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

Hangzhou, Weiguang Technology Headquarters, 23rd Floor Main Conference Room.

Xie Yu tore up the bankruptcy liquidation agreement.

Shredded papers littered the table. His eyes were bloodshot as he stood in the middle of the conference table, holding the confirmation letter from the three major banks confirming the unfreezing of funds. His voice was hoarse: "Brothers! Five hundred billion! Five—hundred—billion! All unfrozen! The boss not only didn't go to jail, but he also came back with a national-level pilot license!"

The meeting room exploded.

All seventeen core executives stood up. Some clapped, some cursed, and some sat on the ground laughing with tears streaming down their faces.

Just three days ago, this group of people were still writing severance agreements and calculating accounts until 4 a.m., even deciding which printer would go to whom.

They've all gone mad.

Xu Mingyuan, the CTO, threw his suit jacket on the chair, tugged at his tie, and shouted, "This time we have to go big! Five hundred billion in funding, a direct confrontation with BAT! Who's afraid of who?"

Marketing Director Chen Xuan slammed her hand on the table in agreement: "Right! Let's come up with the 10 billion yuan subsidy plan first and launch a counterattack against them!"

Xie Yu didn't stop him.

He was getting cocky; the contrast between the past three days was too great—from hell to heaven in just one phone call. His adrenaline hadn't even subsided yet. He stood in front of the whiteboard, already writing his battle plan. His handwriting was messy, but every line was filled with a vengeful excitement.

The meeting room door opened.

No one knocked on the door.

Lin Che walked in, carrying a black plastic bag.

Xie Yu stopped writing.

Everyone turned to look at the door, and the laughter, curses, and applause all vanished within half a second.

It's not because I'm afraid.

It's a conditioned reflex.

This person emerged unscathed from the closed-door summit in Beijing, single-handedly shouldering the joint accountability from the Supreme People's Court and the People's Bank of China, and even managed to thoroughly humiliate Sun Zheng.

The air changed the smell when he walked in.

Lin Che glanced at the battle plan on the whiteboard but didn't say anything. He dumped the black plastic bag onto the conference table.

Splash!

A bunch of plaid shirts rolled out, looking like cheap knock-offs from a street vendor. Two of them still had their tags on, and they smelled strongly of plastic.

Xie Yu was stunned.

"Change what you're wearing."

Lin Che's tone was as casual as if he were saying "turn off the lights." He had already changed; he was wearing a dark blue plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and he had also changed into a pair of faded jeans.

He was wearing a pair of cloth shoes.

Xu Mingyuan thought he had misheard: "President Lin?"

"Five minutes," Lin Che glanced at his watch; he'd also taken off his Patek Philippe, leaving his wrist bare. "There's a car downstairs; it'll be big enough."

No one moved.

Lin Che pulled out a chair and sat down, taking out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, opening it, and lighting it. Smoking was prohibited in the conference room, but no one mentioned it. He took a drag, held the cigarette between his fingers, and looked at the seventeen faces.

"What were you guys writing just now? A plan to launch a counterattack with billions in subsidies?"

Xie Yu subconsciously blocked the whiteboard.

"Five hundred billion in subsidies," Lin Che exhaled a puff of smoke, "and then what? The three BAT companies combined have over a trillion in cash reserves. You're going to use five hundred billion to fight a one trillion-dollar war?"

No one responded.

"Burn the money and then go borrow from the bank? You've seen the attitude of the three major banks before, haven't you? Forgot about the cold shoulder you got last week?"

Xie Yu withdrew his hand from the whiteboard.

Someone at the next workstation ordered takeout, and the greasy smell of fried chicken seeped in through the crack in the door, mixing with the tense atmosphere in the meeting room, creating an indescribable awkwardness.

"Change your clothes and go downstairs."

Lin Che stubbed out his cigarette, stood up, and walked outside.

He paused at the door, without turning around, and said, "Whose haircut is too expensive? Can I borrow a hat from the front desk?"

...

Forty minutes later.

A gray, secondhand Buick GL8 was bumping along the Shanghai-Hangzhou Expressway. Half of the air conditioning was broken; the passenger side vent was blowing hot air, the back seats were blowing cold air, and the middle seats were not blowing anything.

Xie Yu squeezed into the third row, his knees pressed against the back of the seat in front of him. Xu Mingyuan next to him had already ripped off the second button of his plaid shirt—his build was too big, and the cheap workmanship couldn't withstand it.

"What sins did I commit in my past life..." Xie Yu muttered to himself.

He was writing the bankruptcy agreement three days ago, received the notification of the unfreezing of 50 billion yuan two days ago, and thought he was about to fight an epic capital war a day ago.

Now he sits in a dilapidated van with a leaky air conditioner, wearing a 29-yuan plaid shirt, heading towards the most dilapidated manufacturing industrial zone in the Yangtze River Delta.

Chen Xuan sat in the middle row, constantly looking at her phone, her expression growing increasingly grim.

"President Lin," she finally couldn't hold back any longer, "there's been some movement from BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent). Sun Zheng and Ma Huateng met last night, and the topic of '10 Billion Yuan Internet Subsidy' is already trending on Weibo."

Lin Che sat in the passenger seat, the window rolled down a crack, and the wind blew in, making his hair a mess.

"knew."

Just three words.

Chen Xuan opened her mouth, but swallowed the rest of her sentence.

The car continued driving, and after passing Jiaxing, the scenery outside the window changed.

Office buildings and shopping malls have disappeared, replaced by rows of corrugated iron factory buildings, rusty roller shutters, and piles of packed woven bags along the roadside.

Some factories don't even have signs; they just paint a phone number on the wall in red paint.

Some factory gates have dusty trucks with flat tires parked outside.

Xie Yu glanced out the car window and felt a chill run down his spine.

He recognized the place.

The garment industry belt in the Yangtze River Delta was quite prosperous a couple of years ago, supplying goods to Taobao and Pinduoduo. The production lines ran 24 hours a day, and orders were booked up for three months in advance.

But not this year.

Platforms are driving down prices, half of the distribution channels have been cut off, and inventory has reached its limit. He read an industry report last month that said at least 30% of the factories in this area have stopped operating, and the rest are just barely hanging on.

The car turned onto a bumpy cement road, the surface of which looked as if it had been bombed.

The GL8's chassis hit a protruding piece of concrete, and everyone in the car bounced. Xu Mingyuan's head hit the roof of the car, and he cursed.

Stopped.

In front of a rusty iron gate hangs a faded sign: "Yongsheng Garment Factory".

A middle-aged man in slippers was squatting at the door. He was bald, his hair as black as if he had just been dug out of the ground, and he had a loose cigarette in his mouth. When he saw the GL8 drive up, he stood up and patted the dust off his backside.

Lin Che got out of the car.

Xie Yu got out of the car, and as soon as his foot touched the ground, he stepped into a puddle of black mud, ruining his cloth shoes instantly.

The factory manager approached, sized up the group, and asked with a shrewd smile, "Which one of you is the boss?"

"I."

Lin Che extended his hand.

The factory manager's hands were rough, and he gripped the handshake with a bit of force, as if testing the waters. Lin Che didn't grip hard, nor did he pull back; he simply held on.

"Let's go in and take a look."

...

The warehouse was bigger than I had imagined.

But there was more stuff than I expected.

Boxes of packed hoodies were piled up to the rafters, and the passageway was so narrow that one could only walk sideways.

The cardboard boxes were printed with different brand names, all of them no-name brands, such as "Korean Style Trend", "Mr. Minimalist", and "Polar Bear Family". They were obviously remnants of the Taobao bestseller era.

The dust was thick. Chen Xuan walked over and touched the cardboard box, her fingers covered with a layer of grayish-white fuzz.

"How long has this batch of goods been here?" Lin Che asked.

The factory manager sighed, his expression shifting to a pitiful tone: "It's been half a year, boss. We used to supply Taobao, but then they found cheaper suppliers, and the orders disappeared. All the goods are stuck here."

He pointed to the innermost wall: "There are two more warehouses over there, and even more. I've dismissed most of the workers; only about ten are left to watch the factory."

Lin Che squatted down and opened a box.

The hoodie is fleece-lined, black, and the fabric feels average but not terrible.

The workmanship is decent, the stitching is neat, and the zipper is smooth.

"How much does it cost?"

"Are you referring to the price tag or the factory price?"

"Don't play games with me. This is just the cost of production, not including profit."

The factory manager rubbed his hands together: "Eight yuan and twenty cents."

"Too high," Lin Che threw the hoodie back into the box, stood up, and said, "I've seen this fabric; it weighs less than 260 grams per gram, and the brushed finish is just the most basic warp knitting. You've included at least two yuan in distribution fees and warehousing costs in that 8.2 yuan price."

The factory manager's smile froze.

Six pieces.

Lin Che didn't haggle; he turned and walked out.

"Hey, hey, hey—boss!" The factory manager caught up, his slippers slapping loudly. "Six yuan won't do, really won't do. I'm not lying to you, the warehousing costs are real, and the electricity bills for the past six months have been..."

"Six yuan, all items will be sold."

Lin Che stopped, but didn't turn around.

The factory manager also stopped, his mouth agape.

The words "full buyout" were as devastating as a bomb to a factory manager whose inventory had been piling up for six months and who was on the verge of bankruptcy.

"...All of them?" The factory manager's voice changed. "You mean...all of these three warehouses?"

"All of them. But six pieces."

The factory manager gritted his teeth, his expression shifting between greed and shrewdness. He knew this batch of goods would become scrap if left unattended, but his businessman's instincts made him unwilling to give up.

"Six yuan and fifty cents."

Six pieces.

"Six yuan and thirty cents! Really, I wouldn't even earn the money for a steamed bun with six yuan and thirty cents..."

Lin Che turned around and stared at him without blinking.

The factory manager's voice grew softer and softer until it became a mutter.

Xie Yu stood to the side, watching his boss, worth 50 billion, haggle back and forth with a bald man in slippers over a mere two cents in a dusty, dilapidated factory.

He felt like he was dreaming.

...

evening.

Xie Yu squatted on the steps at the factory entrance, holding an eight-yuan boxed lunch in his hand.

The rice was so hard it bounced back, and the dish was braised chicken with potatoes—there were only two chicken pieces, but a generous layer of potatoes. The plastic lunchbox was scalding hot, and the chopsticks were the kind that splintered easily when broken.

He shoveled a mouthful of rice into his mouth, chewed it twice, but couldn't swallow it all.

Xu Mingyuan was squatting down next to him, another button on his plaid shirt had popped off. He put his lunchbox on his lap and stared blankly at the mountain of cardboard boxes in the distance.

The hoodies, priced at 9.9 yuan each, filled three warehouses.

They just attended the highest-level closed-door summit in the history of the Chinese Internet, where they personally crushed BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent).

Now I'm squatting here eating an eight-yuan boxed lunch.

Xie Yu lowered his head; his phone screen was still lit, and he hadn't closed the confirmation email from the three major banks that "the full amount of the 500 billion yuan low-interest credit line has been unfrozen."

He looked up again.

Fifty meters away, Lin Che was still standing in the warehouse, arguing with the factory manager. Their voices could be heard through the iron wall, all over that two cents.

Xie Yu stuffed a piece of potato into his mouth, chewed it, and swallowed it with force.

He turned to look at Xu Mingyuan, then at Chen Xuan.

The three people's eyes met.

Same idea.

"It's over."

Xie Yu's voice was soft, but every word carried a desperate certainty.

"The boss's been through the wringer. He's been tormented by the Supreme Court for three days; his brain's fried. He's planning to take 50 billion... to the countryside to buy goods... and then run away."

Xu Mingyuan looked down at his 29-yuan plaid shirt and remained silent for three seconds.

"So, is this shirt my work uniform for when I'm on the run?"

Nobody can laugh.