285: Chapter 285 Finding the Flaw

Chen Fan pressed the hang-up button. The jarring electronic pulse sound ceased.

"Check the firewall," Chen Fan said.

Chen Muyang's fingers flew across the keyboard. Five seconds later, he looked up.

"It's intact. No external data intrusion."

Chen Fan's gaze swept across the physical settlement codes scrolling on the large screen. In the complex stream of numbers, he caught several faint fluctuations. The source pointed to Jiangcheng, where data overflows were occurring in the underlying automatic control systems of several long-established pharmaceutical factories.

These were core suppliers of Yunhe Hall.

Chen Fan understood. Seeing that his online attempts were blocked, Lu Feng intended to use hardware backdoors reserved in the physical factories to forcibly merge into the dark web and complete the transfer of physical assets.

"Hold the market at all costs. Do not let any online transactions through," Chen Fan said as he pushed back his chair and strode out of the trading hall.

"Prepare the plane. We're going to Jiangcheng," he instructed Chen Haoyu outside the door.

Two hours later. On the outskirts of Jiangcheng.

Tongyuan Pharmaceutical Processing Workshop.

This was a century-old pharmaceutical branch factory and one of the largest suppliers for Yunhe Hall.

Chen Fan had changed into a worn, creased gray uniform, wore a safety helmet, and had an ID badge hanging around his neck, entering the gate under the guise of an equipment maintenance technician.

Machines roared, and steam filled the air.

Chen Fan walked through the medicinal material sorting area. On the conveyor belt, crates of sliced Changbai Mountain ginseng were being sent to the warehouse.

His gaze fell on the display screen of the electronic scale nearby.

The weight value flickered.

A crate of ginseng had just passed, displaying fifty kilograms. However, Chen Fan judged by eye that the volume of goods in the crate was at most thirty kilograms.

There was an error. The system was fabricating inventory data out of thin air.

Chen Fan walked straight to a core dryer at the end of the conveyor belt. He placed his toolkit on the control console and quickly entered a string of general maintenance codes on the touchscreen.

The underlying logs popped up.

Rows of green code scrolled rapidly. Chen Fan quickly locked onto an automatic shipping program hidden in the background. This program bypassed regular inventory audit procedures and was secretly packaging factory assets, preparing to send confirmation commands to the external network.

"What are you doing!"

A loud shout came from behind.

Workshop Director Wang Hai rushed over with three security guards. Workshop Director Wang Hai, sporting a beer belly, shoved Chen Fan's shoulder.

"Who told you to touch the main console?" Workshop Director Wang Hai reached out and tapped the screen twice, locking the console immediately. "Outsourced maintenance technicians only handle peripheral lines; touching confidential equipment is prohibited!"

Workshop Director Wang Hai pulled a manual of internal regulations from his uniform pocket and slammed it onto the control console.

"Do you know the rules? Can you afford to pay if you break it? Throw him out!"

Several security guards surrounded him.

Workshop Director Wang Hai nimbly pressed the red self-check button below the equipment.

With a click.

The maintenance code interface on the screen vanished, returning to the standard work display. The inventory data looked perfectly orderly, with no flaws whatsoever.

Several workers nearby stopped their work and gathered around.

"Does this technician even know anything? Why is he pressing random things?"

"He almost shut down our entire line. Who's going to take responsibility for a day's lost production?"

The workers pointed and grumbled.

Workshop Director Wang Hai put his hands on his hips and shouted, "Get out! Our own factory technicians can handle it!"

Chen Fan stepped back half a pace and pulled a special Phillips screwdriver from his toolkit.

Ignoring the shoving arms, he bypassed the locked electronic screen and crouched down.

The tip of the screwdriver was aimed at the mechanical baffle beneath the console.

He pried it with force.

"Creak."

The metal baffle fell off.

The wiring behind the motherboard was exposed. Amidst the dense ribbon cables, two extremely thin external fiber optic data cables stood out. They were not connected to the factory's internal network port; instead, they penetrated the wall and connected to an unknown external signal source.

Chen Fan acted decisively.

With a snap of the wire cutters, he severed the two fiber optic cables.

Beep—a long alarm sound rang throughout the workshop.

The locked electronic screen above went completely black.

Two seconds later, the screen lit up again. A blood-red forced access interface popped up.

In the center of the interface, a black icon made of twisted polygons was particularly conspicuous.

It was the dark web logo of Yuanfeng Capital.

The noise in the workshop vanished. The workers stared in bewilderment at the unfamiliar red interface.

How could such a bizarre docking system interwoven with foreign characters be hidden inside the machines of an ancient pharmaceutical workshop?

The fat on Workshop Director Wang Hai's face twitched.

"Corporate spy! He's a spy here to steal our pharmaceutical formulas!" Workshop Director Wang Hai roared, "Beat him! I'll take responsibility if anything happens!"

Hearing this, the three security guards raised their rubber batons and struck hard at Chen Fan's back.

At the same time.

The progress bar below the red interface lit up, and the value soared wildly.

10%, 30%, 70%...

That was Lu Feng's dark web capital, frantically attempting to forcibly transfer all of Tongyuan Pharmaceutical's physical assets, riding the aftermath of the residual physical nodes.

Chen Fan sidestepped.

The rubber batons grazed his shoulders and missed.

He lifted his leg and kicked the lead security guard in the abdomen. The man groaned, stumbled back, and knocked over the cargo shelves behind him.

Chen Fan retracted his leg and took out the black secure terminal he carried with him.

He pulled out a data connection cable.

He aimed it at the forced access port beneath the main console and jammed it in.

The Pangu Computing Power's underlying physical erasure command was initiated.

The red progress bar froze the moment it jumped to 99%.

The screen emitted a piercing alarm.

The data packets collided violently.

"Bang!"

A muffled sound came from inside the main console's casing. A puff of blue smoke drifted out from the ventilation port, accompanied by a burnt smell.

The micro signal transceiver hidden inside the motherboard was completely burned out due to an overload. The red interface shattered, and the screen went dark.

The workshop door was kicked open.

Twenty Shadow Guard members dressed in black tactical gear flooded in like a tide.

Before Workshop Director Wang Hai could turn around, two members pinned his arms behind his back and slammed him onto the dusty concrete floor.

A cold gun barrel was pressed against the back of his head.

Workshop Director Wang Hai shivered all over, his face pressed against the ground, cold sweat streaming down.

"I confess... I'll confess everything!" Workshop Director Wang Hai stammered, "Yuanfeng Capital gave me five million to... connect a port behind the core equipment during the night shift. I didn't know what it was for!"

A man in his fifties with a receding hairline ran into the workshop, sweating profusely. Seeing the mess and the Shadow Guard, his legs gave way, and he collapsed beside a machine.

The factory manager had arrived.

Chen Fan stood up and brushed the dust off his gloves. He tossed the screwdriver back into his toolkit.

The mole had been rooted out.

From the network to the physical world, the channels Lu Feng had extended were all severed.