Digital Hackers' Memories

With a slightly helpless sigh, the little girl's father (Qingyou) walked from inside the house to the balcony and looked in the direction the other person pointed, but as expected, he did not see the "strange creature" his daughter had mentioned.

"Meimei, if you keep teasing Daddy like this, Daddy is going to report you to Mommy for secretly watching cartoons all this time!"

With a puzzled look, Meimei blinked and glanced back in the direction she had just been, only to find that the two strange creatures that had been there were nowhere to be seen.

"Huh? It was just there a moment ago?"

Ignoring what Mimi continued to say, Mr. Tachikawa simply picked up his daughter and then continued speaking with a doting expression.

"Okay, Meimei, if you keep doing this, I'm really going to report you to Mom!"

Upon hearing this, the childlike Meimei immediately forgot about the two strange creatures from before, turned around and grabbed Mr. Tachikawa's cheek, shouting loudly.

"Then I'll report it to Mom too, Dad, you secretly drank today!"

"what?"

His face froze instantly, and then Mr. Tachikawa pleaded with his daughter for mercy with a "begging" expression.

"Meimei, didn't we agree not to talk about this? You broke your promise!"

Meimei stuck out her tongue playfully, not caring about anything else, since she never intended to help her father hide this matter anyway.

"Hmph, who told you not to believe me, Dad? I really did see two strange creatures just now!"

"Okay, okay, Dad believes you. Meimei really did see two strange creatures just now."

"What a perfunctory tone, Dad, you clearly don't believe me! Besides, Mom is actually standing right behind you right now."

"Huh?! Mimi, you... Satoe, let me explain, it's all a misunderstanding!"

Amidst the commotion of chickens and dogs scattering inside the house, the father and daughter temporarily forgot about the two strange creatures.

............................................................................................................

"That was close! We almost got discovered!"

Chen Ze, who had been hiding behind a tree behind the vending machine, breathed a sigh of relief when he noticed the little girl on the balcony return to the house.

Why should we hide?

On the other hand, the fox spirit seemed unable to understand Chen Ze's almost instinctive reaction—it was just a human "cub" and could not possibly pose any threat to the two of them.

"If you don't hide, do you want to be on tomorrow's headlines?"

He rolled his eyes in annoyance. Ever since he learned that Renamon was a Digimon from the Digital World, Chen Ze had become immune to her almost "idiotic" emotional intelligence.

"Or do you want to be captured by the regular human army and imprisoned in some research institute as an experimental subject?"

Chen Ze did not deny the power of Agumon's body, but he also did not believe that he was qualified to confront the firepower of a modern army head-on.

"Do not want to."

She decisively shook her head to express her willingness. As a fox spirit who learns about the human world through the internet, she had watched quite a few monster movies about monsters being captured, studied, and dissected by humans.

Rather, aside from some basic common sense, Renamon's understanding of the human world mostly comes from those complex anime and movies.

In fact, Renamon spent most of her time on Chen Ze's computer browsing movies and anime—a sensory stimulation method completely different from that of Digimon, which greatly enriched her daily life.

If Chen Ze's computer hadn't contained so many anime movies, but rather a vast amount of hacker knowledge...

The creature that appears here now is probably not this slightly goofy "genius hacker," but rather an "otaku fox spirit" who is well-versed in all sorts of anime terms and references.

"But I think hiding won't do us any good."

Just when Chen Ze thought the fox demon had finally realized the seriousness of the situation, she revealed an even more dangerous truth.

"It seems that our previous battle with Angemon was recorded by nearby electronic cameras."

Chapter 11 Data Terminal

"Well, actually, not only the previous battle, but also your act of 'hacking' the vending machine just now was recorded by the surveillance cameras."

Looking down at Chen Ze, whose mouth was agape, the fox demon beast, completely oblivious to the danger, continued to deliver the finishing blow with an earnest expression.

"Also, that camera is still there."

At this point, the fox beast suddenly turned around and pointed to the 24-hour convenience store near the vending machine.

Although Chen Ze and the fox spirit had quietly avoided the cashier's attention, the camera that was always pointed at the vending machine had truthfully recorded everything that happened here.

"..."

Stiffly turning his head, Chen Ze stared at the conspicuous camera in silence for a long time.

"In other words, you already knew about the camera."

Although the sentence is in the form of a question, Chen Ze used an affirmative tone here.

"Yes."

Just like before, the fox spirit's nonchalant tone revealed a "truth" that was enough to break Chen Ze.

"I thought you already knew this, which is why you deliberately chose this vending machine."

Faced with the fox spirit's honest answer, if Chen Ze hadn't known that the other party was just being unintentional, he probably would have been so ashamed that he would have wanted to crawl into a hole in the ground.

Chen Ze did indeed choose this high-end-looking vending machine specifically to find one that could be hacked.

However, he forgot one thing: this is 1995. Places that can place such high-end vending machines must also have sufficiently advanced electronic surveillance.

"When did cameras become so widespread in Japan, especially in this day and age?"

Although he knew it was his mistake, Chen Ze stubbornly argued back in order to save face for himself, which he already had little left with the fox spirit.

However, to Chen Ze's surprise, the fox demon seemed unaware of his "mistake" and instead asked a question with considerable confusion.

"Didn't you plan to hack into and delete the surveillance data later, which is why you didn't care about the cameras' existence?"

Upon hearing this, Chen Ze, who was still trying to argue, was stunned once again.

"Ahem, that's exactly what I think!"

After hesitating for a moment, Chen Ze had no choice but to bite the bullet and continue speaking along with the fox demon.

However, the fox spirit's words did give him some inspiration.

In this early era of the internet, Chen Ze could easily infiltrate any system without the aid of any hacking tools.

It's important to know that until 1984, ten years ago, computers were still just experimental products existing only in various laboratories and high-tech institutions.

All computers before this were command-line based and had no graphical user interface.

Such an operating system is simply not feasible for ordinary people, except for highly trained professionals, academic teachers and students.

It wasn't until 1984 that visual user interfaces truly experienced a boom.

First, VisiCorp and Apple released their first visual operating systems—Visi On and Mac OS System 1.0.

The following year, Microsoft followed suit and launched its own Windows 1.0 system, marking the beginning of the Windows series.

In fact, it wasn't until August 24, 1995—just a few days later—that the truly groundbreaking graphical user interface operating system, Windows 95, became widely available to ordinary people.

In other words, computers before 1995 did not consider intrusion and anti-intrusion functions; their most basic function was to calculate and store data.

In a sense, this is one of the reasons why Chen Ze overlooked the "camera".

In his mind, webcams were something that appeared after computers became widespread.

He never imagined that the world's first truly electronic eye would appear as early as 1991, and that it would be popularized at an extremely rapid pace afterward.

Even so, isn't it a bit excessive for such a small convenience store to install electronic cameras?

Chen Ze wasn't sure if the development trajectory of this world was different from that of the original world, or if the owner of this 24-hour convenience store was a genuine "tycoon".

Chen Ze actually prefers the former to the latter.

After all, this world actually has electronic and data life forms like "Digimon," so it's understandable that it's ahead of the normal world in terms of network technology development.

"What are you going to do next?"

The fox demon tilted its head slightly, looking at Chen Ze who was deep in thought, with an undisguised curiosity on its face.

"What else can we do? Of course, we'll find a way to hack into the convenience store's surveillance system!"

In the original world, Chen Ze could have easily hacked into the convenience store's Wi-Fi network using his mobile phone or other electronic devices.

By then, as long as the convenience store's computer is still connected to the internet, he can quietly delete or replace the surveillance footage from that period.

The problem now is, in this era when even dial-up internet wasn't widespread, how could one possibly 'intrude'?

As the saying goes, "Even a clever cook can't cook without rice," Chen Ze doesn't deny that there are experts in this world who can hack into other people's computers with just a circuit board, but he himself is clearly not that kind of expert.

"What I need now is a 'terminal' that can hack into the network, even if it's just a public telephone."

Unconsciously voicing his thoughts, Chen Ze looked around and found that apart from this unconnected vending machine, there seemed to be no other electronic devices nearby. (The following is promotional material: Latest popular books on Feilu's online platform + a vast collection of Feilu and Hedgehog Cat novels resources, all stored on a huge cloud drive (over 10,000 books))

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"'terminal'?"

Seemingly having heard Chen Ze's mutterings, the fox demon blinked before speaking.

Aren't you yourself a 'terminal'?

Upon hearing the fox demon's sudden interruption, Chen Ze looked up in surprise, momentarily unable to understand the other party's wording.

"You are now Agumon, a living data life form."

However, the fox spirit didn't care about Chen Ze's thoughts and spoke the next words in a matter-of-fact tone.

"Do Digimon need any other equipment to assist in invading the network?"

It was just an ordinary sentence, but it seemed to activate some kind of instinct within Chen Ze—his eyes involuntarily flashed with a torrent of data once again.

However, unlike simply activating the digital core before, this time Chen Ze truly realized the difference in his data avatar.

"What's this?!"

At this moment, in Chen Ze's eyes, the boundary between matter and data had become blurred.

The skyscrapers in reality still look like skyscrapers, but the cables that run between them are no longer ordinary cables. Instead, they are network messages composed of unknown characters.

【??é??è??? ??'??è??? ???????????……】

【??”è??è?“???……】

【???é?…?”???????é?……]

This is the true perspective of a Digimon, and the most basic ability that Digicores give them.

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PS: I had a bit of a headache while writing this chapter. The computer that appeared in the movie, and all kinds of electronic devices on the street, were they really common in Japan in 94?

Forget it, let's just assume that the technological development path of this world is different from that of the normal world!

PS2: Also, I believe everyone is aware of the novel coronavirus that has been circulating these past two days, right?

The speed of transmission and the mortality rate are truly terrifying. If you have recently experienced symptoms such as difficulty breathing or a dry cough, please go to the hospital for a check-up as soon as possible, just in case.

Chapter Twelve Invasion

"Those...were all encrypted messages?"

Staring wide-eyed in disbelief, Chen Ze, though unable to decipher the information contained in those unknown characters, instinctively understood what they meant—data information being transmitted through telephone lines and cable networks.

It might come from a company's server, or from a personal computer used by a family...

Regardless of where this data comes from or where it is intended to be sent, it is now all being gathered in relevant data centers via the Internet and the World Wide Web.

"Have my eyes turned into a 'screen'?"

It was only at this moment that Chen Ze realized what had just happened.

"Or to be more precise, I've become a 'living' computer?!"

Just as Chen Ze himself said, he is now like a top-of-the-line computer, capable of receiving and capturing the torrent of data that spills over the network at any time.

Moreover, Chen Ze didn't know if it was just his imagination, but he even felt that he could absorb and digest that messy data like eating food, and extract information that was beneficial to him.

"If described in a way that humans can understand, your statement is actually not wrong."

As a life form born from the digital world, Digimon themselves represent data and information.

Without exceptional data processing capabilities, Digimon would have died at birth due to their inability to adapt to their environment, and thus would not have evolved into their current massive size.

Even the digital cores derived from this possess computing power comparable to that of mainframe computers.