97: Chapter 97 Can you really do things like this?

Han Xiaoxin had been a bit depressed these past two days.

In fact, if you had a supervisor watching you work twenty-four hours a day without rest, popping up anywhere from time to time to urge you on, and even controlling your basic work tools, anyone would feel depressed—let alone a genius like him who had found fame at a young age.

At only twenty-three years old, he had experienced the terror of being a corporate slave much too early.

What terrified him even more was the unfathomable Wang Shuo. Oh, right, this terrifyingly shameless figure was now his boss's boss—after two days of contact and testing, in his heart, Zero was already his boss.

Just what kind of pervert could create such a perverted thing?

Han Xiaoxin silently gritted his teeth, staring at the rows of data running on his computer screen. This was Zero verifying the results of his work from last night, which had taken him all night.

A few minutes later.

"Verification complete. No logical vulnerabilities found, no data risks detected... Optimizing execution... Execution complete..."

Han Xiaoxin had an expectant look on his face, looking just like a puppy wagging its tail, waiting for praise after doing a good deed.

"Mr. Han Xiaoxin, you have completed yesterday's work tasks. As per your request, I will continue to monitor your progress. Please keep up the good work."

"Based on authorization, your clearance has been upgraded to Sequence 9. You can now receive my assistance."

Han Xiaoxin let out a long sigh of relief. Finally, through his own unremitting efforts, he was no longer at the very bottom... Han Xiaoxin was in tears. A dignified genius youth reduced to a corporate slave was not what he wanted, but...

Thinking about how he had coded day and night, drawn diagrams, and built frameworks over the last two days, Han Xiaoxin's heart was filled with bitter tears, a suffering he couldn't put into words.

If at the beginning he had still been a bit rebellious, thinking about slacking off or even looking for an opportunity to throw in the towel, then after his deep interaction with Zero over the past two days, he had completely abandoned such suicidal thoughts.

Because Zero... was just too monstrous...

He no longer viewed Zero as just a program. This was Artificial Intelligence, a true Artificial Intelligence born under the existing technological framework! Compared to it, what were those so-called Artificial Intelligences and smart assistants on the market? A mere voice recognition program dared to call itself Artificial Intelligence?

Now, when he scrolled through his phone and saw certain manufacturers and big influencers boasting about so-called Artificial Intelligence, Han Xiaoxin just wanted to laugh. He even wanted to roar in the comment section: Right here! In this Software Park that nobody pays attention to, in this obscure tech company, the world's first true Artificial Intelligence was born! You're all just a bunch of slow-witted fools!

But he didn't dare.

He believed that if he dared to do so, Zero would lock down his data channels, report it to Wang Shuo, and maybe even call the police.

Compared to Zero, he was now even more afraid of Wang Shuo.

After all, compared to a monster, the person who created the monster was even more monstrous.

Although he was young, he was considered an elite among hackers, having participated in countless battles and possessing rich experience. It was precisely because of this that he understood the technological sophistication behind Zero. This was not something current technology could achieve. His group leader, whom he had never met, had even said that current electronic computers could not meet the minimum requirements to generate Artificial Intelligence, and that no one could create perfect Artificial Intelligence on an imperfect platform.

Before this, he had believed those words without a doubt.

But now...

Someone had truly made the impossible possible and placed it right in front of him as a living reality. This was more absurd than curing a patient diagnosed with certain death. Curing a patient could be called a miracle, but this was something even miracles were powerless to explain.

Amidst his wandering thoughts, a cold electronic voice interrupted his thinking.

"Welcome back, Sir."

Then came a laugh. "Zero, your way of greeting is too old-fashioned, and your voice doesn't sound good. Revert to your initial state for me."

"Understood, Sir."

Zero's voice became neutral and gentle.

Han Xiaoxin scrambled up from his chair. It was better to be well-behaved in front of this big boss whom he hadn't fully figured out yet. Although this boss didn't look much older than him, and Han Xiaoxin was confident he wouldn't lose in a physical fight, this was clearly not a matter of fighting.

He squeezed out a smile.

"Big Boss, good morning."

"Big Boss"? What a strange title. Wang Shuo looked at Han Xiaoxin with some confusion.

Han Xiaoxin panicked a little. Even when he had led a team to attack The White House website, commanding dozens of people, he hadn't been this flustered. He quickly pointed at the computer.

"Big Boss, I haven't slacked off at all. Yesterday, I finished the website optimization work you assigned, and last night, I even forgot to eat and sleep, coding all night. If you don't believe me, you can ask Boss Zero."

Well, now even "Boss Zero" had come out.

Wang Shuo laughed inwardly. Seeing the online-arrogant Han Xiaoxin acting so submissive and barely daring to breathe in front of him was quite amusing. On the surface, however, he remained expressionless, merely saying calmly, "Zero, report on the task completion status."

"Sir, according to your requirements, Task 7 took fourteen hours and thirty-five minutes and has been completed."

"Task 8 has taken eight hours and fifty-four minutes and is in progress. According to your rules, Han Xiaoxin's clearance has been upgraded to Sequence 9."

Wang Shuo was somewhat surprised. According to his settings, upgrading required not only completing a certain workload but also keeping the rate of bugs and errors under one percent. Once qualified, the clearance upgrade option would be activated. This was a demanding requirement, yet he hadn't expected the Han Xiaoxin in front of him to complete it in just nine hours.

He couldn't help but look at him in a new light.

"Not bad, you upgraded."

Han Xiaoxin felt a bit smug. When it came to electronic information technology, he did have some skill. Besides, the boss's requirements weren't that high—just having him plan some commonly used offensive code, patch up basic vulnerabilities, and reinforce the firewall. He did this kind of thing often, so his speed was naturally much faster.

"Keep it up." Wang Shuo smiled slightly at Han Xiaoxin. This guy was an unexpected pleasant surprise. But on second thought, how could a famous hacker wanted by the authorities be weak? Especially since he was so young—he was countless times stronger than Wang Shuo himself had been before obtaining the Core.

As for now...

Wang Shuo smiled faintly and turned to sit on the sofa. Opposite the sofa, a hundred-inch ultra-thin flat-screen TV had been installed at his request.

"Zero, enable Display Screen One, pull up the source code, and mark the work progress."

Just as he finished speaking, Han Xiaoxin saw the display on the wall in front of him light up. A dazzling waterfall of data cascaded down the screen, quickly turning into lines of rapidly scrolling code.

"Stereoscopic graphical display."

The screen changed again, and the data stream transformed into countless data clusters. At first glance, Han Xiaoxin felt a sense of familiarity. Had he seen this shape somewhere before?

Where had he seen it?

Unable to figure it out despite racking his brain, Han Xiaoxin looked up again. In the center of the countless data clusters on the screen, a bright cluster of data was exceptionally eye-catching, much larger than the others. Countless lines radiated outward, connecting to the surrounding data clusters of various sizes. Some of these threads were bright, flashing with light from time to time, while others were dim and inconspicuous.

Han Xiaoxin suddenly looked at another wall, where the logo of Frontier Company was displayed. His eyes lit up. Yes, that was it! The company logo he had seen countless times over the past two days while working on the website.

Three spheres of different sizes were arranged in a triangle, with the central sphere being exceptionally large. A line shaped like lightning connected the three spheres, forming an indescribable design that looked like a starry sky, yet also like connected planets.

Could this logo have originated from that?

While he was thinking, Wang Shuo's voice came again, and the changes on the screen once more drew Han Xiaoxin's attention.

"Deploy web crawlers to scrape data, generate the database, allocate resources, and generate executable code."

The data on the screen began to scroll again. Window after window opened and closed, and line after line of data was generated out of thin air, as if hundreds of programmers were frantically writing code behind the scenes.

This...

Han Xiaoxin's mouth fell wide open. This had to be fake, right? He must be seeing things.

It was probably a hallucination from staying up too late last night.

Han Xiaoxin closed his eyes, rubbed them hard, and opened them again.

Nothing in front of him had changed. The code on the screen flew by rapidly, and Wang Shuo, sitting on the sofa, was pouring himself a cup of water. Seemingly a bit bored, he picked up his phone and was grinning as he looked at it.

"Warning: An error has occurred."

"Retrieve the error code, display it on the upper main page, and analyze potential causes."

"Displayed. Potential cause: Web crawler data retrieval error."

"Delete erroneous data and repeat logic."

"Running..."

...

To Wang Shuo, this was just his very ordinary daily coding routine—a continuous cycle of generating code, encountering errors, troubleshooting, regenerating code, running it successfully, and packaging. But to Han Xiaoxin, the scene before him was nothing short of a complete destruction of his worldview.

If it weren't for the fact that his surroundings were still familiar and he recognized the monster sitting on the sofa, he would have thought he had transmigrated, or was dreaming.

Since when could work be done like this?