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

Hangzhou, headquarters of Weiguang Technology, business department.

The alarm started sounding at 3 p.m.

It's not a real alarm, but a "merchant termination warning" set up by the backend system. Whenever a contracted brand initiates a unilateral removal application, the system will push an orange pop-up window with a short "ding".

Five past three.

Ding!

3:06.

Ding Ding!

3:08.

Ding ding ding ding—

On the Ministry of Commerce's large screen, brand logos changed from color to gray one after another, like dominoes falling down on their own after the first one fell.

Zhou Ting is the business director, 32 years old. Before joining Weiguang, she worked in Alibaba's business development department for five years. When Lin Che recruited her, he personally treated her to a meal.

All twenty-six of her employees were frozen at their workstations, and several of the girls had tears in their eyes.

The phone kept ringing.

But the calls weren't coming in from outside; they were coming out from the Ministry of Commerce—calling the contact persons of the signed brands, pleading with each one, only to have them all hung up on.

"Mr. Wang, the contract still has three months left. Taking it off the shelves now will incur a penalty fee—"

"We'll accept the penalty for breach of contract, but you need to shut down the link today. We're going to be featured in Taobao's 10 Billion Yuan Subsidy event, and the schedule is tonight. Losing a day means losing millions in sales. What's your penalty for breach of contract compared to that?"

The phone hangs up.

Zhou Ting gripped the pen tightly, leaving teeth marks on the cap.

A thick stack of termination applications lay in front of her, and the paper cup of coffee on the corner of the table had long since gone cold, covered with a layer of oil; no one bothered to throw it away.

"President Zhou! Neferi has also sent a letter!"

A young man ran over from his workstation, holding up a printed document; the paper was still warm.

Nafuli, a leading domestic skincare brand, was signed last year after Zhou Ting personally flew to Guangzhou three times to negotiate, with a guaranteed annual GMV of 20 million yuan.

Zhou Ting took the letter and glanced at it. The wording on the letter was very polite, but the meaning was only one thing—all products were to be removed from the shelves immediately, and the penalty for breach of contract could be settled at any time.

She placed the printout on top of the stack of documents without saying a word.

Three more grayed out on the big screen.

This time, three beauty brands were grayed out, all of which were in the top 20. A large portion of the homepage recommendation slots were suddenly empty, and when you clicked on them, all you saw was a gray background with white text saying "Products are no longer available".

The ivory fell out.

One by one.

A recent graduate couldn't hold back anymore and buried her face in her arms, crying. Her voice was muffled as she sobbed, her shoulders shaking.

The colleague next to her wanted to comfort her, but opened her mouth without saying anything, and her own eyes also reddened.

At four o'clock sharp, Lin Che arrived.

He came out of the elevator, still wearing that faded T-shirt, and holding a paper cup in his hand, it was hard to tell whether it was tea or plain water.

The Ministry of Commerce fell silent instantly.

It wasn't the kind of quiet where everyone pretends to be busy when the boss comes; it was genuinely quiet. Even the girl who was crying stopped, looked up at him, and her eyes were swollen like walnuts.

Lin Che didn't look at her or anyone else, and walked straight to the front of the big screen and stood there.

The screen is still jumping.

Another one has been banned; it's a sports brand that sold eight million units on Weiguang during last year's Singles' Day.

Ding.

Xie Yu followed him in, glanced at the screen, his facial muscles tensed slightly, but he didn't say anything.

Zhou Ting stood up and walked over, holding the stack of termination applications in her hand, which was almost as thick as a Xinhua Dictionary.

"President Lin."

Lin Che turned to look at her.

"As of now, 67 of the top 100 brands have issued notices of product removal or termination of contracts, and 43 of them will close their stores today."

Her voice trembled as she spoke, but her thoughts were clear and logical. After all, she had been involved in investment promotion for five years, and even in a panic, she knew to first present the figures.

"There are another fifteen companies that are still observing, but I just had someone call them one by one, and basically... it'll be a matter of tonight or tomorrow."

She paused for a moment.

"The three main categories—beauty, apparel, and 3C products—have over 60% empty shelves on the homepage. Some secondary categories have entirely grayed-out pages, with no products displayed when clicked."

Lin Che held his paper cup, listened to the whole thing, and remained silent.

He looked at the screen.

The merchant logos on the screen are still turning gray, a little slower, but still jumping.

Like the line on an electrocardiogram, it drops one grid at a time, and with each grid drop, there's one less breath.

"President Lin," Zhou Ting's voice lowered further, "there are still four days until the big sale... we don't even have enough stock—"

Why do you think they ran away?

Lin Che suddenly spoke up.

Zhou Ting was stunned for a moment.

"Billions in subsidies, right? The BAT companies are offering way too much. Brands get traffic support when they join, slot fees are refunded when they participate in major promotions, and top merchants can get extra cash subsidies, up to 15% of their sales... We can't afford that price."

Lin Che nodded.

"So they didn't leave because they hated the glimmer of light, they left because there was more money there."

"……right."

"What happens when the money runs out?"

Zhou Ting opened her mouth, but couldn't reply.

"You worked at Alibaba for five years," Lin Che said, placing a paper cup on an empty table beside him, the bottom of which was damp. "What do those brands and merchants love to do most during Singles' Day?"

Zhou Ting wasn't stupid; she understood immediately.

They flock to whichever platform has the most traffic and the most subsidies, and then they come back crying and begging for a spot when the promotion ends, the traffic is gone, and the subsidies stop.

It's been like this every year, ever since the first day she entered the industry.

There is no loyalty.

there has never been.

For merchants, the platform is just a shelf. They put their products on whichever shelf has the most foot traffic. The cost of changing shelves is just a small penalty, which is negligible compared to the sales volume of a major promotion.

"Those people are gone," Lin Che said, as if he were talking about something that had nothing to do with him. "That's good."

Is that alright?

Zhou Ting didn't mishear.

She glanced at Xie Yu, who was looking down at his phone with a strange expression. He didn't seem flustered; rather, he seemed to be... suppressing something.

"How many of the sixty-seven brands occupy the homepage recommendation slots?" Lin Che asked.

"Around 70%."

"After they left, 70% of the recommendation slots became available."

Zhou Ting's mind raced for a moment.

So, what happens when the space is empty? Are we just left to die?

She looked at Lin Che's profile. He was standing in front of a gray screen, with his business team behind him almost in tears, but there was no trace of anxiety on his face.

It wasn't an act.

She had seen leaders who pretended to be calm, saying "It's nothing, it's nothing," while their fingers trembled under the table.

Lin Che wasn't like that. He genuinely didn't care that these brands had left. It was like a mouse getting into someone's house and then moving away on its own, saving him the trouble of buying rat poison.

This person is either crazy, or knows something I don't.

The screen beeped again. Zhou Ting didn't look at it; she stared at Lin Che.

"President Zhou," Lin Che turned to face her, "leave the remaining small businesses that haven't run away yet—the white-label ones, the factory outlets—forget about them."

"What do you mean?"

"I said leave it alone. No need to try to keep them, no need to rush them. Let those who want to leave go, and let those who want to stay stay. Starting today, the Ministry of Commerce's investment promotion strategy will be completely overhauled—"

He didn't say what to adjust it to, because his phone rang at that moment.

It was Lao Zhou from Fangzhou Cloud Warehouse calling. Lin Che answered, listened for a few seconds, said "okay," and hung up.

Then he picked up the stack of termination applications, flipped through them a couple of times, but didn't look at them closely.

These documents were like a stack of waste paper in his hands, or rather, they were waste paper to begin with.

He threw the entire stack of documents into the trash can next to him.

The movement was casual, like throwing away a used tissue.

Zhou Ting stared at the trash can, her mouth agape, unable to close it for a long time.

The entire Ministry of Commerce saw it.

Twenty-six people, plus Zhou Ting, had twenty-seven pairs of eyes staring at the trash can. Inside were termination requests from sixty-seven brands. They had spent the entire afternoon making phone calls, pleading, and crying until their eyes were swollen, trying to salvage what the boss had casually thrown away.

The new boy in the corner was holding a pen, his knuckles white.

Ding.

Another brand has been taken off the shelves.

No one was looking at the screen anymore; everyone was watching Lin Che.

He had already turned around and was walking towards the door, but after taking two steps he stopped and looked back at Xie Yu.

"Brother Yu."

Xie Yu raised his head.

"Go buy me something on Taobao."

"What?"

"A fill light, the cheapest kind, and a microphone, a USB one will do."

Xie Yu was stunned for a moment.

Zhou Ting, standing next to her, was even more stunned.

A fill light? A microphone?

The screen is still flashing gray.

Ding, ding!

Lin Che has already left.

His figure disappeared outside the glass doors of the Ministry of Commerce. The fluorescent lights in the corridor stretched his shadow long, trailing on the floor tiles, and after a couple of swaying motions, he was no longer visible.

Zhou Ting stood there, her hands empty. The stack of documents was in the trash can, with a corner of the termination letter from Nafuli sticking out from the top, crumpled and worn.

She suddenly realized that all her tears and phone calls that afternoon had been for nothing.

It's not because it's useless.

It's because, from beginning to end, the thing she was so anxious about was something the boss didn't want at all.