Chapter 3
"Well, you're finally back," Chairman Song said, his deep voice still carrying that iron authority. Even though he was weakened, his tone could intimidate seasoned executives. "I hope your years abroad have taught you discipline… and maturity."
Frances didn't flinch.
Instead, a faint, almost dangerous smile curved her lips.
"Of course," she replied lightly. "I learned quite a lot." Her eyes lifted to meet his. "At the very least, I learned not to be so easily manipulated."
The words were calm. Controlled.
But they struck like a blade.
Chairman Song's eyes darkened. Surprise flickered across his face before being replaced by irritation. She hadn't softened. If anything, she had grown sharper.
More defiant.
"You little—"
He took a step forward, but Mia Jung gently tightened her grip on his arm.
"Chairman," she murmured softly, glancing meaningfully toward CEO Jing standing nearby.
The reminder was enough.
Chairman Song inhaled slowly, forcing his temper back under control. His expression hardened as he cast Frances a warning look—cold and unmistakable.
"We'll settle this later."
...
Once chairman Song and Mr. Jing began their discussion, Frances quietly slides back and returned to the cyber defense headquarters.
There, she finally grasped the full scale of the virus's damage. It was a sophisticated, aggressive malware—much tougher to contain than she initially thought.
After assessing the situation, Frances returned to the chairman's office to provide Mr. Jing with a detailed explanation of the virus and the steps needed to fix it
She stood before Chairman Song and Mr. Jing, calm and composed while the atmosphere in the room felt anything but.
"The infection is called CROWN," she said evenly. "Cascade Replication Over Wide Networks."
Mr. Jing swallowed.
"It's not designed to destroy your systems," Frances continued. "It's designed to steal from them."
The room grew colder.
"It spreads silently through every connection inside your company—emails, shared drives, internal chats. One machine is enough. From there, it moves like wildfire."
She paused. "It copies everything. Contracts. Financial records. Internal databases. Even files you thought were deleted."
"And when it's done," she finished softly, "it disappears. No trace. No evidence. No way to prove what was taken."
Her gaze sharpened.
"Which means… somewhere out there, someone already has your company in their hands."
Silence fell heavy across the room.
Those words only made Mr. Jing's anxiety spike.
Frances took a breath; her gaze fixed on the display in front of them.
"This isn't a simple virus," she continued, her voice low and unwavering. "And it isn't something we can scrub out with a standard cleanup protocol.
Whoever wrote this coded it in a highly unorthodox manner. It adapts, it hides, and every part of it is designed to punish direct interference. but If we try to remove it the conventional way, you'll bleed resources, and even if we succeed, the creator can simply release a new variant. The cycle doesn't end."
"And besides the programmer of the virus already anticipated our actions so we need a plan to dispose this."
Chairman Song narrowed his eyes. "So, what do you think, Frances?"
Frances didn't hesitate. "Well… we can't win this by playing defensively," she replied. "If we chase the virus, we lose money, time, and control. But if we change the battlefield, we force the creator to expose himself."
Mr. Jing, whose company had taken the hardest hit, leaned forward. "And what exactly your point?"
Frances met his gaze, calm and absolute. "We use the hackers' forum. We post the virus publicly, offer a large reward, and turn it into a challenge. Anyone who wants the bounty will attempt to solve it… including the creator himself." Her tone sharpened.
"He won't resist. it's simple, only the creator can solve this riddle himself! He can't just sit back and let someone else benefit from his work, for sure he will make his move and get the reward into his own hands—and in doing so, he'll reveal his presence."
Chairman Song's expression shifted, realizing the strategy. Frances finished with quiet certainty.
"We make them solve their own virus. And when the creator enters the competition… we'll be waiting. Catching two birds with one stone."
Mr. Jing's eyes lit up the moment Frances finished. With a short, satisfied clap, he leaned back in his chair. "Brilliant. With Frances back, there's nothing to worry about." His tone carried confidence, almost relief, as if the crisis had already lost half its weight.
Frances didn't react to the praise. She simply shifted her attention back to the screen.
Chairman Song watched her with a softer expression, pride flickering behind his stern eyes. "It's been a while," he muttered under his breath. "Your mind is still as sharp as before."
Frances eyes stayed locked on the monitor, laser-focused, her expression unreadable.
A few moments later, the planned operation was fully underway. The tech team of SONGint was already moving, screens lighting up as they prepared the bait. CEO Jing immediately authorized a five-hundred-thousand-dollar reward, posting it on the global hackers' forum with one click.
The effect was instant.
Within minutes, the forum erupted into chaos. Threads exploded, code snippets flew across the platform as hackers worldwide threw themselves into the challenge.
The race had begun.
Amid the digital storm, Frances remained composed, arms lightly folded, posture relaxed but eyes unwavering as she observed the unfolding battlefield she had created.
Hours passed with SONGint's tech team monitoring the situation.
There wasn't a single trace of the virus's creator. Thousands of black‑hat hackers had already attempted to break through the virus, yet every one of them failed.
As time dragged on, Mr. Jing grew increasingly frantic. His phone buzzed nonstop calls from board members, messages from shareholders panicking, warnings of stocks plummeting. His company was moments away from collapse.
"How much longer?" Mr. Jing demanded as he paced in circles, anxiety practically radiating off him. He turned toward Frances, who was sitting quietly to the side, legs crossed, eyes half‑lidded in thought.
"Frances… this was your plan. You must have a backup plan, right? Right?" His voice cracked with desperation.
Frances answered without looking up.
"Besides raising the reward. I've got nothing else."
Her voice was cold, almost emotionless.
The words hit Mr. Jing hard. He hesitated, swallowed, then turned toward the nearest tech on a computer.
"Raise the reward… to 1.5 million!" he ordered.
The moment the announcement went out, the cyber battlefield erupted. Hackers worldwide dove in like sharks sensing blood.
Frances stood up smoothly and walked toward an empty PC booth in the aisle of the headquarters. Her movement was confident, deliberately elegant. She knew this was the moment.
Time to step in.
Back in the monitoring booth, Mr. Jing let out a shaky breath and turned to Chairman Song.
"Your daughter… is really something else, isn't she?" he said, awe filling his voice. "From the start, she was already plotting this—turning chaos into opportunity. She pushed me to raise the reward because she was one of the biggest fish who will bite."
"She isn't waiting for the creator to shows up and capture him, she is waiting for a bigger pay out" Mr. Jing adjusted his tie and continue. "Well, as long as she can fix it, I won't question her schemes."
Chairman Song chuckled, and so did Jing.
Frances cracks her neck and fingers as she booth up the computer.
She knew that with that amount of reward the top hackers from all around the world, including notorious groups, would now be interested in the virus.
Not only was she drawn to the competition itself, but the situation also presented an opportunity. If handled correctly, it could give them a chance to track the major hacking groups that would inevitably be drawn to the bait.
First, though, she had to eliminate some obstacle, She couldn't afford to let anyone else crack the virus first. Even if it was nearly impossible to solve, she was not willing to gamble on every possibility.
Then she got to work.
"Set up more honeypots across the net. Make them loud and expensive," Frances ordered, eyes glued to the screen.
"Honeypots?" one of the newer techs asked.
"Decoy systems," Sia answered without looking up. "Fake targets. We make them look real and valuable, so hackers waste their time on them instead of the actual system."
"Traps are live," Sia reported. "Plenty of small-time hackers trying to get in, but still no sign of the target."
The team hesitated.
Frances didn't wait. She dropped into her chair, fingers hammering the keys. The overhead screens lit up with flashing red alerts.
Her gaze flickered over them, calm and unblinking.
One by one, the red alerts winked out—green replacing them like a closing iron gate. Traced.
And one by one she eliminated some competition, out hacking them and make their software crash.
A new tech swallowed hard, voice hushed. "She's… doing that live."
Jia let out a low whistle. "No mercy."
Frances didn't look up.
She exhaled once. Cold. Steady.
"Clear," she said.
She leaned back slightly, eyes narrowing at the quiet screen.
Now that she cleared her way, she now finally started solving the virus.
Click. Clack. Code flowed like poetry beneath her fingertips. As she dissected the virus, black-hat hackers lurking in the shadows tried to sabotage her—but they didn't stand a chance. One by one, she shut them down, isolating their signals while still hunting for the virus's opening.
The techs gathered around were utterly shocked by the sheer brilliance of her skills. Even seasoned programmers, experts at coding and building complex programs, found their hacking abilities dwarfed by hers. Her methods were sophisticated, born of experience and razor-sharp ingenuity.
This was the difference between intelligence and genius.
Within just an hour, the virus was already almost dismantled and cleared. The battlefield that had looked chaotic moments ago now bent under her control, every infected segment falling with precision.
As Frances hands danced in the keyboard even faster.
The room fell quiet.
Engineers, analysts, even the interns, stood behind her in awe, whispering guesses at her next move. No one dared interrupt.
Finally, with a decisive flourish, she pressed Enter.
The system stabilized.
The virus—neutralized.
Applause erupted across the lab. Up on the observation deck, behind the glass wall, Chairman Song and Mr. M watched. Mr. M clapped, relief clear on his face.
"Incredible," he breathed.
Chairman Song said nothing, just smiled quietly, pride softening his eyes as he watched his daughter at work.
Mr. Jing didn't wait a second. He rushed down the stairs, reaching Frances first, followed by Chairman Song and Mia Jung moving in his shadow.
"Haha," Mr. Jing chuckled, clapping her on the shoulder. "I've never doubted you, Frances. With you here, we're all safe." He glanced at Chairman Song and nodded, a wry smile tugging at his lips.
Chairman Song remained silent, but the pride radiating from him needed no words. Mia Jung's eyes widened slightly, clearly not expecting Frances to perform like this.
As the team celebrated, the room buzzing with laughter and cheers, Mr. Jing raised his voice. "Alright! Feast is on me—everyone, you earned it!"
The lab practically erupted. Techs were cheering, slapping each other on the back, already planning how to indulge in the surprise celebration.
And yet, amid the chaos, Frances noticed something.
Chairman Song's gaze shifted to her. "Is something wrong, Frances?"
But she didn't answer. She didn't move.
Her eyes were fixed on the screen, unblinking. Hands hovered over the keyboard, poised but still.
Then, finally, her voice cut through the noise, sharp and cold.
"Enough."
The room didn't catch it at first. A few kept clapping.
Frances stood up.
"I said, stop. Now."
Silence fell.
Everyone turned to her, confused by her sudden shift.
She didn't look at them. Her eyes were glued to the screen. Her fingers flew back to the keyboard, faster this time—urgent, focused. Lines of code scrolled, her gaze scanning deeper into the system's back-end.
And then—
She stopped.
Her voice dropped into a whisper. "No... This isn't it."
She turned to the team, her expression sharp as glass.
"We've been fooled."