The Inconceivable Flame: A Fallen Angel's Disguise

Earlier, when Ru warned Xiao Zhi-Yuan to leave the bar, he really left. But he coincidently forgot his tablet inside. And when he came back to collect it, he heard some muffled voices and turned a corner to see Ru striking the tandem of five men unconscious with a single strike.

He was stunned and couldn’t shift his eyes away from the scene that played out before him. It felt like a scene of a wuxia novel playing out with all those martial arts moves. He could literally picture Ru in long-sleeved robes with a sleek sword in hand and long hairs tied in a high ponytail like a rebel and yet noble young master of a martial arts family. Okay! He was overly imaginative! But he couldn’t help it with the scenes before him.

When Ru walked inside the private room, she didn’t bother to close the door and that allowed Xiao Zhi-Yuan to peek inside but hearing some strange sounds, he decided to hide under a table in an inconspicuous booth.

He couldn’t hear anything but he could tell that the conversation was intense as for the green-eyed ’man’, Xiao Zhi-Yuan had already assumed ’him’ to be some formidable personality. Because the way those people in black treated ’him’, showed that ’he’ wasn’t anyone to be messed with.

Xiao Zhi-Yuan’s eyes followed Ru’s disappearing figure until she was out of his sight. He stood rooted at his spot deeply immersed in his thoughts.

In a trance, he took a cab back home.

"Ahan, Yuan! Finally, you’re back. I was waiting for you, let’s have dinner." Xiao Zhi-Ren spoke a bit cheerfully when he saw his younger brother entering through the main door.

Xiao Zhi-Yuan didn’t respond in any way. He kept walking straight to his room in a dazed state.

Xiao Zhi-Ren and Qin Qu shared a look and frowned. "Earth to Caramelo!" Xiao Zhi-Ren waved his hand before Xiao Zhi-Yuan’s eyes. He intentionally used ’Caramelo’ to call his younger brother because he knew how much he hated this nickname. The reason was very simple, Caramelo literally meant ’as sweet as candy’ in Spanish and Xiao Zhi-Yuan was anything but sweet. Therefore, it was more of a sarcastic nickname for him.

"I’m not hungry!" Xiao Zhi-Yuan finally spoke in an animated tone and pushed his brother away before walking to his own room.

Behind him, both best friends, Xiao Zhi-Ren and Qin Qu shared another look of shock. "Did he just give zero response on being called ’Caramelo’?" Xiao Zhi-Ren questioned his best friend who could only nod. "Is he sick or something?" He questioned again and Qin Qu only shrugged in reply. They were in disbelief but they couldn’t push him for an answer. So, they decided to eat dinner without him.

After dinner, Xiao Zhi-Ren went to his study and turned on his computer with multiple monitor screens. Being the Chief Executive Officer of SnapVise Technologies, he had to multi-task a lot. But tonight, his purpose was not to work but rather to do what he always loved to do; hacking.

His mother always left him alone at home with his younger brother because she had to work a lot. And since he had no interest in tv, he shifted his attention towards the computers. He had won several hacking competitions by the time he entered high school but after his mother’s death, Xiao Zhi-Ren only allowed himself to hack in secret.

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Tonight his reason for turning to hack, was a competition held by the black Cybernet. The competition was called, "Snatch The Flag & Smash The Net". So, the competition’s working was as such:

There were a total of 4 levels in the competition.

About 200 hackers from around the globe were registered for the competition under their code names.

On the first level, all the hackers had to simply go through a ’Cyber Security Challenge’ and the fastest 100 were the only ones who could move on to the next level.

On the second level, each hacker had a code of virus installed in their own computers which they had created themselves. Then they were paired as opponents randomly. After being paired, they had to attack the other person with their own virus known as ’flag’ while they had to make sure that nobody manages to break through their own defenses and plants their viruses.

The remaining 50 hackers had to battle it out with themselves again in the next round but the twist was that their viruses were now supposed to be concealed with cryptography. And the opponent had to look for that virus and try to break it. After this attack and defense competition, the last round begins. In this, the hackers would have to work on the clock. The hacker who would manage to break all defenses in the minimum time would be victorious.

The server to hack was chosen by the black Cybernet hosts, these companies liked to challenge their own security to see the flaws that could be fixed.

At precisely 12, the competition began. The first three rounds were akin to a joke for Xiao Zhi-Ren and he even began to wonder why had he bothered to even enter in this competition. His own virus was strong enough to not even worry about defending while he focused on just attacking his opponents.

On the last round, he had to be alert. His slender and long fingers ran over the white keyboard as if flying over a piano. His every movement was smooth and seemed carefree just like his personality.

He managed to break all the defenses in precisely 5 minutes and 23 seconds but his screen still flashed with ’Second Position’.

He pressed some keys and the screen flashed the name of the winner,

Winner: ’The White Shadow’

Time: ’5 minutes 22 seconds’

As he stared dumbfoundedly at the name flashing at the screen, Qin Qu came up behind him. "What the hell? Did you lose? And that too with only 1 second’s difference?" Qin Qu’s jaw was practically going to hit the ground with this shocking news. He was someone who was familiar with his best friend’s capabilities and he had never seen him lose before.

When Xiao Zhi-Ren didn’t reply, Qin Qu added, "Who’s this ’The White Shadow’?"

"I have no idea since this is black Cybernet, everyone is faceless here." Xiao Zhi-Ren sighed out heavily. He stroked his chin thoughtfully as he spoke, "But I think I really need to look for this person. He’d be a good asset for our company."

Qin Qu nodded his head agreeing with his best friend’s words.

-The next morning-

Xiao Zhi-Ren got busy with preparing breakfast after coming back from his morning run. He saw Xiao Zhi-Yuan walking out of his room with panda eyes. "Didn’t you sleep last night?" Xiao Zhi-Ren asked anxiously.

"No... I had a lot to sort out," Xiao Zhi-Yuan answered monotonously.

"What did you have to sort out?" Xiao Zhi-Ren pried which he didn’t do very often but he felt like knowing at this moment.

"Big Bear," Xiao Zhi-Ren was surprised since it’s been a long time Xiao Zhi-Yuan hadn’t called him ’Big Bear’. He’s been calling him ’Big brother’ since they came to China and it felt very distant to Xiao Zhi-Ren. Now, he was happy that his younger brother was back to his original habits.

"Yes, my little bear," Xiao Zhi-Ren happily replied.

"Do you think that those Kung Fu masters or those Ninja’s in books are real?" His question took Xiao Zhi-Ren by surprise.

"Er... Um... I think so. Actually, I hope so." Xiao Zhi-Ren replied hesitatingly as he avoided gazing into his younger brother’s eyes.

Xiao Zhi-Yuan stayed quiet for a moment before saying, "I saw a real-life martial artist last night."

"What?" Xiao Zhi-Ren stared wide-eyed at his brother. "Did he do anything to you? Are you hurt anywhere? Tell me!"

"Relax! Big bear, you’re overreacting." Xiao Zhi-Yuan gave his brother a weird look. "I was just saying that he was super duper cool. Like a real hero. He’s just awesome." Xiao Zhi-Yuan spent the next 15 minutes gushing over Ru while Xiao Zhi-Ren’s face turned black with each passing second.

It was the longest he had seen his brother speak and that too without being rude or sarcastic. "I thought I was the coolest person in your life," Xiao Zhi-Ren ruefully sighed when he stopped talking.

"Well, big bear! You’ll always be the coolest brother for me. But I can’t say that he was any less cool than you." Xiao Zhi-Yuan’s face turned sad as he added in a glum tone, "I don’t even know if I’ll see him again or not." He shook his head and started eating his sandwich.

While on the side, Xiao Zhi-Ren’s mind kept running with horrendous scenarios. He didn’t want his brother to be near any troublemaker. And especially not the one who knew martial arts.