A real killer playing a villain; the guy surnamed Zhen in Detective, run!

Inside the Star River Internet Cafe, the smells of cigarettes, instant noodles, and cheap perfumes mingled together.

Some people curse at their teammates while playing games.

"Do you even know how to organize a group? Your Crystal (a character in the game) is more aware of group buying than you are!"

Someone in the back row was banging on a keyboard.

"Network administrator! The left mouse button isn't working!"

The internet cafe manager sat behind the counter, scrolling through short videos.

A price list is posted on the wall.

Regular area: 3 yuan per hour.

Members who deposit 50 will receive 5 free.

Lu Yuan glanced at it and thought that charging fifty wasn't worth it; it probably wouldn't last that long anyway.

He handed over ten yuan, saying, "Turn on a computer in a slightly off-center spot."

The network administrator glanced at him.

"For machine number 18, any unused internet fees can be refunded."

Lu Yuan memorized those words.

Machine number 18 was at the very back, against the wall. Next to it was a young man with dyed yellow hair, wearing headphones and playing a shooting game, constantly spouting his family's idioms.

The chair back in front of the computer was loose, the mouse pad was shiny with oil, and there were crumbs of spicy snacks in the cracks of the keyboard.

Lu Yuan rolled up his sleeves a little and opened the command prompt.

Inferior keyboards have a very poor tactile feel.

After typing the two lines of script, the pop-up window in the lower right corner of the screen disappeared.

In the internet cafe's backend monitoring system, computer number 18 was still showing normal internet access, with the desktop screen stuck on the homepage of a video website.

On Lu Yuan's side, the screen had already switched to a clean mirrored desktop.

The blond guy glanced at it, didn't take it seriously, and turned back to berate his teammates.

Lu Yuan entered the homepage links of the earliest batch of core marketing accounts.

Tracing the source.

The first-level IP address points to a short video MCN.

The second layer jumps to an overseas cloud server.

The third layer loops back to a domestic game acceleration node.

Very good at hiding.

Lu Yuan tapped a few times on the keyboard and brought up the timestamp of the command to forward the post.

The timing of the first wave of actions for all accounts was basically the same, with an error margin of within 30 seconds.

This is not a natural leak.

It's an order dispatch from the backend!

He continued digging.

They uncovered a dark web media outlet.

The name is pretty arrogant.

Lu Yuan looked at the protective architecture on the screen and clicked his tongue softly.

Multiple botnets, hopping firewalls, reverse probes, fake log pools.

A seasoned veteran in the industry.

Regular cybersecurity personnel will be dragged into a vicious cycle by these fake nodes. The deeper they trace, the more the IPs jump around, eventually ending up on some abandoned Eastern European server, resulting in a bunch of meaningless junk packets.

……

Dark web media's underground monitoring room.

The technical director stared at the large screen, a smile spreading across his face.

"Mr. Cheng, someone has sneaked in."

Cheng Yan walked over with the coffee in his hand.

On the screen, several tracking requests were redirected to fake nodes by the automatic defense system, and rows of red interception logs popped up.

The technical lead pointed to one of them.

"The other party must have been hired by Lu Yuan's side; they didn't even get past the outermost layer of the chicken trap."

Cheng Yan glanced at it twice, his smile deepening.

"layman."

The tech lead nodded: "We've used this kind of protection system for financial institutions. Those PR teams in the entertainment industry can't even get close to it."

Cheng Yan took a sip of coffee.

"Let him investigate. The longer he investigates, the more panicked he'll become."

He turned and went back to his seat.

"This afternoon, we'll release the third batch of information. I'll decide the title—'The Capital Protector Behind Lu Yuan.'"

The head of the online trolls gave a thumbs-up: "Ruthless."

Cheng Yan put down the coffee.

"When it comes to managing public opinion, you have to learn to provide answers for the audience. They don't care about the truth; they only care about who they feel most comfortable criticizing."

……

A corner of an internet cafe.

Lu Yuan did not attempt to breach the firewall.

Trying to compete head-on in terms of computing power is something only beginners do.

The real door often opens within the door itself.

He stared at the feedback rhythm of the other party's reverse probe.

Each time the induced tracking fails, the target system sends back a verification packet to confirm whether the intruder has exited.

There is a tiny redundant bit in the verification packet.

It's very small, so small that most people would mistake it for system noise.

Lu Yuan changed his sitting posture and began to speed up his finger movements.

A concise data spoofing package was written out.

No attacks, no bombing, no privilege escalation.

It merely hitches a ride, getting caught in the feedback instructions of the other party's firewall, flowing back along the verification packet, and passing through the first three layers of botnet jumpers.

One second, two seconds.

The actual physical address popped up!

Lu Yuan looked at the coordinates and said, "We caught him."

The blond guy next to me had just been killed in action. He took off one of his earphones and was about to light a cigarette.

He glanced at Lu Yuan's screen out of the corner of his eye.

The eerie green code scrolled down from top to bottom, so dense it made one's scalp crawl.

Command windows popped up one after another, only to close within half a second.

The cigarette in the blond-haired man's hand stopped at his lips.

He glanced at the screen, then at Lu Yuan.

Baseball cap, face mask, windbreaker, sitting in a corner, hacker interface.

It’s over.

A wanted criminal was sitting next to me.

His teammates in the game called out to him, "Yellow Hair! Where are you? You've respawned!"

Huang Mao didn't reply. He put the cigarettes back in the box and silently moved the chair half a meter to the side.

Lu Yuan ignored him.

Once the real address is locked, things become simple.

Multiple springboard reverse wrap.

Unauthorized infiltration.

He dismantled the underlying verification protocol.

Darknet Media's supposedly impregnable internal network defenses couldn't withstand him for even half a minute.

Administrator privileges obtained.

The monitoring logs still show that everything is calm.

The other party's technical director was still showing off his achievements in front of the big screen.

Lu Yuan entered the central archives.

The filtering command is executed.

Order dispatch form.

The backend for controlling online troll groups.

Price list for marketing accounts.

Financial reconciliation.

Each entry has a timestamp, and each transaction has a recipient account.

He continued searching through the deeply encrypted folders.

The filename has been disguised.

[Backup of materials from old projects]

[Rejected draft]

[Employee team building photos]

Lu Yuan clicked on the third one.

There were two items lying inside.

The first document is the "Cooperation Agreement on Public Opinion Guidance".

Signatory: Dark Web Media, Cheng Yan.

Representative of the client: Ah Kun.

Lu Yuan opened the second document.

Deposit payment receipt.

The payer is a company called "Qiming Cultural Consulting".

In the remarks section of the voucher, there are four words: 【Wang Dong's Project】

He entered the company name into the business registration database interface and retrieved the corresponding number from the client archives of Dark Web Media.

Three seconds later, several messages popped up side by side.

Qiming Cultural Consulting has a registered capital of 10 million yuan, but the actual paid-in capital is zero, and the number of employees covered by social security is zero.

Shell company!

The office address overlaps with that of the capital company under Mr. Wang.

That's enough. This company is just a shell company for Mr. Wang.

Lu Yuan dragged several related diagrams together.

Ah Kun signed the "Cooperation Agreement on Public Opinion Guidance".

Payment receipt from Qiming Cultural Consulting.

The chain is closed.

Lu Yuan looked at the screen and gently tapped the desktop.

"That's quite a fancy move!"

Lu Yuan packaged, compressed, encrypted, and sent all the evidence in segments to a secret overseas email address.

After sending, enter the destruction code.

Clear all local cache, temporary logs, mirrored desktop, and keystroke history.

The billing system has been restored to its default settings.

The screen returned to the homepage of the video website, where a cat food review video was playing.

Lu Yuan glanced at it.

The sixth child doesn't like this brand.

He got up and walked to the bar.

The internet cafe administrator was still scrolling through short videos, and the screen was filled with people cursing Lu Yuan as a violent celebrity.

Lu Yuan handed over the receipt.

"Refund the remaining balance."

The network administrator looked up: "Huh?"

"There's two yuan and fifty cents left."

The network administrator glanced at the system.

"Brother, you're giving me back the two yuan and fifty cents too?"

Lu Yuan was very reasonable: "It's your own rule that you can return any unused portions."

The network administrator was speechless and started rummaging through drawers for change.

Lu Yuan put it away.

Huang Mao sat next to machine number 18 until Lu Yuan had walked away before he dared to take off his headphones and catch his breath.

My teammates were cursing me out in the voice chat.

"You're AFK? Are you dead?"

Huang Mao stared at Lu Yuan's departing figure.

"almost."

……

Lu Yuan walked out of the internet cafe.

The sky at the alley entrance was overcast, and the water on the roadside had not yet dried.

On my phone, the trending topic about being criticized is still up.

The criticism continues to grow.

Mr. Wang is probably celebrating.

Cheng Yan would also think that he had won.

Lu Yuan put the two yuan and fifty cents into his pocket and pressed the five-cent coin with his fingertip.