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

The night view of Beijing's Third Ring Road resembles a flowing river of liquid gold.

Standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows on the top floor of the Weiguang Technology headquarters, the cold touch of the glass curtain wall seeped into my skin through the cuffs of my suit.

Lin Che held a half-empty glass of champagne with the bubbles still rising in his hand, his gaze focused on the red and white stripes of light formed by the converging traffic below.

There was no ecstatic joy of reaching the summit as I had anticipated.

Instead, it was an almost pathological calmness, like watching a movie whose ending you already know.

Behind me, the banquet hall was filled with the cloying scents of expensive cigar smoke, perfume, and alcohol.

The crystal chandelier refracted an ambiguous light, the color that money loves most.

"Five million users who have linked their bank cards! This is a miracle!"

"Respect to General Manager Lin! Respect to the glimmer of hope!"

"Cheers!"

The clinking of glasses was as crisp as tapping on some kind of fragile porcelain.

The executives at Weiguang loosened their ties, their usually serious faces now flushed and relaxed due to alcohol and adrenaline.

Just three hours ago, with the official implementation of the ofo trusteeship agreement, 2 billion yuan in cash was like a shot in the arm, injected into the veins of Weiguang.

Backend data shows that the number of real users who have linked their bank cards is increasing dramatically at a rate of hundreds per second.

For this company, which is less than two years old, tonight is a coronation.

Lin Che turned around, his gaze sweeping over the excited faces.

In a daze, memories appeared in double images.

In my past life, it was also a night like this.

Although it wasn't in Beijing, but at a seafood restaurant in Shenzhen.

At that time, he thought he had won; it was a celebration banquet for the Series A funding round.

Everyone was laughing, dreaming about going public, and discussing stock options.

and then?

Then came a phone call, a cold, impersonal notification: the funding chain had broken, and the company had collapsed.

My last memory of that night was of cigarette butts scattered all over the ground and roll-up banners rattling in the wind.

"Mr. Lin, why don't you go have a couple of drinks?"

The marketing director leaned in, holding a wine glass, with a professional, even overly obsequious, smile on his face. "Mr. Li was just saying that at this rate, we should be able to ring the bell on Nasdaq this time next year."

Lin Che looked down at the rising bubbles in his glass.

"Ringing the bell?" he repeated softly, a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth, but no real smile. "Sometimes a bell tolls for a beginning, sometimes for a death knell. Don't get too excited."

The marketing director's smile froze on his face.

"President Lin is so humorous... on such a joyous day..."

"Whether it's a wedding or a funeral, you have to drink alcohol." Lin Che didn't look at him anymore, tilted his head back and poured the sour liquid down his throat.

The cold liquid slid down my esophagus, but it did nothing to quell the inexplicable restlessness in my heart.

This restlessness comes from intuition.

That was the beast-like intuition he had honed through countless business battles.

Everything went too smoothly.

This battle against Zhu Xiaohu and the takeover ofo was executed with such precision that it was like walking a tightrope, yet not a gust of wind was stirred up.

This is not normal.

Just then.

The heavy double mahogany door of the banquet hall was suddenly kicked open.

"Bang!"

The loud noise didn't sound like the door being pushed open; it sounded more like something had slammed heavily onto the door panel.

The noise stopped abruptly, as if cut off by a knife.

Everyone turned to look at the doorway in astonishment.

Li Wenbo stood there.

He gripped a cell phone tightly in his hand, his knuckles turning white from the excessive force.

The Italian handmade suit, specially made for tonight, was soaked with sweat and clung tightly to my back.

"Mr. Lin... Mr. Lin..."

Li Wenbo's voice was hoarse.

Lin Che placed the empty wine glass on the tray of a passing waiter, making a soft sound.

"Turn off the music."

Lin Che's voice wasn't loud, but it had an undeniable penetrating power in the deathly silent banquet hall.

Someone frantically unplugged the speaker.

Lin Che walked through the crowd, the sound of his leather shoes hitting the marble floor clearly audible.

He walked up to Li Wenbo, without asking what was wrong, but simply reached out and supported the other's swaying shoulder.

Beneath his palm, Li Wenbo's muscles were spasming uncontrollably.

"B2..." Li Wenbo swallowed hard and managed to utter a few words, "The B2 command center... has been blown up."

The surrounding executives gasped in shock.

"Server overload?" someone exclaimed. "Wasn't it tripled redundancy? How much traffic is that?"

"It's not overload."

Li Wenbo raised his phone with trembling hands, the screen facing Lin Che.

That was a real-time screenshot from the operations and maintenance backend.

The screen was a shocking expanse of red.

That was the highest level system alert, indicating that core operations were completely paralyzed.

"Just a minute ago," Li Wenbo said, his voice trembling with tears, "all of Weiguang Payment's transaction channels... were completely cut off, success rate: 0%."

Zero.

These two words were like a bucket of ice water, instantly freezing all the heat in the banquet hall.

The executives who were just discussing the Nasdaq bell-ringing ceremony now looked at each other in disbelief.

Lin Che stared at the picture.

The pupils contracted to pinpoints in an instant.

There was no anger, no panic; for a moment, he even felt a strange sense of relief—the boots had finally landed.

He knew these people wouldn't let him take the 20 billion so easily.

"Back to B2."

Without saying a word, Lin Che ripped off the annoying tie from his neck, threw it on the ground, and strode towards the elevator.

"Everyone, back to your workstations immediately! Level one alert! No one is going home to sleep tonight!"

……

B2 layer, the core data center of the micro-light.

"Report!"

Upon seeing Lin Che enter, a technical supervisor abruptly stood up. "ICBC's interface response timed out! Unable to establish a connection!"

"China Construction Bank's API access denied!"

"The Agricultural Bank of China sent a reset command; the channel is hardware-locked!"

"Bank of China...Bank of China has blacklisted our IP range!"

The bad news came in rapid succession.

The four major banks.

Simultaneously disconnected.

Everyone present knew perfectly well what this meant.

This is like opening a thriving shopping mall, and just when customers are flocking in, the power company suddenly cuts off the power, welds the main gate shut, and cuts off all fire exits.

Lin Che walked to the center of the command platform, placed his hands on the cold metal tabletop, and stared intently at the curve lying on the floor.

That was the lifeline of glimmering light.

Five minutes ago, tens of thousands of transactions were happening there every second.

That is the trust of users, the flow of funds, and proof of the existence of a glimmer of light.

Now, it's a straight line.

An electrocardiogram of a dead person.

"It's not a technical glitch."

Lin Che's voice was as cold as a stone in an ice cellar.

He quickly typed a few keys on the main keyboard and brought up the underlying logs.

The screen is filled with "403 Forbidden".

In the HTTP protocol, a 403 error does not mean the network is down or the server has crashed.

It means: I heard your request, but I understand your request, and—I refuse to comply.

"This is a targeted blast." Lin Che straightened up and looked around. "The probability of the four major banks simultaneously cutting off their interfaces is lower than being struck by lightning ten times in a row. This is a coordinated operation."

"President Lin!"

Li Wenbo stumbled over, clutching a sheet of paper that had just come out of the fax machine, the paper still trembling. "It's here... an official letter from the bank."

He handed the thin piece of paper to Lin Che, his fingers turning white from the pressure.

Lin Che took it.

That was a "Notice on Suspending the Payment Interface of Weiguang Technology for Compliance Investigation".

It was short, but every word exuded the coldness, domineering attitude, and arrogance characteristic of official documents.

The reasons given were plausible: "suspected of illegally conducting clearing business," "risk of fund pooling," and "cooperating with anti-money laundering investigations."

There is no deadline for rectification.

There are no specific clauses regarding violations.

Only four words stood out: "Pause immediately".

"Are they crazy?" a young programmer nearby exclaimed. "We just took over ofo's refund process, and now the internet's down? How are millions of users going to get their money back? This will cause a riot!"

"riot?"

Lin Che looked at the notice in his hand, a chilling smile curving his lips.

He raised his head, his gaze piercing through the thick concrete wall, as if he could see the person sitting behind the scenes orchestrating everything.

The other person is probably sitting in a very private tea room, slowly warming their cups, waiting to see the newly built building, Weiguang, collapse into ruins tonight.

If the network is cut off for 24 hours, users' panic will reach its peak.

If the supply is cut off for 48 hours, the run on deposits will completely drown out the glimmer of hope.

In the end, no one will remember who cut the interface.

All people will remember is that Weiguang was a fraudulent company and Lin Che was a fraudster who absconded with the money.

This is a perfect dead end.

Without bloodshed.

"Mr. Lin, our customer service hotline is ringing off the hook."

The customer service manager rushed in, her voice trembling with tears. "We have 30,000 backlogged work orders! The Weibo trending topics have exploded! #WeiguangPayCollapse#, #LinCheFraud#... The online trolls are getting in too fast, we can't control it at all!"

On the large screen's split screen, the real-time public opinion monitoring system displayed a red bar chart of negative sentiment, which was rapidly escalating.

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

"Weiguang and ofo are in cahoots!"

"I knew it wasn't going to be this good; 'no deposit' is a trap!"

Every comment is a knife.

Lin Che gently placed the "Compliance Investigation Notice" on the table and tapped it with his finger.

"Did you see that?"

His voice was deep, yet it carried a chilling calmness.

"They don't care whether users get their money back or not."

"They don't even care if a mass incident will occur."

Lin Che turned around and looked at the group of panicked faces behind him.

"This is a massacre."

"They want us to die tonight."