Chapter 109

Chapter 109: How Dare You Ignore Me

“So damn clunky.” Yiwen tapped the gas mask covering her face.  

Her vision wasn’t obstructed, but turning her head felt sluggish. All electronic devices had been stripped away—no liaison, no trackers, nothing.  

It was a crude solution, making it impossible to tell who was who. But it also meant the enemy might just doxx every ESP officer at once in retaliation.  

Then again… maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.  

When the first victim’s personal data had been splashed across the news, heartless netizens had flocked to gawk and meme. It became entertainment.  

But as the leaks kept coming, one after another, people grew bored. The spectacle lost its novelty. And for those exposed? There was a strange comfort in numbers. If everyone’s getting doxxed, who’s going to single me out?  

“My turn, my turn! Everyone, eyes on me!”  

The veteran ninja beside her raised his phone triumphantly.  

His face was already on the news—his personal files being rifled through live. As the officer with the most clones’ sightings across the city, he’d been an obvious target.  

The hacker seemed to hesitate for a moment.  

Then, the screen displayed his treasure trove: 2TB of femboy content.  

If you arranged all the thumbnails together, they’d form one giant, lewd mosaic.  

“Damn, bro! Absolute legend!” His junior partner gave him a thumbs-up.  

“Right? Want me to send you some later?” the ninja offered, then sighed. “Tch. Barely even scrolled through. The real good stuff’s at the end.”  

“Nah, nah—not into femboys,” the junior quickly declined.  

“You uncultured swine. Appreciating femboys is a fundamental male experience,” the ninja scoffed.  

The female officers glared in disgust. The men? Pure reverence.  

Honestly, guys like him were truly untouchable.  

But most couldn’t match that level of shamelessness. Having your private stash exposed was one thing—embarrassing, sure, but survivable. Having your ESP officer identity leaked? That was like a narcotics cop’s cover getting blown.  

Supervillains they’d locked up before would be salivating. And the first thing they’d go for? Their families.  

There was no room for optimism. Especially not for those who’d participated in the robot takedowns. They were next on the doxxing list.  

“Are my mom and brother safe? Where’s Xiaoliu? I need to find him.” Yiwen’s voice was tense.  

The liaison had just informed her—Mi Xiaoliu and the  Lasvedo heiress were surrounded by half a dozen machines.  

What the hell does this bastard even want? This wasn’t some grand scheme—just petty, chaotic revenge.  

“Calm down. The  Lasvedo girl’s no pushover. Don’t act recklessly… Besides, he’s finally made his demands.”  

“Demands? What does he want?”  

“He doxxed himself.” A pause. “He claims his name’s Amari Yota, from Sunshine City. Records show he’s the 23-year-old who got shot and burned alive in his apartment last week. Education level: middle school second year.”

“…What?”  

So the world was in chaos because of a middle school dropout? What kind of trashy web novel plot was this?  

“White Whale… he’s connected to you, too.”  

“Huh? I don’t recognize the name. Send me his photo?” Yiwen blinked, then caught herself. Right. No internet.  

“A year ago, you rescued a young man who collapsed in public.”  

“…Him.” Her brow furrowed.  

Honestly? She regretted saving him. Not because of the backlash—if she’d left him there, the backlash would’ve been worse. No, what pissed her off was his family showing up afterward, demanding compensation.  

“His identity’s still questionable, though. When we brought up the rescue, he didn’t react.”  

No gratitude. No righteous fury like those money-grubbing relatives. Just… nothing.  

“He has two demands,” the liaison continued. “First, he wants us to find his killer—even though he admits he can’t pull the murderer’s face from any database…”  

“Wait, so he’s actually dead?” Yiwen had assumed it was a body double. The corpse had been burned beyond recognition.  

“It’s confusing, but yes—he insists he’s deceased. His second demand involves you.” A pause. “He’s convinced your classmate obtained a supercomputer last week. He wants us to force him to hand it over.”  

Though uneducated and far from brilliant, Amari Yota had realized that pure data mining wouldn’t get him what he wanted. So he’d switched tactics.  

After all, he had hostages.  

As long as it pleased him, he’d use any means necessary.  

Hostages. Immortality. What did that equal?  

Endless demands, zero consequences.  

So far, he hadn’t ordered his machines to carpet-bomb the streets. Yet. And let’s not forget—the lives of every Dream Game victim still dangled in his grasp.  

What data couldn’t uncover, a clairvoyant might. For now, psychic abilities still outclassed conventional tech.  

“How would I not know if we live together?” Yiwen frowned.  

“He claims you flew your classmate ‘pretty high’ at one point…”  

Finally, it clicked.  

That day Mi Xiaoliu had pointed somewhere and asked for a lift. No explanation—like he wasn’t about to evolve into “Made in Heaven” midair.  

Suspicious? Maybe. But he hadn’t done anything. The spot had been empty.  

“Tell him to stop the doxxing first. I’ll talk to Xiaoliu in person.” Yiwen understood why the liaison had brought this to her. As someone close, she stood the best chance of getting answers.  

Even if she still couldn’t fathom what—if anything—had happened up there.  

“White Whale, we’ve been over this. His behavior isn’t just arrogance—it’s pathological.”  

Arrogance was too kind. This was full-blown infantilism.  

Meaning the doxxing would only stop when he felt like it.  

Even netizens hesitated to mock him now. One wrong word, and he could brain-dead you in the Dream World—or just plaster your life across every news feed.  

“Oh, and he’s threatening to kill all 500,000 active Dream Game players if we don’t comply.”  

“And the higher-ups still haven’t figured out how to stop him?!” Yiwen couldn’t comprehend how one man—no, one thing—could hold the world hostage this long.  

How many had already died in that game?  

“Our priority is locating the Dream Game’s physical servers to evacuate victims. Every virus sent his way has vanished without a trace… How to destroy him is the Federation’s problem. Not ours. We don’t have the skill set.”  

Amari Yota wasn’t just a hacker. He was a new form of life. A digital entity with unhackable defenses.  

And frankly? The liaison had no idea how to kill something like that.  

—

Elsewhere…  

Following psychic coordinates (Clunky compared to GPS, but necessary), Yiwen found Mi Xiaoliu.  

Gloria was dragging him down from a rooftop, where the bisected remains of six robots lay in disturbingly neat segments.  

Mi Xiaoliu looked miserable.  

“Ten lollipops per bot,” Gloria had declared. Meaning he now owed her sixty.  

Spotting Yiwen, Mi Xiaoliu tilted her head at her oversized gear.

Whether he agreed or not, Yiwen cut straight to the point: “Mi Xiaoliu, you’ve never seen a supercomputer before, have you?”

“No,” Mi Xiaoliu replied. Sasha had told her that this was the time to lie.

“Really? You know, if you lie, your little jj will get chopped off.” Yiwen narrowed her eyes and leaned in closer.

Mi Xiaoliu’s expression didn’t change at all. In her mind, she quietly asked Sasha what a “little jj” was.

“He says no,” Yiwen relayed, believing her, and whispered a message to the liaison at her side.

This particular liaison couldn’t read minds—at most, he could sense emotions—so conversation still had to happen out loud.

“That’s not right,” the liaison sighed. “Even though his heartbeat didn’t change at all, his spirit tells me he’s lying.”

Yiwen was stunned.

Mi Xiaoliu actually dared to lie to her.

She’d already warned about chopping off the little jj, and yet Mi Xiaoliu still didn’t take her seriously!