Chapter One: Zhu Rong’s Eulogy

June in Shanghai, the rainy season. The sky resembled a gray rag soaked through, so heavy it felt hard to breathe.

The National Cybersecurity Martyrs’ Cemetery.

Cold raindrops slanted down, weaving an endless net that shrouded this solemn ground. People dressed in black suits, holding black umbrellas, moved like a procession of silent silhouettes, slowly making their way among the icy tombstones. Today was the memorial day, and the air was filled with the cool scent of wet earth and white chrysanthemums.

Lin Feng loathed this smell.

He wore a faded gray hoodie, jeans with several holes, and dirty canvas shoes—utterly out of place amidst the dignified and solemn atmosphere. He carried no umbrella, letting the cold rain slide from his unkempt hair down his collar. Hands shoved in his pockets, head bowed, he looked like a wandering, lost soul in this hallowed ground.

Deliberately avoiding the main entrance and the crowd, he slipped in through a nondescript side gate, vaulting over an iron fence. Familiar with the place, he cut through a grove of cypress trees to the deepest corner of the cemetery, a secluded spot.

Here stood only a single headstone.

No photograph adorned it, only a line of simple golden characters:

Grave of Lu Hongsheng, First-Class Combat Hero of National Cybersecurity

Below, in smaller letters:

Born 1975, Died 2019.

Lin Feng stood before the cold stone, gazing at the name with eyes as empty as a dead lake. From his pocket, he withdrew something and placed it gently before the grave.

It was a military medal—burned by a high-voltage arc, half-melted, barely recognizable.

Five years ago, it was the only thing he dug out from the charred ruins of the server room, the only belonging of that man.

“Old Lu,” he began, his voice as hoarse as sandpaper grinding, “It’s been five years. They named you a hero, put up a monument for you, and every year a crowd of strangers comes to lay flowers... See how lively it is.”

A mocking curl played at his lips, but in his eyes lingered a sorrow that would not fade.

“But they don’t know, you hated crowds the most. Nor do they know who, out of self-interest, cut off your support and left you to die alone in that inferno.”

Use your skills to guard these lands behind us.

That dying exhortation, like a searing brand, had burned in his soul for five years, never ceasing, day or night.

Lost in thought, he was startled by the sound of footsteps and deliberately hushed voices.

“...Mr. Li, this way please, this is Old Lu’s grave. He was once our ‘former’ chief at Firmament Network. If only he hadn’t been so stubborn back then...” A sycophantic voice, tinged with flippancy.

Lin Feng’s brow furrowed almost imperceptibly.

Firmament Network.

Those four words stabbed him like a poisoned dagger. It was this top domestic internet giant—where his mentor had poured out his life’s work—that betrayed him at the most critical moment.

He stood up, tugged his hood lower to conceal his face, and turned to leave. He didn’t want to see those people; he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to restrain himself.

But after only two steps, a voice called out to stop him.

“Stop! Who are you?”

It was a young man in a tailored suit and gold-rimmed glasses, his chest displaying a badge: “Firmament Network – Chief Security Architect – Wang Zhe.” He had once been Old Lu’s deputy, and now stood atop Old Lu’s “corpse.”

Behind him were several other suited men and women, flanking a portly middle-aged man—Firmament Network’s vice president, Li Jianguo.

Wang Zhe’s gaze swept over Lin Feng’s out-of-place outfit like a scanner, eyes full of contempt and a barely concealed wariness.

“How did you get in here? Do you know what day it is? Is this a place for the likes of you?”

Lin Feng ignored him and kept walking.

“Hey! Are you deaf? I’m talking to you!” Another young engineer blocked his path, even more hostile. “Sneaking up to Old Lu’s grave—what are you after? All his old stuff was cleaned out by the company long ago!”

The words carried a threat.

Lin Feng stopped.

Li Jianguo feigned kindness, “Forget it, Wang. He’s just a clueless kid, don’t let him ruin our memorial.”

But his eyes telegraphed warning.

Wang Zhe, however, pressed on. He seemed to recognize the medal Lin Feng had placed on the grave, and a sneer twisted his lips. “So that’s what it is. You bring some piece of junk you picked up somewhere and dare to lay it before Old Lu’s grave? The honor he earned for the company isn’t for gutter rats like you to define!”

He stepped forward, reaching out as if to sweep the medal to the ground.

But just as his fingers nearly touched the scorched metal—

A hand, like a steel clamp, seized his wrist in an unbreakable grip!

At some point, Lin Feng had turned around. He raised his head, and from beneath the hood, his face appeared—pale, but his eyes burned with a fire that could consume everything.

“Take your filthy hand away.” His voice was low and cold, a warning from the depths of the underworld.

“You... You’re Lin Feng?” Wang Zhe finally recognized him, a flash of panic crossing his face, quickly replaced by anger. “What do you want? Let go! Security!”

“Who am I?” Lin Feng smiled, colder than a Siberian wind. “I’m here to collect Old Lu’s debts.”

He released Wang Zhe’s wrist, not even glancing at the group who now shrank back a step.

He approached the grave, picked up the rain-washed, frigid medal, and then took out an unremarkable domestic smartphone.

The Firmament Network elites were baffled by his actions.

“Hahaha! Is he taking a souvenir photo?”

“Has he lost his mind? Gonna attack us with a phone?”

“Don’t bother with him, Wang. He was just Old Lu’s lapdog. Now that his master’s dead, all he can do is bark.”

Wang Zhe forced a sneer. “Lin Feng, five years and you’re still this childish. Don’t embarrass yourself. The ‘Wall of Sighs,’ which I personally reinforced, is impenetrable. Save your petty tricks.”

Lin Feng ignored their chatter.

He opened the camera app, focused on the melted medal in his palm, adjusting the shot with reverence, as if conducting a sacred ritual. His finger tapped the screen.

Click.

A close-up of the medal appeared on the screen.

He put the phone away, then solemnly placed the medal back before the gravestone.

Without a word, he turned and walked away the way he’d come.

The entire process was eerily silent.

“That’s... that’s it?” Li Jianguo stammered, completely at a loss.

Wang Zhe was equally confused, but an ominous premonition rose in his heart.

Lin Feng’s figure soon vanished into the shadows of the cypress grove.

“Putting on a show!” Wang Zhe spat, then turned to Li Jianguo with an ingratiating smile. “Let’s not let this lunatic spoil our mood, Mr. Li, let’s continue—”

He didn’t finish his sentence.

Suddenly, his phone began ringing madly in his pocket!

Next came Li Jianguo’s phone, and then the others’. The shrill chorus of ringtones was jarring in the solemn cemetery.

Wang Zhe fumbled to answer. On the other end, his subordinate’s voice came through, torn with panic and tears:

“Wang—Wang, it’s bad! The ‘Wall of Sighs’... it’s been breached!!!”

“What?!” Wang Zhe’s voice shot up, sharp as a cat whose tail had been stepped on.

“We don’t know how! Thirty seconds ago, the entire backend was seized by a top-level directive! We can’t even reboot the servers!”

“Impossible! Top-level commands need both my and Mr. Li’s keys!” Wang Zhe raged.

“Yes! But... they bypassed authorization! They used... a picture, as the key!”

Picture... key...

Wang Zhe’s mind went blank, a buzzing void.

He turned, as if seeing a ghost, to the solitary headstone—and that medal lying silently before it.

He finally understood!

It wasn’t an ordinary photo.

It was a trigger.

That medal had long ago been transformed by Lin Feng into a unique physical key. The photo, once recognized by his custom app, would trigger a top-priority “revenge protocol” deployed on his cloud server cluster.

At that moment, Li Jianguo’s phone blared with his secretary’s panicked scream:

“Mr. Li! Look at the company headquarters! Now—look!”

…

Shanghai, Lujiazui, Firmament Network Headquarters.

The three-hundred-meter skyscraper was a city landmark. At its summit, a massive LED Firmament Network logo was the city’s brightest sight.

But now, the screen no longer showed the logo.

Instead, it displayed a dense cascade of backend code—lines upon lines, like a cryptic waterfall.

The proud, billion-yuan “Wall of Sighs,” was now stripped bare, exposed to all of Shanghai and the world.

Countless passersby stopped, staring up in shock, snapping photos with their phones.

At the top of that code waterfall, a blood-red line of text blazed like a brand across every Firmament Network employee’s face and heart:

“At a hero’s grave, petty men’s clamor is not tolerated.”

Beneath it, a burning phoenix totem.

And one name—Zhulong.

In the cemetery, Wang Zhe stared at the live photo sent by a colleague, his legs giving out as he collapsed into the cold mud, shaking all over.

It was over.

Firmament Network was finished.

They had provoked not a man, but a demon—a god come to avenge the dead.

And the architect of it all, Lin Feng, now stood on the roadside outside the cemetery, pulling out his phone and deftly opening the navigation app.

He glanced at the route home mapped on the screen, and for the first time, a ripple stirred in the dead calm of his eyes.

He set the photo of the medal he had just taken as his phone wallpaper.

Then, softly, as if speaking to someone else, he murmured to the screen:

“Old Lu, did you see that?”

“I’ve begun to collect your debts.”

“And... it seems, I’m lost again.”