Transformers Begin

After who knows how long he had been unconscious, Sun Cheng was suddenly awakened by a loud noise coming from the next room.

Still feeling a bit groggy, he instinctively groped around and picked up a cold object to hold up in front of him.

Struggling to open his hazy eyes, he glanced at his phone and saw, "April 14th, 8:23 AM. Am I late?"

Rubbing his sore brain, Sun Cheng threw his phone to the side and closed his eyes again.

"I am Frenzy...a mechanical life form from Cybertron Planet..."

Recalling fragments of the confused memories that still lingered in his mind, Sun Cheng stretched and muttered, "It was just a dream after all..."

It must have been!

Only in dreams could such absurd things happen!

But what a wonderful and unbelievable dream it was!

Surprisingly, Sun Cheng didn't forget his memories as he regained consciousness. He could still clearly remember how he had transformed into "Frenzy" in his dream, a mechanical spy from a extraterrestrial civilization - Cybertron Planet.

Together with his partner - Baricade, they infiltrated a US research institution and used a computer in that facility as a port to invade the internet of that world.

"What a ridiculous dream, how could a human become a mechanical warrior?"

Sun Cheng laughed at himself and got up from the bed. He took the last cigarette from the dried-up pack on the corner of the computer desk and was about to light it up when he heard some playful voices. He walked to the window and looked down through the balcony, watching the young college students radiating endless youth and vitality under the bright morning sun, feeling a tinge of envy and regret.

If only everything could be restarted, that would be great!

This was a thought that had been lingering in Sun Cheng's mind for the past half month.

Because once, he also had such youthful times, with many friends who could talk with him all night about dreams, games, or gossip.

Unfortunately, now they are all gone!

He lit a cigarette, took a mechanical puff, and Sun Cheng turned his body with a touch of sadness, quietly looking at his dormitory, which was now only left with him. After a while, he sighed lightly in the smoke.

"Serves me right!"

He cursed himself silently, since he was already late, Sun Cheng didn't plan to go anymore. After leisurely finishing his cigarette, he realized that he had a foul smell from sleeping after drinking too much last night. So he picked up a basin and went to the opposite dorm to take a shower, and then changed into a new outfit.

After finishing, he came back to his room, first took a pack of instant noodles, tore it open and poured hot water into it. Then he carried it to his computer desk.

The computer desk in front of him was messy, with three empty bottles of beer, and a stack of cold dishes and a few leftover hot and sour shredded potatoes emitting a poor smell, which made Sun Cheng feel heavy-hearted.

After sighing, he put down the noodle box and bent down to pick up the trash can, throwing all the garbage on the table into it.

After doing all of these, he found a cloth and wiped the table clean. Then he sat down in front of the computer desk and turned on the computer.

"Hmm? Crashed again?"

As he watched his IBM laptop, which he bought less than a year ago, freeze during the startup process, Sun Cheng's brows slightly furrowed.

Recently, his laptop had been giving him a lot of trouble, often crashing for no reason, which really made him confused.

He took it to the store for repair, but the repairmen there couldn't find any problems in front of him.

He reinstalled the system, but it still crashed mercilessly when it was supposed to, which really gave him a headache.

In general, a computer often crashes for only a few reasons: too much dust, hardware failure, software incompatibility, or system problems.

The two possibilities of hardware malfunction and excessive dust in the computer can be ruled out first. Sun Cheng, a senior student majoring in microelectronics at South Industrial University, has the habit of regularly disassembling and cleaning and inspecting hardware. He had just done so a few days ago.

As for software incompatibility, there aren't many software programs on Sun Cheng's computer, and he has tried them all, so there's no compatibility issue.

That leaves only one possibility, system problems.

Upon careful consideration, it's hard to say for sure that it's a system problem.

Although most of the computers in China have already been updated to Windows 7, 8, or even 10, there are still many people like Sun Cheng who are still using the outdated XP system.

Like most Chinese people, he has not chosen to upgrade his system because he has been using XP since he first came into contact with computers. Even though he has used Windows 7 a few times and found it easy to use, it still feels a bit awkward, so he has never switched.

"Let me check the forum later and see if there are any new patches available..."

Sun Cheng shut down his laptop and reopened it a few minutes later. As soon as he looked at the screen, he was stunned.

"Huh, I can understand all these English characters?!"

He was shocked by his own new discovery!

Sun Cheng is well aware of his own English proficiency. Although he passed Level 1 and obtained a National Professional English Level 1 certificate last year, he has already forgotten most of the English words he learned within half a year after the exam.

Furthermore, he not only understood the English but also the startup principle of the program. Sun Cheng knows better than anyone else that his computer skills are only slightly better than average.

"This..."

Rubbing his eyes in disbelief, he looked again and found it to be true. With a desire to try it out, Sun Cheng quickly pressed the F8 key to enter Safe Mode.

The XP system installed on his computer was still an old version XP that his former roommate had collected. Compared with the popular fully Chinese version system in China, many places still used English.

If it were in usual times, even if Sun Cheng entered the safe mode with all English annotations, he would not know how to proceed to the next step.

But now, his state was a bit strange.

After entering safe mode and scanning through the pure English options one by one, Sun Cheng fully understood the meaning and function of each line. Various instructions constantly emerged in his mind.

For a moment, he seemed like a different person. His left and right hands quickly tapped on the keyboard non-stop. He could even control the mouse while distractedly selecting options. The operating system that was once difficult to understand for him, now seemed to be completely open to him. Every character and code, without any secrets.

After tapping on the keyboard for a while, Sun Cheng finally controlled the system to conduct a comprehensive and deep self-check of the software and hardware.

As he watched the self-check program start, he finally regained his senses and sat in front of the computer in disbelief, staring at his hands, then back to the computer screen with a shocked expression.

"Did I really do this?"

What had just happened to him was really strange!

If Sun Cheng could understand the English characters in the system program, he could barely explain them using his learned English knowledge. But what about computer technology?

In that instant, his brain seemed to have an additional super consciousness. Even the top-notch hackers in China couldn't claim to fully grasp the XP system, but in front of that consciousness, not only did no secrets exist, it could even be described as childish and laughable.

Sun Cheng knew better than anyone what his computer technology level was. Although he was better than ordinary people as an electronic engineering major, he was no better than a professional.

Not to mention, he didn't think that there was any computer master in the world who could infer dozens of ways to improve the XP system in just one or two minutes of manipulating the safe mode. It was simply unbelievable.

As he racked his brain thinking about what had happened to him, Sun Cheng's laptop suddenly made a "ding" prompt sound, causing him to frown.

It turned out that the XP system had completed the deep self-check but still found no abnormalities.

He temporarily put aside his curiosity about what had happened to him and, with a few clicks on the keyboard, he called up the hidden abnormal crash record in the system files. After looking through it for a while, Sun Cheng's face sank, "There is an inaccessible folder in the C drive system? Every time the computer crashes, is it when it scans my computer files during the network connection?"

After all this time, it turned out that his laptop was infected with a virus.

However, Sun Cheng finally figured out why his laptop was frequently crashing recently.

He was about to kill the virus file in safe mode when Sun Cheng suddenly remembered his inexplicable increase in computer skills, and became interested in the virus in his computer.

He immediately wrote down the name of the folder where the virus was located, and selected to boot in safe mode.

After the computer started up, Sun Cheng immediately opened the C drive and found the suspicious folder hidden among many system files. He tried to open it but was denied access.

If it had been a day earlier, he would have had no solution.

But now, Sun Cheng only frowned slightly.

Indeed, when he realized that the suspicious folder could not be accessed, various solutions came to his mind. With his basic computer knowledge, he quickly confirmed that these solutions were feasible.

He chose the simplest one, which was to increase his own computer permissions to the highest level and then access the folder. This time, there were no surprises, and he easily clicked to open it.

"Swttrs.exe? It's actually a Trojan..."

After examining the source code of the file, Sun Cheng's frown deepened. "The installation date is February 24th, isn't that the day I reinstalled my computer?"

After carefully reviewing the source code for a while, his face had already become gloomy.

"It's not wrong. The Trojan was installed in my computer together with the system... Could it be..."

He suddenly bent down and searched for a while in a drawer under the computer desk.

After a while, he finally found an old 2GB USB flash drive and held it up in front of him with a hesitant look in his eyes.

"I hope it's not what I'm thinking..."

"Muttering under his breath, Sun Cheng's face looked very unpleasant. He had lost his appetite and immediately turned off the computer in front of him. After putting the USB drive into his pocket, he rummaged through the bed and picked up his phone, hastily grabbed his keys, and went out the door."