What Do You Mean by Social Engineering?

There were 28 minutes left. The mercenary squad needed to enter the police station, get the data terminal, and find the information Lin Xu was looking for.

No matter how they looked at it, this was no simple task.

But Skullhead had his own ideas.

"Getting the information terminal won't actually be hard. It's just a police handheld."

"The hardest part is unlocking it and getting into the system."

"So, we have to make a police officer access the database himself."

"You said the person you're looking for is a criminal, right?"

"Then we'll make the officer voluntarily look up information on detained prisoners. Once he verifies it, we'll snatch the thing and get out."

"There's still time."

"You go wait at the corner of the street. Once we get it, someone will bring it to you!"

"Quickly look up what you need, then don't worry about anything else."

"If you get caught, say you don't know anything no matter what they ask. Got it?"

"Okay."

Lin Xu nodded immediately, then asked another question.

"Then how are you planning to get away?"

"Don't worry."

Skullhead said carelessly,

"Before taking your job, we were all clean."

"We're all PMC employees with legal licenses. Even if they investigate us, they won't find anything wrong."

"Let's go now, or we won't make it in time!"

"Everyone, ditch your gear. Move out!"

"Understood!"

At Skullhead's command, everyone sprang into action.

They removed all their equipment. Then, the six operatives, Skullhead included, rushed down together.

Lin Xu followed close behind, but when they approached the police station, the two groups went separate ways.

Following Skullhead's arrangement, Lin Xu headed into an alley beside the police station and waited at the corner.

After a brief exchange, the others headed straight toward the police station.

So what were they going to do?

Break in directly?

Launch a cyberattack?

Or use some equipment he didn't know about?

Like the nonlethal incapacitating weapons the rapid response unit had used during his previous trip into Bracelet World?

Lin Xu watched Skullhead's movements curiously.

But the next second, he was dumbfounded.

"Fuck your mother!"

Skullhead suddenly let out a furious roar.

Then he kicked the operative beside him.

The operative toppled backward onto the ground. Not to be outdone, he scrambled up and cursed back angrily.

"Fuck your mother!"

The two instantly began brawling, swinging wild haymakers at each other.

Every punch landed solidly!

Lin Xu stared in shock.

He seriously suspected the two were actually settling a personal grudge.

Skullhead's nose was already bleeding, but he showed no intention of stopping.

The two beat each other up for a full half minute before the other operatives joined the fight as well.

Chaotic.

Violent.

Lin Xu had never imagined he would see such an exhilarating street brawl even in a dream.

Good lord, how was this any different from those Russian bare-knuckle matches?

He watched with relish, momentarily forgetting his real objective.

But things quickly changed.

The officers inside the police station were alerted.

A uniformed duty officer pushed open the door and shouted,

"What the hell are you doing?!"

The people engrossed in the brawl ignored him completely and kept throwing punches.

Seeing that he couldn't get involved, the duty officer went straight back into the station.

The next second, several burly men in plain clothes poured out.

"Stop it, all of you!"

"You assholes are fighting right outside the police station?!"

As soon as the words fell, Skullhead's punches slowed.

But he still didn't stop.

"Fuck your mother!"

"Fuck you!"

Outside the police station, it was a chorus of croaks.

"Separate all of them!"

A burly man who appeared to be the officer in charge barked angrily. The other big men immediately swarmed forward and forcibly pinned down the people still trading blows.

"Stop fucking fighting!"

"What, are you all drunk out of your minds??"

The officer's voice hurt Lin Xu's eardrums from dozens of meters away. The people brawling finally stopped flailing.

Skullhead glared viciously at the operative who had thrown the first punch. His acting was so good that it would have been a shame not to give him an Oscar.

"Cuff them all and bring them inside to sober up!"

"You people have gone completely lawless..."

The officer stepped between Skullhead and the operative. Just as he was about to cuff Skullhead, Skullhead's eyes shifted, and he suddenly shouted,

"Officer, this man is a fugitive!"

"There's something wrong with him! We just found out! We were about to bring him in ourselves!"

The moment he said that, not only did the people outside the station freeze, even Lin Xu was stunned.

That simple?!

What if these officers didn't take the bait? Wouldn't that blow everything up?

But Skullhead clearly understood Jinling City's police better than he did.

"Cuff him first!"

At the officer's command, he pulled a piece of equipment from his pocket—something that looked rather outdated in this era, square and boxy.

A police handheld!

They had lured it out.

But what came next?

The officer tapped on the police handheld a few times, then walked over to the operative Skullhead had identified and used the device's built-in iris scanner to scan his eyes.

A moment later, the information appeared.

The officer frowned.

"What fucking fugitive? Defamation can get you thrown in jail too!"

"If you want to fight, then just fight. What exactly are you—"

Before he could finish, a figure flashed past.

The next second, the officer's hand was empty.

He stared dumbly at the figure that had shoved past everyone at the police station entrance and sprinted away, disbelief written all over his face.

Fuck.

A phone snatching??

Wasn't that some ancient shit from years ago?!

And what was even crazier was that they had snatched a police handheld?!

Were they out of their minds??

He wasn't the only one. Lin Xu, standing in the distant corner of the alley and watching the designated operative charge toward him, was equally dumbfounded.

He had thought Skullhead's plan would be sophisticated, precise, mysterious, and beyond comprehension.

But instead...

He had used such a plain and simple method.

It reminded Lin Xu of a stupid joke he had seen before.

What was the most advanced hacking technique?

The answer: sneak into the other company and steal their hard drive, or hire a janitor to unplug and reconnect the network cable every half hour.

Social engineering!

What Skullhead had done was clearly the same.

Top-tier social engineering!

The operative who had snatched the police handheld had already reached Lin Xu. He slammed into Lin Xu and knocked him down. By the time Lin Xu struggled back to his feet, something had been shoved into his hand.

The police handheld's screen was lit, and it had not even been logged out of the system.

He didn't dare waste a second. He turned and ran deeper into the alley.

Behind him, the officers who had been stunned senseless by Skullhead's maneuver had finally come to their senses and took off after the fleeing operative.

"Dispatch! Dispatch!"

"Seal off the area near Yuhua New Village Road No. 1!"

"Activate Sky Eye! Mobilize nearby units to surround them!"

"No! No guns were lost!"

"Some drunk idiot snatched my police handheld!"

Listening to the officer's furious voice, Lin Xu felt no less absurd than if he had just watched an entire season of Guardians of Jiefangxi.

But he had no time to think about it.

He found a concealed corner and quickly crouched down. Then he rapidly operated the police handheld and returned to the search interface.

He had to admit, this thing was not complicated to use.

There were only a few input fields.

Lin Xu entered Xu Jin's ID information, which he had memorized beforehand, and used the fuzzy search function.

A moment later, the result appeared.

No such person found!

Xu Jin was not among the detained prisoners!

Was he already dead?!

Lin Xu frowned deeply. After hesitating for less than a second, he exited to the police handheld's home screen. There, he saw an option labeled "General Search."

He opened it and entered the ID number again.

This time, there was a result.

Xu Jin, male, Jinling resident.

Age: 42.

Status...

Wanted!