Searching for "pinhole camera" on Baidu, the top eight results all displayed promotional tags, indicating that those eight webpages had paid for placement with the Baidu company.

A subsequent search for "pinhole cameras" yielded nine promotional links right at the top.

"This is called bid ranking. Whoever pays more gets listed higher. All these sites have paid Baidu," the chubby boy explained.

In both searches, besides the main results page, there were an additional eight or nine promotional links displayed in the ad space on the right side of the page.

"These also cost money. They have to pay Baidu to appear here," the chubby boy added.

"Holy hell!" Fatty Dragon let out a strange cry, his eyes wide as he questioned, "Aren't pinhole cameras illegal? How dare Baidu advertise them?"

The chubby boy shook his head. "Baidu is just a rotten scoundrel. As long as it makes money, they'll dare to do anything."

Saying this, the chubby boy clicked on every single promotional link, remarking, "These dozen or so clicks I just made will bring Baidu tens of yuan in revenue. This is more lucrative than drug trafficking, which is why Baidu risks breaking the law."

Fatty Dragon didn't quite grasp it. "Where does that tens of yuan come from?"

"I get it now," Wang Zhuo interjected. "The owners of these websites pay Baidu. Whoever pays the most gets ranked first, and every time someone clicks their link, Baidu charges them again, right?"

"Exactly," the chubby boy nodded. "That's why things sold on these promoted sites are extremely expensive, often ten times the wholesale price, or sometimes they're just selling counterfeit goods to swindle money. A large chunk of the profit they make is then taken by Baidu. Baidu is the biggest vampire."

Fatty Dragon finally understood the mechanism. "No wonder those weight loss pills I bought on Baidu for eight hundred yuan had no effect. They must have been fakes."

"There are no genuine weight loss pills on Baidu at all," the chubby boy explained patiently, trying to build rapport. "According to statistics, only one in ten clicks leads to an inquiry, and only one in ten inquiries results in a purchase. So, the pharmacy sites have already paid promotion fees to Baidu totaling four, five, or even six hundred yuan for those hundred clicks. How could they possibly afford to stock real medicine?"

Fatty Dragon nodded in agreement, muttering, "Damn Baidu."

Wang Zhuo looked at the websites found through Baidu's promotional links. Just as the chubby boy said, the goods sold here were a motley assortment of everything imaginable: pinhole cameras, watch-style recorders, wireless transceivers, magnetic stripe readers, decoders, and more. It was like stepping into Q's laboratory from a James Bond movie.

"Hey, here it is!" Fatty Dragon suddenly pointed to an image on the screen. "Isn't this the exact same pinhole camera he used?"

Wang Zhuo looked and indeed, it was identical. Beneath the picture was marked: Original Price 800, Member Discount 20% off for 640. Telephone order, home delivery, cash on delivery—truly door-to-door service!

"This company must be huge if they can even ship nationwide?"

The chubby boy managed a wry smile and shook his head. "The courier company delivers it. They offer a cash-on-delivery service."

Wang Zhuo didn't believe it. "Courier companies dare to deliver things like this?"

"Even if you mailed them a bag of ecstasy pills, they'd deliver it to the specified location."

Wang Zhuo was speechless. So, courier companies were just as formidable as Baidu!

Just then, Fatty Dragon said somewhat dejectedly, "What format is this recording in? My phone can't play it."

"You can watch it on a computer," the chubby boy replied cooperatively, pulling out a flash drive card reader and handing it over.

"Fine, I believe you bought these things from Baidu," Wang Zhuo chuckled wryly, then asked, "Now, tell us about your method of operation."

The chubby boy asked timidly, "Will you turn me over to the police?"

"We'll see," Wang Zhuo didn't give a direct answer. He had disliked the police since childhood, not just because they had colluded with judges to frame his father, but also because of Criminal Police Squadron Leader Li Jinjun, who had tried to drag him into the station by twisting facts.

The chubby boy, resigned, proceeded to detail the entire process of his crime.

"So, when I entered the AT room, your skimming device copied my bank card information. When I entered my PIN at the ATM, your pinhole camera filmed my password. Then you used my card information to create a new card. As long as I don't change the PIN, you can take money out of my account whenever you want?" Wang Zhuo stared into the chubby boy's eyes. "It's that simple?"

Fatty Dragon also stopped what he was doing and glared at the chubby boy. Only now did he fully grasp the chain of events. It turned out this unremarkable-looking chubby boy was a master criminal, pulling off something far more audacious than secretly filming women's restrooms!

"It sounds easy, but it's not quite that simple..." The chubby boy scratched his head awkwardly. "I made the casings for the pinhole camera and the card reader by hand; it took two days. The card reader was modified; otherwise, it wouldn't work. And the card writing equipment isn't available commercially; I had to acquire it through special channels, and even then, it required modification after I got it."

"Special channels? You mean Baidu," Fatty Dragon sneered coldly.

The chubby boy nodded awkwardly.

Fatty Dragon opened the Baidu homepage and typed in "Aphrodisiac Powder." This time, there were no promotional links, but the first result was a company website selling such items, also offering nationwide delivery with cash on delivery, complete with a 400 service hotline.

"It even has a 400 number. Is this a legitimate company?" Wang Zhuo found it strange.

The chubby boy whispered, "If you pay six hundred yuan, you can also get a 400 number. That's a deceptive tool too, just as rogue as Baidu."

"You're more of a rogue than a rogue!" Fatty Dragon glared at him irritably, then asked Wang Zhuo, "Let's hand this kid over to the police. This is a big deal; I think the bank's whole system will need upgrading."

"I'm really not a repeat offender, Big Brother!" The chubby boy's legs went weak, and he slumped to the floor in fright. "I swear on my life, this is my first time. May I be struck by lightning if I lie!"

"Who'd believe you," Fatty Dragon tossed the card reader onto the ground. Since there were no videos of secret bathroom filming inside, he couldn't be bothered to look further.

"Big Brothers, I'm not lying to you, I can prove it!" The chubby boy's eyes were welling up with tears. "If you don't turn me over to the police, I'll do whatever you want. I'll give you all the money I steal, and I'll turn over a new leaf. I don't want to go to jail."

"We wouldn't dare take your money," Fatty Dragon remained unmoved. "You look quite delicate; clean yourself up and wait to get beaten up by your cellmates!"

"How can you prove it?" Wang Zhuo remembered his father who was currently imprisoned and felt a flicker of sympathy.

The chubby boy hesitated for a moment, then whispered, "I... I know you. Your name is Wang Zhuo."

Fatty Dragon scoffed, warning him, "Don't try to cozy up to him. I called out your name when I took him down earlier."

"No, I knew your name before that," the chubby boy rushed to say. "That short video clip of you fighting the 'Shamateur'—I recorded that."

Wang Zhuo and Fatty Dragon were instantly astonished; they hadn't expected to hear such an unexpected detail.

"I'm a security guard at Liyuan Community, in charge of the monitoring room. I happened to be on duty the day you fought," the chubby boy poured out the story like beans from a bamboo tube. "There were three of us in the monitoring room, and we thought the fight was spectacular, so we recorded it and saved it on our phones. Later, we showed it off to friends, and it slowly spread."

"So you guys were the ones who put the video online," Fatty Dragon realized with a start.

Wang Zhuo held up a hand, interrupting him, and quickly asked, "Then what happened to the gun?"

"A security guard named Da Yang picked it up. Later, he sold it to a collector on Antique Street for five thousand yuan," the chubby boy said with a pained expression. "Besides him and me, there was another guy named Xiao Huang in the monitoring room. Later, Da Yang gave each of us five hundred yuan, saying it was 'finders keepers.'"

"Did the police look for you?" Wang Zhuo asked.

"When that video first went online, none of us paid it much mind. But the video quickly went viral, and many people started asking about the gun's whereabouts, so I knew I was in trouble. I specifically searched online and found out that privately possessing and selling firearms carries a sentence of three to ten years in prison, so I went into hiding."

Fatty Dragon immediately burst out laughing upon hearing this. "You're an idiot! The gun wasn't sold by you; why did you run?"

The chubby boy managed a bitter smile. "Do you think the police would listen to my explanation?"

"Uh..." Fatty Dragon thought for a moment, then chuckled and shook his head. "They'd definitely arrest you first, regardless of whether you were involved or not."

"You two have quite a strong prejudice against the police," Wang Zhuo pointed his finger at both of them.

In fact, among the three of them, the one with the deepest prejudice against the police was Wang Zhuo himself; otherwise, he would have called 110 long ago.

"When I went into hiding, I hadn't even received last month's salary yet. I only had two thousand yuan left on me, so I didn't dare go home or look for work. With no other option, I bought these things, hoping to steal some money to get by. This was my second attempt, and I got caught by you."

"What about the first time? What did you get?" Fatty Dragon asked.

The chubby boy smiled bitterly again. "The first time was late last night. The pinhole camera's battery only lasts forty minutes, and it ran out of power before anyone even tried to withdraw money."

Saying this, he pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pants pocket and handed it to Wang Zhuo. "Look, this is the express delivery slip for the pinhole camera I received the day before yesterday. Coupled with the time it took me to make the disguise casing, I really am a first-time offender who hasn't even succeeded yet."

Wang Zhuo took the receipt and examined it carefully. The shipping location was Shenzhen Huaqiangbei Electronics Market, and the sign-off time was indeed the day before yesterday.

Fatty Dragon asked, "Then how do you prove you've never done this before?"

The chubby boy sighed sadly, his face full of worry. "If I knew how to do this stuff before, why would I bother working as a security guard?"

Wang Zhuo and Fatty Dragon both nodded simultaneously. What the chubby boy said was true: this kind of crime was highly covert, had a high success rate, and offered massive returns. Just cloning a few cards would be enough for him to live comfortably for a long time. Someone who knew this trick wouldn't be working as a security guard.

"What's your name?" Wang Zhuo asked.

"My surname is Cheng—Cheng like in Cheng Long [Jackie Chan's Chinese name]. My full name is Cheng Tiankun," the chubby boy said. "Everyone calls me Zi Cheng."

"That's a great name!" Fatty Dragon suddenly burst out laughing, pointing at Cheng Tiankun, and saying to Wang Zhuo, "Take the character 'Kun' apart vertically and read it connected to his given name. See what effect it has? Hahahaha!"