286: Chapter 286 Lu Feng's Provocation

A dull, muffled explosion erupted from inside the main control console chassis.

Thick, acrid plumes of smoke, smelling of scorched components, poured from the exhaust vent.

Chen Fan pulled out the black data cable, coiled it up, and shoved it into his work uniform pocket.

He turned around, his back to the completely ruined main control equipment.

The concrete floor of the workshop was covered in white medicinal powder.

Workshop Director Wang Hai was pinned tightly to the ground by two members of the Shadow Guard clad in black tactical gear.

His hands were cuffed behind his back at an extreme angle, leaving him completely immobilized and unable to even let out a cry of pain.

A few steps away, the fifty-something-year-old factory manager sat slumped beside the sorting machine conveyor belt.

He was drenched in sweat, his expensive dress pants stained with dirt.

"I'll talk, I'll tell you everything."

The factory manager's lips were pale, his teeth chattering, "The night before last. Tuesday. That flat-topped man from Yuanfeng Capital came to find me. He brought two black suitcases filled with cash. Three million dollars. He said it was the interest paid in advance for the bridge loan."

The factory manager clutched his head with both hands, his voice trembling violently.

"There was only one condition. During the night shift shutdown, he brought two of his own people into the No. 2 drying area. They just needed to leave a port open on the back of the main control cabinet behind you to connect two wires. He swore it absolutely wouldn't affect the factory's normal production and shipments during the day. I couldn't resist the temptation, so I took the money. During my night shift, I personally opened the factory's back door for them."

Chen Fan walked past the factory manager, his soles crunching against the dust with a rustling sound.

He didn't look down at the man collapsed on the ground.

Chen Fan stopped in front of Chen Haoyu.

"Implement a physical lockdown of this workshop and all associated warehouses of Tongyuan Pharmaceutical."

Chen Fan issued the order in a flat, emotionless tone, "Pull up the original architectural blueprints of the factory. Take men and search along the outer walls and load-bearing columns. Every independent cable that doesn't meet state grid standards or isn't from a legitimate telecommunications operator—find every single one and cut them. Don't miss a single ventilation duct or underground water pipe. Thoroughly investigate for hidden hardware interfaces."

Chen Haoyu acknowledged the order and noted it down, raising his arm to signal the perimeter Shadow Guard detachment with tactical hand signs.

Just as Chen Haoyu turned around.

Above the workshop, the display screen of the spare electronic scale suspended from the load-bearing beam suddenly lit up with a blinding red light without warning.

The entire dim pharmaceutical workshop was enveloped in this eerie red glow.

It was a rough LED screen used only to display the weight of goods to two decimal places; at this moment, the red light was flickering violently.

Large swaths of chaotic foreign code and garbled characters forcibly broke through the remaining local area network restrictions, quickly piecing together and compressing in the center of the old screen.

In just three seconds, the garbled text arranged itself into clear, blocky Chinese characters.

The first line read: "Chen Fan, long time no see."

The font was exaggeratedly large, occupying the entire width of the screen.

Workshop Director Wang Hai, pinned to the ground, strained to lift his neck, his eyes wide, while the factory manager, sitting slumped on the floor, stopped trembling and stared blankly at the electronic scale above his head.

Several pharmaceutical workers hiding behind the storage racks looked at each other in bewilderment.

The main control console had been completely burned out, and the core network cables had been forcibly severed.

This old electronic scale, used for weighing, didn't even have the most basic external network communication module configured; it relied entirely on the workshop's internal local wireless network.

How could it bypass physical isolation to receive external data, and even display such a clear provocation?

The red characters on the screen began to scroll downward as the other party unilaterally forced a broadcast.

The second line: "Thirty years ago, the Wall Street North American bulk commodity short-selling case. First trading node, leverage ratio fifty times, five short-selling targets. Core capital incubation period: forty-five days."

The third line: "Twenty-five years ago, the Tokyo foreign exchange market ambush. Total sell-off of two hundred billion USD, harvest node set at 3:00 AM before market opening. Utilized one hundred and thirty secret accounts."

The fourth line: "Fifteen years ago, the London Metal Exchange short squeeze..."

Pieces of top-secret historical trading data were displayed with absolute precision on this crude electronic scale.

Those tactical model parameters that were once listed as Huihuang Group's top secrets, including specific capital amounts, entry times, and exit channels, were exposed without reservation.

The sender was displaying absolute arrogance at this moment.

The last line of text flashed in large font: "All your operational tracks from the past thirty years are on record. Huihuang Group's historical tactical models have been completely dissected by me. You have no trump cards left."

At the same time, Chen Haoyu looked down as the military-grade encrypted tablet in his hand emitted two sharp beeps.

A forced-push black window popped up.

Chen Haoyu furrowed his brow, as the other party had bypassed the first perimeter firewall of Pangu Computing Power and, through a low-level backdoor in the local Jiangcheng communication base station, forcibly pushed the signal into this military-grade device that was not connected to the civilian network.

Lu Feng's provocation was completely undisguised.

A new line of text appeared on the tablet screen.

"Seventy-two-hour settlement period."

"I will make you watch as the chips in your hands turn into a pile of waste paper before the settlement day arrives. Get ready to experience the taste of complete liquidity depletion. Huihuang Group, it's time for bankruptcy liquidation."

Around the workshop, several Shadow Guard members responsible for security turned their heads and looked at each other.

This unit had followed Chen Fan for many years and had wiped out countless top overseas hacker organizations.

But under the premise of physical network disconnection, to still be able to use weak base station low-level protocols to push information so precisely onto a military-grade terminal—the predictive tools in Lu Feng's hands had infiltration capabilities that exceeded conventional dimensions of cognition.

Chen Haoyu's face was cold and stern; his finger pressed against the tablet's power button, ready to rip out the battery and perform the most thorough physical power-off.

Chen Fan raised his hand, stopping Chen Haoyu's action.

Facing this cross-dimensional, in-your-face mockery, Chen Fan's expression remained calm, with no unnecessary physical movements.

He stepped forward and took the hot military tablet from Chen Haoyu's hand.

His finger directly tapped on the black chat window that had been forced open, and a virtual keyboard popped up at the bottom of the screen.

Chen Fan did not order the defenses to be reinforced, nor did he have Chen Haoyu track the base station signal.

Utilizing the low-level, one-way connection channel that the other party had forcibly established, he brought two fingers together and tapped the keyboard rapidly.

A short, highly destructive, tracking countermeasure low-level command was quickly entered.

Chen Fan pressed the voice microphone button on the side of the tablet.

"Lu Feng," Chen Fan said, his tone calm, without a ripple, "plagiarizing historical data from thirty years ago and wrapping it in a so-called predictive tool, you think you've figured out my trump cards."

Chen Fan stared at the flashing send button on the screen.

"You don't even understand the fundamental essence of financial warfare. The cornerstone of finance is the absolute control over physical assets. Those data records you obtained are nothing more than numbers on a balance sheet. Without physical delivery to support it, no matter how high the leverage of your options is, it's just a bubble that will burst at a single poke."

Chen Fan raised his index finger and pressed the send button firmly.

"You won't be taking anything away."

The instruction code and the voice packet mixed into a highly aggressive counter-virus, which flowed aggressively back through the base station backdoor channel that Lu Feng had used to intrude.

The suspended electronic scale display screen overhead emitted an extremely sharp, electrical screeching sound.

Bang!

The old circuits inside the electronic scale could not withstand this powerful data recoil and overload, and it exploded directly.

The display screen shattered, and a large amount of glass shards mixed with black plastic residue and scorched coils rained down from mid-air like falling flowers.

Workshop Director Wang Hai screamed in fright, burying his head deep into his arms and the dust, while several workers scrambled to hide in the blind spot under the conveyor belt.

The factory manager lay on the ground, hands protecting the back of his head, not daring to open his eyes.

The workshop returned to darkness.

The external provocation signal had been pulled out by the roots and cleanly excised; the only sound left in the entire factory area was the mechanical whirring of the dryers that hadn't yet completely stopped.

Chen Fan tossed the military tablet back into Chen Haoyu's arms.

"Notify the Jiangcheng branch," Chen Fan said, turning and walking with long strides toward the workshop door, "From now on, conduct a carpet search of all pharmaceutical factories, logistics hubs, and raw material warehouses in Jiangcheng associated with Huihuang Group."

Chen Fan's leather shoes stepped out of the doorway.

"Mobilize all engineering security personnel. Dig out every possible physical hardware backdoor. Push this cleanup operation down to every single network cable and every single distribution box."

Chen Haoyu clicked his heels together, stood at attention, and saluted.

The offline cleanup operation against Lu Feng was fully launched across Jiangcheng.