The richest man started taking advantage of loopholes after joining Alibaba.

Hangzhou, Wensan Road.

The midday sun was scorching, and the asphalt road surface was softened by the heat.

Outside a popular "Braised Chicken Rice" restaurant.

"Where's the form? Who took my form?!"

A station manager wearing a yellow Meituan vest was yelling at a group of sweating delivery riders through a megaphone.

Behind him was a huge whiteboard, densely covered with order numbers and addresses. The handwriting was messy, and some of it was smudged by sweat.

"WeChat group! Check the WeChat group!"

The stationmaster's voice became hoarse from shouting.

His old Android phone was vibrating wildly.

Dozens of WeChat groups were ringing simultaneously, with voice messages, text messages, and pictures flooding in like a torrent.

"Gudang New Village, Unit 302, anyone going?!"

"Nobody's going? Two more dollars!"

"Old Wang, why haven't you delivered it yet? The customer's cursing!"

confusion.

Utter chaos.

This was the state of the food delivery industry in 2015.

Although it is dressed in the high-tech guise of the Internet, the underlying scheduling logic is still stuck in the primitive stage of "communication basically relies on shouting".

Riders rely on their speed to grab orders, and their imagination to figure out delivery routes.

Once an order surge occurs, the entire system will crash like an overloaded tractor, belching black smoke.

……

A few kilometers away. The Weiguang Building.

Two underground floors.

There is no sunlight here, only a constant 22-degree Celsius air conditioning and the low-frequency hum of thousands of servers running.

This is the heart of the glimmer of light.

It's also the machine that's taking over the city's transportation capacity—the "Micro-Light Brain".

A huge circular screen occupies the entire wall.

On the screen is a breathtaking dynamic map.

There are no messy WeChat groups, and no yelling website administrators.

Only countless flowing rays of light.

Each line represents a task that is being performed.

"Dual order rate: 4.8%"

"Path overlap: 92%"

Lin Che stood in front of the screen.

He held an iced Americano in his hand, his gaze calmly sweeping over the fluctuating data.

Behind him was the chief algorithm scientist, recruited from Silicon Valley, demonstrating to Fatty Wang the terrifying nature of the system.

"Hey Fatty, look at this delivery rider."

The scientist pointed to a purple dot on the screen.

Number: WS-9527.

"He currently has five takeout orders in his car."

"If it were a Meituan delivery rider, they would be going crazy by now, because these 5 takeout orders could be in the four cardinal directions."

The scientist taps the screen with his finger.

The path of the light spot was instantly highlighted.

A perfect zigzag line with no turning back.

"But our system calculates the globally optimal solution the instant the order is dispatched."

"Pickup points A, B, and C are all on the same street."

"Delivery points D, E, and F are all in the same residential area or in office buildings along the same route."

"He doesn't need to think. He just needs to follow the navigation."

Fatty Wang was dumbfounded.

"This works?"

"This isn't delivering food, it's doing math problems!"

Lin Che turned around.

The ice cubes clinked together inside the glass.

"That's what you call a regular army."

He walked to the control panel and tapped his fingers lightly on the smooth metal surface.

"Wang Xing and Zhang Xuhao are still using a large number of people as a tactic."

"They thought the more people they recruited, the faster they could deliver."

"But when it comes to algorithms, the number of people is just the denominator."

Lin Che pointed to the "4.8" order rate.

"One of our riders can deliver 5 orders in one trip."

"Their riders can only deliver one order per trip, and they have to stop on the roadside to listen to WeChat voice messages."

"That's a 5-fold efficiency difference."

"That's why we can pay our riders high wages, guarantee delivery within 30 minutes, and..."

A cruel smile curled at the corner of Lin Che's lips.

"Our cost per order is half that of theirs."

……

at the same time.

A silent "defection" is taking place in the merchant back-end systems of Meituan and Ele.me.

The owner of a mala tang restaurant that sells thousands of orders a day is yelling at Meituan's regional manager.

"What's wrong with your riders?!"

The boss slammed his phone on the table.

The screen was full of negative reviews.

The food spilled all over the bag, how am I supposed to eat it?

[40 minutes overtime, the noodles were all soggy, bad review!]

The rider had an extremely poor attitude; he couldn't find the way and even swore at people!

"If you keep doing this, you'll ruin my shop!"

The manager was sweating profusely and kept apologizing.

"Boss, we've been getting a huge surge in orders these past few days, we're short-staffed..."

"Is a shortage of manpower a valid excuse?"

The boss snorted coldly.

He pointed to the Shaxian Snacks restaurant next door.

"Look at the neighbors next door, they're using micro-light flash delivery."

"Just put that purple cabinet there, the rider stuffs the food in and goes, fast and steady."

"I don't care."

The boss pulled out a freshly printed A4 sheet of paper and slammed it hard on a prominent spot at the food serving area.

The paper had several bold characters written on it:

[Friendly Reminder: To ensure the best taste, we recommend that you specify "Wuhan Delivery" in the remarks section.]

The manager's face turned green instantly.

What is this?

Eating Meituan's food while smashing Meituan's pot?

What's even more frightening is that this phenomenon is not an isolated case.

In Hangzhou's major business districts, more and more merchants are proactively guiding users to choose Weiguang.

Because merchants aren't stupid.

Negative reviews can be fatal.

And that glimmer of light was their lifeline.

……

Weiguang Building.

Lin Che looked at the latest merchant data report.

[Merchant proactive guidance rate: 35%]

"Did you see that?"

Lin Che threw the report on the table.

"This is a case of dimensional reduction attack."

"We don't need to beg merchants to join us."

"As long as our service is good enough, merchants will force the platform to use us."

He walked to the floor-to-ceiling window and looked down at the city.

In the distance, Meituan and Ele.me delivery riders were still running around aimlessly under the scorching sun.

Meanwhile, the purple army of Weiguang is efficiently carving up market share, following the optimal path planned by the algorithm, like a precise machine.

"Fatty."

Lin Che's voice was deep and powerful.

"Remember this sentence."

"Don't use tactical diligence to cover up strategic laziness."

He reached out his hand through the glass, as if he wanted to crush the Meituan branch office building in the distance.

"They are testing their physical strength."

"That's the way of fighting in an agrarian civilization."

"And me."

Lin Che pointed to the buzzing machine room at his feet.

"They're competing on computing power."

"This is the massacre of agrarian civilization by industrial civilization."

……

Beijing. Wangjing.

Meituan headquarters.

Wang Xing sat in his office, staring at the data on his computer screen.

That's the latest battle report from the Hangzhou market.

A sea of ​​crimson.

Meituan's market share in Hangzhou dropped by 20% within a month.

All the complaints pointed to the same problem: slow delivery.

"A glimmer of light..."

Wang Xing pushed up his glasses, and a cold glint flashed behind the lenses.

He always thought that Weiguang was just a ride-hailing guy and that doing food delivery was just a hobby.

But now he realizes he was wrong.

That's completely wrong.

That Lin Che doesn't just have a ragtag army of deliverymen in his hands.

Instead, it is an intelligent scheduling system that is at least three years ahead of its time.

"Mr. Wang, should we increase the subsidy?"

The VP next to me asked cautiously.

"subsidy?"

Wang Xing shook his head.

He turned off the screen and stood up.

"Subsidies can't save efficiency."

"No amount of money can bridge the five-fold efficiency gap."

He paced back and forth in his office.

That unique blend of calmness and anxiety characteristic of geeks was intertwined in him.

If Meituan doesn't solve its transportation capacity problem, it will be a giant with a broken leg.

No matter how strong the ground promotion is, no matter how many merchants there are, if the food can't be delivered to your mouth, it's all for nothing.

a long time.

Wang Xing stopped in his tracks.

He looked out the window towards the south.

That's the direction of Hangzhou.

"Book me a ticket."

Wang Xing's voice was calm, but it conveyed a sense of determination.

"Where to?"

"Hangzhou".

Wang Xing straightened the slightly wrinkled T-shirt.

"I'm going to see Lin Che."

"Let's go see that legendary... luminous brain."

He couldn't sleep unless he saw it for himself.

Or.

If Meituan doesn't win over Lin Che, it might really lose this food delivery battle.