Clack, clack, clack — the sound of a keyboard being struck echoed on and on.
It was a small, dingy rented room. Heavy curtains hung across the window and shut out every ray of light, blurring day and night — and in fact blurring the passage of time altogether. The young man sitting in front of the computer could no longer remember how long he had been sitting there.
The cramped room was a mess: leftover takeout boxes, dirty clothes, empty drink bottles scattered across the floor, and the computer desk piled high with canned energy coffee. Because the air had not moved in so long, the place stank of damp and mildew; even the young man himself bore every mark of squalor and long neglect — hair a tangled bird's nest, stubble all over his chin.
Clack, clack, clack, clack...
Clack, clack...
Clack, clack, clack...
Then, all at once, the clatter of the keyboard stopped. The young man stared at the screen with bloodshot eyes, a faint smile of relief at the corner of his mouth.
His phone suddenly rang. He froze for a moment before it registered, then fished his phone out of a pile of coffee cans. Seeing the number flashing on the screen, he hesitated, then answered.
"Ye Chui." A clear, sweet girl's voice came out of the phone. "Are you still trying to stop us? Trying to stop the virus you created yourself?"
"No..." the young man — Ye Chui — said with a smile. But before the girl could breathe a sigh of relief, he went on: "Actually, I just finished. I've developed a counter-program for the Sky Hammer virus. The moment I upload it, the Sky Hammer virus that has had the entire internet on its knees for nearly a month will be wiped out completely."
Ye Chui's words threw the girl into a panic: "Ye Chui, I'm warning you, don't do it! I can give you money — as much as you want..."
"I planted this bitter fruit. It's mine to end." A sorrow he could not put a name to had crept into his voice. "Lin Xue, you and that faction behind you have used my virus to cause a network catastrophe and profit from it. I won't stand by and watch it go on. So this ends now."
"Ye Chui, please — I'm begging you — if... if the Sky Hammer virus gets wiped out, they'll kill me..."
"You brought all this on yourself. I trusted you once, completely, and you..." Ye Chui's voice caught. Was it grief, or anger? He didn't know. He sighed. "Lin Xue, take care of yourself."
He hung up.
The phone rang again at once, but Ye Chui did not spare it another glance; he tossed it aside.
Ye Chui — few people knew that name, but everyone who knew it knew that it stood for number one in the world of hackers.
He was young, but ever since he first appeared on the scene he had pulled off things that veterans of the field could never manage.
The underworld hailed him as "the Almighty Mage," because the viruses he developed were as shifting and as steeped in magic as a mage's spells. And the crowning work of his hacking career was the Sky Hammer virus.
That virus's explosive power and sheer lethality were so terrible that Ye Chui had never once let it out.
Then Lin Xue came along, and everything changed. He loved her, trusted her, was willing to share everything he had with her. The six months he spent with her, Ye Chui was happy — and then Lin Xue quietly slipped away, taking that virus with her.
Three days later, a network catastrophe broke out across the world. A global criminal organization used the Sky Hammer virus to hold hostage the world's major banks, corporations, and even governments.
For a time everyone feared for his own skin — and only then did Ye Chui realize why Lin Xue had come to his side in the first place. She was a "thief" hired by that criminal organization.
He was a hacker, but he had always held to the principle that even thieves have their code. The havoc the Sky Hammer virus had wrought made him resolve, in the end, to take on his own summit.
So, after a month of near-sleepless, unbroken work, he succeeded.
He knew that this counter-program for the Sky Hammer virus meant he had taken yet another step forward in the field of hacking — he had surpassed the summit he once stood on.
"It's all over..."
Ye Chui's hand moved to the Enter key. The moment he pressed it, the counter-program would upload itself, automatically identify the Sky Hammer virus and hunt it down, and the network catastrophe that had lasted a month would come to an end.
His finger pressed down.
Watching the progress bar on the screen creep toward one hundred percent, Ye Chui was suddenly struck by a wave of crushing exhaustion. He struggled up out of his chair, only to find that his body could not hold its balance; he staggered a few steps and finally crashed to the floor.
The ringtone of Lin Xue's call was still echoing in his ears, but endless darkness was slowly closing over his vision.
He was too tired. Maybe this is the end?
Not a bad way to go, at least — he had stood on the final summit, in the field of hacking he loved.
His Sky Hammer virus had gone a whole month with no one able to crack it, and in the end it had still ended at his hand. That was enough.
He had no regrets left.