The next day, Sakura Airi and Ichinose Honami changed their approach.
During lunchtime, Ichinose Honami still appeared punctually at the entrance of Class D's classroom. But this time, she wasn't followed by any students from Class B. All those subtle protective nets had been removed.
"Sakura-san, shall we go eat together?"
Ichinose's smile was still full of energy, as if last night's threatening call had never happened. She naturally walked in, greeted a few familiar Class D girls in front of Sakura Airi's seat, and then took Sakura's wrist.
"Th-thank you for the trouble..." Sakura Airi still kept her head down, but her body wasn't as stiff as before.
"Don't mention it!"
The two walked side by side towards the cafeteria, not taking any detours or looking around, just like ordinary friends, discussing whether there would be new desserts in the cafeteria today.
After school, the same scene played out again. Ichinose accompanied Sakura back to the dormitory building, and the two said goodbye at the elevator.
This was the new strategy Natsukawa Sosuke proposed on the phone last night — "obeying" the warning.
Since the stalker issued a threat of "do not investigate," they would stop all obvious investigative actions. This superficial retreat could both lull the opponent into thinking his threat had worked, and free Sakura Airi from the special attention of being overly protected by Class B students.
Ichinose and Sakura Airi outwardly returned to normal, while Natsukawa Sosuke's actions quietly began after school... He didn't go to the Library, nor did he return to the dormitory. Instead, he carried his school bag just like any other student and headed towards Keyaki Shopping Center.
However, there were some extra items in his bag than usual.
After finishing the call with Sakura Airi last night, Natsukawa Sosuke didn't rest immediately. He knew very well that this was no ordinary fanatic, and a heavy blow had to be dealt. Since the opponent enjoyed the thrill of dual surveillance through both the internet and reality, what Natsukawa had to do was to completely "skin" this person from the internet.
He went to the school's 24-hour convenience store and bought some inconspicuous small parts: a few 18650 batteries, a new high-speed SD card, and a black square plastic box.
Back in his dormitory, he took out the small single-board computer (Raspberry Pi) he had previously used for programming learning and testing.
He burned the system onto the SD card, installed a wireless network card, and then assembled it with a boost module connected to the 18650 batteries, securely fixing it inside the black plastic box.
He had modified this device into a portable network sniffer. It was compact, had long battery life, and could be controlled remotely via his personal terminal without needing a laptop.
Afterward, he applied a privacy film to his laptop screen just in case. This film made the screen content appear completely black from a side view, only visible when viewed directly.
After completing all these preparations, Natsukawa Sosuke closed his laptop... In the early evening, at Keyaki Shopping Center.
Natsukawa Sosuke didn't enter the electronics store; instead, he sat down on a public bench not far outside the store.
This spot was carefully chosen by him. The foot traffic here was moderate, with students coming and going, making it perfectly normal to sit here to rest, read, or play on a phone. Most importantly, it could stably receive the public Wi-Fi signal that the electronics store had set up for students to test devices.
Natsukawa Sosuke sat relaxed, taking his laptop out of his backpack and placing it on his lap. Then, he unzipped his backpack and placed the black plastic project box at the opening of the backpack, ensuring good signal reception and transmission.
To others, he was just an ordinary student resting on a bench and dealing with some work on his computer.
Natsukawa opened his laptop. Thanks to the privacy film, the screen was perfectly clear to him, but from the side, it was completely black.
He put on a single-ear Bluetooth earphone, seemingly listening to music, but in reality, it was connected to the black box, beginning the deployment.
His fingers tapped lightly on the keyboard.
First, connect to the target network — "Student_Test_Zone."
This was an unencrypted public network. For that electronics store clerk, using his store's Wi-Fi was a perfectly normal habit.
Immediately after, Natsukawa activated the tools he had prepared.
The ARP spoofing program began to run.
Instantly, within this area, all devices connected to "Student_Test_Zone" would have their data packets pass through Natsukawa's small black box before being silently forwarded to the router.
He became the man in the middle of this bridge.
Data began to scroll wildly across his screen. The junk traffic generated by students testing their phones, leeching Wi-Fi, etc., was filtered one by one. He set a crucial filter — only monitoring traffic going to Sakura Airi's blog server address.
Everything was ready, just waiting for the opportune moment.
Natsukawa Sosuke first observed inside the electronics store, confirmed that the clerk was currently inside, then took out his personal terminal and sent a message to Sakura Airi.
"Sakura-san. Now, open your blog and post a photo, anything will do. If you don't know what to post, take a picture of your dorm desk and add a sentence: 'So tired today.'"
...Upper floor of the dormitory building, girls' dormitory.
Sakura Airi received Natsukawa's message. She was still a bit nervous, but she chose to trust Natsukawa unconditionally. Trembling, she took a photo of her dorm desk, added the sentence "So tired today," and clicked send.
She didn't know that this post was the bait Natsukawa had laid... On the bench, Natsukawa Sosuke's gaze calmly watched the screen.
He waited for about a minute.
Inside the convenience store, the clerk was idly wiping the counter. His phone in his pocket vibrated with a special blog follow notification. He habitually pulled out his phone, unlocked it, and tapped on the familiar avatar.
"Shizuku-chan... so cute today too." He muttered softly, a greasy smile appearing on his face.
Although he couldn't hear what he was saying, the expression on his face still made Natsukawa feel physically uncomfortable.
The moment he clicked on the blog, the filtered data stream on Natsukawa's laptop screen suddenly jumped!
The target appeared.
A clear data stream was flowing from a specific IP address to Sakura Airi's blog server.
Natsukawa's fingers didn't hesitate. He immediately began to intercept all data packets in this session.
Since the other party was accessing a blog, this old platform didn't even enable full-site HTTPS encryption. All communications, including login credentials, were fully visible on Natsukawa's screen.
He didn't need a password.
He only needed this — the Session Cookie.
It was a long string of letters and numbers. Natsukawa quickly copied it.
This string of characters was the stalker's "electronic key" to the blog server. As long as Natsukawa had this key, he could impersonate the stalker and directly log into their account from anywhere.
At the same time, Natsukawa also copied the MAC address of his phone. This unique hardware address was like the "fingerprint" of that phone.
"Got him."
Natsukawa silently thought. He immediately stopped the ARP spoofing and cut off the sniffing program.
The entire network instantly returned to normal.
Natsukawa Sosuke closed his laptop, put the small black box deep into his backpack, and zipped it up.
He stood up, took off the Bluetooth earphone, and put it in his pocket.
The entire process, from sitting down to leaving, took less than five minutes.
Inside the electronics store, the clerk had just finished contentedly viewing Sakura's post and casually browsed other pages. He vaguely felt the network seemed to lag for a moment, but it quickly became smooth again. He pouted, dismissing it as normal Wi-Fi fluctuation.
He had no idea that in those brief few seconds, his mask, hidden in the shadows, had been quietly removed by someone
......
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