Chapter 16: Overflow (2)
16 – Overflow (2)
As soon as these words were spoken, those sword cultivators burst into laughter, as if they had heard the biggest joke in the world.
Qi Yun even said, “What? You still want to call the police?”
Calling the police was indeed an option.
But from the foot of the mountain to here, it would take at least two to three hours. By the time the police arrived, the scene would have long since dispersed.
Moreover… Lin Xun thought about it. These cultivators, with their extraordinary powers, might already be beyond the reach of ordinary police.
He didn’t say anything further. With his left hand holding the keyboard flat and his right hand lightly tapping on it, he called up a backup program.
Over there, Qi Yun had no idea what he was doing and instead shouted loudly, “Junior Brother, you don’t need a controlled weapon—if you were attacking with music by playing an instrument, that would be one thing—but tapping on a keyboard? Are you trying to make me die laughing?”
A sword cultivator behind him said, “Brother Qi, I think he’s trying to confuse us. When we laugh, our cultivation power weakens, and he can take advantage of that.”
Lin Xun: “…”
These sword cultivators sounded quite young, their tone reminiscent of street toughs. Judging by their arrogant demeanor and the fact that they chose to mock him rather than engage in combat, they likely felt victory was assured.
However, their taunting gave Lin Xun an opportunity—he could fully prepare the necessary program in advance without having to frantically type during the fight.
Meanwhile, Yuanxiao whispered behind him, “Senior Brother Lin, Qi Yun is currently at the Foundation Establishment stage, while the others are at the Qi Refining stage. Qi Yun has been at Foundation Establishment for a year now and is most skilled in fast sword techniques. Sometimes, he even forms sword formations with the others.”
Lin Xun: “Got it.”
At that moment, Qi Yun ended his taunting and stepped forward with his sword raised. “No matter what magical tool you use, we’ll see the truth under my sword!”
His sword gleamed brightly.
In the darkness, the sword light resembled a long rainbow, piercing straight toward Lin Xun from the front!
But it wasn’t just the sword that attacked.
Lin Xun felt the air around him freeze in an instant, the pressure rapidly dropping as if something was pressing down on him.
He activated the Light Body Technique and slid to the left.
The next moment, he felt a cold, sharp aura sweeping toward him from another direction!
Yuanxiao had said Qi Yun excelled in fast sword techniques, and indeed, his sword was incredibly swift!
If not for the Light Body Technique enhancing his dodging speed and the firewall blocking some of the sword energy, Lin Xun had no doubt he would have been struck directly by a surge of sword energy!
He quickly retreated several meters.
Qi Yun snorted coldly. “Your defensive barrier is quite impressive!”
The next moment, this person suddenly thrust his sword toward him again!
The long sword almost left afterimages in the air. Lin Xun tilted his head to dodge, leaped up and landed, twisting backward mid-movement to evade another strike.
His eyes remained fixed on Qi Yun as he pushed the Light Body Technique to its limit. For a while, the two engaged in a chase, exchanging several rounds.
Qi Yun said, “Has Qingcheng Mountain produced another turtle hiding in its shell?”
Yuanxiao hid behind a tree. “You’re shameless, bullying a Qi Refining disciple just because you’re at the Foundation Establishment stage!”
Qi Yun replied, “I may recognize him as a Qi Refining disciple, but my sword does not!”
The next moment, Lin Xun felt the pressure around him intensify abruptly, hindering his movement speed.
But…
Earlier, he had indeed been dodging Qi Yun’s attacks, but more importantly, he had been reading the code on Qi Yun’s body!
In these few exchanges, he had almost deciphered the program flowing through Qi Yun’s movements—the attack method this person used was a very crude yet effective approach, straddling the line between legality and illegality.
In the real world, Qi Yun’s sword Qi was frantically assaulting Lin Xun’s body, but in Lin Xun’s eyes, it was Qi Yun madly sending data packets toward him!
A decade-old mobile phone had limited memory. If malicious software sent hundreds of text messages or emails per second, the memory would quickly fill up, the system would become congested, and eventually crash—the same principle applied here. If Lin Xun received more data than his system could handle, its operation would be hindered, or it might even collapse entirely!
However, this method was also extremely outdated. For Lin Xun… it held no novelty whatsoever.
In the field of cyber attacks, anything that lacked novelty for Lin Xun was an absolute relic for Wang Anquan.
How could mere information bombardment overcome a firewall crafted by Wang Anquan himself?
At this very moment, Qi Yun’s sword had reached a speed almost imperceptible to the naked eye. Lin Xun’s vision was filled with sword shadows, the sword Qi sealing off all possible escape routes. Then—an immensely powerful sword Qi descended straight toward his face!
Lin Xun didn’t move.
The sword’s edge whistled through the air, and even as it was about to strike Lin Xun in the next instant, there was no sign that Qi Yun intended to withdraw it. Lin Xun raised his head to meet Qi Yun’s gaze and saw the fierce, ruthless intent in his eyes!
—Indeed, this was no civilized individual.
But no matter how savage, what could he do?
Lin Xun neither dodged nor avoided the attack, not even blinking. The next moment, the sword light seemed to collide with an impenetrable wall, not only halting instantly but even forcing Qi Yun back two steps!
Surprise flickered in Qi Yun’s eyes.
In the same second, Lin Xun narrowed his eyes, pressed a key on the keyboard, and typed the first “F11.”
This time, it wasn’t a worm virus to deal with the neighbor, but a Trojan horse.
This was also one of Lin Xun’s hypotheses.
A Trojan horse was essentially two programs: a controller and a server. The controller remained on Lin Xun’s side, while the server infiltrated the opponent’s system. Once the Trojan was implanted, its owner could control the other party’s computer through the controller on their end.
—This was another of Lin Xun’s conjectures.
Now, since he couldn’t rewrite others’ programs, could he achieve his goal by implanting a Trojan?
Three seconds—the Trojan deployment was complete!
The program interface refreshed!
It worked!
Simultaneously, Qi Yun found himself in the same predicament as the neighbor earlier that morning—no matter how he slashed, hacked, or stabbed, he couldn’t touch a single hair on Lin Xun’s head.
He shouted sharply, “Form the array!”
At his command, the sword cultivators behind him immediately dispersed into a peculiar formation, one hand forming seals, the other gripping their swords, encircling Lin Xun.
Lin Xun glanced at their programs.
—Interesting. They’ve upgraded from a single-point attack to a DDoS distributed attack.
Multiple computers joining forces to form an attack platform exponentially increased the offensive power compared to a single machine.
He leaped gracefully into the air, landing on the treetop of an ancient tree in the mountains, his right hand swiftly typing on the keyboard.
Qi Yun sneered, “How much longer can you hold out?”
He spread his arms wide like a great eagle spreading its wings, his steps carrying an odd rhythm as he lunged toward Lin Xun!
Meanwhile, the sword cultivators forming the array also thrust their swords forward, attacking Lin Xun from all directions.
Lin Xun kept tapping away at the keyboard, the crisp sound of the Cherry switches even helping him relax.
Just as all the sword tips closed in, and he seemed about to be turned into a pincushion—
—Lin Xun’s right index finger returned to the F11 key and gave it a gentle press.
Qi Yun’s movement suddenly halted.
Lin Xun glanced at the error prompt that popped up on his program interface, tilting his head slightly at him.
This guy had been chattering nonstop during the fight, making Lin Xun feel the urge to speak up as well—and so he did.
“Senior Brother,” Lin Xun said, “I accept your concession.”
The next second, Qi Yun coughed as if suffering internal injuries, and the moment after, his sword slipped from his grasp as he plummeted back to the ground.
By the third second, he was coughing violently: “I… why is my Qi in chaos…”
And in that same third second, the other sword cultivators connected to him also dropped like dumplings into boiling water.
Lin Xun ended the battle, cradling his keyboard as he floated lightly down in front of him.
He bent down to pick up Qi Yun’s sword and walked over to Yuanxiao: “I don’t really know how to explain it to you. Have you studied computer science?”
—In truth, what he had done was quite simple: he had added another segment to the core of Qi Yun’s code.
Though it was just… one segment, by altering a key variable, he had thrown Qi Yun’s entire loop into disarray.
An infinite loop, a buffer overflow—a cascade of error prompts, it could be called nothing short of a disaster.
Qi Yun didn’t answer whether he had studied computer science or not, instead gasping with difficulty: “Give me back my sword!”
Lin Xun: “It’s a controlled weapon.”
Qi Yun: “…You!”
But his breathing grew increasingly labored, and he could no longer form complete sentences.
One of the sword cultivators said: “Senior Brother, we must quickly seek Master to regulate our Qi! Otherwise, our Meridians may be destroyed, and we risk Qi deviation!”
Lin Xun glanced back at them and saw them supporting each other, stumbling away toward the south.
Qi Yun looked back at him, then at the keyboard in his hands, his gaze filled with shock but still unyielding: “You just wait!”
After they had left, Yuanxiao emerged from behind the tree, blinking in a somewhat dazed manner, though his tone held more admiration than anything else: “Senior Brother Lin, how did you do that?”
Lin Xun: “A secret technique of the Limitless Sect.”
Yuanxiao: “Wow…”
Lin Xun placed the keyboard back into his bag, looking at the sword as he muttered to himself: “What should I do with this?”
“Senior Brother…” Yuanxiao said, “you, you, you, why did you take his sword?”
Lin Xun: “Confiscating the tools of the crime.”
“But… but… but,” Yuanxiao’s eyes widened, “he’s a sword cultivator, a sword cultivator. Taking a sword cultivator’s sword is like killing his parents. He’ll come after you for revenge! Maybe even his master will come too!”
Lin Xun looked at the sword in his hand: “”
He and Yuanxiao exchanged glances.
Yuanxiao’s expression held a mix of fear and excitement: “They came to Qingcheng Mountain to pick a fight, thinking they could win, and ended up losing their swords! If word gets out, they’ll be laughed at. It’s finally a breath of fresh air.”
Lin Xun smiled.
He: “So what do we do now?”
They exchanged another glance and, without a word, quickened their pace, heading toward the main hall of Qingcheng Mountain.
—Of the thirty-six stratagems, fleeing is the best; seeking protection from one’s master and martial uncles is the ultimate.
On the way, Yuanxiao said, “Senior Brother, why are you so calm?”
Lin Xun: “Calm?”
Yuanxiao shivered as he spoke, “Although I practice Cultivation, I haven’t really adapted yet… When his sword came at me, I was terrified and could only run or close my eyes and wait for death. But you, Senior Brother, who just started Cultivating, didn’t even blink after being slashed so many times.”
Lin Xun pondered.
After five minutes of contemplation, he said, “Because I am a programmer.”
A programmer’s life may seem mundane, but in reality, it’s quite thrilling.
A program takes a long time to write—but it’s only when you run it that you discover how many bugs it contains. When someone lives a life like this: facing thousands of lines of code in the compiler every day, pressing the run button only to randomly encounter an unpredictable number of bugs, after a few years, their mental fortitude is bound to differ from that of ordinary people.