章 19: Challenged

Yang Shirou narrowed her eyes when she heard He Lixue's challenge. She felt eager to accept it in her heart, but when she saw that the other was equally convinced of her own ability, she suddenly felt that something was wrong.

The men, who had been listening to Yang Shirou's words, were also suddenly aware that although she had been in the company for a long time and was known to be gentle and refined,had indeed tried to sow discord between them and He Lixue, so they felt quite guilty.

"Yang Shirou, you were the one who said that she does not have any ability, so why don't you accept this challenge? It is nothing big if you win or lose, you are both working in the same company after all, but it will be a good idea to gain a better understanding of Miss He's ability."

The other men also began pressuring Yang Shirou into accepting the challenge, their words seemed encouraging, but to He Lixue, it sounded as if they just really wanted to see how good she was; after all, Manager Mo had personally said that he had scouted her.

After considering for some time, Yang Shirou had listened to the others, and her head was bursting with self-confidence. She looked at He Lixue and snorted.

"Little girl, you might be decent with computers, but this is a workplace. We don't just find flaws in the different codes; we also create things."

He Lixue started laughing grimly. Was she saying that she, He Lixue, could only destroy things? She was so wrong! Many top-notch security programs in her old country were created by her.

Just as He Lixue was about to answer, Manager Mo appeared. He could feel the tension in the air, and he frowned.

"What is going on here?" he asked. His voice was stern, and a frown adorned his face. All the others instantly became meek as sheep, and no one dared to speak.

He Lixue just leaned against the wall and said with a languid voice, "they doubt my capabilities. I suggested we tried cracking the code of one of your software programs, to see who was the best, but this miss said that I am only able to destroy things. I was just about to consider suggesting that we try competing in who can make the most unbreakable firewall then. We will both write a program and compile it, and then we can have someone trying to break it. The one who will take the longest to be broken will be the winner."

"You also know how to code?" Manager Mo's frown vanished and was replaced by excitement, and He Lixue nodded her head in answer.

"Then that's what we will do!" he exclaimed excitedly. "Please go and fetch two of the best laptops we have in the company. Call all our workers here as well, as long as they are not working on anything critical that can endanger the safety of our documents and company. I want everyone to see the skills of the woman that I personally headhunted!"

Hearing this, Yang Shirou's face turned ugly. She was completely ignored, although she was one of the people who had to attend the challenge.

Fortunately, she was in the Programming group, and she often helped write codes for the safety systems that they used at the Fenghuang Group.

Although she had some doubts about being able to defeat He Lixue when it came to cracking codes, it could not be so when it came to writing them.

He Lixue snickered. One of her expertises was making firewalls. She had so many things that she could never allow others to know about in her past life, so she had to make unbreakable firewalls and fail-safes to protect them.

If she just copied one of her older firewalls, she was quite confident that she would be able to win the bet.

It took a long time to create a program, and a firewall was no different. However, since she had already created the firewall before, she had faith in herself being able to finish it within a few hours.

"Why don't we take the next two hours? I believe that the expert from the programming group has a lot of experience in this, so that ought to be enough?"

The group of workers was growing, and soon, forty-three people were standing around He Lixue and Yang Shirou.

The rest were unable to leave as they had some critical functions to solve.

He Lixue smiled sweetly as she looked at them. She then took the laptop, turned it on, and looked at it. Yang Shirou did the same before she finally took a deep breath.

"You can still pull out. There is no shame in admitting that you aren't good enough," Yang Shirou said to He Lixue, but He Lixue just grinned at her. "You think I don't know how to write code and create a firewall?"

After saying this, she looked at Manager Mo, who said, "you have two hours to finish as much of the program as you can. Afterward, we will have Wang Jingshen try and find as many flaws, and the one with the least flaws is the winner. Be aware that this is a friendly competition, so do not mock anyone for winning or losing. Begin!"

Hearing that they could begin, the smile on He Lixue's lips curled upwards. This time it was no longer an innocent and gentle smile but a cheeky and unrestrained smile that seemed as if she had everything under her control.

Her fingers flashed over the keys; they seemed as if they were dancing, all of them moving so swift that no one was able to follow her movements. From her actions alone, one could instantly see that she was an expert.