With the help of Ketchup and Bacon’s powerful and sophisticated systems, Iris was able to successfully perform the power flood tonight without encountering any unexpected problems.
The upside was that it fulfilled her main purpose for initiating it tonight in the first place—to defend Jin Corporation and to inflict severe damage to Eagle.
Eagle should be hurting now. She was able to successfully gain some clues about the hackers after frying their defence. She also pinpointed their actual location where they were staying while battling against her and her AI children. Bacon said that a Shadow Winds team was already on their way to investigate the location.
Hopefully, the Eagle hackers left most of their computers so that she could attempt to revive the dead devices and recover the data contained in them. It would be difficult, yes, but still possible for her.
An even better scenario was if they left behind more substantial clues about their identities, perhaps an ID or something, out of carelessness, but she didn’t put much hope in it. The Eagle hackers surely wouldn’t be that foolish. If they did, things would be easier and more convenient for her but she would still feel disappointed at their huge oversight.
All she could do was wait patiently for what the Shadow Winds team would find at the location and work with whatever they got.
Another important thing that she discovered was that the Eagle hackers used Spanish as their main language for communication. English was a close second.
Knowing what language they used wasn’t a sure-fire way to identify where they came from because there were quite a number of Spanish-speaking countries. It was the second-most spoken native language and fourth-most spoken language in the world after all.
Nevertheless, Iris was confident that she would be able to narrow down their origins by studying their records of communications. Even if it was one language, each country or region had their own distinct dialects, accents and vocabulary that would help differentiate speakers from one another. As a current language student enrolled in Cross Academy, this was included in the curriculum that she was studying.
She wasn’t an expert at it yet but it shouldn’t be a problem. She could always consult with Professor Kalisha Schwarz, her genius instructor in the major European and African languages.
These gains from the power flood were all good but Iris felt unsatisfied. If only her health hadn’t become more delicate due to her pregnancy, she would have definitely toughed it out and attempted to milk the power flood for all it was worth no matter how many days it would take. She wouldn’t stop until she discovered the real identities of all the Eagle hackers, and most importantly, the true mastermind pulling the strings behind them.
Unfortunately, her current condition just wouldn’t allow her to do so. Even now, she could feel the onset of light-headedness and nausea. However, she gritted her teeth and forced herself to endure.
‘Just a little more,’ she chanted in her mind, not daring to say it out loud, because the others riding in the executive van with her might hear her and force her to stop before she was ready.
It was a waste not to exploit Cross Academy’s abundant and robust power supply, not to mention the assistance of its Computer Department. Almost 95% of tonight’s power flood came from Cross Academy because she didn’t want to risk causing the collapse of Dragon Palace Homes and her Gold Heights condominium’s power supply.
Then came another discovery.
She gasped, unable to hide her shock.
This momentary loss of concentration cost her. Her body couldn’t handle it anymore.
Her vision dimmed. Then she felt herself tilting sideways.
“Mommy!”
“Mother!”
“Boss!”
“Shit. Xiulan!”
She heard all their voices and wanted to respond to them but then everything went black.
###
“Well, damn.” Jenny Tseng watched as Luke and another guy in his early twenties dumped an unconscious Jin Liwei on the hotel bed. “Jin Liwei actually fell for this ridiculous plan? He’s dumber than I thought.”
“Jenny, the handcuffs!” Rose Young reminded her.
“Oh, right.” Jenny rummaged through her handbag and tossed a couple of metal handcuffs on the bed. She had a collection of handcuffs in different styles and colours used in adult bed plays.
Luke and the other guy took one each and handcuffed Jin Liwei to the bed’s headboard. Rose had the keys.
Jin Liwei didn’t stir at all even though he was lying in an awkward position. The metal handcuffs dug around the skin of wrists. He looked flushed from the drugs. Sweat beaded on his skin and glistened under the bedroom’s ambient lights. The perspiration soaked his white dress shirt, allowing others to see the outline of his abs and the tight muscles of his chest.
Jenny didn’t have a good impression of him because of how crazy and obsessed he made her best friend, Rose. However, she couldn’t deny that he was indeed a very fine man based on physical appearance. She was still a woman at the end of the day, so her eyes ogled the man’s body without any restraint.
She commented, “Damn. He might be dumb for falling for this stupid plan but he’s sexy as hell. If he looks like this with clothes on, how much more yummy will he look like naked? I want to see!”
“I’ll scratch your eyes out if you dare,” Rose growled at her.
“Whoa, Rosie!” Jenny rolled her surgically enhanced eyes. “You’re so mean to your bestie. I just want to see. It’s not like I also want to taste. Well, maybe a little.”
“Jenny.” Rose now looked murderous.
“Ahahaha. I’m just joking. Why so serious?” Jenny faced the mirror and started checking her appearance—fixing her hair, straightening her clothes, and reapplying her lipstick—before turning to Luke and the other guy. “Our job here is now done, boys. Let’s get out of this room. I’m not interested in watching my best friend’s live-action porn, especially when the guy is unconscious. So boring! It’s like fucking a corpse.”
She paused, her expression twisting in disgust. “Eeew. That just put a scary and yucky image in my head! Erase erase!”
Luke blushed while the other guy laughed.
Jenny winked at them. “Interested in having some fun with Big Sister Jenny in another room? I have some extra handcuffs and a whip if you’re interested.”
