"Keep bragging! I'm your roommate—I know exactly what you're capable of!"
But before Zhang Dawei could finish his sentence, his eyes widened in shock as he stared at Chen Mo's computer screen.
A needle animation appeared on the display, seemingly injecting the skull virus. The ominous skull dissolved instantly, replaced by the words "Darkzone" with its logo, which then faded away. The original desktop interface returned completely intact, all software and data preserved.
"Holy shit!"
"Holy fucking shit!"
"What just happened?!"
Zhang Dawei's outburst instantly drew the entire class's attention—including Professor Tian Tian and the security team desperately trying to crack the skull virus on the podium.
Tian Tian frowned. She'd just conceived a promising antivirus approach when Zhang's exclamation shattered her concentration.
"Zhang Dawei!" she snapped. "Explain this disruption or lose all participation points!"
But Zhang seemed not to hear, gaping at Chen Mo like he'd seen a ghost before finally croaking:
"Professor... it's Chen Mo... he... he solved the skull virus."
Silence.
Then uproar.
"Impossible!"
"Even cybersecurity experts can't crack it!"
"If he really did it, my 50GB of 'educational materials' might be saved!"
Amid the disbelief, Tian Tian froze for a second before striding down from the podium, her heels clicking rapidly against the floor. University administrators and Haishi's cybersecurity bureau had just ordered emergency containment—this virus threatened nationwide catastrophe if unchecked.
Yet now a student claimed to have solved it?
Reaching Chen Mo's workstation, her breath caught. No skull. Just a perfectly normal desktop.
"You... fixed it? How?"
Chen Mo smiled at the intimidatingly attractive professor, feeling his pulse quicken. "Just like that."
Tian Tian's eye twitched. "Did you develop specialized removal tools or just luck out?"
"The former."
A sharp intake of breath. If true, this represented both tremendous value and opportunity.
"Test it on my laptop."
Chen Mo obliged, connecting his phone. The needle animation executed perfectly, cleansing Tian Tian's system while briefly displaying Darkzone's branding.
After frantic verification, Tian Tian exhaled shakily. "This is... production-ready."
Regaining composure, she fixed Chen Mo with a piercing gaze. "This is bigger than you realize. My office. Now."
Chen Mo followed, hiding his satisfaction. This was step one in recruiting his target.
To his surprise, Tian Tian led him not to her office but her private lab. She collapsed onto a designer sofa, black-stockinged legs propped on the coffee table, the earlier tension visibly draining from her.
"Did you truly develop that 'needle' solution yourself?" Her tone carried new respect.
"Of course." Chen Mo explained his "virus versus virus" approach with practiced ease.
Tian Tian arched an eyebrow. The theory was sound—but finding a perfect counter-virus would normally take longer than developing conventional antivirus tools.
"Regardless," she said finally, "with 90% of Haishi's computers infected, what's your plan? Sell the solution? Or..." She trailed off, unwilling to demand he surrender it for free.