CHAPTER 42 — The Hacker Awakens
Shi Yunxi stood alone in the second fitting room, the heavy silence pressing down on her as she stared at the message on her phone screen.
A single headline.
Cold. Cruel. Designed to break her.
"SHI YUNXI EXPOSED—RAISING TWO ILLEGITIMATE CHILDREN IN SECRET."
Pictures of Shi Yichen and Shi Qing'er.
Blurred, grainy… but unmistakable.
Her children.
Her heart.
Her life.
Her breath caught sharply, a trembling hand covering her mouth before the sob could escape. For a moment, her knees threatened to collapse beneath her.
Not them.
Anyone but them.
Her fingers shook violently as she fumbled for her phone, dialing the only person she could trust.
The call picked up almost immediately.
"Yunxi?" Song Liyun's warm voice filled the line. "What happened? You never call during fittings."
"Liyun…" Yunxi's voice cracked, thick with fear. "The children—did you get them from kindergarten already?"
A brief silence.
Then, relief.
"Yes," Liyun said quickly. "I picked them up early. They're with me right now, drinking juice and drawing. They're fine. Safe."
Yunxi pressed a trembling hand to her chest, exhaling shakily.
"Thank you," she whispered, tears burning her eyes. "Please… don't let them see anything online."
"You really think I would?" Liyun huffed softly. "Focus on defending yourself. I'll protect them."
The call ended, leaving Yunxi in a quiet so sharp it hurt.
Slowly, painfully, her trembling stopped.
Her eyes grew cold.
Her spine straightened.
Her entire aura shifted.
If the Shi family wanted to involve her children—
If they wanted to destroy her peace—
If they wanted to call her a whore, a disgrace, a mother of bastards—
Then she would show them exactly who they provoked.
She walked to the far corner of the room and pulled out the second phone she hadn't touched in three years.
A matte black device.
Untraceable.
Unregistered.
Belonging to no one… except the ghost of her past life.
She powered it on.
Deep-blue coded light flickered across the screen.
A login window appeared.
Her fingers moved without hesitation.
ID: 001-V0ID
USER: Xiaolan
STATUS: REAWAKENED
A soft chime echoed—
A digital pulse—
And across the global hacker networks, an alert exploded like thunder.
[Xiaolan is online.]
[Impossible—she disappeared three years ago!]
[Who woke the devil?]
Yunxi ignored the noise.
She cracked the Shi Group's private servers in under ten minutes.
Firewalls melted.
Encrypted vaults unraveled.
Files poured into her hands like water.
Financial fraud.
Tax evasion.
Bribery.
Illegal deals Qin Yuhan helped hide.
Roulan's entire history of slander, harassment, and framing Yunxi three years ago.
Every file was a weapon.
Every secret a knife.
And Xiaolan—Shi Yunxi—began to throw them.
The internet detonated.
Shi Group stock plummeted 17% in one hour.
Investors fled.
The media swarmed.
Meanwhile, in the Qin family villa, Qin Yuhan slammed his laptop shut, veins popping on his forehead.
"Who is doing this to them?!" he barked. "Who has the power to collapse a corporation in minutes?!"
Shi Roulan trembled, face pale as chalk.
Then she saw a username flash across the leaked documents:
X I A O L A N
Her blood ran cold.
Because she remembered that name.
The hacker who destroyed an entire underground ring.
The hacker no one could find.
The hacker she once mocked three years ago—
Not knowing that girl was her own sister.
"No…" Roulan whispered, shaking. "It can't be her… it can't…"
But her voice crumbled.
And the truth was undeniable:
Shi Yunxi was back.
And she was coming for everything.