Hello, Mr. Major General

1024 The Specialis

Huo Shaoheng created a data package for Hong Kangquan’s microchip data to send to Zhao Liangze with the message, “Can you check the Special Operation Forces’ software system?”

Zhao Liangze tried it on the other side and shook his head. “No, I can’t log in.”

Huo Shaoheng looked at Zhao Liangze’s administrator privileges. He was logged in remotely. The central control system had stringent requirements for remote logins due to account security measures. However, Zhao Liangze’s base had only been recently established so, for the time being, it did not have such strict security yet. As such, they could not guarantee that security measures would be taken after login.

“I will package and send you a portion of the software data concerning the surveillance.” Huo Shaoheng did not hesitate. “The Chinese Institute of High Energy Physics should also test safety performance. You should receive it soon.”

The most special feature of quantum communication was its extreme security. Even if someone other than the intended receiver succeeded in intercepting it, they wouldn’t be able to decipher the content. It would self-destruct the instant a third party intercepted it.

Zhao Liangze still had many unfinished tasks at hand on the island of the Cape of Good Hope in Africa. Conducting remote testing for quantum communication on behalf of the Institute of High Energy Physics was also one of the tasks. Of course, his private task was to locate where the MH210 plane had crashed years ago, and to discover the whereabouts of Gu Xiangwen.

Zhao Liangze finished debugging the quantum communication equipment and waited for Huo Shaoheng to send it. It didn’t take long for him to receive the email, and everything looked normal after browsing.

“Get back to work and send me the results as soon as possible.” Huo Shaoheng glanced down at his watch. “By tomorrow morning domestic time, it doesn’t matter whether there’s a problem with the software or not, you must send the results to me.”

Zhao Liangze promptly agreed, immediately starting his work. Examining whether or not the performance of software was stable and debugging it required a large number of bipolar encoding and operating procedures.

Zhao Liangze looked at the scalability of the software. Hundreds of thousands of lines of command were displayed in front of him. He started to go cross-eyed just by looking at them. It would be impossible for him to complete such an overwhelming amount of commands by himself.

Zhao Liangze thought about it and decided to use the debugging software he’d created himself on the entire system to capture erroneous commands. This course of action took him more than an hour. He shrunk the number of erroneous instructions to the thousands, which was tremendous progress compared to the hundreds of thousands of commands he’d started with.

But when he further examined these thousands of instructions, he felt that it would be unrealistic to think that he could thoroughly analyze all of them in one night due to limited time and mental capacity.

After contemplating for a while, Zhao Liangze got rid of both ends of the thousands of commands, then split those commands in half. He intended to ask Gu Nianzhi for help.

According to their protocol, Gu Nianzhi’s rank did not give her the corresponding authority to view open-source software of such high-security levels. However, Zhao Liangze reverted the commands into their primitive states so he could ask Gu Nianzhi for help.

Since it was impossible to get a full view of the software simply by looking at fragmented open-source software, not to mention that open-source software had not yet been debugged. Zhao Liangze was not too worried that confidential data would be leaked.

Furthermore, the Special Operation Forces had precedents set aside for such situations, such as turning to outside experts to evaluate the software, or even re-evaluating the codes of conduct...

In this case, Gu Nianzhi would be their “outside expert”...

Zhao Liangze thought about it mirthfully and dialed Gu Nianzhi’s phone. Gu Nianzhi had just taken a shower and was scrolling through Weibo while lying in bed, pondering over how to extract more information from the police force’s official blog.

Zhao Liangze’s phone call caught Gu Nianzhi by surprise. Who was calling her at such a late hour?

But when she looked at the phone number and realized it was Zhao Liangze’s calling, she quickly picked up and teased him gleefully. “Brother Ze, you finally remembered to call me! I thought you forgot about me!”

“Nianzhi, Brother Ze can forget everyone else, but never you.” Zhao Liangze said cheerfully to her, “Open the webcam, I have to tell you something.”

Gu Nianzhi quickly opened her webcam and connected to Zhao Liangze with a video call. On his mobile screen, Zhao Liangze’s striking face, while formerly fair-skinned, was now a light chocolate hue. He seemed to have gotten more robust, and therefore more soldier-like.

Gu Nianzhi nodded with pleasure. “Brother Ze, it seems like Africa did you well. You look much more manly now.”

Zhao Liangze grinned. “As if I wasn’t manly before! How offensive!”

Gu Nianzhi simply smirked without saying a word.

“But Nianzhi, what’s wrong with your face? And your ear, why is it covered with bandages?” Zhao Liangze had never seen Gu Nianzhi in such an unsightly state.

Gu Nianzhi pointed to her ear and said with displeasure, “...Got bitten by a mad dog. I’m thinking about suing her.” The so-called “mad dog” was Cai Shengnan, who’d shockingly ripped off her mask.

What had compelled Cai Shengnan to rip off her mask? Had she done it on impulse, or had she planned it?

Gu Nianzhi felt completely baffled. However, she refrained from disclosing the specifics to Zhao Liangze, merely saying, “I’m fine though, don’t worry about me.”

The two of them teased each other, finally ending the small talk. Zhao Liangze entered the main topic. “Nianzhi, the reason I called today was to ask you for a favor.”

Gu Nianzhi quickly nodded. “I’ll help you with anything I can.”

“Here’s the situation at hand: I have software that needs to be debugged, but I am running out of time, and I need to send in the results by tomorrow morning. I want you to help me debug a portion of it.” Zhao Liangze showed Gu Nianzhi the monitor full of commands.

Gu Nianzhi genuinely enjoyed the debugging process. When she saw the densely packed lines of command, her eyes gleamed with pleasure. She was like a connoisseur spotting good food, or a bag collector seeing a rare sold-out bag. Her heart started beating rapidly.

“Sure, sure! I’ll check it for you!” Gu Nianzhi couldn’t help but grin like the Cheshire Cat. “You need it tomorrow, right? If you send the data to my mailbox, I’ll check it right away.”

She rolled off her bed and went to in front of the desk. Turning on the computer, she found the open-source software file that Zhao Liangze had sent to her mailbox.

After unzipping the file, Gu Nianzhi discovered that these commands were only a tiny portion of the original.

“Brother Ze, the open-source software file that you sent me is only the tip of the iceberg, right?” Gu Nianzhi said teasingly, “If you don’t trust me, you don’t have to send it to me. I’ll delete it right in front of you.”

Zhao Liangze desperately wished he could lie on the computer monitor and show Gu Nianzhi how much faith and confidence he had in her. “Nianzhi, it’s not that I don’t trust you, it’s just that I feel like I am overwhelming you with all this work. Besides, it might not fit your inbox anyway. I went ahead and did some prep work beforehand.”

“These are the erroneous commands that I flagged down with my personal debugging software. The bugs should be in these files. I saved half of them for myself and sent half of them to you. We will find them separately, and then summarize them together.”

Gu Nianzhi understood what Zhao Liangze meant. She asked, “What is this software for?”

“Data monitoring,” Zhao Liangze replied simply. “It corresponds to the signal sent by the microchip tracker, and records the location of the microchip.”

Gu Nian understood. “Doesn’t that mean that this is simply a GPS signal processor?”

“Haha, similar, but with more precise focus.” Zhao Liangze was overjoyed that he’d found the right person for the job. Cooperating with Gu Nianzhi meant that they could resolve this software-related issue in one night.

After assigning their respective tasks, they each began busying themselves with their individual debugging tasks. Gu Nianzhi had nothing better to do anyway, and since her face and ears were all newly injured, she needed to rehabilitate for a few days and avoid those who were vigilantly awaiting the chance to backstab her.