Wang Su presented the formal contract to Xiao Xun after he agreed to sign the employment letter, and had Secretary Fan hand it over.
Without even looking, Xiao Xun signed his name decisively.
Seeing how readily he agreed, Wang Su couldn't help but stand up, "Xiao, wouldn't you like to review the contents? We can still make revisions if anything isn't suitable."
Xiao Xun waved his hand, "It's fine. President Wang has given me an opportunity. Without you, I probably wouldn't have even stepped through the doors of Saint Roman, let alone become a director at this age."
Wang Su felt a bit embarrassed by the compliment, "What are you talking about? This is all due to your excellence."
"Even the most outstanding thousand-mile horse is just an 'ordinary' horse without a discerning eye, it won't be treated any differently," Xiao Xun replied.
Their mutual flattery continued until lunchtime, with Xiao Xun spending his entire morning on 'praise.'
It wasn't that Xiao Xun was trying to curry favor with his superior, but rather that Wang Su's words made it impossible not to respond, and Wang Su himself was fond of the flattery from his 'future successor.'
If this were ancient times, Wang Su's position would be that of a Grand Tutor to the Crown Prince.
During lunch, the cafeteria lady looking after the food saw Xiao Xun and exclaimed, "Isn't this Director Xiao! It's been a while since we've seen you!"
Xiao Xun greeted the lady enthusiastically, "It hasn't been that long! I was out for some study..."
As he was eating his meal, his phone rang with an unknown number.
Xiao Xun's habit was to not answer any unfamiliar numbers from outside his local area.
The number calling him today was from an unknown prefix, not belonging to any network operator or a virtual number.
Xiao Xun directly hung up, but the number persistently called again. Xiao Xun thought, "I want to see who this is."
Unexpectedly, as soon as he pressed the answer button, his phone screen went black.
He looked at his phone; there seemed to be no abnormality. "Could it be out of battery? That shouldn't be! I just charged it."
He pressed and held the power button, and simultaneously pressed the power button and the volume up button, intending to access the backend to see what the problem was.
Unexpectedly, the screen did not display the backend program interface, but rather a digital countdown animation.
A large number five popped up with explosion animation effects, followed by four, also popped up with animation effects...
Xiao Xun frowned and placed the phone a certain distance away from him. When the number became one and popped up, the scene Xiao Xun imagined did not occur; the phone simply went black again.
As he was about to reach for the phone, the battery suddenly bulged. The immense force directly pried open the inner and outer screens and the back cover.
When Xiao Xun realized something was wrong and prepared to duck.
"Bang~"
The phone shattered into pieces in front of everyone's eyes. The food on the table was also splattered everywhere by the explosion. Fortunately, there were no casualties.
Thanks to his incredibly fast reflexes, Xiao Xun used his plate to block the attack. Although his clothes were stained with food, he was unharmed.
Faced with the sudden turn of events, several employees who were dining rushed over to ask Xiao Xun what had happened.
Xiao Xun, still shaken, uttered only two words: "Call the police."
Given that the building had previously experienced a massive impact that left an entire floor devastated and still under repair, the occurrence of another "grenade" incident led to suspicions of deliberate targeting.
The police officers arrived, investigated for a long time, took statements, and then left. Their initial suspicions were of phone quality issues or improper operation by Xiao Xun that led to the phone's battery overheating.
However, upon learning of Xiao Xun's identity, they took the matter more seriously and assured him they would provide a prompt response.
Xiao Xun returned to his office, changed his clothes, and bought a new phone online with same-day delivery.
The phone he bought at noon arrived just before the end of the workday in the afternoon. Without installing a SIM card, he connected to the Wi-Fi and restored the necessary software from a backup, effectively bringing his old phone back, albeit temporarily unable to make calls.
Fortunately, there was a telecommunications service hall on the street next door. He slipped away early, hailed a taxi, and went to the service hall to get a replacement SIM card with his ID.
After reinserting it, a message arrived. The number was directly displayed as gibberish, and the content was: "Heard your computer skills are great. Was it fun turning your phone into a grenade?"
A moment later, another message arrived: "Last time you actually hired outside help. Let's see how you handle this one. You learned binary for two years and dared to act like a master in front of me. Thinking of something more exciting, to show you what a real master is."
Followed by another message: "If you can see this message, it means your phone is back in your hands. The challenge officially begins!"
It seemed this person was the hacker who had previously paralyzed all of Saint Roman's servers with a DOS attack. He just didn't know the opponent's true objective yet, but this person's skills were top-tier globally.
This narrowed down the pool of suspects considerably, as there were only a few individuals with the best technical skills worldwide. The person targeting Xiao Xun had a high probability of knowing his true identity.
Moreover, the opponent's aggressive intent indicated prior interaction with Xiao Xun.
The only individuals fitting the criteria were Lei, Ark Survivor, and Black Shark.
Among them, Ark Survivor and Bloody Dragon were like sworn enemies, having engaged in countless attacks and defenses, all ending in a draw. Except for the last instance before going into hiding, Xiao Xun received help from the opponent's 'botnet' and managed to secure a victory.
Xiao Xun returned to the company, picked up Mu Jiahe, and explained everything that had happened that day. He wouldn't be going to the other world tonight, as the consequences would be dire if the opponent launched an attack during his absence.
He vowed to do his best to find and counter the attacker.
Mu Jiahe nodded, "As soon as possible! They are at war over there as well, and you are the key to victory in this battle. I can bear any losses here, but not an inch of land must be lost there."
After preparing dinner for Mu Jiahe, he directly took a bottle of cola from the refrigerator and returned to his room.
He turned on his computer, hid his IP address, and entered the virtual program.
He performed a 'deep dive' into the code sent that day, using it as a key piece of information, but found nothing.
Then he attempted an 'ascend,' also without any relevant findings.
Xiao Xun looked at the "gibberish" screen, resting his chin on his left hand. "What does this string of code mean, and what is it used for?"
After pondering for a long time without any breakthroughs, he opened his chilled cola and took a sip.
The sensation of bubbles bursting and exploding in his mouth was quite 'addictive.' Suddenly, inspiration struck him. He inputted the string of code into a simulated 'cloud map' system operation.
The computer screen suddenly went black, then a line of code flashed and moved to a fixed position before stopping. When all the code became still.
Xiao Xun discovered that these lines of code had pieced together to form three large Chinese characters: Hei Da Shuai.