?Chapter 444:


    If a man lied once, Norah feared he might fabricate more lies.


    She had heard a story about a 30-second ckout in the library. A couple, together for many years, were celebrating the girl’s birthday. As she made a wish with her eyes closed, the boy was busy texting another girl who had been frightened by the brief power outage in the library. Was he concerned for the other girl during those 30 seconds, or did he imagine celebrating every future birthday with his girlfriend?


    Norah wasn’t sure. All she understood was that feelings would eventually fade.


    Though love knew no bounds, could it bridge the vast distances and insurmountable obstacles thaty between two hearts? She knew people could choose to give up.


    She wouldn’t surrender easily, but if she felt the other person might, she would gracefully retreat, avoiding further entanglement.


    At her desk, Norah’s mind buzzed with scattered thoughts, stirred by Alice’s recent remarks.


    She dismissed these baseless musings and powered on herputer.


    As theputer came to life, she stretched her fingers, gearing up for more work.


    Logging into her favorite hacker forum, she stumbled upon an intriguing post.


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    It was from Star.


    “Check this out! Just breached a hospital’s system in Cend, erased a file, and earned 5000 USD.”


    Thements were mostlyplimentary. Star had secured the fifth spot on the hacking leaderboard, and many fans were praising him without reservation.


    Norah erged a screenshot and noticed the distinctive logo of Silver Boulder Private Hospital in the corner. The image was sourced from the hospital’s system. She recalled Bryson mentioning that Kathy’s medical record had been erased. Could Star be responsible for this?


    It made sense now why Kathy seemed so unfazed. If Star erased the record, they disappeared forever, eliminating any chance of retrieval.


    Fortunately, Norah had already downloaded the original file.


    She sent a private message to Star. She had just seen him responding toments on the forum, so she was certain he was online, even though they weren’t friends.


    “Hello, I have a question. Who hired you to delete the records?”


    Star was in high spirits, responding to the effusive praise. A simple hack into a minor system to delete a file had earned him $5000. It was just a trivial task for him.


    He was riding high on the ttery.


    Upon noticing a new message notification, he expected more des.


    But his mood shifted when he saw the sender’s name was Moon.


    Moon was asking him questions? What a strange thing.


    Since his rise to prominence, they had never spoken.


    He still harbored resentment from when Moon had thwarted his nned attack on an international bank, costing him a significant profit and leaving him seething for a long while.


    Star replied, “You’re the top hacker, right? Can’t you dig this up on your own? Interesting. Finally, something you don’t know?”


    His tone was full of mockery, clearly amused that there was something the renowned hacker couldn’t uncover.


    She responded, “What’s your price?”


    Star’s smugness was palpable as Moon, usually so self-reliant, was now seeking his help.


    “Twenty thousand dors, and I’ll tell you,” he dered, boldly naming an outrageous sum.


    Norah’s expression chilled. She was ustomed to paying for valuable information, but this was outright extortion.


    Before she could respond, her message notification shed twice.


    C typed, “What are you buying from Star? He’s already sharing screenshots of your conversation across the forum.”


    Norah switched tabs to the forum’s main page. There, she saw multiple posts from Star bragging loudly.


    “Moon, the top hacker, is begging me!!! Can you believe it? None of you would ever get this kind of attention!”


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