker on the phone took a deep breath and said carefully.
"What is it?"
The hoarse voice continued on the other end.
"Our... office caught fire, and the files and all that stuff... all got burned."
The hacker paused, testing the waters as he spoke.
But before he’d even finished the sentence.
"Clang!"
It sounded like the person on the other end had taken a massive hit and collapsed to the floor.
"Boss? Boss?"
The five turned pale and hurriedly yelled into the phone.
Dozens of seconds later.
They finally heard a nurse’s urgent shout: "Someone, quick! The patient in bed 27 suddenly collapsed, pulse racing, vital signs dropping fast, get him to the ICU now!"
Right after that.
Came the frantic sounds of a stretcher being wheeled away.
The remaining five looked at each other again.
Their faces went a little ghostly.
They...
seemed to have just bumped their boss’s condition up a whole level.
Straight into the ICU.
...
At the same time.
Liang City.
A commercial office building.
Chairman’s office.
"Mr. Tang, the admin over at the forum still refuses to cooperate with us."
An assistant looked at Tang Suiming and reported seriously.
"Notify the hacker team to keep attacking the forum and keep it down!"
Tang Suiming waved his hand and said, unhurried and composed.
He was the boss of an ordinary commercial advertising company.
He’d started from nothing.
Built it up to its current size.
All by relying on a pile of shady tactics.
Of course.
When he ran into tough nuts, he had his own set of methods.
Through threats, bribes, and the like...
He’d seized many traffic-heavy platforms and forced them to cooperate with him.
This time, the Study Law Alliance Forum...
Was something he’d stumbled on by accident.
Turned out the forum’s traffic was astonishing, and almost all of it was real.
Extremely valuable.
So...
He got the idea of "cooperation."
Unfortunately, the other side didn’t know what was good for them and refused to accept the deal.
With no other choice.
He could only hire a hacker team to attack this forum.
Right now the forum was down around the clock.
A huge number of users couldn’t log in or post.
He was sure...
The forum’s owner absolutely wouldn’t be able to hold out for long and would take the initiative to compromise.
As for what kind of forum this was...
He wasn’t worried in the slightest.
Even if it was full of lawyers, he wasn’t afraid.
The hackers attacking the forum were those gray-area teams from overseas and had nothing to do with him.
There was no evidence at all to prove...
That these hacker attacks were connected to him.
Besides.
The in-house legal team he kept wasn’t just for show either.
"Mr. Tang, I just contacted the hackers. They... seem to have gone off the grid."
Not long after.
The assistant, phone in hand, walked up to Tang Suiming.
"Off the grid?"
Tang Suiming frowned.
This hacker team...
He’d worked with them for a long time, and they’d always been reliable.
This time, to attack this forum, he’d directly promised three million; the deposit had already been paid.
And now...
They ghosted him?
"Keep calling. Call until they pick up!"
He clenched his teeth and said through his anger.
At the same time.
He took out his phone and opened the forum.
Sure enough.
That legal forum was no longer down; it had returned to normal operation.
Lots of people were scrambling to speak up on the forum.
Posts were flooding in like crazy.
Several times more than usual.
"Useless trash!"
He gripped his phone tight, getting angrier the more he thought about it.
They’d been attacking for so long.
And somehow still managed to blow it at the finish line.
This way, the forum owner was even less likely to cooperate with him and make money off ads.
"Tell them if they don’t want to work, then give me my money back!"
Tang Suiming took a deep breath and kept pressing the assistant to call.
Finally.
After dialing for three straight hours and leaving dozens of unanswered calls.
The call connected.
"Liao Xiangming!"
Tang Suiming snatched the phone and roared into it, "Do you still want this money or not? You just ditch me like this?"
Liao Xiangming was the leader of that hacker team.
Their "professional skills" were polished; they’d worked together for many years.
Only...
After he roared, there was no sign of Liao Xiangming’s voice on the line.
It seemed a younger hacker had picked up. Stammering, he said, "Boss, our leader... is in the ICU right now, they say it’s an acute heart attack, the shock was too much. We can’t do your job for now."
Hearing that, Tang Suiming was stunned on the spot.
How come...
He suddenly ended up in the ICU?
He remembered that Liao Xiangming’s health had always been pretty good; how could he suddenly just collapse?
"Even if he’s in the ICU, can’t you guys keep attacking the forum?"
He thought for a moment, then pressed on, "This forum doesn’t have any background, and no real IT security staff. The rest of you should still be able to take it easily, right?"
Beforehand.
He’d investigated this forum and found they were all just nobodies.
That was why he dared to attack it so recklessly.
It was all for that traffic.
"We’d like to keep attacking, but... we don’t know what’s going on. Our team’s luck has been awful, we’ve been running into one thing after another..."
On the line.
The hacker went over all the ridiculous things they’d run into.
His tone was full of grievance.
"We really don’t dare take this job anymore. Once all eight of us get discharged safely, we’ll refund your deposit!"
In the end.
The hacker hurried to hang up.
"Beep, beep, beep—"
Listening to the busy tone, Tang Suiming felt a bit dazed.
Going to the bathroom and smashing his head on the table corner, bleeding all over.
Getting into a car accident on the way to the hospital.
Choking on water.
Falling and breaking a leg while walking.
Sitting in the office when it suddenly caught fire.
The fire extinguishers malfunctioned.
When they tried to escape, the door wouldn’t open...
What kind of sins did they commit in a past life to run into all this.
The whole team, eight people.
Supposedly they were all in the hospital now, and every so often the nurses gave them the wrong meds, leaving them on the brink of death.
The least injured one...
Had also broken a leg.
"Mr. Tang, what do we do now?"
The assistant beside him couldn’t help asking.
Now that the hacker team had walked away.
If they wanted to take the forum...
It was going to be even harder.
The forum owner wouldn’t bend to force or persuasion; the site had been down this long and he’d still held on.
Now that the forum was back up.
The owner would be even less likely to agree to any business cooperation with them.
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