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

Retail investors are just sparks; to ignite a prairie fire, they need the wind.

Lin Che looked at the QQ group that was still scrolling wildly, the group name was "The Headquarters of the Internet's Wool Party".

He opened the private chat window of the group owner, "Brother Dao".

The profile picture is a blood-dripping dragon-slaying sword, and the signature reads: "No deposits accepted, only guarantees accepted. Scammers may die a horrible death."

Lin Che didn't waste any words and simply dragged a PDF document into the file.

The document title is sensational: "Operation Manual for Alibaba's Internal Interface Vulnerabilities during Double Eleven".

Adding a comment: "If there's meat to eat, will you take it or not?"

Two minutes later, Dao Ge replied with an emoji.

It was a sallow-faced expression of someone picking their nose, exuding the disdain of a seasoned veteran.

"Dude, I've been using this 'internal loophole' trick since I was in elementary school. Trying to scam my deposit? Go outside and turn left."

Lin Che did not explain.

He opened Alipay and entered the account number the other party had left in the group announcement.

Enter the amount: 5000.

Fingerprint confirmation.

"bite."

I sent a screenshot showing the successful transfer.

"This is a deposit, paid per person. You get five yuan for each valid registration. The document contains a unique 'vulnerability password,' and the generated link is your performance fee."

The message "The other party is typing..." at the top of the chat box flashed for a long time.

The nose-picking emoji disappeared, replaced by a handshake animation.

"Boss, you're really generous. I've looked at the documents, and this 'vulnerability'... it looks pretty real."

Brother Dao certainly thought it was true.

Because it was real – it was real money subsidized with Alibaba's public funds.

"I don't look at the process, I only look at the quantity."

Lin Che typed, "I need to see 20,000 new users before midnight tonight. If I don't, I'll feed the dogs with the 5,000; if I do, the rest of the money will be doubled."

"Okay."

There is only one word.

Three minutes later.

Lin Che's spare phone, which was on the corner of the table, vibrated.

That was another QQ group with a thousand members called "Shopaholics' Camp".

A message popped up for everyone:

"@All members, Dao Ge is giving away freebies! Someone within Alibaba has gotten hold of a testing interface used by senior executives. Register to receive a 50 RMB bonus, and get half-price discounts on your orders! Limited time offer for two hours, so act fast!"

Immediately following was a uniform chant of "Brother Dao is awesome!"

Lin Che raised his head.

A layer of white mist condensed on the windows of the rented room.

He stretched out a finger and drew a line on the glass.

The blurry neon lights outside shone through the scratch, stinging the eyes.

Behind me, the old computer that served as the server suddenly roared.

The fan was running at its maximum speed, like a jet preparing for takeoff.

The CPU usage in the lower right corner of the screen jumped from 5% to 98% in an instant.

Lin Che did not look back at the data.

He knew that the vast underground network—those millions of greedy nodes that were usually scattered in Baidu Tieba, forums, and QQ groups—had been connected by that "vulnerability document."

This is a leverage bar.

Tuesday morning, Finance Department of Binjiang Industrial Park.

The printer is jammed.

The CFO, Lao Zhao, forcefully pulled the stuck paper out; the sharp edge of the paper cut a small gash on his finger.

He didn't even bother with the band-aids; he grabbed the still-hot stack of production slips and rushed into the wireless business unit's office area.

The large office was quiet, with only the sound of keyboards clicking.

"Old Xiao!"

Old Zhao slammed the order form on another table.

A gust of wind blew up, startling the female colleague who was eating breakfast next to her. Her soy milk cup wobbled, and a few drops of white liquid spilled onto the table.

"What the hell are you guys doing? That channel called 'Weiguang Media' burned through three million in just two hours!"

Old Zhao's voice trembled, "This is robbery! At this rate, your quarterly budget won't last until this Friday!"

The clicking of keyboards around me stopped.

Everyone looked up, their eyes fixed on the red transaction slip.

Old Xiao sat by the window, a cigarette between his fingers.

He didn't look at Lao Zhao, nor did he look at the order form.

He stared at the huge data monitoring screen on the wall.

The screen displays real-time battle reports from each team in the center.

The "ground promotion team" is represented by a blue pillar, which reaches the "5000" mark.

That was the result of hundreds of salespeople running themselves ragged in the university town and at the train station.

The green pillar representing the "Campus Group" is slightly taller, marked "8000".

And on the far right.

The red pillar representing the "Innovation Channels Group" looks like an abrupt chimney, directly breaking through the top border of the table.

The numbers are in bright red: 524,103.

Five hundred thousand.

Overnight.

The cigarette in Lao Xiao's hand had burned down quite a bit, and the grayish-white ash curled down, almost breaking off.

"Old Zhao."

Old Xiao finally spoke, his voice a little hoarse, "You're a veteran of Alibaba too. Do you know what Jack Ma said back when we were building Taobao?"

Old Zhao froze for a moment, clutching his still-bleeding finger.

"Mr. Ma said that as long as we can bring in users, it's worth it even if we have to spend money on West Lake."

Old Xiao stood up, walked to the big screen, and tapped the red pillar with his finger.

"Three million users can be exchanged for 500,000 registered users with linked bank cards. The customer acquisition cost is six yuan."

He turned to Old Zhao and said, "Go outside and find out how much Baidu and 360 pay for a user right now. It's twenty yuan!"

Old Zhao opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

From a financial compliance perspective, this is absolutely insane.

From a business perspective, however, this is indeed an extremely worthwhile deal.

"Special cases are handled specially."

Old Xiao stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray. "As long as the data is accurate, if we don't have enough money, I'll go ask Boss Ma for approval."

in the corner.

Lin Che was wearing headphones and twirling a pen in his hand.

He didn't participate in the argument, as if the shocking data had nothing to do with him.

On the computer screen, the numbers in the rudimentary "price comparison assistant" backend were still fluctuating.

53. 54.

Burning money?

This isn't burning money, this is land grabbing.

In this chaotic era, whoever plants their flag in the minds of users first will be king.

As for whether the flag-planting posture is elegant or not, that's something to consider later.

Compliance Department, independent office.

The blinds were tightly closed, and the air conditioner was set to 18 degrees Celsius; it was as cold as a morgue.

Li Mo sat behind that large desk, his glasses reflecting the cold light of the monitor.

A detailed data analysis report was spread out on the table.

That was retrieved directly from the underlying database of the risk control system.

Something's not right.

Li Mo picked up a red pen and circled a line on the third page of the report.

I pressed too hard with the pen and tore the paper.

The circled data item is: average page dwell time: 15 seconds.

This unscientific.

A normal social media user, after registering, will always add friends, change profile pictures, post updates, and browse Moments.

This process will take at least a few minutes.

But these users from "Weiguang Media" exhibited robotically precise behavior patterns:

Register -> Link to Taobao -> Copy product link -> Receive red envelope -> Withdraw -> Log out.

The entire sequence of movements was fluid and seamless, without any unnecessary interaction.

There was no chatting. No social interaction. Only transactions.

"Send this data to the technology department."

Li Mo picked up the internal phone, his voice sounding particularly jarring in the quiet room, "Do an IP association analysis. I suspect this is a large-scale bot attack."

The hesitant voice of the technical manager came from the other end of the phone: "Mr. Li, if we freeze it, the GMV data here will drop drastically... Lao Xiao might cause trouble."

"Let him make a scene."

Li Mo stared coldly at the red line on the screen that was still rising rapidly.

"Even if junk traffic skyrockets, it's still junk. I'm here to help the company plug loopholes, not to help them whitewash the situation."

He hung up the phone.

He tapped a few keys on the keyboard and typed in a series of administrator commands.

Command code: FREEZE_CHANNEL_SETTLEMENT (Freeze channel settlement).

Press Enter.

Just as Lin Che was preparing to add a second budget.

A red warning box popped up in the center of the screen without warning.

There was no countdown, no buffer.

[System Warning: This account's settlement channel has been temporarily frozen by the risk control department. Reason: Abnormal traffic audit. Please contact Li Mo in the compliance department.]

The real-time transfer logs, which had been jumping wildly, suddenly stopped.

It felt like someone had grabbed my neck.

Lin Che stared at the red pop-up window, his pen pausing.

finally come.