Genius Hacker, As scary as This

The surveillance showed no signs of hacking intrusion.

There were also no obvious discontinuities in the surveillance footage.

Only some details were problematic.

This meant that under normal circumstances, no one would even notice the tampering with the surveillance, not even hackers if they checked it out.

But because of something Li Chen said, Xu Mo's chess move was ruined.

After all, when the police review surveillance footage to investigate cases, they usually watch it at double speed to save time.

Who could have thought that someone would not only avoid double speed, but would stare closely at the surveillance footage without missing a single detail?

"The footage was edited?" Han Fei's tone was visibly excited.

He thought to himself that this professional hacker was just built different from the half-baked tech people at the police station.

He could spot problems right away!

"Yes," Wu Ya replied. "I didn't notice any traces left by Xu Mo when he hacked into the surveillance earlier, so I was biased into thinking he didn't tamper with the footage."

"But when I watched it carefully again, I noticed some problematic details. Between 10:38:26 and 10:38:27, half of a leaf on the ground mysteriously disappeared, which means the footage must have been edited."

"At first glance, there didn't seem to be big issues with the surveillance. This is because Xu Mo's skills are very sophisticated - first, he didn't leave any traces of intrusion, and second, he didn't tamper with the entire surveillance footage, only replacing a small part of it. This kind of detail is quite difficult to detect."

"But that leaf was the loophole. I guess maybe the wind blew it away, or it was disturbed by the air currents when they left, or maybe they kicked it while walking. But those aren't the point. The point is...if I'm not mistaken, around 10:38:27, Xu Mo should have left the welfare institute."

"Uncle Han, please wait a moment, I'll try to restore this segment of video."

As Wu Ya spoke, he began operating.

Now that he knew where the problem was, he could easily find the solution.

For hackers, completely deleting or replacing surveillance footage without leaving any way to restore it is not difficult, although it does require ample time.

Clearly, Xu Mo was busy escaping and certainly didn't have that much time to do this.

Wu Ya figured that with the limited time Xu Mo had while escaping, he could at most only tamper with the surveillance a little, and definitely didn't have time to completely delete or replace the footage.

As for him, a top hacker, restoring a segment that hadn't been completely deleted or replaced would only take time.

Of course, the premise was that he knew which segment had been tampered with.

Ten minutes later, Wu Ya successfully restored that segment of video.

"Done, Uncle Han. He did indeed leave during that time period. I've recovered the video and sent it to your email, please take a look."

"Great!" Han Fei looked extremely excited.

Opening his email and viewing the video, the surveillance showed Xu Mo and his group saying a few words by a white Buick G, then getting in the car and leaving.

The direction they left in was due north.

And the excitement wasn't limited to just Han Fei.

Wu Ya was also a bit thrilled.

To put it bluntly, Xu Mo was one of the few hackers who had managed to deceive him.

If it wasn't for him watching the surveillance footage carefully afterwards, Xu Mo might have really fooled him.

This was an interesting opponent.

He was somewhat eager to find out Xu Mo's whereabouts.

After sending the video to Han Fei,

Wu Ya began operating again.

The area due north of the welfare institute was a straight road about 2.5 km long, followed by a three-way intersection.

By car, the 2.5 km stretch would take around 5-8 minutes to drive through.

He carefully examined the surveillance footage of that three-way intersection during the corresponding timeframe.

Once again locating the problem area, he restored the few dozen seconds of footage showing Xu Mo and the others driving through the intersection.

Then he repeated these steps...

Every 10 or so minutes, Han Fei would receive a video segment.

The livestream viewers were dumbfounded.

"So this is what a captured genius hacker looks like? Terrifying..."

"Damn, this kid is awesome! He can really find Xu Mo's location?"

"Have some confidence, he definitely can, it's just a matter of time."

"I'm telling you Xu Mo is not as good as this Wu Ya! He got found out immediately!"

"Bro, don't forget, it was Zhou Qiaoqiao who hacked the surveillance, it had nothing to do with Xu Mo, he only taught her the methods. Getting found out because of some detail issues only shows Zhou Qiaoqiao's skills aren't top-notch, it doesn't mean Xu Mo is inferior to Wu Ya."

"How's that possible, it just means Xu Mo is not as good as Wu Ya. Getting found out means there were problems with the methods he taught!"

"I think Xu Mo taught properly, it was Zhou Qiaoqiao's faulty execution. If your calculus teacher teaches integrals and you don't understand it, is that your problem or the teacher's problem?"

"WTF man! Don't nitpick if you can't argue back! Don't get mad when you can't win!"

"LOL got nothing to say so you resort to insults?"

"Seriously though, finding where Xu Mo is doesn't help at all. Xu Mo has that alarm program - as soon as the task force gets close to Yunqi Rose Garden, he'll be tipped off and escape smoothly."

"..."

Not just the livestream viewers, even the other three members of the task force were dumbfounded.

It seemed this outsider Han had brought in did have some capabilities!

The tech staff at the police station needed a whole night to restore footage that this guy could restore in 10 minutes!

Out of the three, Li Chen was the most dumbfounded.

He decided to take back what he said earlier.

This outsider Han had brought in was not useless, on the contrary, he was pretty damn capable!

It probably wouldn't take long for him to find Xu Mo's hideout.

...

Yunqi Rose Garden

After investigating the exhibition situation, Xu Mo and his group hurried right back.

At the moment, Xu Mo was sitting on the sofa, staring at the map An Youyi had drawn out spread across the coffee table.

As he looked over the map, he organized the information they had gathered.

With the System as a cheat tool, many seemingly tricky problems were actually easy to solve.

Xu Mo had the System Space, with its help, bringing restricted tools inside and taking the stolen gems back out was no issue at all.

Security checks would not detect anything.

As for the display case locks, he could also pick those open with his god-level lockpicking skills.

Don't overestimate electronic locks - although they are driven by electronic components and look quite high-tech, in the face of god-level lockpicking skills they are insignificant.

After all, the internal lock components of any lock are largely similar.

Electronic locks are no exception - as long as you can manipulate the lock bolt controlled by the electronic components, you can open the lock just the same.

As for escaping after obtaining the goods, Xu Mo could either put the gems into the System Space and casually walk out the front door, or he could exit through one of the locked doors with no security guard.

These issues were not actually problems at all.

The real problems were the security guards everywhere at the exhibition venue, and the offline electronic eyes.

To steal the gems without leaving a trace required satisfying two conditions simultaneously.

One was evading the guards' line of sight.

Two was ensuring the surveillance cameras didn't capture him.

But meeting both conditions simultaneously placed very high demands on hand speed.

The time to unlock the display case, take out the blue sapphire inside, and put it into the System Space, as well as close the display case, needed to be controlled within a fraction of a second.

But how long would it take to attain that kind of hand speed?

Well, night night Makabaka!