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

The second basement level of the Weiguang Technology Building.

This is a restricted area within the company.

There are no windows, no signal, and you need a retinal scan to enter or exit.

The employees privately call this place the "dark room".

The whiteboard was covered with flowcharts, which were marked with huge red crosses.

"President Lin, this is already the third version of the plan."

Product Director Lao Zhao placed a test phone on the table, his eye bags almost drooping down to his chin.

"We referenced Kuaishou, Meipai, and Vine from abroad, using a dual-column waterfall layout. Clicking play leads to the comment section below, which is currently the most mature interaction logic."

Lin Che sat down in the chair and picked up his phone.

The screen displays two columns of video thumbnails.

Users need to browse the titles, look at the cover images, and then decide which one to click.

"Mature?"

Lin Che swiped twice and tossed his phone back onto the table.

Snapped.

The sound was crisp, making Old Zhao's heart tremble.

"Maturity means mediocrity."

Lin Che stood up and walked to the whiteboard.

He picked up an eraser and wiped the interactive diagrams that Lao Zhao's team had spent three sleepless nights drawing clean.

Whiteboard dust fell down in a flurry, like a white snowfall.

"Old Zhao."

With his back to everyone, Lin Che made a dot on the whiteboard with a marker in his hand.

Why do you think users should watch short videos?

Old Zhao paused for a moment, then asked, "For...information? Or for entertainment?"

"wrong."

Lin Che turned around. His eyes were as cold as if he were dissecting a corpse.

"It's to escape."

"To escape the pressure of work, to escape the mediocrity of life, to escape the overload of the brain."

Lin Che pointed to the spot he had just wiped away.

"You're giving them two columns, giving them titles, giving them covers; you're forcing them to make choices, 'Should I click on this?' 'Is this attractive?'"

"Every choice is a psychological burden."

"This is against human nature."

Lin Che turned around and drew a huge rectangle on the whiteboard.

It filled the entire whiteboard.

"I only have one request."

He wrote two words in the middle of the rectangle: Full Screen.

"Remove the status bar, remove the battery display, remove the time; I want users to not even notice the passage of time."

Remove the title list and the pause button (autoplay is the default).

"Open the app, play it directly, make the sound loud, and fill the screen."

Old Zhao's eyes widened: "Then... what if a user doesn't like the video? Isn't there a back button?"

"No need to return."

Lin Che made an upward sliding motion with his finger in the air.

Light and airy.

decisive.

"Don't like it? Swipe up."

"Next."

"Still not satisfied? Let's skate some more."

"Next."

Lin Che drew an upward arrow on the whiteboard.

↑

"Take back the choice and let us choose for them."

"This..." Old Zhao felt his product philosophy was crumbling. "This is depriving users of their freedom! This is too domineering; users will resent it!"

"free?"

Lin Che smiled.

He walked up to Wang Jian.

"Wang Jian, is the recommendation algorithm for Microlight Brain ready?"

Wang Jian had been coding on his laptop in the corner. When he heard roll call, he immediately looked up.

"We're ready. We've matched 10 billion user tags with video content. In theory, if a user swipes 5 times, we can calculate their general preferences, and if they swipe 20 times, we can know them better than their mother."

"very good."

Lin Che handed the test phone to Wang Jian.

"Delete this garbage double-column system. Now, right now, write a demo."

"Just do as I say, full screen, single column, infinite swipe up."

"Connect to the Micro-Light Brain".

……

……

Two hours later.

The air inside the dark room was even more murky.

The takeout boxes were piled up in the corner, untouched.

Wang Jian connected his phone to the projector.

"Boss, the simplified version is ready. For now, the content library uses funny videos and compilations of beautiful women scraped by web crawlers."

The screen lights up.

GG is not running. There is no complicated registration process.

The image completely filled the entire screen.

It's a young lady dressed in Hanfu turning around and smiling.

The background music is deafeningly loud, ancient-style electronic music.

It has a very strong visual impact.

Old Zhao frowned: "That's too rough..."

Lin Che didn't speak. He picked up his phone.

Slide up.

The scene switched instantly.

It's a hilarious moment when a cat accidentally falls into the water, accompanied by infectious laughter.

Slide again.

She is a hot car model.

Slide again.

It's an extremely relaxing video of cutting soap.

Lin Che slid very fast.

But Lao Zhao and several product managers were unknowingly drawn to it.

The projection screen looked like a glowing black hole.

You never know what the next video will be.

It could be a surprise, it could be boring, it could be exciting.

This feeling of the "unknown" is addictive.

It's like opening a blind box. Or like playing a slot machine.

"stop."

Lin Che suddenly stopped pointing.

He looked at Old Zhao.

"Old Zhao, how many minutes have passed?"

Old Zhao paused for a moment, then subconsciously glanced at his watch.

Then, he gasped.

"Fifteen...fifteen minutes?"

He felt like only two or three minutes had passed!

During those fifteen minutes, he didn't think, didn't get distracted, and even forgot about the toilet he had been wanting to go to.

His brain was in a strange "vacuum" state.

Pure stimulation of only sight and hearing.

Lin Che threw his phone on the table.

"The human brain has a reward mechanism; when you anticipate the next unknown reward, the brain releases dopamine."

"The upward swiping motion is like turning on the dopamine pump."

"Thinking is painful; we must eliminate thinking."

"As long as you scroll up, the next climax is just around the corner."

Lin Che's voice echoed in the quiet, dark room.

It possesses a chilling insight.

Everyone here is a veteran of the internet industry.

But at that moment, looking at the still-lit screen of the phone on the table, they felt a sense of fear.

They are creating a monster.

A monster that can devour human time.

"Boss..."

Wang Jian swallowed hard. "This algorithm... is a bit too harsh. The backend data just showed that you lingered on that 'cutting the soap' video for 8 seconds, and the system immediately determined that you have a 'stress-relieving tendency.' Two out of the next three videos pushed to you are stress-relieving videos."

"This is what we want."

Lin Che walked up to the whiteboard.

He wrote a few words above the full-screen box.

[Weiguang Video]

(Note: This is a provisional name, intended to mislead competitors. Its core concept is the future Douyin.)

"Old Zhao." Lin Che looked at the product director.

"Yes." Old Zhao no longer had any doubts, only awe.

"Cut off all unnecessary features. I want it to be extremely fast, extremely clear, and..."

Lin Che pointed at Wang Jian.

"Add the 'beauty filter' to my system."

"I want to make ordinary people look like celebrities in photos; I want to make this world look better than reality."

"So beautiful...that they didn't want to wake up."

……

……

late at night.

Lin Che walked out of the Weiguang Building.

The night breeze in Beijing is quite cool.

He lit a cigarette and looked at the office buildings in the distance that were still lit up.

That's Baidu, that's Tencent, that's Sina.

Those giants are still fighting tooth and nail for "traffic entry points".

They are also vying for search results, social network connections, and long-form video copyrights.

No one knew that a sickle had already been sharpened.

This sickle doesn't harvest money.

It harvests humanity's most precious and non-renewable resource—time.

Shen Nan followed behind, holding a piece of intelligence he had just received.

"Boss, there's some activity in Silicon Valley. It seems like Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook is also paying attention to AI recommendation feeds, and..."

Shen Nan lowered his voice.

"A rumor has spread in the headhunting industry that a madman has emerged in China who wants to use AI to control human dopamine."

Lin Che exhaled a smoke ring.

The smoke dissipated under the streetlights.

"mad Men?"

He smiled and stubbed out his cigarette.

"No."

"It is the Creator."