Every busy person needs an anchor, and for Mei Lin, who secretly ran her ethical hacking business while going to Shanghai University, that anchor was definitely Xiao Lei. You know that friend who just gets it and doesn't need long explanations? That's Xiao Lei. She was Mei Lin's best friend at university, always there to cheer her up and give her a sense of normalcy and warmth. Xiao Lei was always there for Mei Lin, whether they were studying all night in the library, complaining about a hard test, or just getting a quick, cheap meal from a street vendor near campus. Mei Lin often felt alone.
Xiao Lei, bless her heart, had no idea how big and amazing Mei Lin's secret life really was. She knew that Mei Lin was very good with computers and ran a "digital services" business on the side to help pay her bills. But no one knew how good Mei Lin really was—her ethical hacking, her identity as "CipherTruth," . Mei Lin was just Xiao Lei's smart, hard-working, and sometimes too stressed best friend. She was worried about Mei Lin's busy schedule and lack of free time, and she often tried to get her to do more "normal" student things, not realizing that Mei Lin was quietly fighting much bigger digital battles.
Mei Lin valued this comfortable, trusting friendship that was based on shared experiences and real love. Xiao Lei was a safe place to go, a person to talk to in a world that is becoming more and more dominated by screens and complicated code. Neither of them could have predicted how deeply Xiao Lei would eventually become involved in Mei Lin's secret world, becoming an unwitting but important ally in keeping the deep secrets that would soon change Mei Lin's life safe. Their bond, which seemed innocent at the time,