The flower shop looked really cute and romantic to outsiders. People loved to shop there daily, because of the warm yellow light and the Pink and white roses that were always in neat rows.
And to make everything better there was always a soft background music playing that sounded like it came free with the speaker.
It looked perfect. But to Chu Lian it was hell.
Chu Lian bent over the counter and trimmed a rose, the scissors made a crisp sound and some of the petals fell and lay all over the table like a crime scene.
"Do you have anything cheaper?" she mimicked an earlier customer who wouldn't stop asking for a discount in a flat voice.
The air did not answer her, so she answered herself.
"Cheaper, my ass. You came to a flower shop, not the discount vegetable stall."
She stuffed the trimmed rose into a bouquet and tied it with bright red ribbon. It actually looked very pretty. Chu Lian tilted her head and admired it for two seconds, then remembered the customer from earlier and rolled her eyes again.
That auntie had walked around the shop three times, she picked up every bouquet which has made Chu Lian really excited till she started complaining at every price tag, then finally bought a single carnation like she was donating money to Chu Lian out of pity.
"I am not begging on the street yet," Chu Lian muttered. "Just wait. When I become rich, I will only sell flowers to people who do not ask about cheaper things."
Soon it was evening. Chu Lian stared at the window and saw people walking past in a hurry.
She sighed and looked at the wall clock that clicked loudly. The hour hand climbed over the number eight.
"Closing time," she announced to the roses. "Congratulations, you survived another day of human foolishness."
Chu Lian locked the door and flipped the sign to "Closed," then turned off the main lights. The shop immediately became quiter. Only the small lamp above the counter stayed on.
She swept the floor and wiped the counter and checked that the refrigerator was shut properly.
Anyone who saw her would think she was just a cute hardworking girl who was taking care of her flower shop, but no she herself had a secret life.
After she put the broom back, she went behind the counter and pulled out a thin black laptop from under a stack of old magazines.
The laptop had a small sticker of a chubby rabbit on the back. It was something she had gotten randomly shopping one time
It looked really cute so shs just decided to take it with her.
She sat on the stool and plugged in a cable from the router the landlord did not know she had upgraded, and opened the screen.
"Alright," she said. "Little Lian's night shift is starting."
On the desktop was a plain folder named "Homework." She clicked it. But she did not have anything relating to homework inside.
That was the life of a hacker. It was filled with lies.
The file had Lines of custom tools, and strange icons on the screen.
A friend from an underground forum had posted a new bounty that afternoon. One hundred thousand yuan, just for pulling a specific set of transaction records out of a private server.
"One hundred thousand yuan? I could buy a whole sea of roses with that" Chu Lian laughed in disbelief. She really could not believe a person was offering such an amount for something so simple.
But then again what did she know.
She was quick as usual. Besides the more job she got done the more money she could save up.
She connected a few things together and bounced her location a few times.
The more time went on the more Chu Lian realized this server wasn't simply and might belong to an important person.
"This smell," she whispered. "Rich dog."
But she did not care. All she wanted was the money. More time passes and Chu Lian waited boredly.
"sigh... Why are you so hard to crack* she pouted at her screen as she cursed at the person who made it so hard to break into their system.
Finally, a small window popped up.
[Main firewall bypassed. Entering secondary system.]
Chu Lian smiled. "Finally, I haven't even had dinner yet."
She got into the server and everything loaded most of them had names that looked boring and expensive.
But her target was simple: transaction records from the last thirty days, marked by a specific tag.
She searched by the code she had been given. The system thought for a few seconds, then highlighted a cluster deep inside.
At that moment, something else caught her eye.
A folder she had not looked for. It was hidden behind a row of normal files.
No name, just a black wolf symbol for icon.
She frowned. "hmm what is this. You think you are mysterious?"
She knew she should not be having ideas and that she simply had to complete the job and get her payment. But she was too curious for her own good.
"just a little peek" she muttered. "it won't hurt right?"
She clicked it.
Nothing happened at first but then a message box appeared.
[Access restricted. Key required.]
A long line of symbols and numbers also appeared at the sight of encryption she almost felt like crying.
This person really wasn't here to play.
Chu Lian bit her lip and leaned closer. "Maybe I should just leave you and order takeout."
This was not part of the job. She should just back off and take her money but she was not always smart at night.
She opened one of her own tools she used to solve cases like this.
"Just a peek," she told herself. "If it does not open, I go back to being a good child."
Her tool moved slowly. She watched it and then pulled the target transaction she needed. One eye on the money and one eye on the wolf.
Minutes passed and she was getting bored again till the progress bar jumped from twenty-five to one hundred and the folder opened.
There were multiple subfolders inside. It looked really important and Chu Lian became excited as she say up.
But before she could process anything a small black window appeared in the center of her laptop.
It was empty. Then a single line of text appeared.
[Who are you]
Chu Lian's eyes widened with fear because she had thought it was a bit typing and not an actual human. She could tell it was an actual human because of the pauses.
If someone had caught her then she was cooked, cooked.
She stared at the screen already saying a prayer to the heavens in her mind.
"Who are you," she read softly.
Her fingers moved on their own, floating over the keyboard.