On September the 13th, the weather was sunny and cloudless.
Early in the morning at nine o'clock, Shi Lei got up from his bed. Looking in his wallet and seeing that there was only a little over 100 dollars remaining, Shi Lei decided to make some money.
Although Shi Lei's hacking ability had already reached the level to be at the top of the world, he wouldn't abuse his god-like ability just to earn money.
At the very least, he wouldn't use it to earn a small amount of money!
First of all, it wasn't that he couldn't use this ability to earn money. In fact, he could quickly earn a lot of money with this method.
But without good hardware as support, no matter how skillful the hacker was, he would easily be discovered and exposed.
Using a personal computer to attack a supercomputer only existed in fantasy!
Even if the supercomputer was to be left unattended, trying to break into its security by using the capabilities of a personal computer was just utter nonsense!
This was unless you were able to find a crucial loophole in its system!
Thus, without good hardware as support, Shi Lei simply didn't wish to carry out his attack on the Internet.
At most, he could only play some tricks on those small fries!
Gaining access to personal computers and a small company's server, that was still within his capabilities.
As for wanting to attack the government departments, intelligence agencies, high-tech companies, and top university servers, he would have to forget about these desire.
After cleaning himself, Shi Lei brought along a USB drive and took a bus, heading towards the Shiqiao District.
The Shiqiao District was located within Shuangqing City, the largest area where computer and related industries were concentrated at.
The three largest computer centers of Shuangqing City were located in the Shiqiao District.
The reason why Shi Lei visited the computer cities in Shiqiao District was to test his luck in whether there were any technical part-time jobs available for him.
Technologically, Shi Lei was more proficient in invasion, destruction of the wireless network, as well as graphical skill. And also data recovery, Shi Lei was quite familiar with it too.
This time around, Shi Lei was ready to find any work related to the ones he excelled in.
The largest PC market in Shiqiao District was named Bainao Commercial.
Standing outside the Bainao Commercial building, Shi Lei was staring at the recruitment notice posted on the board. It was too bad, there were none which he was satisfied with.
Entering the Bainao Commercial building, Shi Lei went straight up to the 3rd floor.
The 3rd floor was the area for PC repairs.
As for the first and second floors, all kinds of electronic stores were located there.
From the 4th floor and up, they were all filled with various companies that specialized in different fields.
For example, animated advertising design, data support, corporate server architecture, and so on.
Compared to the customers visiting first two floors, there were actually more people on the third floor.
A lot of people were hugging their PC casings in a hurry and were looking for shops which they were familiar with for repairs.
Wandering around freely, Shi Lei didn't discover anything. He himself never had any high expectations in being able to easily get a job.
In the year 2006, the computer popularity wasn't that high. Generally, any damaged computers would usually be sent to the designated service center.
Shi Lei entered a repair shop named 'Flourishing Electronics'. Facing a young man, Shi Lei greeted him.
"Brother Feng, long time no see!" (TL: I am maintaining this broken English line as it is popular in Asian countries.) (EN: Little does he know that this is normal English haha)
This young man was named Sun Feng.
The small boss of the Flourishing Electronics repair shop, this shop was opened for him by his family.
Shi Lei, with his excellent technological skills, earned quite a bit from this shop even during his previous life.
Sun Feng was very generous in letting Shi Lei earn more money. After all, Shi Lei had helped him solve quite a number of problems before!
"Yo, Shitou! You haven't been here for quite some time already!"
Shi Lei laughed out loud.
"Brother Feng, your business doesn't seem to be doing too bad!"
Happiness could be seen from Sun Feng's expression.
Taking out a pack of cigarettes, he took one before he threw the whole pack towards Shi Lei.
"Shitou, stop saying this nonsense. Come here and have a look at these two PCs."
Shi Lei didn't smoke but the pack which was still half-full, was inserted into his pocket.
"Brother Feng, what business do you have here to take care of this little brother?"
Sun Feng led Shi Lei into the maintenance room.
Two PCs were placed on top of the maintenance table.
The PC casings looked tough. Just from their outer appearances, he could see that these two PCs absolutely weren't cheap at all.
Shi Lei casually asked, "Brother Feng, what problems do these two computers have?"
"Doesn't reinstalling the system solve it?"
Sun Feng shook his head, "They don't load!"
"They simply can't start up at all!"
"When I tried to start them up, they would enter an endless cycle of rebooting!"
Shi Lei, without being asked, brought a monitor and connected it to the PCs. After he finished connecting the cables, he pressed the power button to start them up.
"Di~"
"Weng weng!"
A faint and soft sound of the fan could be heard. If you didn't carefully listen to it, you simply wouldn't notice it at all.
Obviously, it was a high-end silent fan cooler!
On the display, when it was just showing some details, the PC automatically restarted itself!
Then, the process kept repeating over and over again.
Shi Lei clicked his tongue. Unplugging the power cord, the PC suddenly stopped functioning due to abruptly severing its power.
Opening up the PC casing, Shi Lei was shocked at the scene in front of his eyes.
At first, he thought that these two PCs would be more advanced but never did he expect them to be so advanced!
The computer performance in the year 2006 was far from being able to compete during the time before his rebirth.
This PC housedd an ASUS M2N32－SLI－DELUXE, the top performing motherboard from ASUS in the year 2006!
The graphics cards were composed of two GeForce7900GX2, also the most powerful one in year 2006!
However, the most badass part was the CPU itself!
It is known as the 2006's invincible AMD Athlon 64 FX62 model processor! (TL: With Ryzen, AMD has a high chance to be back to the previous glory!) (EN: This computer is stronger than the potato that I run on ): .)
With just this CPU by itself, the price was already high and cost at least 9000 Yuan!
The whole PC, according to Shi Lei's estimation, would probably cost somewhere in between 16,000 to 18,000!
"Brother Feng, which rich brat's son owns this PC?"
"So formidable!"
Sun Feng smiled, "I don't know. But the person who sent these two PCs was driving a Mercedes-Benz S600. As long as they can be repaired, everything will be fine!"
Shi Lei exposed a sinister smile.
"Brother Feng, how much did that someone pay you for the maintenance fees?"
Sun Feng pretended to put on a long face, "Shitou, Brother Feng will pay you when they're done."
"For each computer, I intend to charge one thousand as the fee. We will divide them by half between us, what do you think?"
Shi Lei raised his thumb.
"No problem!"
These two computers didn't have any big problems to begin with!
It was, after all, just some tampering happening in the BIOS information. As some malicious virus changed the information of the hardware, it resulted in the PC not being able to overcome the infinite booting loop.
Such a problem was just like roadside cabbage for Shi Lei. One step from his foot and it would be solved!
But for those who didn't understand it, it would be extremely difficult to comprehend the situation.
"Brother Feng, lend me your printer for a while!"
Sun Feng, feeling weird, began to speak out.
"Huh? These two PCs need a printer to fix them?"
Shi Lei looked at him in silence.
Sun Feng had no other option but to obey him. Although he opened a computer repair shop, Sun Feng's own skills in technology were no good.
"Shua shua shua~~"
The Inkjet printer was doing its job for the moment. When it was done, Shi Lei handled over the printed white A4 paper to Sun Feng.
On the white A4 paper, there was a small advertisement.
Professional data recovery!
Professional image processing!
Just two lines of text yet they revealed an arrogant tone!
Sun Feng looked at Shi Lei in surprise, "Shitou, you also know how to do these?"
Shi Lei smiled and nodded.
"Yeah!"
"Brother Feng, can you recommend me any work?"
"You should know that those professional-class jobs, their fee are much more expensive!"
"Brother Feng, stick this ad on your shop door, that should be fine right?"
Sun Feng nodded as a sign of approval that he didn't care.
"Xiao Liu, hurry up and help Shi Lei stick this on the door."
Xiao Liu was a new apprentice at Flourishing Electronics. He was in charge of all of the petty jobs.
"Okay, boss!"
"Shitou, quickly repair these two PCs!"
"Fortunately, you came today. If not, I would have had to give you a call."
Sun Feng looked anxious like a monkey.
Shi Lei took out a USB pen drive, which he brought along, and put it in a normal computer. Then, he asked Sun Feng, "Brother Feng, I want to borrow a pen drive."
"Here for you!" Immediately, Sun Feng brought a black pen drive and passed it to Shi Lei.
From his own pen drive, Shi Lei exported a software and began to write some code as he was getting ready to restore the modified BIOS information.
In less than half an hour, Shi Lei pulled out his pen drive and inserted Sun Feng's.
He directly changed the pen drive to HDD mode.
Shi Lei took Sun Feng's pen drive and inserted it into one of the PCs which needed to be repaired and chose to start it up.
This time around, during the booting process, the PC didn't appear to reboot by itself. Instead, it directly opened the contents of the pen drive.
On the monitor, an endless amount of English code kept appearing and danced about.
Soon, the monitor showed an ordinary XP booting interface. (TL: nostalgia..)
Then, Shi Lei did the same thing on the other PC. He could feel the activity coming from these PCs.
However, such a performance was still a disappointment for him!
Although these machines were beasts, compared to the ones in 2012, the gap was too far apart!
Feeling bored, Shi Lei clicked on minesweeper, changed the difficulty to the highest setting, and casually played it.
Sun Feng held the pen drive as if it was a treasure.
"Shitou, if there are any similar problems in future, can this pen drive solve it?"
Shi Lei didn't even turn his head. Focusing on the game, he moved the mouse to demine.
"Brother Feng, I advise you to not try anything weird."
"That pen drive is only able to deal with these two PC. With other PCs, not only wouldn't it repair them, instead, you will create even more problems!"
Sun Feng suddenly dropped the pen drive in depression.
"I knew that you, brat, wouldn't suffer any losses!"
Hearing this, Shi Lei laughed aloud for a few seconds.
Taking out a key, Sun Feng went to the counter with the cash register and counted 10 pieces of red 100 Yuan notes before placing them in front of Shi Lei on the maintenance table.
"Shitou, here is your payment!"
"You, this brat, so black-hearted!"
"In just less than half an hour, you've already earned yourself 1000 yuan!"
Shi Lei quickly retorted back, "Brother Feng, I had to work hard to get this pay. But you, standing here and chatting around, yet you also gained 1000 yuan right?"
"Speaking of this, Brother Feng, don't you think you are the black-hearted one?"
Sun Feng was totally defeated.
"Shitou, can you show some interest for a bit? How could you play minesweeper right now?!"
Shi Lei smiled, "Brother Feng, as if you don't play minesweeper?"
"Do you want me to teach you?"
"Don't worry. It's free of charge!"
Sun Feng was once again defeated!
As Sun Feng prepared to take his revenge, a middle-aged voice spoke.
"Hello, do you provide professional data recovery and image processing?"