The soft tapping of keys filled Lin Yi's dorm room, the only sound amid the dead silence of midnight.
On screen, the GhostNet dashboard glowed like a constellation of live data streams—businesses reporting metrics, user behavior shifting in real-time, and AI routines learning faster than ever before.
But tonight, Lin Yi wasn't building code.
He was preparing for war.
[System Directive: GhostNet Phase II – Establish Trusted Network]
Objective: Recruit at least 3 reliable contributors for core expansion modules
Reward: Skill Sharing System + GhostNet Node Encryption Upgrade
The warning from Chen Wei had been clear: grow carefully, grow quietly.
So Lin Yi would do exactly that.
And the first step?
Loyalty.
Not money. Not fame.
People who would follow him without question—even when the system turned on them.
At 9 a.m., Lin Yi met Liu Fan behind the engineering building, where sunlight filtered through rusted scaffolding and the smell of old metal filled the air.
"You look like you didn't sleep," Liu Fan said, eyeing him.
"Didn't," Lin Yi replied simply, handing him a flash drive. "This is GhostNet Core-Lite. You'll be the first full access tester. Add your crawler directly into the neural hooks. The AI will do the rest."
Liu Fan's eyes widened. "Full access? You trust me that much?"
"I trust your fear more than your greed," Lin Yi said.
Liu Fan blinked.
"Greedy people sell out. But scared people? They cling to the one thing that makes them feel protected."
[System Alert: Liu Fan – Loyalty Score: 72% → 85%]
[Title Assigned: Shadow Node – Tier I]
Liu Fan grinned. "Okay. Let's see what we can build."
By afternoon, Lin Yi had another message—this time from Zhou Xinyue, a part-time programmer in the university's IT club. She was quiet, blunt, and known for exposing vulnerabilities in campus systems just for fun.
[Zhou Xinyue]: "I cracked into the delivery app GhostNet's hooked into. That AI isn't public. You made it, didn't you?"
[Zhou Xinyue]: "I'm not gonna snitch. I want in."
Lin Yi smirked.
Sharp. Observant. Dangerous. Just his type.
He replied:
"You'll build the defense layer. I'll feed you a firewall blueprint. Customize it. Make it look civilian."
"You do this right, and we'll be untouchable."
By evening, GhostNet had three verified contributors, all quietly linked through a private channel on an encrypted communications platform Lin Yi coded himself—SilentRoot.
[New Node Added: Zhou Xinyue – Shadow Node: Tier I]
[Function: Cyber Defense Architect]
[Loyalty: 79%]
[New Skill Unlocked: Skill Share Beta]
You may now temporarily borrow one skill from a loyal node for up to 12 hours.
Cooldown: 24 hours
Lin Yi leaned back in his chair, eyes focused.
This was no longer a solo project.
It was a network.
And growing.
But 12 kilometers away, in a dimly lit office in a side building of Jiangcheng Tech Ventures, Vice Director Feng Yuliang stared at a red-marked document with growing irritation.
GhostNet had become a persistent anomaly in their internal analytics.
His own prediction software—backed by millions in investment—was losing accuracy against a system that didn't officially exist.
"Someone inside the ecosystem is feeding this AI," he muttered.
He turned to his assistant.
"Forget legal. Find a leak. Pressure a business. Small one. They'll talk first."
"Yes, sir."
That night, Lin Yi received a message from QuickBox:
[Manager]: "Bro… something weird happened. A guy in a black suit came to our office. He asked about the AI system. He had photos, screenshots, and he was asking where we got it. He said it was a 'cyber threat.'"
[Manager]: "We didn't tell them your name. But they might come back."
Lin Yi's fingers hovered over the keys.
[System Alert: Direct Threat Detected – Level: 2 (Active Interference Imminent)]
[Suggestion: Deploy Ghost Protocol – Decoy Infrastructure Creation Recommended]
He activated the system immediately.
A full duplicate of GhostNet's core was deployed across a decoy server in Brazil, rigged with fake developer logs, dummy credentials, and algorithmic "errors."
If they traced it…
They'd find nothing but shadows.
But Lin Yi knew this wasn't the end.
It was the first real pushback.
The corporations were waking up.
And now that they knew something was slipping out of their control, they wouldn't play fair anymore.
He stared at the screen, then opened a private message to Zhou Xinyue:
"Create a self-wipe sequence. One voice command. If we're ever breached, I want GhostNet to vanish before they blink."
She replied two minutes later:
[Zhou Xinyue]: "Already done. Just say: 'System Blackout.'"
He smiled.
Perfect.
Back on the university forum that night, Lin Yi saw a strange new thread:
"Someone's building a black-market AI. It's outperforming official systems. Anonymous devs behind it. Could this be the start of the next tech war?"
He didn't comment.
Didn't like.
Didn't share.
He simply shut off the screen.
Then looked around at his small room.
The cheap plastic fan.
The flickering ceiling light.
His broken chair.
And the half-eaten instant noodles on his desk.
From this small, forgotten place…
He was building something that even billionaires couldn't buy.
And they would come.
With contracts.
With money.
With threats.
But Lin Yi was ready now.
Because he wasn't just some poor student anymore.
He was the ghost in the machine.