Did You Destroy the World Today?
Chapter 29: What Is Social Engineering?

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

No matter what, this was not a simple task.  

But Skull Head had his own plan.  

“Snatching the data terminal isn’t actually that hard, it’s just a police handheld device.”  

“The biggest difficulty is how to unlock it, how to get into the system.”  

“So, we have to get the police officer to willingly enter the database.”  

“You just said the person you want to find is a prisoner, right?”  

“Then we need to get the officer to actively look up information on detained prisoners, and when he’s verifying it, we grab the device and retreat.”  

“There’s still enough time.”  

“You just wait in the corner of the street. Once we get it, someone will hand it to you!”  

“You quickly check the information you need, then forget about everything else.”  

“If you get caught, no matter what they ask, just say you don’t know, understand?”  

“Got it.”  

Lin Xu immediately nodded, then asked again:  

“So how do you plan to escape?”  

“Don’t worry.”  

Skull Head said casually:  

“Before taking on your mission, we all have clean records.”  

“We’re all licensed PMC employees. Even if they check us, they won’t find anything wrong.”  

“Let’s move now, or we’ll be late!”  

“Everyone unload your gear, move out!”  

“Roger that!”  

At Skull Head’s order, everyone immediately sprang into action.  

They stripped off all their equipment, then six operatives including Skull Head surged forward.  

Lin Xu followed closely behind, but as they approached the police station, the two groups split up.  

According to Skull Head’s plan, Lin Xu headed to a small alley beside the station, waiting at the corner.  

The others, after a brief exchange, went straight toward the police station.  

So what were they going to do?  

Direct infiltration?  

Cyber attack?  

Or would they use some equipment Lin Xu didn’t know about?  

Like the non-lethal disabling weapons the quick reaction force used last time in Bracelet World?  

Lin Xu watched Skull Head’s actions with curiosity.  

But the next second, he was dumbfounded.  

“Holy shit, your mother!”  

Skull Head suddenly exploded into a loud shout.  

Then he kicked a teammate beside him.  

The teammate flipped onto his back on the ground, but unwilling to lose, scrambled up angrily and cursed back:  

“Holy shit, your mother!”  

The two instantly started fighting, throwing punches like crazy.  

Each punch landed with heavy impact!  

Lin Xu was speechless.  

He seriously suspected these two were just venting personal grudges.  

Skull Head’s nose was bleeding from the hits, but he showed no sign of stopping.  

They fought like this for a full half-minute, and the other team members soon joined the brawl.  

Chaos.  

Violence.  

Lin Xu never imagined he’d see such an intense street fight scene even in a dream.  

Good lord, how was this any different from a bare-knuckle brawl among Russians?  

He watched with fascination, temporarily forgetting his real purpose.  

But soon, things changed.  

The police officers inside were alerted.  

Uniformed staff on duty pushed open the door and shouted loudly:  

“What the hell are you doing?!”  

Those engrossed in the fight ignored them completely, just kept throwing punches.  

The officer saw he couldn’t intervene, so he turned and went back inside.  

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

“Everyone stop fighting!”  

“You guys are fighting all the way to the police station door?!”  

As the words fell, Skull Head’s punching slowed.  

But he still didn’t stop.  

“Fuck your mother!”  

“Fuck you!”  

The police station entrance was filled with the sound of curses.  

“Stop all of them!”  

The man who looked like a superior officer shouted angrily, then the burly men rushed over, forcibly pinning down those still throwing punches.  

“Stop the damn fighting!”  

“You all drunk or what?!”  

The officer’s voice was so loud it hurt Lin Xu’s eardrums from several meters away. The fighters finally stopped.  

Skull Head glared viciously at the teammate who threw the first punch, his acting skills truly Oscar-worthy.  

“Handcuff them all, come with me to sober up!”  

“You lot are lawless bastards...”  

The officer blocked Skull Head and the teammate as he was about to cuff him, but Skull Head suddenly twisted his eyes and shouted:  

“Officer, this man is a fugitive!”  

“He’s got problems! We just found out! We were about to hand him over!”  

The moment he said this, not only did the people at the police station entrance freeze, but Lin Xu was stunned too.  

Just that simple?!  

What if these cops didn’t fall for it? Wouldn’t he be screwed?  

But obviously, Skull Head knew the police in Jinling City better than him.  

“Handcuff him first!”  

The officer ordered, then took out a somewhat “outdated” square device from his pocket in this era.  

The police handheld device!  

They’d been tricked.  

But what next?  

The officer tapped the device a few times, then walked over to the teammate Skull Head pointed out and started scanning his iris with the device’s built-in scanner.  

After a moment, information popped up.  

The officer frowned.  

“What the hell fugitive? Slander is punishable by law too!”  

“Just fighting, so what the hell are you...”  

Before he finished, a figure suddenly flashed by.  

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

He stared in disbelief at the figure who had broken through the crowd at the police station door and was leaving, his eyes full of shock.  

Holy shit.  

Stealing the phone??  

Isn’t this ancient history?  

Even crazier, it was the police handheld device they stole?!  

Are you nuts??  

Not only him, Lin Xu standing in the corner of the alley watching the assigned teammate charging toward him was also stunned.  

He thought Skull Head’s plan would be high-end, precise, mysterious, and unfathomable.  

But...  

The method used was surprisingly plain and simple.  

It reminded him of some worn-out cliché.  

What is the most top-tier hacker attack?  

The answer is breaking into the company to steal the hard drive, or hiring a janitor to unplug the internet cable every half hour.  

Social engineering!  

What Skull Head was doing was obviously the same.  

Top-level social engineering!  

The teammate who stole the police device had already reached Lin Xu and violently knocked him down.  

When Lin Xu struggled up, something was shoved into his hand.  

A police handheld device with the screen still on, not even logged out of the system.  

He didn’t dare waste a second, turning around and running deep into the alley.  

Behind him, the police officers dumbfounded by Skull Head’s trick snapped out of it and sprinted after the fleeing teammate.  

“Command! Command!”  

“Lock down the area near No.1 Road, Yuhua New Village!”  

“Activate Sky Eye! Dispatch nearby police to encircle!”  

“No! No guns lost!”  

“Some drunk idiot just snatched my police device!”  

...  

Listening to the officer’s angry voice, at this moment, Lin Xu’s sense of absurdity was no less than watching a whole season of ‘Guarding Liberation West’.  

But he didn’t have time to think more.  

He quickly crouched in a hidden corner, then rapidly operated the police device, returning to the query interface.  

He had to admit, this thing wasn’t complicated to use at all.  

Just a few input fields.  

Lin Xu entered the ID information of Xu Jin he had memorized beforehand, using the fuzzy search function.  

After a moment, the result popped up.  

No such person found!  

Xu Jin was not among the detained prisoners!  

Already dead?!  

Lin Xu frowned deeply. He hesitated less than a second, then directly exited to the police device’s home page.  

On the home page, he saw an entry for “General Inquiry.”  

He clicked the entry and entered the ID again.  

This time, there was a result.  

Xu Jin, male, Jinling resident.  

Age 42.  

Status...  

At large!