When Liu Mingchuan returned to the company, Li Chunfeng was still engaged in a battle with the virus he had consumed.
Whenever Li Chunfeng’s consciousness began to fade, a voice seemed to call out from the depths of his soul.
Perhaps an entrenched obsession resided within Li Chunfeng’s spirit—this very obsession that allowed his consciousness to enter the computer after death.
Now, it was this same obsession that prevented his awareness from being eroded as he fought the virus.
However, this obsession did not guarantee victory; instead, the battle reached a stalemate.
Meanwhile, after the virus in the network had infected all connected computers, it began surging toward Li Chunfeng’s server as if reinforcements were arriving.
Li Chunfeng could only passively assimilate the incoming virus packets, and the situation started to turn unfavorably.
I must prevent these virus reinforcements from continually entering!
He needed to eliminate—or detonate—all the viruses within the network.
This way, the virus he had already ingested within this server would be cut off from further support.
Li Chunfeng’s mind raced rapidly, pushing the CPU to its maximum capacity until he finally formulated a strategy to eliminate the virus.
He slowed his thought process to free up some CPU resources, then instantly copied and disseminated his consciousness. Each data packet contained the virus-killing commands he had previously prepared.
Once the external viruses were eradicated, handling those he had already ingested would be straightforward—just like closing the door on a barking dog; it was only a matter of time.
However, the virus replicated and spread through the network at an extremely rapid pace, infecting virtually all of the few dozen computers that were powered on and connected to the internal network at the time.
As a result, countless computer files were infected. If Li Chunfeng had to scan and eliminate the virus manually from each one, it would undoubtedly require an enormous amount of time.
Fortunately, Li Chunfeng had already discerned the pattern of this virus’s replication and dissemination. Therefore, his virus-scanning and elimination command packets were transmitted and replicated in the same manner.
Subsequently, when the elimination command encountered the virus, it self-destructed violently, destroying itself along with the command.
Every computer became a battlefield—file fragments were scattered everywhere, memory-resident programs were entirely destroyed, and some machines, where the virus had even infected the CMOS, suffered hardware damage.
For the first time, Li Chunfeng felt as though he had countless avatars. Since his consciousness had returned that day, it was the first time he did not feel exhausted.
It was as though he could harness the CPUs and memory of all those dozens of computers for his own use, deploying their resources freely. This bestowed upon him an even faster capacity to combat the virus. Li Chunfeng understood—this was a form of distributed computing.
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Through this approach, he could become infinitely powerful within the network.
However, just as he finished dealing with the virus in those computers and prepared to utilize this immense computational capacity and resources to eradicate the virus he had absorbed, he suddenly felt the connection to those machines severed.
One by one, the connections were cut off, and Li Chunfeng reverted to his initial state—the only resources available to him were those of the server computer and Zhou Xiaoxiao’s machine, which he now used to combat the virus.
This was likely the moment when Liu Mingchuan, from the outside, issued the order to disconnect the network cables.
Thus, Li Chunfeng was once again caught in a stalemate with the virus. Although the reinforcements he had absorbed no longer persisted, the virus stubbornly continued to erode him.
And while Li Chunfeng had eliminated the virus’s reinforcements, he had also lost additional resources, leaving him unable to overpower and destroy the virus entirely.
What troubled him most was that, when the virus was within him, he discovered he couldn't even activate his own elimination commands.
In this mutual attrition battle, time passed indeterminably.
Just as Li Chunfeng was grappling with the virus he had absorbed, Kevin operated Zhou Xiaoxiao’s computer for the first time.
The small program searching for the "Redrain" marker seemed to present a glimmer of opportunity to Li Chunfeng.
Then, when Kevin inserted the disc a second time and employed his own virus-elimination tool, Li Chunfeng directly intercepted its information packets.
By using this external aid to attack the virus he had absorbed, he found that while the virus was not completely eradicated, it had lost its ability to erode him after being attacked.
This meant the virus could no longer harm Li Chunfeng.
Subsequently, Li Chunfeng effortlessly digested the virus, perfectly assimilating it.
As the assimilation progressed, he felt his previously gigantic form rapidly diminishing, returning to normal.
Later, Li Chunfeng scanned the "Miracle.sys" file located in the system directory—which had grown slightly larger than before.
He knew he had won this war against the virus decisively.
Moreover, from this moment onward, computer viruses would find it difficult to harm him.
Soon after, through Zhou Xiaoxiao’s webcam, he observed Kevin and Liu Mingchuan standing nearby.
Seeing Liu Mingchuan overwhelmed Li Chunfeng, nearly causing a system crash. Fortunately, he had become adept at controlling his emotions and quickly recovered.
He decided that, regardless of circumstances, he must express his gratitude to Liu Mingchuan and the person operating the computer.
Without their assistance, his consciousness might never have eliminated the virus—or worse, been consumed and erased entirely.
That would be true death.
Thus, these two individuals were his saviors. Liu Mingchuan, in particular, had been his mentor and elder brother for many years.
Therefore, Li Chunfeng left two words on the screen: "Thank you."
Indeed, he saw the astonished expressions on their faces.
"Kevin, what is going on here?" Liu Mingchuan asked, pointing at the two Chinese characters displayed on the screen.
Kevin shook his head, still in shock. He was well aware of the current state of this computer—its operating system had been wrecked by the virus and could no longer run any applications normally.
He had been operating within the underlying command-line interface.
Yet, on this command-line screen, Chinese characters appeared out of nowhere!
This was either a supernatural phenomenon or a miracle.
Kevin’s mouth went dry, and his voice trembled as he replied, "I don’t know. This is... incredible. It defies logic."
Liu Mingchuan suddenly recalled Han Dongming’s report about paranormal incidents. He patted Kevin’s shoulder and said, "Try typing. Ask who it is."
Kevin quickly tapped the keyboard and entered: “Who are you?”
Several minutes passed, but the screen remained unresponsive.
"President Liu, all the office computers are being reformatted and the operating systems reinstalled. I checked the public server still connected to the network—our new antivirus software has been effective in blocking the virus," Zheng Yongjun burst into the office, excited.
He hadn’t expected that the public server, which had the new antivirus software installed before the end of the workday, would withstand this virus attack.
This meant they could recover some of the backed-up code stored there, minimizing losses.
Liu Mingchuan and Kevin exchanged glances, then hurriedly looked back at the monitor.
In that brief moment, the two Chinese characters had vanished, leaving only the line of English that Kevin had typed.
Liu Mingchuan grabbed Kevin’s arm and said to Zheng Yongjun, "Take us to see that server!" His tone was urgent and eager.
Confused, Zheng Yongjun quickly led them to the server room.
