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

The second basement level of the Weiguang Building is a "dark room".

"Mr. Lin, this is Beta version 0.5."

Product Director Lao Zhao, sporting two huge dark circles under his eyes, handed over a brand new iPhone.

"Although you said you wanted it to be minimalist, for the sake of user experience, we still... made some slight optimizations."

Old Zhao's voice grew softer and softer.

Lin Che took the phone.

The screen lights up.

It is indeed a full-screen video, and it does play automatically.

But in the upper right corner of the screen, there is a small magnifying glass icon (search).

In the bottom left corner, there is a semi-transparent "three" shaped menu button (Categories).

"Explain."

Lin Che didn't click on anything; he just stared at the two icons.

His tone was as calm as if he were asking about today's weather.

Old Zhao swallowed hard, attempting to defend himself from a professional perspective.

"Mr. Lin, it's like this. Our team has reviewed the process thirty times. Although the 'single-column layout' is cool, there are always times when users want to find specific content, right? For example, they might want to see beautiful women or funny content. If there are no categories, users will get lost."

"And what about search? What if a user wants to search for a particular internet celebrity?"

"These are standard features for internet products; without them, it's a crippled product..."

The product managers around him nodded in agreement, their eyes revealing a stubborn determination that "we are doing this for the good of the company."

Lin Che didn't speak.

He walked up to the whiteboard.

There is the famous "single arrow" sketch drawn there.

He picked up the blackboard eraser.

Nourishes—

A harsh, grating sound.

"Connect the computer to the big screen," Lin Che ordered.

Wang Jian immediately did as instructed.

The projected screen displayed the app's backend code architecture.

Which lines of code are responsible for searching and categorizing?

Old Zhao paused for a moment: "Module C and Module F, but Lin Che..."

"Deleted."

Lin Che threw the blackboard eraser. The eraser hit the table, bounced twice, and then stopped moving.

The meeting room was deathly silent.

"Mr. Lin, these are the result of our brothers staying up for two nights straight..."

"I'll say it again, I've deleted it."

Lin Che turned around, placed his hands on the edge of the table, leaned forward, and a sense of oppression enveloped Lao Zhao like a mountain.

"Old Zhao, you still don't understand what I'm saying."

"You think we're making a tool? No, we're making a feeder."

Lin Che stretched out a finger and pointed at the magnifying glass icon.

"Searching means that the user has 'autonomy'; he knows what he wants to see, and he needs to use his brain to think of keywords, input them, and filter them."

"This is human behavior."

"But I don't need them to be human."

Lin Che's voice was very soft, but it sent a chill down the spines of everyone present.

"I want them to be 'pigs'."

"Open your mouth and wait for us to feed you. You don't need to think, you don't need to choose, and you don't even need to know what you'll eat next."

"Search is the biggest distraction, and categorization is the biggest burden."

"When users start thinking about 'what I want to see,' dopamine release stops, and anxiety is generated."

"What we need to do is put the spoon in their mouths."

Lin Che straightened up and his eyes swept over everyone present.

"Today's users are already overloaded with their brains, replying to messages on WeChat, comparing prices on Taobao, and searching for information on Baidu every day."

"They don't need 'features'."

"What they need is—a brain massage."

Lin Che walked behind Wang Jian and tapped a few keys on the keyboard.

That's the delete key.

Da, da, da.

The crisp sound of the keyboard seemed to toll a death knell for the logic of traditional internet products.

"Wang Jian, execute."

Without any hesitation, Wang Jian's fingers flew across the keyboard.

Large chunks of code disappeared from the screen.

Old Zhao watched as the function he had painstakingly developed was completely deleted. His lips moved, but in the end, he didn't dare to utter a sound.

A few minutes later.

The new version of the installation package has been generated.

Lin Che picked up his phone again.

This time, there were no extra icons on the screen except for the full-screen video.

It was so clean it was outrageous.

There isn't even a pause button.

There's only one implicit logic: swipe up to switch to another page.

Lin Che slid.

Video switching.

Slide again.

Switch.

That smoothness, that silky feel that requires no brainpower, is finally back.

"This is the true 'forge of time'."

Lin Che stared at the screen, a hint of disorientation flashing in his eyes.

He seemed to see the Beijing subway from his past life.

During the morning rush hour, the crowded carriages of Line 10 were deathly still.

But if you look closely, you'll notice an eerie neatness.

Of the seven people sitting in a row, five of them were making the same gesture with their thumbs—sliding them up.

There was no communication, no expression, only the faint blue light of the screen reflected on their faces.

They weren't looking at their phones; they were injecting electronic heroin through that glowing glass.

That is the future that Lin Che wants to create.

"But Mr. Lin..."

Technical expert Li Ming broke the silence, pointing to the phone screen, "The current casing is perfect, and the interaction is incredibly smooth, but..."

"Just having this shell is useless."

Li Ming clicked on the video.

"We only have a few thousand videos scraped by web crawlers in our library, most of which are old clips from Youku and Tudou. The video quality is poor, the size is wrong, and they look like mosaics when displayed in full screen."

"Moreover, the content is too mixed up; it's mostly just comedy and car crash compilations."

"The gun is finished," Li Ming said with a wry smile, "but we don't have any bullets."

This is indeed the biggest problem right now.

Algorithms need data to be fed, and users need content to be retained.

A cold start without high-quality content is suicidal.

Lin Che put his phone back in his pocket.

He walked to the window. Although it was a basement with no windows, only a cold cement wall.

"bullet?"

Lin Che smiled. He took out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, pulled one out, and tapped it on the pack.

"The internet has no shortage of bullets."

"But what we need are special-purpose missiles."

He turned around and looked at Old Zhao.

"Old Zhao, did you work at Inke before?"

"Yes." Old Zhao nodded, "I worked as the vice president of operations for half a year."

"Do we still have the resources we need?"

Old Zhao paused for a moment: "You mean those guilds and agents? I do have their contact information, but Inke is booming right now, and those streamers are very expensive. Besides, they're used to making quick money through live streaming, so they might not be willing to shoot these short videos of ten seconds or so..."

"Who said we were going to find those top-tier livestreamers?"

Lin Che waved his hand.

"Those people have been spoiled. They have too much hyaluronic acid on their faces and a strong sense of vulgarity about them."

"What I'm looking for is an 'amateur'."

Lin Che walked to the other side of the whiteboard, which was still blank.

He picked up his pen and wrote down three words.

High颜值 (good looks).

Strong contrast.

Fast-paced.

"The current short video platforms, like Kuaishou, are like rural areas surrounding the cities, with screens full of '666' comments and videos of people eating raw or bizarre things. That's 'aesthetics of ugliness'."

"What we need to do is use a dimensional reduction attack."

"I want aesthetic tyranny."

Lin Che drew a heavy circle around the words "high-value appearance" with the tip of his pen.

"Go and find me all the prettiest girls in all of Beijing."

"Campus beauties from Beijing Film Academy and Central Academy of Drama, street models from Sanlitun, and even just good-looking passersby."

"Tell them that they don't need to sing, they don't need to dance, and they don't need to tell jokes here."

"As long as you're good-looking and can smile in front of the camera."

"Leave the rest to technology."

Lin Che looked at Wang Jian, who had remained silent.

"Wang Jian, is that thing finished?"

Wang Jian pushed up his glasses, and a glint of light flashed behind the lenses.

"As per your request, the beauty filter V1.0 based on the facial key point detection technology of the micro-light brain has been packaged."

"Once enabled, features like big eyes, slim face, and skin smoothing are rendered in real-time with a latency of less than 30 milliseconds."

"very good."

Lin Che snapped his fingers.

"This is the 'drug' we're going to give them."

"In this world, no woman can resist the magic mirror that makes her more beautiful."

"Old Zhao."

"exist."

"With my checkbook and a phone with the Beta version installed, I went to Sanlitun and the University Town."

Lin Che's voice carried an undeniable inflammatory quality.

"Go tell those girls who yearn for fame: a glimmer of light can make them queens in fifteen seconds."

Project code name: Dopamine.

"All personnel are now in operational readiness mode."

Lin Che glanced at the digital clock on the wall.

There are 40 days left until the Spring Festival.

That was the point in time when TikTok truly exploded in the past.

This is also the only opportunity that Weiguang must seize.

"We want to light a fire this winter."

Lin Che stubbed out the unlit cigarette in his hand.

"A fire that burns away the old era."