Chapter 2: Hope (1/2)

The boy nodded and soon left with his schoolbag.

Tang Hongjun and his wife didn't take this episode seriously and were heading out while holding onto their son.

Tang Jinyu was the only one who was inexplicably excited. He was still in Chen Suling's arms, before he climbed over her shoulder. His eyes opened wide as he tried to chase after the other person’s figure that was gradually disappearing from his line of sight.

Chen Suling almost couldn't hold him properly and called out anxiously to her husband ”Hongjun!”

Tang Hongjun grabbed his son immediately. Before the child could react, he hugged him tightly and pressed him into his arms. He used so much strength which made Tang Jinyu lose the trail of the figure: ”Xiaoyu is obedient, let's go to the hospital first, and then we can return home.”

Chen Suling also brought a small coat over and said distressingly ”Don't pin the child too hard it will hurt him, just hug him with his coat.”

The two of them were very experienced in holding him. They separated Tang Jinyu's little hands and feet then wrapped the whole child to them and hugged him tightly. When Tang Jinyu tried to move slightly, he was hugged even more tightly.

Tang Hongjun and his wife saw that he stopped moving, then they took him downstairs towards the car and whispered his name as they walked, talking to him as if they were soothing him.

Tang Jinyu didn't move, he didn't even have time to think about why he was suddenly held down, he was still shocked by the person he just saw.

That person is Xia Ye.

He is positive that he didn't make a mistake!

Tang Jinyu is so familiar with the name Xia Ye because back when he was still a teenager he spent only Xia Ye's money, in addition to his grandfather's money.

Xia Ye was one of the earliest hackers in China and was considered the most outstanding, leaving countless legends.

If it wasn’t for a plane crash, his legend might have still continued.

In 2009, Xia Ye's identity was exposed and he appeared in front of the public media for the first time.

In the same year, Xia Ye left the Internet company he founded and went abroad.

It was also during that time that he had an accident.

Xia Ye's lawyer donated most of his property according to his will, given before his death and Tang Jinyu's school happened to recieve one of his donations as scholarships.

It was also with this scholarship that Tang Jinyu was able to finish his middle school and high school and had the opportunity to change his destiny.

In those seven years, he never got a low score. He would always receive a scholarship, for the top three highest results out of all his classmates, ranging from 5,000 to 8,000 yuan.

The money he received each year was not much for ordinary people, but it was enough for Tang Jinyu.

His tuition and his other expenses, school uniform and lunch money for several years all came from there. In his life, apart from his grandfather, he was always grateful towards Xia Ye.

When he was 13 years old, he checked Xia Ye's information for the first time and got to know– the world of ‘hackers’.

He knew that Xia Ye was very powerful and he also knew that Xia Ye never actively attacked other people's websites.

He knew that he had an abandoned small forum, with a few posts on it which had hundreds and thousands of comments, but a long time has passed since Xia Ye’s last post.

At the same time, Xia Ye was still able to restrict the newcomers, even after his death, to never use this power indiscriminately by creating the well-known ‘Eight Rules’…

There are many legends about him on the Internet but there are only a few traces left of him.

Tang Jinyu knew that Xia Ye  leaves a message in some places with his trademark ‘X’ and some old forums referred to him as ‘Xia Shen’¹.

Xia Ye was considered god, someone that no one can match on the Internet.

Tang Jinyu’s only hobby was collecting information about Xia Shen. After searching for a long time, he finally found a book in a Web store. The cover of the book was blurred, it was rare for a book to be published like this, especially in that era.

It had a collection of introductions to characteristics of a hacker, the title of the book was named after Xia Shen and was also marked with the word ‘Autobiography’, Tang Jinyu's heartbeat quickened the moment he saw this!

There was only one book in stock, which costs more than two hundred yuan. Tang Jinyu gritted his teeth and saved money which was more than a month's worth of meal.

During the time he was saving money for the book, he had lingering fear that the book would be bought by others.

Fortunately, his patience paid off and there was still a red number ‘1’ marked on the Web store, the only copy was still there.

After saving enough money and buying the book, Tang Jinyu solemnly refreshed the website and was relieved to see that the book disappeared from the Web store’s shelf.

It made him ecstatic, when it was mailed and finally delivered, and there was also a photo of Xia Shen in the book!

The teenager in the photo appeared to be fifteen or sixteen years of age, wearing a hoodie with a mask covering the lower half of his face, with a sword-like eyebrow lifted slightly, making him appear sharp and arrogant. Xia Shen looked exactly how he had imagined him.

Although it was only an old picture of the teenager, Tang Jinyu was very satisfied with that and he cherished it a lot.

But after reading the book halfway through, he became enraged.

The book described Xia Ye's teenage years of life.

The catalog was marked in a time sequence, according to the time when Xia Shen first appeared on the Internet and the subsequent years were recorded. Tang Jinyu naturally read the book from the beginning.

But the more he read the book, the more he got angry because some of it seems to be fabricated.

He turned back and read the title and he found the word ‘half’ written in the size of a rice grain next to ‘Autobiography’.

Although it's only one word, the meaning now has a profound change.

This half-autobiography is not a record at all, it should have been called a novel instead. It only had a false component, it was more a fictional story than having any person's real experience. It can even be said to be like a novel based on another person's personal life.

Tang Jinyu’s face turned black as he read all the records written about Xia Ye on it. Which included smoking cigarettes, fighting, being hot headed, skipping school from the start of junior year in high school…… all the things that bad students do have been done. Which made his head-ache.

In a fit of anger, he threw the stupid book!

This was completely different from the information he had found about Xia Shen! This is simply a slander!