League of Legends: League of Unknowns

“Boy, I’ve seen you standing here for quite a long time. Are you looking for someone?” The building supervisor walked out, asking him.

Lin Dong didn’t reply and looked as though he made up his mind, walking toward the residential complex.

The building supervisor was puzzled, muttering under his breath.

At the same time, an aunty who was returning from her shopping saw Lin Dong and said, “Well, isn’t that the child from the Lin family?”

“Madam, you know him?” The building supervisor asked.

“It’s been a few years, I almost didn’t recognize him. It’s Lin Xin’s son. Wow, this kid caused quite a commotion at that time, scaring all of us half to death.” The aunty said.

“What happened?” The building supervisor had been stationed as security not too long ago, and he asked curiously.

“It was one afternoon and there were several police cars present, they drove directly into the building. I was feeding my grandchildren when I saw the policemen rushing upstairs. It was a shock to us, thinking that there were murderers hiding here. Later, we learnt that Lin Xin’s kid was involved in some cybercrime, stealing a lot of money!” The aunty said in a low voice.

She said it in a low voice just so Lin Dong wouldn’t overhear, then, another older lady who had been walking by also heard it, stopping there to listen. She then said in a surprised voice, “Yes, I’ve heard about that but I didn’t know what happened in the end.”

“He was just a child, how could he have stolen such a large amount of money. It shouldn’t have been such a big deal.” The building supervisor said.

“What do you know! He stole from government enterprises, it was hundreds of thousands!” The aunty said.

The older lady and the building supervisor gasped in shock. A child had managed to steal hundreds and thousands from the government, wasn’t that just terrifying?

Other people’s children at that age only stole money from their own house to play online games, and that was just a small amount!

***

Lin Dong kept his eyes forward as he walked on, he had already long been accustomed to people whispering behind his back, giving him strange looks.

Lin Dong’s hearing was very good, even when wearing his headphones, he was able to distinguish the skills others were casting just by the sounds. He could even hear Sona’s harp music when she was hiding in the bush.

“A few hundred thousands?” Lin Dong muttered scornfully at the aunty’s words.

They were gossiping like this about him until the whole neighbourhood knew, but they still got the numbers wrong. A few hundred thousands only, that was an insult to him.

Have you ever seen the government sending people to monitor someone for 5 years just for a mere few hundred thousands? It would already cost that hundreds of thousands to even pay those people supervising!

***

Getting on the old elevator, Lin Dong reached the tenth floor.

This elevator was really quite old, in fact, 20 years ago, only those of the middle and high society could afford to live in this kind of place. Nowadays, those that stayed here were mostly elderly people with their kids, the later generation all having their own newer homes, and sometimes, multiple newer houses.

Coming out of the elevator, he turned to walk along the corridor. The house at the innermost corridor belonged to his family.

The corridor was long and the windows were all closed for a reason, and due to that, the corridor was very dark. Especially the last section, if you didn’t turn on the light, you wouldn’t be able to see your hands.

Lin Dong knew that they should have changed their accommodations earlier, and they had the capital for that too…

When he reached his destination, Lin Dong didn’t bother to turn on the light. The darkness gave him a sense of security, just like every time he hacked into a system with IP in a hidden state, it gave him an extra peace of mind.

“Don’t give me that nonsense! There is nothing wrong with my system! What Trojan Horse manages to steal your company’s data, is your company so valuable!? When I installed security protections for the top 500 companies, your company wasn’t even in the list. What do you mean I have to bear the losses your company suffered! I already told you before, those firewalls and defenses needed to be upgraded, otherwise, it would be easily pierced through by the latest malwares! You guys are the ones who didn’t listen!”

Lin Dong hadn’t even knocked on the door yet and he can hear a middle-aged man roaring angrily in the room.

“What!? Deduct five thousand from me!? Don’t make me take action against you bunch of businessmen! You will pay me the amount that we agreed on before, not a penny less!”

“Change, you’re asking me to change it again. I already told you, there would be loopholes if I wrote it according to your specifications. You didn’t listen to me and now you want to put the blame on me!?”

The continous roar could be heard throughout the whole building. Lin Dong lifted his hands, hovering beside the doorbell for a while before he dared to press on it.

“Alright, alright. Don’t be so angry, it’s bad for your health.” A soft, feminine voice said.

“These disgusting hateful profiteers are too much! I won’t take any orders from these broken companies next time, wasting my time, no profits and just making me angry!” Lin Xin cursed.

Ding dong! Ding dong!

“Oh, I’m coming! It should be my express delivery.” The woman’s voice said.

Footsteps were heard and the door was opened a moment later.

“Why didn’t you turn on the lights…” The woman opened the door, seeing a boy wearing a hat standing in the dark.

Many couriers wore hats nowadays and the woman didn’t think anything of it at first, all prepared to accept a delivery. However, when she realized that the youth was wearing a hat and keeping his head down, the woman was shocked and surprised to see Lin Dong.

“Dong, you’ve come back!” Bai Wenyi said with a face full of joy, hurriedly ushering Lin Dong into the house.

“Who is it…” Lin Xin glanced up through the thick black-framed glasses on his face.

When he saw Lin Dong, his expression changed immediately, and you couldn’t tell whether it was joy or anger.

“You still know how to come back even though you haven’t been home for a few years!”

“Reign in that temper, don’t scare the child!” The seemingly soft Bai Wenyi said with a fierce glare toward Lin Xin.

Lin Xin didn’t dare to anger Bai Wenyi, but he still shot a glare at Lin Dong, his eyes conveying the meaning behind it: Just you wait and see how I’ll deal with you!

“Are you settling well in Shanghai?” Bai Wenyi started to busy herself, pouring water for Lin Dong, opening the fridge to see if there was anything Lin Dong liked to eat in it.

“It’s alright.”

“So if it’s alright does that mean you won’t bother coming home for a few years!?” Lin Xin shot out.

“Go, go, go away!” Bai Wenyi said, pointing her finger at Lin Xin.

Lin Xin was also angered, complaining, “He has always been spoiled by you, never thinking about the consequences of doing anything!”

“Are you hungry? Aih, you’re not around so I don’t have any of the things that you like to eat in the house. It’s about time for dinner anyway, go and play some computer in your room first, I’ll go out to buy ingredients. I’ll cook what you feel like eating. Oh, that’s right, I heard that you won the championship, let’s treat it like a celebration.” Bai Wenyi said, her face full of smiles.

From her expression you could tell that she was feeling overwhelmed with joy.

Lin Dong was her only child and Bai Wenyi had spoiled him ever since he was born. He took after her be it her face, eyes, nose, and even personality. At the same time, he had inherited his father’s innate talent for computers.

Lin Dong had been a prodigy since he was young, he was way smarter than the children his age. It was also for this reason that Bai Wenyi doted on him even more, because he made her extremely proud.

In fact, for even his father, Lin Xin, when Lin Dong was ten and had placed first in a junior computer design competition, the former had been so happy that he hadn’t been able to sleep for a few nights!

Perhaps it was this endless spoiling in his upbringing that had caused that huge scandal, and in just one night, the happy family suddenly had to carry a heavy burden.

Bai Wenyi seemed to have forgotten what had happened so many years ago and didn’t place the blame on Lin Dong at all, instead, she spoiled him even more.

Bai Wenyi didn’t feel that it was the fault of the child for embarking on the path of hacking, but the fault of her as the parent for paying too much attention to the child’s talent, not teaching him right from wrong.

In our opinion, fighting, stealing, and lying was wrong, these were the basic common sense that should be taught to children. Even if these things were not taught, it was common, it was just the way things were. However, some children were not told of these things.

Lin Dong was that way and he didn’t know that what he was doing was a crime. He only knew that it was fun to hack into other people’s systems and break it. It was particularly fun to watch them panic and get frantic, and it was fulfilling to see people’s transfers fail. All of this was just a game, just like playing League of Legends, destroying other people’s turrets, killing the opponent’s champions, and letting others lose their gold…

The higher your talents, the more the elders would ignore the most basic common sense and things. Bai Wenyi was deeply aware of this fact.

That was why, the guilty party and blame shouldn’t fall on the child, but on the parents instead. Blinded by that ridiculous pride, it had led him to go astray.

“Lin, I’m going to buy groceries. I’m telling you first, if you dare to scold him again, don’t talk to me in the future. It’s so hard for him to come back and yet you want to chase him away!” Bai Wenyi pulled Lin Xin aside to warn him harshly.

“Alright, alright.” Lin Xin said grudgingly.

Normally, Bai Wenyi was a very gentle and obedient wife, but that was relatively speaking. Once the kid was in the picture, he was nothing.

Bai Wenyi hurriedly left the house, leaving Lin Dong and Lin Xin in the living room together.

Lin Dong cleared his throat, breaking the uncomfortable silence. “I heard you yelling just now, what was it about?”

“Just talking about it makes me angry. Two months ago, I took on this private job. They kept asking me to make changes whether it was just cosmetic, technical, or even upgrading problems. I told them before that if they didn’t have those protections, there would easily be problems in the future. At that time, they said it was fine, so obviously, I followed their specifications and proceeded with it. In the end, it turned out to really have problems, and now, they’re asking me to continue to change it again. Keep it beautiful and have protections at the same time, otherwise, they will deduct five thousand from my pay!” Lin Xin said angrily.

“Is that the system?” Lin Dong pointed at the laptop on the coffee table.

The laptop was a bit old, and it seemed that Lin Xin was reluctant to replace it.

As a senior programmer, the computer was a tool, and it was hard to be stingy on it.

“Yeah.”

“Let me take a look.”