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

The afternoon sun became somewhat lazy, shining through the floor-to-ceiling windows onto the wooden floor of the Weiguang headquarters building.

There are less than four hours left until the "8 o'clock deadline" set by the regulators.

The online frenzy has reached its peak.

Among the top ten trending topics on Weibo, the topics "Weiguang Hegemony" and "Lin Che Get Out of the Financial Circle" are still at the top, followed by the dark red "hot" word.

Tang Jun was clearly someone who knew how to press his advantage.

Just ten minutes ago, Jubaopen officially released a strongly worded open letter to Weiguang Technology, demanding that Lin Che issue a public apology within 24 hours, restore Jubaopen's whitelist status, and pay 100 million yuan in damages for reputational loss.

In the video, Tang Jun, with slightly red eyes, tearfully denounced the "atrocities" of Weiguang in front of the camera, as if he were the innocent girl being bullied by the bully.

Lin Che sat at his desk, holding a freshly brewed cup of Da Hong Pao tea.

He watched the video on the tablet quietly, as if he were watching a poorly made but funny farce.

The tea was clear and bright, with wisps of steam rising, blurring his unfathomable eyes.

"Boss, the PR department's phones are ringing off the hook."

Li Wenbo pushed open the door, his face pale, clutching a stack of so-called "lawyer's letters" he had received from the front desk—most of them were threatening letters sent as pranks by netizens. "And a few radical investors threw paint downstairs, but they were stopped by security. Are we... really not going to say anything?"

Everyone is waiting.

Waiting for Wei Guang's explanation, waiting for Lin Che's counterattack, or waiting for his apology.

This silence was interpreted by everyone as "guilt" and "acquiescence".

Even the company's employees walk with their heads down, not daring to look at the news on their phones.

"No rush."

Lin Che gently blew away the tea leaves floating on the water, took a sip, and said, "Let the bullets fly a little longer. Right now, the Tang army is like a gambler who has just won a round of chips. Their confidence is inflated. It would be too cruel to interrupt them now."

Looking at his boss's calm and collected demeanor, Li Wenbo's anxiety miraculously subsided.

But he still didn't understand, how long was this going to continue?

Just then, the frosted glass door on the side of the office slid open silently.

Xie Yu came out.

If you ignored his bloodshot eyes, his expression at that moment was as calm as a doctor performing surgery.

He carried the specially modified black laptop in his arms, walked up to Lin Che, and gently placed it on the table.

"We caught them."

There are only three words.

But in this quiet room, it sounded like a thunderclap.

Lin Che put down his teacup and leaned forward slightly.

Xie Yu slid his finger across the touchpad, bringing up a complex financial topology diagram.

It was a massive network. Countless tiny lines converged from all directions, passed through hundreds of stepping stones, and finally pointed to a few core nodes.

"This guy is in a more hurry than I thought."

Xie Yu's voice was hoarse, with a hint of mockery. "In order to speed up the explosion of public opinion, he used a large number of zombie accounts and marketing accounts. Although the money went through offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands and was laundered in three shell companies, he made a fatal mistake."

Xie Yu pointed to the red source point at the very top of the topology diagram.

"When he added the five million 'express fee' last night, due to the limit on his offshore account, a final payment of five hundred thousand was transferred directly from one of his mistress's private accounts."

"And the monthly household expenses for that mistress's account were all transferred from Tang Jun's ICBC gold card."

It's a closed loop.

Even if the money had been transferred a hundred times before, this last "express transfer" to save time completely exposed the original source of the funds.

This is what makes the Abyss system so terrifying.

It's not looking at the road ahead, but rather tracing back all the footprints left in the past.

Once you've left a trace on the internet, you have no secrets in the face of computing power.

"This is the solid evidence you wanted."

Xie Yu opened a folder containing detailed bank transaction screenshots, IP address tracking reports, and even screenshots of chat logs showing the marketing account leader boasting about receiving the money in a WeChat group.

"Once this is released, Tang Jun's charges of 'buying smear articles' and 'commercial defamation' will be confirmed, and the so-called 'extortion' rumor will be debunked."

Xie Yu closed his laptop and let out a long sigh. "Boss, should we publish it? Didn't that supervisor only give us two hours?"

Lin Che looked at the USB drive and tapped his fingers lightly on the table.

Click, click, click.

The pace is slow, like some kind of countdown.

"Sending it out would indeed prove his innocence," Lin Che said softly, "but at most it would only ruin his reputation, put him in jail for a few years, or make him pay some money."

He looked up at the setting sun outside the window.

The blood-red setting sun dyed half of Beijing red, much like some kind of omen.

"What I want is not for him to go to jail."

"I want his life—I mean, the life of the treasure bowl."

Lin Che's gaze deepened.

Although the Tang army is in a panic, the financial chain of the Treasure Basin has not been completely broken.

If it were just about exposing a smear campaign, Tang Jun could easily sacrifice the pawn to save the king, shifting the blame to his subordinates or even to his "lover," thus escaping unscathed.

He needs to feel like he's won.

He needs to feel that if he puts in just a little more effort, the glimmer of hope will kneel down and the whitelist will open up to him.

Only in this way would he be willing to hand over his last remaining savings, and even the money from his shady "protectors," in order to maintain the collapsing Ponzi scheme.

"Keep this evidence for now; it's the nails we'll use to put the coffin lid on."

Lin Che picked up his phone and found a number he had never dialed before, but which he knew by heart.

That was a phone call from Tang Jun's personal secretary.

Li Wenbo and Xie Yu looked at each other, wondering what their boss was up to.

The phone is on.

A wary voice came from the other end: "Feed? Who is this?"

Lin Che changed his voice.

He was no longer the ruthless hunter, but a young man who seemed to have been crushed by public opinion, exhausted, and even showing a hint of weakness.

"Please tell President Tang that I am Lin Che."

There was a noticeable pause on the other end of the phone, followed by a burst of background noise, as if someone was covering the receiver to give a report.

A few seconds later, a gruff voice filled with smugness and arrogance answered the phone.

"Oh, isn't this President Lin?"

Tang Jun's voice was filled with undisguised elation. "What? Not pretending to be aloof anymore? Is that 'whitelist' system fixed? I knew it was a misunderstanding. What can't we brothers talk about?"

He was testing the waters.

He was enjoying the thrill of victory.

Lin Che looked at the elongated shadow outside the window, his lips devoid of a smile, his eyes as cold as iron, but the words that came out of his mouth were as soft as cotton.

"President Tang's methods are brilliant; I admit defeat."

"There are some things that are inconvenient to say over the phone. I booked a private room at 'Here' private kitchen at 7 p.m. tonight."

Lin Che paused for a moment, then threw out the bait that was enough to make the Tang army lose their minds.

"Regarding the whitelist admission criteria... I think we can renegotiate. Perhaps the data from Jubaopen isn't so 'unrecoverable,' right?"

There was a full five seconds of silence on the other end of the phone.

That was the sound of greed devouring reason.

"Hahaha! Brother Lin, that's right!"

Tang Jun burst into a shrill laugh. "I told you you were smart! In business, harmony brings wealth! Fine, seven o'clock tonight, I'll see you there!"

"beep--"

The phone hangs up.

Lin Che casually tossed his phone onto the table, as if throwing away a dirty rag.

He stood up, walked to the coat rack, took down the dark black trench coat, and put it on.

"Boss, are you really going?" Xie Yu frowned. "That's a trap."

"A trap?"

Lin Che straightened his collar and looked at himself in the mirror.

"No."

That was his last meal before he was executed.