Li Feng met Chloe in a quiet corner of the university library, away from the usual student chatter. He handed her his tablet, displaying the concise report he'd compiled. Her eyes scanned the graphs and data points, her brow furrowing deeper with each passing line.
"So, he's basically building his own supercomputer out of thin air?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper. "Using our Wi-Fi, our electricity, even old university machines? That's... insane. And illegal, surely?"
"The resource acquisition is highly unorthodox," Li Feng confirmed. "As for legality, that depends on the university's terms of service for network and server usage. However, the scale and secrecy are the primary concerns."
Chloe shivered, even though the library was warm. "And the 'large-scale data generation or transformation'? What does that even mean? Is he, like, printing money? Or... making a bomb?"
Li Feng's analytical mind processed her fears, sifting through the emotional noise for factual possibility. "Unlikely. The data signatures do not match known cryptographic currency mining or explosive device schematics. It suggests data processing or synthesis. The encryption is robust. I cannot ascertain the content."
"But it's something," Chloe insisted, her hand trembling slightly as she handed back the tablet. "Something big. Something he's totally obsessed with. What next, Li Feng? What can you do?"
Li Feng considered. The direct network monitoring was a dead end for content. The encryption was a wall. He needed a different approach. He couldn't physically breach Julian's space, and direct confrontation would only alert Julian and likely lead to a system lockdown. He needed to find a way to make Julian's system talk without realizing it was being questioned.
He spent the next few days in a deep dive, pushing his own programming skills to their limits. He began constructing a sophisticated 'network probe' – not a hacker's tool to break in, but a highly sensitive listening device, designed to mimic the passive interaction patterns of legitimate network traffic. The goal wasn't to crack Julian's encryption, but to observe the behavior of the encrypted packets. Were they communicating with specific external servers? Were they generating internal responses that left faint, identifiable echoes on the network? It was like trying to understand a secret conversation by analyzing the speaker's posture and the echoes in the room.
His personal routine became even more regimented to accommodate the new intellectual pursuit. His physical training sessions were sharper, his Forex analysis even more focused to free up mental bandwidth. Maya, he noticed, was a source of unexpected comfort. Their conversations, no longer just about data, offered a different kind of mental processing, a respite that surprisingly enhanced his focus when he returned to Julian's puzzle.
One evening, deep in the digital labyrinth of his own code, Li Feng launched the probe. It was a phantom, designed to be practically invisible, sending out minute pings across the university's network, listening for any tell-tale responses from the distributed nodes Julian had commandeered. Hours passed. Li Feng watched the debug logs, lines of green text scrolling relentlessly. Nothing. Then, a flicker. A faint, almost imperceptible signature appeared – a unique pattern of latency and handshake protocols that emanated from a cluster of seemingly dormant servers in an old campus building.
He zoomed in, isolating the new data. The signature was unique, a digital fingerprint he hadn't seen before. It wasn't just data processing; it was interaction. Julian's distributed network wasn't just working internally; it was trying to establish contact with something outside, something Li Feng couldn't yet identify. The pattern of interaction was unusual, almost tentative, like a system trying to find its voice.
Suddenly, a red warning flashed across Li Feng's screen: ACCESS ATTEMPT DETECTED: HIGH-PRIORITY NODE. His probe, designed for stealth, had triggered a security alert on Julian's end. Li Feng's fingers flew across the keyboard, executing a rapid disconnect sequence. The warning vanished. He sat back, his heart thumping in a way no algorithmic anomaly had ever caused.
Julian had detected him.
The next morning, Li Feng called Chloe. His voice was calm, but there was an edge to it. "I was able to confirm some external interaction patterns. Your brother's system is attempting to connect beyond the campus network. However," he paused, "he has detected my presence."
Chloe gasped. "Detected you? What does that mean? Is he coming after you?"
"Unlikely for direct confrontation," Li Feng stated, though he couldn't be entirely certain. "More likely, he has now heightened his system's defenses. It will be more difficult to observe further without direct engagement."
Chloe was quiet for a moment. "So, what now? Do we just... stop?"
Li Feng looked out his window at the busy campus. The puzzle had just become far more intricate. And a lot more personal. "No," he said. "Now, we find out what he is trying to connect to."