Chapter 436
Vivian sneered upon hearing what Nicole said.
“Stop embarrassing yourself here.Everyone knows you scored zero on the Math Olympiad paper before.What’s the point of pretending here? By the time the exam results are out, we’ll know if you’re genuine or fake.” Ms.Emerson gently frowned at the cynical Vivian.
As she turned to look at Nicole, she saw Nicole give her a n it-is-okay look, so she pulled back her gaze.She wondered what was wrong with the class monitor lately.
It seemed that she deliberately targeted Nicole.
Nicole did not care.
Meanwhile, Lulu handed her a glass of water, and Nicole tooka sip, smiled faintly at Lulu, and said, “Thank you.”
Lulu shook her head and winked at Nicole, then imitated Vivian’s disdainful expression and made a grimace.
Both Bradley and Nicole were amused.
Vivian saw what Lulu was doing and stood up abruptly.
“What the hell are you doing, Lulu?”
Lulu quickly did away with her expression and looked back at Vivian with a blank look on her face.
“What’s wrong with me?”
Vivian was so angry that she could not find a word to respond.
She pointed at Lulu, wanting to scold her when out of the corner of her eyes, she saw Gary come toward them from afar.She quickly lowered her hand and glared at Lulu and Nicole.
“I’ll deal with you all later.”
Jack and Wayne also saw Gary and rushed up to meet him.
Looking at Gary’s expression, they carefully asked, “How was the exam?”
Gary looked calm.
He glanced at Nicole, who was talking with Lulu not far away and said, “It’s alright.But this year’s exam is difficult.I can’t guarantee that I will get first place.”
He had come prepared, but the test questions were too difficult.
Even though he had done his best, he was still not too confident in himself.
There was a major question at the end of the test, in which he felt something was wrong with his calculation steps as if he did not come to the right answer.
He also did not know how others were doing.
Wayne saw this and comforted him.
“You don’t have t o worry, Gary.When Nicole thought it was simple and you even more so.”
Gary frowned.
“Did you say Nicole thinks the questions are simple?”
“Nicole didn’t say it was simple; she just thought it wasn’t difficult.”
Jack chimed in to explain.
Gary frowned even more upon hearing what Jack said.
‘I swear that this is the hardest of all the competitions I have taken part in at home and abroad.Yet Nicole thought it wasn’t difficult? Is she ignorant, or did she really think that this competition is simple?’ He quickly dismissed the latter and looked coldly at Nicole from behind with disappointment in his eyes.
‘Things have come to such a pass, yet Nicole can still keep up appearances.I’m curious how she will soft – pedal the thing when the results are out.She really dares to say anything for the sake of her ego”
Many of those behind Gary, hearing his evaluation of the exam, looked at Nicole with a strong sense of disdain in their eyes.
‘It’s game over for Nicole, yet she still wants to pretend.”
‘How many questions could she answer when even Gary found them difficult? She probably couldn’t answer even one”
Chapter 437
Vivian came close to Gary, feeling triumphant, and asked him about the competition when she heard people badmouthed Nicole.
Gary looked coldly at the girl and just responded perfunctorily before leaving.
Nicole talked to Lulu and others for a while and then told Ms.Emerson that she was leaving.
Since all the candidates from her class had come out o f the exam hall, Ms.Emerson agreed with a smile and told everyone to disperse and go back to rest.
Seeing that Nicole and Gary from Class B had come back while his two candidates were still nowhere to be seen, Mr.Kennedy’s face turned grave.He clenched his fists and looked at the crowd in front of him, waiting with some anxiety.
It was not until almost all the candidates had left that Raine and Noah came out.
Both of them looked pale.
Mr.Kennedy did not need t o ask them to know that they must have done terribly, but he still] hoped for the best.
“How’s the test?” he asked.
Raine glanced at Mr.Kennedy.She had tried her best, but there were still many questions that she could not solve.
But thinking that almost everyone had the same problem as her, Raine gritted her teeth and said, “Not too good.But I noticed that no one could answer all the questions.Even Gary couldn’t finish the last question.”
Noah looked down spiritlessly at the back.
He had not observed as carefully as Raine did, but he could sense that everyone was not doing well.
Mr.Kennedy looked at the two students whom he held in high regard with disappointment in his eyes.
But he said nothing when he heard what Raine said.
He suddenly frowned when the thought of what he saw just now came to mind.
“Nicole was the first to come out of the exam hall.Do you know how she is doing?”
Raine exchanged a look with Noah, with her eyes glinting.
“She submitted the paper half an hour in advance.I guess she couldn’t even read the questions clearly!”
Mr.Kennedy’s face looked much better upon hearing what Raine said.
Since most Class-B students had left, he motioned everyone to disperse.
He then thought for a moment and walked over to a male student from Class-B, who was still there, and asked, ”How is Nicole doing in the exam?”
The boy was the one who laughed at Mrs.Wallace Sr’s attire earlier.He was startled when he heard a voice asking him a question from behind.He looked back.
When he saw it was Mr.Kennedy, he responded with respect.
“Are you talking about Nicole?”
As Mr.Kennedy nodded, the boy smirked and said in a disdainful voice, What Nicole said was wishful make- believe.
Gary has said that the questions are difficult, and he has no confidence, yet Nicole said it was simple.
“Do you believe her?”
He found Nicole’s words amusing, not expecting Nicole to be so loudmouthed.
The thought of Nicole saying that she could score first convinced Mr.Kennedy even more that Nicole was bluffing.
‘Can anyone believe the words of a person full of lies?’ Mr.Kennedy felt a sense of relief.
He looked at the boy and nodded proudly at him before he left.
The boy looked puzzled, wondering why Mr.Kennedy asked about Nicole.
But he quickly figured that presumably, Mr.Kennedy was afraid that Nicole would win.
He was also a student of Class B, looking forward to Ms.Emerson beating Mr.Kennedy.
But Nicole had gone overboard with her brag, and no one would believe that she could get a good result, so it seemed that they could only count on Gary.
Chapter 438
While Nicole was sitting for the exam, Preston was eager to go take a look.
But he was tied up with work at the office, and so he could only go to Edwin.
He swiped the access card to go to the top floor, where Edwin and Rowan were right in front of the server.
Looking at the restored interface, the mixed-race doctor looked pleased.
“Not half bad at all.This is much earlier than you have told me.”
What they had told him before were five days.He did not expect that they could stop the intrusion in three.
Not only that, they had even launched a counterattack.
Edwin looked calm and did not dare to say that he was stupid, not even seeing the hidden attack methods of the attacker.
Had they only been able to stop the attack five days later, probably nothing would be left i n the database by now? Warbler secretly gritted her teeth as she also heard what Rowan said.She could not stop thinking about what that girl said that day, which sounded so ambiguous.
But she kept a straight face, just like on normal days.
‘Is that girl really Lucifer?’ Rowan looked at the data transmission progress on the screen.
There had been a minor miscalculation during the process, but the other side had shown its professional problem-solving ability, perfectly resolving the bugs that almost caused the transaction to abort.
A faint hint of suspicion appeared on the handsome face of the mixed-race doctor as he thought of the other guy looking helpless against the hacker the other day, but now things had been solved entirely.
He said politely to Edwin, “I have already transferred the money to your account.Check your account in a moment.Please excuse me if you find this intrusive.Could you tell me who has such a badass ability to help you solve this problem?”
Edwin hesitated and said nothing.
Preston had come over and had just heard Rowan’s question.
Nicole’s advice that day came to mind, andh e said, “No comment.”
Rowan frowned as he looked at Preston.
Rowan had a bad temper, but since this was not his laboratory and Preston did not want to tell, he was not going to force him but just nodded his head with a stony face.
Edwin was well aware of how generous Rowan was.
He gave Preston a look, telling him not to offend this big client and that he should be more polite even if he did not want to tell.
Thinking of this, Edwin smiled at Rowan and said in a gentle voice, “That guy is not from our company, but someone kind to help us.We don’t know her true identity.”
At this point, Preston raised an eyebrow and looked at Edwin, then echoed what he said.
“Yeah, we don’t know her.”
Edwin could tell the ridicule in his voice, but his expression remained unchanged.He looked at Rowan with a sincere face as if what he said was true.
Rowan looked at him suspiciously.
He was quite proficient in Hustuaburgian, and so he could tell the unnatural tone of Preston’s voice, but he did not give i t a second thought.He nodded, grudgingly believing what Edwin said.
Then he took out his phone and whispered something into it, then left without looking back.
Preston gave Edwin a look, asking why he was not sending his big client back.
Edwin shrugged at him and pointed his finger upwards.
Not that he did not want to send the client back, but the client had a helicopter picking him up, and he was not needed.
Preston looked at Rowan with surprise.
Rowan also looked at him with a strange look in his eyes.
As he finished talking on the phone, he looked up and down at Preston, and asked curiously, “You’re a foreigner, too?”
He did not look like one, but judging by how quiet he was and the strangeness of his tone of voice, he seemed like when he first came to Hustuaburg.
Edwin glanced at Preston, and his expression froze for a moment.
He then smiled and said, “He’s not a foreigner; he just likes to be funny.”
Chapter 439
Rowan squinted at Preston twice before turning and walking toward the rooftop.
“He doesn’t talk much and just lets others explain for him; isn’t he a foreigner? Could he be a Mecrounian spy? Why does he look familiar to me?”
He muttered t o himself as he went.
When Owen met Rowan, he was wearing a black coat, and his handsome face looked as if he was deep in thought.
Seeing Owen come over, Rowan looked at him scrutinizingly and then asked coldly, “Why do all Hustuaburgians look alike?”
Owen thought for two seconds and then looked at Rowan with a sincere face and said, “To be honest, all Eperonians also look alike to us.”
Rowan looked at him for two seconds to make sure he was not lying to him and then slowly boarded the helicopter.
Hearing the noisy chopping noise above his head finally fade into the distance, Edwin took out his phone and quickly checked his account, looking at the balance, and smiled with relief.
He then transferred half of the money to Zeke.He remarked the transfer was a one-off mission reward.
Preston felt bored and looked out at the scenery outside, quietly observed everyone’s expressions through the glass, then said to Edwin, “Let’s get something to eat.”
Edwin followed him out without looking up.
Warbler watched the back of the two of them walking into the elevator and then lowered her eyes, expressionless.
She walked over to the server, reached out her fingers tentatively, and quietly typed a few letters.
As if she had triggered some kind of violent reaction, the screen started to turn strangely blue and run rife with activities as lines of code were constantly replicated.
On the other end, because the code had vanished, White looked surprised and then ecstatic at the data that was being transmitted to his terminal.
He quickly restored his computer with the help of the other party.
But halfway through the recovery process, the person at the other end seemed to have encountered some problem and was forced to stop.
Warbler looked at the sick but vital code that was out o f her control and suddenly scrambled to unplug all the power cables of the server as if the letters on the screen electrified him.
‘What is going on?’ She looked at her hands with a hint of internal struggle in her eyes.
‘Do I really want t o expose all this to the enemy?’
Just then, the voices of Preston and Edwin were heard from behind her as they had finished their meals and were now returning to work on the top floor as usual.
Seeing Warbler rooted to the stop with a nervous look that she had not managed to hide on her face, Preston raised an eyebrow and asked, “What are you doing here?”
Warbler looked at them, not panicking as she quickly adjusted her expression.
She drew the loose hair to the back of her ear and appeared embarrassed.
“I just want to see how the firewall that the guy has set up before is working,”she said with her head lowered and a glint of jealousy in her eyes.
Chapter 440
Nicole’s firewall was so advanced that she was struggling to understand it, let alone get started with daily maintenance.
‘Did she mean to trip me up?’ Warbler asked in her mind.
Preston watched her expression with interest and then exchanged a glance with Edwin with a smile.
“Don’t work too hard,” he said, stepping forward and looking at Warbler’s fairly pretty face with a shallow look of concern.
“You must have not gotten enough rest lately.Go home and get some rest.Wrinkles and dark circles are starting to pop up on our faces now.”
Preston patted her on the shoulder meaningfully and then sighed and said, “I’m really touched to see my staff work so hard.”
Edwin coughed softly as he looked at Warbler’s angry face.
“Go home and take a rest, Warbler.The crisis has been diffused.You don’t have to watch here day and night.”
Warbler did not really want to leave, but she thought about what Preston had just said and subconsciously wanted to find a mirror to look at her face.She was only twenty-four and did not want to look older than her age.
With this thought in mind, she could not care less about what she had not done.She nodded at Edwin and walked out, quickly leaving the top floor.
Preston looked at her from behind, and the smile in his eyes faded, replaced by a faint sense of detachment.
Edwin stepped forward, saw the disconnected power cables on the server, and sighed softly.
“I didn’t expect Warbler to become the person I was most worried about.She used to be dependable.”
Preston looked back at the rebooted Jogoo and then stepped forward and typed lightly on the keyboard.
Soon, he saw signs that some kind of protective mechanism had been activated.He smirked and restored the intercepted signal in a way as if he had done this for the hundredth time.
“Who knows?”
The sun was shining brightly outside.
Snow was at home doing revision, but she had been feeling not well lately and had lost ten pounds of weight.She had been on a slimming program all this while, forcing herself to go hungry.
Now, after losing ten pounds, she looked like a skeleton.
It looked as if she would snap at the blow of the wind.
Maybe someone would say that her body was perfect.
Snow held a pen in her hand, her eyes looking at the questions, but her mind was elsewhere.
Ever since she lost the diamond, she could not sleep, especially after Harvey said that she could only talk to him again when she got the diamond back.
Now, she had only one thing in her mind, which was to get the diamond back from Nicole.
‘That brat got a large diamond from some man, yet she still stole mine!’ Snow clutched the pen angrily, kneading her fingers constantly as if she had fallen into a state of anxiety.
She could barely feel at ease only when the thought of what she had said to Karen and the assurances Karen had given her came to mind.
As tight-lipped as Nicole was, she had ten thousand ways to make her talk.
While she was thinking about this, the mobile phone in her bag suddenly rang.
She took it out with irritation, impatiently wanting to hang up.
But when she saw the caller ID, she almost jumped for joy.
‘I can’t believe that Harvey calls me!’ She answered the phone in disbelief, her eyes starting to well up at hearing the gentle voice that she had not heard for a long time.