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

Time is a scalpel, and in this sweltering June, it is poised to cut open the biggest abscess in China's financial history.

Two weeks have passed since Weiguang Payment won the "disconnection of direct connections" battle.

The hustle and bustle of the outside world seems to have nothing to do with this place.

Beijing, the third basement level of the headquarters of Microlight Technology.

This is an area that does not exist on the map; its internal code name is "Room Zero".

There are no windows, no natural light, and even the sound of the air circulation system is swallowed up by special soundproofing materials, leaving only the low hum of the constant temperature cabinet, like the breathing of a sleeping giant.

Lin Che stood in front of the huge curved projection screen, his face expressionless.

"Boss, version 1.0 of the Abyss system has been running at full capacity for forty-eight hours."

Standing beside him was Xie Yu, who had huge dark circles under his eyes and messy hair like a bird's nest, but was tightly clutching a can of cola that had already warmed up.

This genius, discovered by Lin Che, is currently in a state of exhaustion after being extremely excited.

Xie Yu pointed at the screen, his voice hoarse from lack of water: "In order to get this model running, we've burned through more than two million yuan in electricity and computing power costs over the past two weeks. If we don't count hardware depreciation, the money burned for every second this thing runs is enough to buy half a square meter of toilet in the Third Ring Road."

"worth."

Lin Che's voice was soft, yet it echoed like metal in the confined space, "Compared to what it's about to unearth, this cost isn't even worth the entrance fee."

He took a step forward, his leather shoes making a crisp sound as they hit the anti-static floor.

Instead of a dry Excel spreadsheet, the screen displayed a dynamic holographic map resembling a sandbox from the movie "Westworld".

This is the "vascular angiography" of the entire Chinese internet finance system.

Each dot represents a P2P platform, the connecting lines represent the flow of funds, and the shades of color represent the health of the financial chain.

Green represents health, and yellow represents a warning.

At that moment, what came into Lin Che's view was a shocking expanse of red.

It was a deep, purplish-red color, as if it might drip blood at any moment.

"This is insane..." The VP of Operations, who followed Lin Che down into the server room, couldn't help but swallow hard, feeling a chill run down his spine. "This... it's all red?"

"This is the market now."

Lin Che, his hands in his trench coat pockets, swept his gaze across the red dots like a blade. "This is what the outside media calls 'financial innovation,' what those experts tout as 'inclusive finance.'"

He stretched out his finger and gently traced a dense red area in the air.

"Look here, this is a leading platform that claims to have a daily transaction volume of 500 million. They claim that the funds are used for 'supply chain finance,' but data from the underlying payment channels captured by Abyss shows that 80% of their funds flowed to three private accounts and then flowed back through more than a dozen shell companies. This is a typical 'Ponzi scheme'—borrowing new money to pay off old debts, a game of musical chairs."

Lin Che's tone was as calm as if he were dissecting a frog, but the other executives present were sweating bullets.

What they saw was not data, but corpses.

Lin Che closed his eyes, and the floodgates of memory from the summer of 2018 in his mind were instantly opened.

That summer, the sun blazed fiercely, and people's hearts burned with anguish.

A crowd of people holding white banners gathered beneath the glass curtain wall of Beijing's Financial Street.

An elderly man with white hair banged his head on the cement ground, leaving it stained with blood;

A young woman holding a child sat on the steps, her eyes vacant like a dry well;

Some people even climbed onto the rooftop of an office building late at night, falling like a leaf, leaving behind a muffled thud and a pool of glaring red.

That was the disillusionment of millions of middle-class families, the vanishing of trillions of dollars.

In that lifetime, Lin Che was just an observer, watching those desperate people struggle in the abyss.

In this life, he stands atop the abyss, gazing upon it.

"Abyss is not just a surveillance system, it's also a weather forecaster."

Lin Che opened his eyes, a fleeting look of pity in them, replaced by absolute rationality and coldness. "It was calculating the precise time when that storm would arrive."

"Xie Yu, I need the exact countdown."

Xie Yu immediately typed a few keys on the keyboard, and the image on the screen changed abruptly.

Countless red lines began to converge, eventually pointing to several huge spots of light.

Those spots of light, like tumors, adhered to the veins of the entire financial system, frantically devouring nutrients.

The largest spot of light was labeled with three words: Treasure Basin.

"The Treasure Trove, controlled by Tang Jun." Xie Yu pulled up an analysis chart. "Based on the current cash flow and the shortfall in refinancing existing debt, their cash pool will..."

A countdown timer popped up in the center of the screen.

32 days, 14 hours, and 06 minutes

"32 days." Xie Yu took a deep breath. "That's the limit. Judging from the current signs of a run on the platform, as long as one second-tier platform goes bankrupt, the panic will spread and this time will be shortened. Tang Jun is filling a hole of 400 million yuan every day. He's drinking poison to quench his thirst."

In this dark room, the air seemed to freeze.

As the executives looked at that number, they seemed to hear the ticking of a countdown to the shattering of countless families.

"Boss, should we call the police?" the PR director asked in a trembling voice. "Or should we submit this report to the regulators? This involves millions of people..."

"Call the police?"

Lin Che turned his head and gave him a half-smile. "If you go out and shout 'Fire!' now, do you believe that those old folks who are still receiving 15% annualized returns will be the first to rush up and tear you apart? In their eyes, Tang Jun is a god of wealth, and you are a demon blocking their path to riches."

The PR director opened his mouth, but was speechless.

During an avalanche, every snowflake bravely ventures to the ends of the earth.

In this sweltering summer, greed has blinded everyone.

Only Lin Che, with his God-like perspective, saw the sword of Damocles hanging over everyone's heads.

"We are not saviors, we are corpse collectors."

Lin Che turned around, his back to the screen.

"Now that Abyss has calculated their death dates, all we need to do is one thing—prepare coffins for them."

He walked to Xie Yu's control panel and looked at the constantly changing "32 days".

For the capital market, a month is too long.

It was long enough for Tang Jun to transfer assets, enough for him to drag more victims into the mess, and even enough for him to devise a treacherous scheme to escape unscathed.

Lin Che's fingers tapped lightly on the table, producing a monotonous yet rhythmic sound.

Click, click, click.

"Too slow."

Lin Che suddenly said.

Xie Yu was taken aback: "What?"

"I said they died too slowly." Lin Che raised his head, his eyes flashing with the cold light of a hunter seeing his prey fall into the net. "Since they are destined to die, we might as well help them suffer a little less."

He reached out and tapped the huge red node on the screen that represented the "treasure basin".

The moment my fingertip touched the ground, it felt like pressing the nuclear button.

"Then let's move that day forward for them a little."

Lin Che straightened his collar, turned and walked towards the exit, a gust of cold wind rising from the hem of his trench coat.

"Notify the public relations and legal departments that the 'Microlight Financial Security Ecosystem Conference' will be held tomorrow. Since the whole industry is celebrating, I don't mind being the one to spoil the fun."

The heavy, soundproof door slowly closed behind him, isolating the screen full of blood-red data from this cold world.

At the very last moment before the door was sewn shut, the countdown numbers flickered, like the blink of death.