067 Flaw

As usual, I’m asking for three things! Tickets, recommendations, and bookmarks!!

After a round of clinking glasses and exchanging pleasantries, Yang’s father and mother, having hardly touched any food, excused themselves from the table early, leaving only Yang Tang and the two young women to linger over their meal and chat. With the elders gone, the three gradually opened up, and Yang Tang seized the opportunity to take out a newly assembled white laptop, placing it in front of He Jiani. “Jiani, here, this is what I owed you last time.”

He Jiani accepted the laptop out of reflex but said, “When did you ever owe me anything?”

“That time you lent me your old laptop—have you forgotten?”

Only then did He Jiani recall, and she chuckled, “I didn’t expect you to remember. This laptop looks pretty nice!”

Seeing this, Fang Yuhua interjected with a hint of envy, “What brand is it?”

He Jiani, evidently remembering Yang Tang’s earlier promise, replied casually, “Azure Luan, right?”

Yang Tang waved his hand. “No, the top model from Azure Luan is expensive and not very user-friendly. This is a laptop I assembled myself. The performance is outstanding—you’ll see once you use it.”

“What?!” Both women were stunned. “This—this is yours? Can it even power on?”

Yang Tang rolled his eyes. “I’ve already installed the system for you. Just try it and see.” He paused, then added, “Of course, besides the system, everything else is a clean slate. Jiani, you’ll have to install your favorite software yourself.”

“Really? Let me see, let me see!” Without waiting for He Jiani’s consent, Fang Yuhua snatched the laptop from her hands.

Yang Tang watched, amused, as the two women vied for control over the laptop, and meanwhile, he finished half a bowl of rice with the still-warm dishes.

“Huh? Tangtang, your build boots into the system so fast!” The two quickly noticed.

Yang Tang gave a noncommittal smile and brushed it off, “Well, of course. It’s a new system with nothing on it—how could it not be fast?”

“No, that’s not it, Nini. Look at the background processes—it’s only loaded a few items. I remember the Tenglong system boots with about twenty processes by default!”

“Yeah, I remember there were a lot more, at least not this few.”

“That’s because the extra ones are monitoring programs or something similar,” Yang Tang explained for once. “They’re of no use to the actual user.” Of course, that was only half the truth. From the perspective of a top hacker, those monitoring programs were essentially intelligence collectors. Not only could companies like Tenglong and GiantSoft utilize them, but skilled hackers could as well.

“No way, Tangtang, the wireless on this laptop you built for Nini is so fast—I want one too!” After a few tries, Fang Yuhua began to whine.

Yang Tang chuckled. “I don’t have the time for that!”

“I’ll pay a hundred thousand,” Fang Yuhua tried to entice him.

Yang Tang scoffed, “I’m not hurting for money!”

Fang Yuhua pouted but didn’t raise her offer. She’d come to understand Yang Tang’s temperament by now—if he didn’t agree to something immediately, it was nearly impossible to convince him later. “Nini, how about I buy a top-tier Azure Luan and trade with you for this one?”

He Jiani’s face changed instantly. “No deal!” In a flash, she snatched the laptop back from Fang Yuhua’s arms, protecting it like a mother hen guarding her chicks.

“Ugh, you’re killing me! Fine, if you won’t trade, you won’t trade!” Fang Yuhua’s temper began to flare.

Sensing the atmosphere, Yang Tang quickly stood up. “Tonight’s meal is on me. You two take your time.” With that, he slipped away and was already at the restaurant entrance before either woman could call him back.

The next morning, Yang Tang and Lawyer Mao went to the tax bureau together. Once they presented all the required documents, the tax officer’s originally polite smile blossomed into a look of delighted kinship, and his enthusiasm was boundless.

But when it came time to pay taxes, Yang Tang’s heart ached beyond words. Nearly thirty percent in personal income tax—a rate of this world—damn, it was enough to cost him half his life.

After all the paperwork was settled, Yang Tang was left with just over three million one hundred thirty thousand. This money was earned entirely aboveboard, with not a cent evaded or concealed—anyone could investigate without issue, all hard-earned from coding. From now on, making money from money would be much easier.

After leaving the tax bureau, Yang Tang paid Lawyer Mao a total of seventy thousand in legal fees, and Lawyer Mao didn’t forget to give him the billing statement and some receipts.

In short, once the accounts were settled, the two exchanged contacts and parted ways.

Back at the hotel, it was not yet ten o’clock. He Jiani and Fang Yuhua had gone off somewhere together. Yang Tang went online to book a five o’clock high-speed train ticket for the afternoon, then dragged his parents out shopping.

In truth, everything available in Shenhai could also be found in Mist City, but it was not in the Chinese tradition to return empty-handed from a trip. So Yang Tang helped his parents pick out plenty of clothes and daily items, and when the bills from several malls were tallied, it came to over two hundred sixty thousand.

Yang’s mother was worried. “You spendthrift, you just made a little money and you’re throwing it around. How are you going to manage when you start your own family?”

“Mom, it’s all for you and Dad!” Yang Tang quickly played the pitiful card. “No amount is too much when it comes to you.”

Indeed, what’s wrong with a son showing filial piety to his parents?

Yang’s mother sighed and didn’t scold him further.

But Yang Jixue put on a stern face. “I think the country should amend the property laws. Why should anyone over sixteen be allowed their own cash account? Isn’t this teaching kids bad habits? Especially you, Yang Tang.”

“Got it, Dad. Can we just go back to the hotel now?”

On the way back by taxi, Yang Tang informed his parents that he’d already booked tickets for the afternoon, and both parents wholeheartedly approved. As soon as they got back to the hotel, they started packing.

Yang Tang hadn’t bought anything for himself. The old laptop he’d borrowed from He Jiani had long since been wiped and tossed out; now, all he had was his newly assembled laptop and some clothes, so there was hardly any packing to do.

Back in his room, Yang Tang took his new laptop and, as usual, wandered out of the hotel, finding a spot in the nearby plaza to sit. After connecting to the wireless network, he set up several proxy layers before attempting to grab packets from the overseas server. It turned out he needn’t have worried—the foreign server’s firewall was as weak as before, and there were no expert traps set nearby.

Having successfully retrieved the packet capture, Yang Tang opened it in a virtual system on a separate drive. Inside were densely listed usernames and passwords, at least a hundred.

“Seriously? The Criminal Investigation Bureau can’t possibly have such a low sense of security, can they?” Yang Tang was skeptical and browsed the bureau’s official forum. After careful scrutiny, he discovered the bureau actually had three databases—one large, one medium, and one small. The large and medium ones were for everyday use, like organizing spring outings or distributing fruit; only the largest stored real-time case progress. The smallest database wasn’t connected to the internet and was considered top secret.

Some might ask: if the smallest top-secret database isn’t online, how do the gossips on the forum know about it?

It’s quite simple—people’s urge to boast often leads them to leak seemingly trivial yet vital information. For example, in a school, who a certain girl has slept with should only be known to the people involved, but rumors always get out—this is the psychology of showing off.

The same applies here. The forum’s lurkers and gossips are all part of the bureau’s circle. Even if they can’t access the top-secret database, surely a distant relative or friend can. Over drinks, loose lips spill secrets, and before long, the top-secret database is an “open secret” known throughout the bureau.

The list of usernames and passwords Yang Tang acquired was unique within the bureau—one account per person, but passwords were database-specific. Some people, lacking rank, had only one password. More than half had two: one for the everyday database, another for the main case database. Only a few had a third password for the top-secret database.

Yang Tang reckoned his case wasn’t important enough to be entered in the top-secret database. He’d just need to obtain the password for one of the accounts with access to the case database.

As for how to do that, he already had an idea. He first reverted the spring outing registration page to normal, then disguised the forum server’s activity logs to hide the fact that over a hundred usernames and passwords had been packet captured and sent elsewhere.

Yes, disguise.

Activity logs faithfully record every move—who logged in when, who logged out, and so on. In a system that hasn’t been hacked, these are useless, routinely deleted, and rarely scrutinized—if the format looks right, the check passes. But if you delete large sections, anyone reviewing before deletion would notice, and then even an idiot would realize the system had been breached.

That’s why Yang Tang painstakingly rewrote each packet capture record in the logs as a login or logout event. Then, from the list, he picked an offline account and used the official bureau login page to access the spring outing section.

Since the spring outing page was linked to the everyday database, Yang Tang followed the trail to the bureau’s concise personnel profiles.

These profiles typically only listed alma mater and current position, nothing about current cases. Still, even this mundane information was put to use by Yang Tang.

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