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

Chapter 202 The First Domino!

The next day, early in the morning.

The Beijing Subway Line 10 is as crowded as a sardine can during the morning rush hour.

Li Wenbo was squeezed into a corner of the carriage, his face pressed against the cold glass door.

He is a typical internet migrant worker, working in Xierqi with a monthly salary of 20,000 yuan, but living like a nobody in this city.

He struggled to pull out his phone and habitually opened the Weiguang app.

Last night's press conference went viral on social media. His micro-score was 680, just enough to qualify for the deposit waiver.

"Since Hello doesn't cost money, I'll just refund the 199 yuan from ofo."

Li Wenbo was making plans in his mind.

199 yuan is enough for him to eat for two weeks, or buy a skin in a game.

He switched to ofo's yellow app, skillfully found "Wallet," and clicked "Refund Deposit."

Normally, this process only takes a few seconds, and the system will prompt "The refund will be returned to the original payment method within 0-3 business days".

But today, a long circle appeared on the screen.

The yellow loading ring spun round and round, as if mocking his patience.

A full minute passed.

The pop-up finally appeared, but instead of "Submission Successful," it displayed a line of cold, red text:

[System busy, please try again later]

"Um?"

Li Wenbo frowned. He ordered it again.

[System busy, please try again later]

The third time. The fourth time.

He wasn't the only one in the carriage.

A girl wearing glasses standing next to him was also frantically tapping her phone screen, muttering under her breath, "What's wrong? Did it crash?"

Li Wenbo suddenly had a bad feeling.

He opened Weibo and typed "ofo deposit refund".

At number 48 on the trending topics list, an inconspicuous topic is quietly climbing: #ofo deposit refund failed#.

Although there were only a few thousand comments, each one conveyed an indescribable anxiety.

"I've tried to cancel three times and failed each time. What the hell?"

"I can't get through to customer service; the line is always busy."

"When Weiguang released their deposit-free offer, I bet everyone rushed to cancel their orders, causing the server to crash, right?"

Li Wenbo stared at that topic.

Panic, like the flu virus in this train carriage, though invisible, is rapidly infecting every corner of the city.

……

Zhongguancun, the internet finance center.

The conference room at ofo's headquarters was filled with smoke.

The ground was littered with cigarette butts, and Starbucks coffee cups were piled up like mountains.

Dai Wei's eyes were bloodshot, and his tie was loosened and hanging around his neck.

What is the current number of refund requests?

His voice was hoarse, as if he had a mouthful of sand in it.

"120 million orders."

The technical director stared at the almost vertical red curve on the big screen, his voice trembling.

"Mr. Dai, in the past hour, another 30 people clicked for refunds. Our payment interface really can't handle it. Alipay just throttled our API."

120 million orders.

Multiply by 199 yuan.

Two hundred and forty million.

This is just the amount lost in one morning.

If this pace continues, ofo's meager cash flow for maintaining operations won't last more than three days.

"We can't let them back down."

An investor representative slammed his fist on the table. He was a middle-aged man in an elegant suit, but at that moment he showed absolutely no manners.

"If these 200 million are released, panic will spread across the entire internet. Then it won't be 1 million people withdrawing, it will be 10 million! That's a run on 2 billion!"

"Stop the bleeding! Immediately! Right now!"

Dai Wei closed his eyes in pain.

He knew what this meant.

If they don't refund, it's a breach of contract, a breach of trust, and it pushes the user to the opposite side.

But if we withdraw, the company will die immediately.

This is a dead end.

"Change the rules."

Dai Wei opened his eyes, his gaze revealing the final madness of a gambler.

"Notify the technical department to revise the app's refund policy."

"Change '0-3 business days to arrive' to..." Dai Wei gritted his teeth, "...to '0-15 business days'."

The conference room was deathly silent.

Everyone stared at him in horror.

The timeframe has been changed from 3 days to 15 days. This is not just an extension of time; it's a message to the whole society: we're failing, we're stalling for time.

This is tantamount to drinking poison to quench thirst.

"Didn't you hear me?!" Dai Wei roared, "Go and fix it! We'll stall for as long as we can! As long as we can get through these two weeks, as long as we can secure the next round of funding..."

The CTO's hands trembled as he typed those few lines of code on the keyboard.

The Enter key makes a crisp "snap" sound when it is pressed.

……

Microlight Technology, top-floor office.

Lin Che stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, holding a tablet in his hand, on which was a newly published article.

That was an in-depth report exclusively planned by "Weiguang Finance," with a title of only a few words, yet every word was piercing:

The Vanished Billions in Deposits: Where Did ofo's Money Go?

The article contains no emotional vocabulary, only cold data analysis, supply chain debt investigation, and a shocking chart of fund flows.

The chart shows that ofo misappropriated more than 30 billion yuan of user deposits to purchase financial products, pay exorbitant fees, and cover its ever-growing operating losses.

"Boss, ofo has changed the rules."

Shen Nan pushed the door open and came in, his tone filled with disbelief.

"They've extended the refund period to 15 days. The internet is in an uproar."

Lin Che looked out the window at the gray sky.

"Dai Wei is getting anxious."

Lin Che spoke in a calm tone, as if he were discussing the weather.

"He thought that buying time would give him some breathing room, but he forgot that in this information age, fear spreads at the speed of light."

"When users find that the door is closed too narrowly, their first reaction is not to wait in line."

"Instead, they smashed the door."

Lin Che turned around and walked to his desk.

On the table was a pre-prepared push notification.

That was the final boulder that broke the camel's back.

"Send it." Lin Che pointed to the document.

Shen Nan glanced at it and gasped.

That wasn't just any ordinary promotional message; it was a top-level "risk warning."

"Boss, if this gets out...ofo is really finished."

"They're finished a long time ago."

Lin Che picked up his pen and signed his name on the document.

"I'm just helping them end this farce with some dignity."

……

2:30 p.m.

Just as ofo users were angrily cursing because of the "15-day refund period".

Just as the hashtag #ofo deposit refund difficulty# entered the top ten trending topics on Weibo.

The mobile phones of 2 million low-light users across China were once again shaken.

This time, it wasn't the green WeChat or the red JD.com, but a black glimmer of light.

The pop-up window displayed a glaring red exclamation mark.

[Weak Light Security Center - Risk Warning]

"According to big data monitoring, some third-party travel platforms have abnormal fund chains and risks in deposit repayment."

"For the safety of your assets, we recommend that you check for potential losses due to your deposit as soon as possible."

Users with a credit score of 600 or higher can immediately switch to the deposit-free service, eliminating risk and protecting their credit.

This notice was like a spark thrown into a room full of gas.

boom!

Users who were initially hesitant, or who initially thought "199 yuan doesn't matter," were instantly ignited.

Who is Weiguang?

That was a giant that had just finished fighting with Tencent and Alibaba, a large platform with hundreds of millions of users.

Even the faintest light is triggering a warning, so what does that mean?

This means that ofo is really going to go bankrupt!

This means that the 199 yuan is really going to be wasted!

Panic escalated into hysteria in an instant.

Li Wenbo was writing code at his workstation when he saw this notification. His hand slipped, and he deleted all the lines of code he had just written.

He neglected his work and frantically opened the ofo app.

What started as "wanting to withdraw" has now become "having to withdraw".

"Give me my money back! You're a scammer! Give me my money back!"

He typed frantically on Weibo, his fingers turning white from the force.

The moment he refreshed the page, he saw the number one trending topic.

It's no longer about celebrity gossip or everyday family matters.

It was a line of striking black text, followed by a dark red "Explode":

#ofo's funding chain breaks#

Under that topic, a photo is being shared wildly.

That's downstairs from the Zhongguancun Internet Finance Center building.

A dozen or so elderly men and women, wrapped in thick military overcoats, were blocking the main entrance, holding up handwritten signs.

The sign had four large, crooked characters written on it: