I am Really a Superstar

Morning.

It was the 4th day of the new year.

After a tiresome night, Zhang Ye crawled out of his bed and took a peek through the gap in his curtains. He realized that it was already bright outside. It was not natural brightness of the sun, but rather a kind of reflective type that didn\'t seem natural. It was around 7AM and was not a time when the sun would be shining in. He unwillingly threw aside his blanket and stretched himself before walking towards the curtains and drawing them open to take a look outside.

Oh!

It was snowing!

The snow was reflecting the sunlight. No wonder it looked different from usual daylight!

He looked at his watch. It was almost time to leave for the Internet Surveillance Bureau. After he washed up, he wanted to go over to the landlady\'s house to scrounge for breakfast, but after knocking on the door for a long time, no one answered. There was probably no one at home. Zhang Ye put on his coat, got into his recently returned BMW X5 bulletproof car, and drove straight to the Internet Surveillance Bureau\'s compound. The sound made by the wheels cruising over the thick layer of snow on the ground sounded calmingly soothing.

Ring, ring, ring.

His mother called.

She said, "Son, are you coming back tomorrow?"

Zhang Ye said, "No, mom. I still have some work to do today."

His mother said, "It\'s already the 5th day tomorrow. Come home and have some dumplings."

Zhang Ye said, "I really can\'t. Maybe on the 15th. I should be home on the 15th. A friend of mine help me get out from detainment, remember? It\'s because I\'ve been requested to assist at the Internet Surveillance Bureau that I managed to get out. I have to be present here so that they can answer to their superiors."

His mother wondered, "Internet Surveillance Bureau? I was just watching the news with your dad. We heard that some sort of computer virus was spreading throughout Korea. It sounded like it was pretty formidable since Central TV warned the viewers to be careful in case the virus infects our country as well."

Zhang Ye laughed, "Even Central TV reported about it?"

"Yes. It was reported during the morning news. I just saw it." His mother told him, "You be careful too, don\'t get infected by that virus, or it will hold up your work."

Zhang Ye thought to himself it would be funny if he got infected by it. After all, he was the one who created it!

When he reached the office compound, he parked the car by the roadside and went to buy some newspapers. The television and online media gave a lot of coverage to this \'Panda Burning Incense\' virus. Zhang Ye had not expected it to get so much attention. Because this world was too safe from computer viruses, it was a rare occurrence and even if it did happen, it would usually be prevented from doing any damage by firewalls and anti-virus softwares. This \'Panda Burning Incense\' was widely reported due to its widespread destruction. In the history of computers in this world, a computer virus of this scale did not happen very often, thus it could easily be ranked amongst the top 10 viruses to ever exist!

"Panda Burning Incense and its creator, \'2\'"!

"National treasure\'s image tarnished"!

"Korea faces disastrous computer virus"!

"Latest estimate of Korean computers to be infected by the virus: 500,000"!

"The disastrous fallout from a hackers\' war"!

"Panda Burning Incense creator \'2\' wanted by the Korean government"!

"Latest update from Korea: Research into the Panda Burning Incense virus has made a major breakthrough"!

......

Internet Surveillance Bureau.

At the office of the First Department.

There weren\'t many people around today. Fan Yingyun wasn’t here. Instead, a few unfamiliar faces were around. They were likely to be from the First Department as well and were probably recalled to come back to work last night.

Fang Xiaoshui looked up, "Teacher Zhang is here."

Zhang Ye greeted, "Good morning."

Meng Yi suddenly said, "Teacher Zhang, you left too early last night, so you might not have heard about it, but there was some trouble last night. Let me tell you a little bit about it." He delightfully relayed to him what had happened from the time of the fresh wave of attacks from the Korean hackers to how the Panda Burning Incense virus ravaged through Korea.

Zhang Ye pretended not to know a thing and even acted surprised to hear everything.

A cyber-policewoman said, "After this incident, I don\'t suppose that those Korean hackers will ever dare to offend China again."

"That\'s not necessarily true." An old cyber-policeman said, "That bunch of people can do anything and it would not surprise me. They are probably even thinking about taking revenge as we speak."

Fang Xiaoshui rolled her eyes, "It was them who started this whole incident in the first place, and now they want revenge?"

Meng Yi shook his head, "When have that bunch of Koreans ever been reasonable? Don\'t you already know that from past incidents. Other than political issues, just look at the cases of those Korean celebrities who have caused so many disputes on our land, things like diva behavior, stampede incidents, and scolding our citizens. When have any of them ever been resolved before? There was only one time it was resolved." He looked over to Zhang Ye, "It was the time when Teacher Zhang Ye intervened, but the other matters were just left hanging and there was no apology at all, so how could you expect them to speak reason?"

A person that Zhang Ye had never seen before said, "It still boils down to the person. There are many reasonable people in Korea too, but most of their citizens have primarily misguided stereotypes of ethnicities."

Meng Yi said, "There\'s no need to make excuses for them. It is as I have seen. Even if I want to believe that there are nice people there too, I\'ve never seen any before!"

Fang Xiaoshui did not join in on their conversation, but instead walked over to Zhang Ye\'s side, "Sister Fan created a fix to prevent infection from the Panda Burning Incense virus last night. Your computer hasn’t been patched yet, so let me help you with it."

Zhang Ye said, "Sure, thanks a lot!"

Zhang Ye was not surprised as this virus was not really that complex. A highly skilled person, like Fan Yingyun, being able to come up with a fix almost immediately was not really that surprising either.

After patching, Fang Xiaoshui looked at the laptop on Zhang Ye\'s table and said, "Oh, the laptop you have there is one of the higher end models."

Zhang Ye laughed, "I just use it to play games."

Fang Xiaoshui said, "Here, let me help you patch that too, so that you won\'t get infected with the virus."

"It\'s alright." Zhang Ye declined, "This laptop doesn\'t have internet access, so it won\'t get infected."

Fang Xiaoshui said, "This virus is really destructive. Even if you aren’t connected to the internet, you might accidentally get it. You\'re not a professional like us who deal with these on a daily basis. Since you aren\'t too familiar with the internet and viruses, you might accidentally activate the virus. If that happens, it would be a great loss of that laptop. It\'s better to be safe than sorry, don\'t you think?"

Zhang Ye smiled, "It\'s really fine. Thanks anyway. I only play single player games on this. It\'s fine even if I get infected, there\'s no important data on the computer anyway."

Fang Xiaoshui said, "Then it\'s OK since you don\'t have anything important on it."

Of course Zhang Ye wouldn\'t let anyone handle this laptop of his.

Shortly after, people started coming into the office for work. Fan Yingyun also shuffled in slowly to the office when she saw Zhang Ye and greeted him, "Teacher Zhang, good morning."

Zhang Ye waved back, "Morning, Officer Fan."

Fan Yingyun did not bother with the others and sat down.

The other colleagues were not offended by Officer Fan\'s attitude towards them, but instead came up to her to say good morning. Fang Xiaoshui even came up to Fan Yingyun to ask her for advice regarding the computer virus.

"Sister Fan, take a look at this code....."

"I\'m not free."

"Erm, help me take a look at it, please?"

......

Korea.

Malware Protection Center.

In an office of a certain corporation.

A programmer suddenly stood up and shouted, "It\'s cracked! I\'ve found the way to kill the virus!"

"Great!"

"It\'s finally been cracked!"

"I haven’t slept for over 12 hours now!"

"Quick, quick, release the news and get in contact with the anti-virus companies to update the virus database!"

It was a scene of elation!

After 7-8 hours of overnight work under the lead of the Korean Malware Protection Center, along with the assistance of several other anti-virus companies and several national computer virus organizations, the Panda Burning Incense virus had finally been cracked! The organization officially announced this news to let everyone know that any infected systems no longer needed to be reformatted to be rid of the virus. It could easily be removed as long as the virus definitions had been updated, or with a specific patching tool. It would even prevent the system from being infected again!

Several nations had collaborated on this!

So, of course, a solution was developed so quickly!

......

YOYOT (USA): "It\'s been fixed?"

TOM (UK): "I heard so. That was pretty quick."

Fujiwara (Japan): "In addition to all of those activated programmers in Korea, JIN, 59-V, and a few other top hackers helped too. That\'s why it was developed so quickly. The virus code was not that complex to begin with, so it wasn\'t impossible to break the code."

47 (USA): "We can enjoy the show again."

TOM (UK): "What show? You think that JIN and the others won\'t take this lying down? They will go back to take revenge? It can\'t be? They should know that they are no match for \'2\'. At least in terms of creating a virus, \'2\' is much stronger than them. Will JIN and 59-V still take that risk? They can\'t possibly not understand that? This \'2\' was already quite merciful since he held back regarding this matter. If they really anger \'2\' and he retaliates with yet another virus, it would be a disaster. We might even suffer collateral damage should that virus spread globally!"

Cepera (Russia): "The Koreans will not admit defeat easily, I feel like they won’t give up so easily either. The other top hackers in Korea might even decide to join in to smoke this \'2\' out so that their anger could be appeased."

......

On the other side.

59-V: "My system has been patched! F**k! My system is finally back up and running again! That \'2\'! I\'m not going to forgive him! The virus code was actually so simple!"

Jen: "JIN, we need to get our revenge!"

JIN: "What do the others feel?"

A number of Korean hackers agreed!

"Revenge!"

"We need to take revenge!"

"Never going to take this lying down!"

"The Panda Burning Incense virus has been resolved with a removal and patching tool, why should we be scared of him now? Let\'s continue attacking! Kill them all!"

"F**k, we need to make them know what happens when they offend us!"

"Who could ever take this lying down!"

After a moment, JIN announced: "Alright then. Since everyone seems to agree to it, we will attack once again. Everyone, make your preparations, especially with the Panda Burning Incense removal tool and patch. That is a must. In case we encounter it again, we at least need to be prepared. If you are intending to use a trojan or virus for your attack and need to turn off your firewall and anti-virus softwares temporarily, you can PM me. I will let you know how to change your settings to prevent the Panda Burning Incense from infecting you while your firewall is down. The virus is really not that complicated since it only needs some settings to be changed to prevent Auto-play. That is the basic prevention method. Unless you execute the program yourself, you\'d be fine otherwise."

"Help me with that."

"Me too, God JIN please advise me."

"Let\'s poise ourselves for attack. The next wave is about to begin!"

"Fuck! Let\'s hit them with a heavy blow this time! They need to have a taste of their own medicine!"

"I won\'t rest until I get them all, those bunch of Chinese!"

"Right, I won\'t rest until our goals has been met!"

A hundred over Korean hackers were about to attack as others continued to join. Some were newbies, but there were also seasoned experts. Some were even programmers from the anti-virus companies who anonymously joined under their own persona. After a national \'calamity\', they were all hungry for revenge.

Other than them, many Korean citizens felt the same way!

A lot of commoners and even some Korean corporations had expressed their attitudes towards this!

"The virus has been killed!"

"That \'2\' won\'t be able to be cocky anymore!"

"Without this killer tool, what can the Chinese do! Let\'s kill them! Dear gods, we are all depending on you! You must seek revenge for us Koreans!"

"Don\'t let us bleed for nothing!"

"Haha, I expected it to be some scary virus, but it turned out to be so weak! Just a few hours and a fix has already been developed? That\'s all they can do!"

"Here\'s urging everyone to boycott Chinese products!"

"Right, don\'t buy Chinese products. If we see any Chinese, we should curse them!"

"Let\'s get back at them! Get them!"

"Do they think we\'ll be afraid just like that? They\'re underestimating us! It\'s just a simple virus! Let\'s see how long you can stay arrogant? Everyone, go! Those who can attack, attack! Those who cannot, stay behind and keep scolding them! There are translation software available online and there\'s no need to worry about the Panda Burning Incense anymore either!"

Meanwhile, Lee Anson\'s official account also posted something. He strongly condemned the virus attack and called on everyone to denounce the Chinese! Yes, he did not ask them to denounce \'2\' or anyone else. He wrote it out in black and white to denounce the Chinese! After the crisis that was the Panda Burning Incense, Lee Anson had jumped out again with his manager and agency!

Even the Korean media was in on it as they reported on the Chinese threat to the internet and tried to create a wave of dissent!

The public opinion was lopsided as the wrath of the Panda Burning Incense did not stay long in their memories. They did not reflect upon the causes that led to it but instead made them even more arrogant!

......

Denounce us?

They attacked our websites first and after we fought back, they still insisted they weren’t in the wrong? Even calling for a public denouncement of the Chinese?

You can attack us?

But we aren’t allowed to fight back?

Don\'t allow us to resist?

What sort of logic was this!? Are all the rules and logic set by you all? Scram back to where you came from!

Zhang Ye gave a cold smile after he saw all of this. If only you had learned your lesson and stopped to reflect on your actions. I already stopped and was prepared to let it go, but you all still want to jump on it? Even saying all sorts of nonsense to push your point across? And even publicizing a call to invade our networks? Even the Korean media and government did not mention the details of this matter either through deliberation or out of negligence, as if they were silently allowing it? Not caring about it at all? You are the officials and represent your country. If your country\'s hackers activated a hundred members to attack us, not only are you not checking on it, you even close an eye towards it too?

Zhang Ye was very disappointed in these people. He was disappointed from top to bottom about this nation of people. He had initially used the virus in hopes of teaching them a lesson and to make them understand that the Chinese weren\'t weak or wrong. It was considered a warning to them, but who\'d have expected that not only did they not learn their lesson, they became even more defiant!

Then sorry!

Don\'t blame me for being ruthless!

Did you all really think that the Panda Burning Incense was so easy to kill? Did you all think that the virus I released was so simple? Hur Hur, then all of you are too simple minded! If there was anyone present from Zhang Ye\'s previous world, they would definitely laugh out loud if they saw what was happening now. Because this was THAT Panda Burning Incense! This was the virus that had infected millions of computers in his previous world! Yes, it was true that the original source code for Panda Burning Incense was not complex. It could even be said to be really simple, but the scary part of the Panda Burning Incense was basically not because of it\'s original source code!

Fine!

Not happy, right?

Then come at us! This time, I will make you all pay!