Chapter 3

I turned and walked to the corner at the end of the hall. It was a blind spot for the security cameras, but it was facing my dorm room door.

I took something smaller than a coin out of my pocket. It was a miniature pinhole camera disguised as a fire hydrant screw.

I carefully installed it in the least noticeable spot on the fire hydrant and adjusted the angle.

It would record everyone who came near my door.

Once I finished, I went back to my room and locked the door. I then sat down at my laptop and began my real retaliation.

I needed to find that person. That monster who was hiding behind a screen and controlling everything.

I started analyzing the app's data packets.

Just as I expected, all the data pointed to an encrypted server located overseas, routed through layers of relays until it was almost impossible to trace. Whoever this was knew what he was doing, but I didn't give up.

I monitored it for twenty-four hours straight.

Finally, I found something strange.

There was an administrator account labeled "Admin." Its active IP address kept changing too, but every night between midnight and one, it would briefly appear inside the campus IP range for a few seconds.

The developer was debugging or uploading updates from inside the university.

He was on campus.

Like a patient hunter, I had finally managed to see the mistake my prey made.

Late on the third night, when that campus IP lit up again, I immediately intercepted one of the data packets it sent. The packet was encrypted, as expected, but I found a vulnerability.

In the update notes for one of the version updates, I found a forgotten path pointing to a hidden developer log file.

I followed it in.

The log file was loaded with records for every update, including the time, content, and an abbreviated developer signature.

GZY.

Gary Zachary York.

Seeing that name made me recall something deep in my memory.

The rich young man who had stood at the university's freshman welcome ceremony holding roses and declared his love to me in front of thousands of teachers and students, only for me to reject him decisively in public.

The arrogant idiot, whose face had gone stormy after I turned him down.

That idiot who threatened me in front of his friends. That idiot who said that one day, he would make me beg him.

So it was him.

I looked at that name on the computer screen, unable to suppress the anger and disgust surging inside me.

Gary. Zachary. York.

I said his name out one word at a time.

I needed proof so solid he would have no room to deny it. An abbreviation alone was not enough.

But I still had to deal with the immediate crisis at the same time, the "soaked" Quest at today's lecture.

This time, I was going to move the hunting ground into reality.

And so, I hacked into the university's academic system and the multimedia backend of the public lecture hall…

-

On the day of the lecture, I deliberately wore a white dress and walked into the hall ten minutes early. The moment I pushed the door open, more than a hundred pairs of eyes instantly turned toward me.

I could clearly see several male students in the first few rows exchanging excited looks, their hands quietly reaching into their bags.

One of them was Gary's most loyal follower, Wilson Lewis from the Department of Sports.

I ignored every stare and walked straight to the center seat in the first row.

Everyone thought I had simply given up.

Wilson and another young man stood up, vicious smiles on their faces as they closed in on me from both sides.

Just as they came within six feet of me, the huge projection screen at the front of the room suddenly lit up with a hiss.

The screen that should have been showing lecture slides had become a high-resolution screenshot of Wilson's private chat logs with an anonymous account in the "Goddess Hunter" app.

[After it's done, five thousand dollars. I get seventy percent, you get thirty.]

[Don't worry, Wilson. I'll splash her from the front, and you splash her from behind. She won't get away!]

Then, the screen flashed and switched to a document.

The title read:

[Investigation on the Student-Athlete Wilson Lowe: Evidence that He Used Proxy Test Takers for Three Major Exams.]

Below it was photos of the proxy test taker, chat records, and transfer screenshots.

Wilson's face turned pale as he froze in place.

In an instant, every gaze in the room shifted from me to him, filled with shock and contempt.

The other young man was about to make his move, but when he saw what was happening, he tried to quietly retreat.

Then the content on the screen changed again.

[Peter Smith, you used your girlfriend's details to open an Afterpay account to buy a new phone. Do I need to show the transaction records here?]

Peter's hand shook in terror, and the water bottle fell to the floor with a clang.

The lecture hall went into an uproar.

I took out my phone, snapped a photo of the screen, then turned and met Gary's gaze as he sat in the very back row, his face already stormy.

I smiled faintly at him and mouthed a few words.

"You're next."