Chapter 4: Digital Echoes

Xiao Zhi tapped the screen, deleting the message.

The words vanished, but the impact remained, seeping into the quiet like a stain. Found you. It wasn’t a threat, not exactly. It was a statement of fact, delivered with the calm finality of a door clicking shut. The cheerful, distracted bubble he usually lived in had just been punctured by something cold and sharp.

He sat there in the pod, the helmet resting heavy in his lap. The simulation’s afterglow—the clean focus of combat—had evaporated completely. In its place was a crawling sensation along his spine, a kind of exposed vulnerability he hadn’t felt since waking up in this strange world. People stared at him now, sure, whispered about his streams and his bunny and his apparent designation. That was surface noise, an annoyance. This was different. This meant someone had looked past the pink hair and the cooing over puppies and seen something else. They’d seen a glitch in a secure military system and followed it right to him.

He took a slow breath, unstrapping the harness with deliberate movements. The pod hatch hissed open, letting in the cool, sterile air of the training room. Stepping out, his boots made soft sounds on the polished floor. The room was still empty, the other pods dark and silent witnesses. He logged out of the terminal, the system chirping a polite farewell.

Walking back through the annex and up the stairs felt like moving through gel. The earlier frustration was gone, replaced by a low, humming alertness. His usual bounce was absent, his steps measured and quiet. A few cadets passed him in the hallways, but their curious glances slid off him without sticking. His face had settled into an expression that wasn’t quite the original owner’s icy blankness, but something just as closed-off—a cheerful facade packed away for maintenance.

He reached his dorm room, the door swishing shut behind him with a sound of finality. The space was standard-issue: a bed, a desk, a personal terminal. Bao Bao wiggled out of his pocket and hopped onto the pillow, immediately starting to groom one ear, blissfully unaware.

Xiao Zhi didn’t sit. He stood before the terminal, his reflection a pale ghost in its dark screen.

“System,” he said aloud, his voice flat in the quiet room.

A familiar, sarcastic presence usually flickered to life in his mind immediately, ready with a quip about his love life or his life choices. This time, there was a beat of silence. A noticeable pause.

[User acknowledgment confirmed.] The System’s voice, when it came, lacked its usual theatrical flair. The words were clean, clipped, almost toneless. [Query parameters?]

“The message on the pod screen. I need you to trace its origin. A secure trace. No footprints.”

Another pause, shorter this time but still significant. The System wasn’t hesitating because it was thinking; it was assessing protocols.

[Initiating Operation: Backtrack.] The voice held a new gravity. [Activating concealed analysis modules. Bypassing standard diagnostic routines.]

In his mind’s eye, Xiao Zhi perceived a shift—not a visual display, but a sense of gears engaging deep within a hidden layer of his own consciousness. The System was accessing parts of itself it normally kept sheathed, tools that weren’t meant for managing stream alerts or teasing him about Yan Shu.

[Primary vector established: Livestream platform donor ledger.] The System reported, its words flowing with rapid efficiency. [Cross-referencing anomalous credit transfer tagged ‘Serpent_Sovereign’ with academy network access logs from the last twenty-four minutes.]

It made sense, obviously. The donation was the first point of contact, a digital handshake. That transaction left a trail, however well-hidden. And the simulation glitch had happened on an academy network. The two events were tethered by timing and interest.

[Donation trail exhibits professional-grade obfuscation,] the System noted, a hint of clinical appreciation in its tone. [Three-layer proxy cascade. Each layer is a legitimate commercial server node in a different Federation prefecture.]

Xiao Zhi watched as lines of data began to scroll in his peripheral awareness—not for him to read, but a byproduct of the System’s work. IP addresses, routing signatures, timestamps measured in microseconds.

“Can you follow it?”

[The construction is elegant. Not perfect.] The emphasis on the last word was slight but pointed. [Proceeding to layer one: Helios Entertainment Cloud Server, Prefecture Seven.]

The trace wasn’t a simple backward walk. It was a process of peeling apart nested shells. Each server in the chain would have received the message, stripped off one layer of routing information that pointed to the previous hop, and passed it on. To trace it, the System had to digitally reconstruct each step in reverse, convincing each server to cough up its logs by mimicking authorized admin protocols.

Minutes ticked by, marked only by the soft whir of the dorm’s environmental controls and Bao Bao’s contented chewing on a piece of hay.

[Layer one bypassed. Redirect is a false flag. Actual origin masked by a spoofed military logistics signature.] The System’s work continued without strain. [Proceeding to layer two: Federated Bank Auxiliary Data Hub, Prefecture Two.]

This was more than just hiding. This was misdirection built on misdirection. Using a bank’s data hub as a relay point was clever—the traffic there was so immense and encrypted that a single extra packet would be invisible. And spoofing a military signature to get past the first layer showed an intimate knowledge of which digital doors wouldn’t be questioned too closely.

Xiao Zhi remained still by the terminal, his eyes fixed on nothing. The exposed feeling tightened another notch. This wasn’t some overzealous fan with good hacking skills. This was methodology.

[Layer two contains a forensic countermeasure,] the System announced. [A dormant packet designed to inject junk data into any unauthorized trace attempt, corrupting the trail.]

A trap within the maze.

[Countermeasure identified and quarantined.] The System’s tone didn’t change. [Payload analysis suggests it was intended to trigger a fake alert to Federation Cyber Command, implicating a rival entertainment syndicate.]

So not only was the path hidden and misleading, it was also booby-trapped to send pursuers on a wild goose chase—or get them arrested. The sheer thoroughness of it was unsettling.

“And the third layer?” Xiao Zhi asked, his voice quiet in the room.

[Accessing layer three: Public Civil Archives Mirror, Capital District.]

The most brazen place to hide something was often in plain sight. A public archive server handled millions of requests for land records, birth certificates, and civic data. Burying a message relay in that river of mundane traffic was a stroke of cold genius.

[Anomaly detected,] the System said, and for the first time, Xiao Zhi sensed a flicker of focused intensity from it, like a predator catching a scent. [The archive mirror is authentic. The routing protocol used to exit it is not standard civic issue. It bears residual markers of… private architectural code. Custom-built.]

There it was—the imperfection. The seam where the expert craftsmanship met its limits. You could steal uniforms and forge IDs to walk through any number of doors, but eventually you had to go home. And going home required using your own key.

[The final gateway is not another anonymous server,] the System continued, its digital voice sharpening. [It is a dedicated, high-bandwidth data conduit with significant encryption overhead. The path is expertly crafted to disperse and mislead…]

A beat.

[...but all dispersal patterns have a point of convergence.]

The hunt was narrowing. The multiple anonymizing layers and false servers formed a complex web, but every strand in a web ultimately connects back to the spider. The System was now following not just the path itself, but the subtle pressure points in the digital architecture—the places where the data flow favored one direction over another, where encryption protocols were slightly newer, slightly more proprietary than their public-facing shells suggested.

Xiao Zhi waited, the air in the dorm feeling thinner somehow, charged with silent computation.

[Trace is approaching convergence,] the System stated flatly. [The final gateways are bypassing standard network topography entirely. They are using priority civilian channels typically reserved for interstellar financial conglomerates or… high-stakes private competitive leagues.]

The last piece clicked into place with an almost audible snap in his mind. Private competitive leagues. Underground mecha bouts. Elite gaming circuits where anonymity and digital security weren’t just preferences; they were the product being sold.

The exposed vulnerability crystallized into something else—a cold, clear understanding.

Someone hadn’t just found him by accident. They’d been looking. And they’d built an entire digital labyrinth just to watch.

[Trace converging now,] the System’s voice cut through his thoughts. [Bypassing final commercial relay. Target is not a server farm or a corporate node. Signal terminus is a single residential uplink. Bandwidth allocation is… excessive for a private dwelling.]

A residential link. That tracked with the private league theory. The kind of person who could afford to play in those circles could certainly afford a home connection that outclassed most small military outposts.

“Can you get an address?” Xiao Zhi asked, his focus narrowing to a fine point.

[The uplink is shielded by a polymorphic firewall. Standard intrusion would trigger immediate countermeasures—likely a full data purge and a physical security alert.] The System’s assessment was swift. [However, the firewall is designed to repel attacks, not audit its own outgoing connections. It has a blind spot.]

“The watcher program,” Xiao Zhi said. The code Wei Chengliu had embedded in the academy network to ping him about interesting simulation data. It had to phone home.

[Precisely. The program establishes a continuous, low-priority data stream back to its point of origin for updates and command signals. It is considered a trusted internal process by the firewall.]

“So we don’t knock on the front door. We slip in through the dog flap.”

[Metaphorically apt. Initiating mimicry protocol. Crafting a data packet that mirrors the watcher program’s signature and piggybacking on its authenticated return path.]

In his mind, Xiao Zhi perceived the digital maneuver not as a violent hack, but as a subtle infiltration. The System wasn’t trying to break encryption or overwhelm servers. It was forging a diplomatic passport, using the very credentials Wei Chengliu’s own software had left lying around. It was elegant, frankly. A kind of digital jujitsu.

Seconds stretched. Bao Bao finished his hay and began washing his face, utterly unconcerned.

[Path established. Firewall integrity check bypassed. Accessing terminal node metadata.]

A stream of information unfolded in his awareness—not the content of the penthouse’s systems, but their labels and locators. Geographic coordinates refined to a single building. A property identification number. The architectural schematic of a top-floor unit.

[Location confirmed: Skyreach Spire, Penthouse 01, Capital Entertainment District.]

The Skyreach Spire was notorious, even to someone like Xiao Zhi who tried to ignore high-society gossip. It was the kind of place featured in luxury lifestyle streams, all gleaming obsidian and panoramic windows overlooking the neon chaos of the district. The penthouse wasn’t just an apartment; it was a statement of wealth and isolation.

“Ownership,” Xiao Zhi said.

[Cross-referencing property registry with capital civic database.] The System’s processes were a silent hum at the edge of his consciousness. Public records were, by design, easier to access than private firewalls. [Registry lists primary deed holder: Wei Chengliu.]

There it was. The final confirmation, delivered without fanfare.

Serpent_Sovereign had a name, a face from those rare competitive league broadcasts—pale, unnervingly still, with eyes that seemed to absorb light. And he had an address three hundred kilometers away in a tower of glass and money.

The initial shock of being found melted away, burned off by this new information. A target had been identified. The dynamic of hunter and hunted, which had felt so lopsided moments ago in that pod, began to tilt.

Wei Chengliu had watched him. Had paid an absurd amount of money to get his attention. Had built a digital trapdoor into military systems to monitor him. And then had sent a two-word message just to let him know the game was afoot.

Xiao Zhi’s lips pressed into a thin line. Letting that stand—allowing someone to hold that kind of asymmetric knowledge over him—wasn’t an option. It would itch at him constantly, a shadow in every stream, a doubt in every private moment. Waiting for the next move from someone that patient would be its own kind of torture.

Confrontation was the only way to reset the board. But marching to the Skyreach Spire and knocking on the door was stupidly direct and would accomplish nothing except putting him physically in the lion’s den. Wei Chengliu held all the advantages on his own turf.

No. If this was a digital hunt, it would end on digital ground.

“System,” Xiao Zhi said, turning finally from the terminal to sit at his desk. He activated the physical screen, its glow washing over his face in the dim room. “Prepare for remote infiltration. I don’t want to trip alarms or steal data yet. I want access. Covert observation-level access to his primary server array.”

[Clarify objective: Infiltration for intelligence gathering, not disruption?]

“For now. I need to see what he’s been watching. What he knows.” He needed to understand the scale of the obsession. Was it just about a curious streamer? Or was it about the anomaly in the simulation?

[Acknowledged. Target system architecture is non-standard, likely custom-built. Brute force remains inadvisable.] The System paused, its presence in his mind shifting gears again, moving from tracker to strategist. [Optimal vector identified: The external data feed he used to observe your simulation session.]

Of course. The backdoor worked both ways. Wei Chengliu had tapped into the academy AI’s observational log of the glitched simulation. That log was hosted on secure academy servers, but the feed he’d used to view it—that was a connection originating from his penthouse, reaching out.

“He opened a window to look in,” Xiao Zhi murmured, his fingers hovering over his terminal’s interface. “So we’ll climb through it.”

[The feed is encrypted and authenticated with a rotating key tied to his watcher program’s signature,] the System explained. [However, the academy AI’s security protocols are focused on protecting its internal data from external extraction. It performs less stringent validation on inbound connections that are merely receiving an approved data stream.]

The vulnerability wasn’t in the academy’s walls. It was in the assumption that someone permitted to receive a stream wouldn’t try to use that same stream as a tunnel back in the other direction.

“Can you spoof the academy AI? Make it think we’re just another part of its own process trying to send diagnostic data back to the source of the feed?”

[Feasible. The AI’s observational log protocol has a maintenance sub-channel for error reporting and performance telemetry. It is rarely used and minimally secured.] The System’s tone gained a thread of something almost like anticipation. [We can craft a packet that mimics a telemetry ping from the log file associated with your session ID. The packet will request a handshake with the receiving terminal for ‘data integrity verification.’ His firewall, seeing an expected request from an authorized source—the academy—should grant temporary, limited access.]

It was a fragile gambit. The access would be shallow and brief, just enough to see directory structures maybe, not to download files. A ghost in the machine.

“Do it,” Xiao Zhi said.

He placed his hands on the terminal interface, not to type commands, but to give the System a physical conduit for its work. His own awareness became a passenger as he felt the System surge forward, its code intertwining with the dorm terminal’s processors.

On screen, lines of raw code began to scroll, too fast for human eyes to follow—the System writing and deploying its exploit in real time. It wasn’t hacking in the cinematic sense; it was performing delicate digital surgery, constructing a perfect replica of an obscure administrative signal.

[Packet crafted. Injecting into academy AI’s outgoing data queue for target feed ID: WEI_CL_OBS_FEED_ALPHA.]

A pause. [Packet accepted by AI routing protocol. Transmitting.]

The connection would be near-instantaneous across the capital’s high-speed data lanes. Xiao Zhi watched the screen, his breathing steady. This was the moment where they’d either slip through unnoticed or trigger every alarm Wei Chengliu had.

[Handshake request received by target firewall,] the System reported, its voice a calm monotone in the tense quiet. [Firewall is analyzing packet signature… checking against list of approved academy administrative codes…]

Seconds ticked by, each one stretching. Bao Bao sneezed.

[Signature authenticated,] the System said. [Firewall is opening a limited, read-only maintenance channel for diagnostic exchange. Duration: estimated ninety seconds before automatic timeout.]

“We’re in,” Xiao Zhi whispered, not with triumph, but with focused intensity.

[Accessing external directory tree of primary server array.]

On his screen, the rapid code vanished, replaced by a stark, minimalist file structure view. This was the outer shell of Wei Chengliu’s digital domain. The directories were labeled with alphanumeric strings that meant nothing at first glance: CL_ARC_01, SS_LOGS_7, META_ANALYSIS.

“Look for anything related to the academy,” Xiao Zhi instructed quietly. He was no longer feeling exposed. He was on the hunt himself now

The server architecture was a study in sterile order. No whimsical folder names, no messy temporary files. Every directory followed a rigid alphanumeric taxonomy, the logic of which wasn’t immediately obvious but felt internally consistent—the kind of system built by a mind that found chaos personally offensive. Xiao Zhi navigated through the read-only view, the System translating the raw data into a navigable hierarchy on his screen.

[Browsing root directory ‘PRIMARY_OBSERVATION’,] the System narrated quietly. [Subdirectories include: FEDERATION_LEAGUE_STATS, BLACK_MARKET_BOUTS, ACADEMY_NETWORK_MONITOR.]

Academy Network Monitor. That was the one. Xiao Zhi focused on it.

[Accessing. Subdirectory contains: CURRICULUM_ANALYSIS, CADET_PERFORMANCE_TRENDS, ANOMALY_LOG.]

Anomaly Log. The word seemed to pulse on the screen. He selected it.

The folder opened to reveal a list of files, each with a timestamp and a cadet ID code. Most were years old. Scrolling down, newer entries appeared. His own cadet ID surfaced multiple times in the last few weeks. There were files tagged with Yan Shu’s ID, Jiang Muyao’s, Shen Baiyu’s. And one folder, not a file, labeled with stark simplicity: ACADEMY_ANOMALIES.

“Open it,” Xiao Zhi said, his voice low.

The System complied.

Inside were four subfolders, each named with a cadet’s formal identification string. He clicked on his own.

A cascade of data populated the screen. It wasn’t just a single report; it was a dossier. The initial entry was dated from his first accidental livestream, noting the viral spread and the anomalous donor activity linked to ‘Serpent_Sovereign’—a dry, third-person note about himself. Then came reports on his academic performance, which he deliberately kept middling, with annotations questioning statistical deviations in certain practical exam scores. There were clipped network logs showing attempts to trace his personal browsing—attempts that had bounced off the System’s basic protections.

And then, the newest file, time-stamped less than an hour ago: VR_SIMULATION_SESSION_GLITCH_ANALYSIS.

Xiao Zhi opened it.

It was the observational log from the academy AI, the very feed Wei Chengliu had been watching. Raw telemetry data streamed in columns: reaction times, movement vectors, energy expenditure ratios. But Wei Chengliu hadn’t just collected it; he’d annotated it. Beside clusters of superhuman reaction metrics, a note read: “Deviation from known human-norm baselines exceeds 400%. Pattern suggests non-linear predictive processing or enhanced neural latency override.” Next to a record of the mecha using debris for momentum transfer: “Tactical utilization of environment exceeds standard simulation drone programming. Evasion algorithm unrecognized—possibly proprietary or organic.”

The clinical language couldn’t mask the fascination underneath. This wasn’t just watching a cadet have a lucky run. This was the dissection of an outlier.

A timer in the corner of his screen ticked down: 58 seconds of access remaining.

“Copy everything in this folder,” Xiao Zhi instructed. “Then check the others.”

[Initiating data stream capture. Storage allocated in secure partition.] Lines of data began flowing invisibly into the System’s protected memory. [Accessing dossier for Cadet Yan Shu.]

Yan Shu’s folder was thinner but no less detailed. It tracked his official performance, which was excellent, but focused heavily on physiological markers pulled from medical scans available on the academy’s server—hormone level fluctuations, subtle neurological shifts. Annotations highlighted “progressive designation instability” and “mirroring of unknown external stimulus.” The external stimulus wasn’t named, but the timeline of notations correlated suspiciously with Yan Shu’s encounters with him.

Jiang Muyao’s file was full of combat metrics and personality profiles, noting his aggressive pursuit patterns and “fixation on subject LIN_XIAOZHI post-combat humiliation.” Shen Baiyu’s was a record of aloof behavior suddenly punctuated by unexplained proximity logs and a note about “break in documented touch-aversion protocol.”

It was all there. Their lives, their changes, reduced to data points and linked back to him. The scale of the surveillance was staggering, and deeply intimate in its violation.

45 seconds.

“Go deeper,” Xiao Zhi said, pushing past the claustrophobic feeling the dossiers evoked. “Look for other partitions. Anything not related to the academy.”

[Scanning adjacent directory trees.] The System probed outward from the maintenance channel. [Located restricted partition: FEDERATION_INTEL_CACHE. Access requires higher clearance than current handshake provides.]

A wall. But even the label was a revelation.

“Can we see anything from the outside? Metadata? File sizes?”

[Scanning partition header information…] A moment passed. [Partition contains multiple sub-sections. Data volume is immense. Signature analysis indicates file types include: strategic forecast models, schematic blueprints, encrypted troop movement logs.]

Zerg forecasts. Mecha schematics. Deployment orders.

This wasn’t just obsessive fandom or competitive curiosity anymore. This was espionage-grade intelligence gathering. How did a professional gamer, even a champion, get access to classified Federation military data? The answer was obvious and unsettling: he didn’t get access. He took it.

30 seconds.

The need to know more, to understand the true scope of what he was dealing with, overrode caution. “Can we force a deeper query? Use the handshake to ask for a directory listing from that partition? Frame it as an academy AI request for cross-referencing?”

[Risky. May exceed expected parameters of maintenance channel and trigger anomaly detection.]

“Do it.”

The System didn’t argue. It forged another packet, a polite digital knock on the door of the intelligence cache, dressed in the guise of an automated cross-checking routine.

The response was almost instantaneous.

The access wasn’t granted. But the door didn’t slam shut either.

Instead, his screen flickered once. The sterile file directory view dissolved.

For a heart-stopping second, Xiao Zhi thought the connection had been severed and his terminal had reset.

Then a new image resolved.

It was a live video feed.

The quality was crystal clear, showing a spacious, minimalist room with floor-to-ceiling windows that bled with the neon glow of the capital’s nightscape. In the center of the frame, seated in a sleek chair before a bank of dark monitors, was Wei Chengliu.

He wasn’t looking at his screens. He was looking directly into the camera—into the lens feeding this image to Xiao Zhi’s dorm room terminal. A small, calm smile touched his lips.

He knew. He had known, probably from the moment the ‘maintenance handshake’ initiated from an academy server that had just been probing his systems. He’d let them in. He’d guided them right to this moment.

The ninety-second timer on Xiao Zhi’s screen vanished. The connection hadn’t timed out; it had been upgraded, hijacked completely.

Wei Chengliu leaned forward slightly, his dark eyes unblinking in the high-definition feed. His voice came through Xiao Zhi’s terminal speakers, smooth and devoid of static, as if he were in the room.

“Hello, Lin Xiao Zhi.”