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

At 8:03 a.m., it was dawn.

In the temporary command center on the fifteenth floor of the Weiguang headquarters, the fluorescent lights stayed on all night, and no one turned them off.

Several empty mineral water bottles were scattered on the ground, one of which was crushed. Two cups of takeout coffee were left to dry on the corner of the table, with a layer of brown milk stains on the cups.

There was a mixed smell in the air—sweat, coffee, instant noodles, and the warm smell of plastic and metal from constantly running electronic devices.

The numbers on the big screen have stopped changing.

It wasn't a system malfunction; the data team performed a complete settlement cutoff between midnight and 7 a.m., freezing the final battle report on the screen.

Three lines of numbers, bold white, in a font so large that they can be clearly seen from ten meters away:

Double Twelve Nighttime (00:00-07:00) Battle Report:

Total GMV: ¥14,731,000,000

Total number of credit purchase users: 31,470,000

Amount drawn from the 500 billion credit line: ¥0

14.731 billion.

zero.

These two numbers together are like a joke.

It's not the faint light that's laughing.

The number itself carries a dark humor—you spent 14.7 billion to buy something, but the seller didn't pay a single penny.

Where did the money come from?

It didn't come from banks, nor from investors' pockets.

It comes from the "credit" of 31.47 million people.

Credit is not money.

But in the micro-light ecosystem, it's more effective than money.

Xie Yu stood in front of the big screen. He hadn't slept all night, his eyes were bloodshot, his hair was a mess, his haute couture suit was wrinkled like a sack, the collar was open, and the hem of his shirt was sticking out halfway from his waistband.

He stared at the three lines of numbers, his mouth agape for a long time, unable to close it.

People walked in one after another behind him: Xu Mingyuan, Chen Xuan, Zhou Ting, the operations staff, the technical staff, and even the young lady at the administrative reception desk peeked inside.

No one spoke.

Everyone was looking at those three lines of numbers.

14.7 billion.

31.47 million users.

Zero yuan.

There was a data analyst in the corner, the one called Xiao Sun. He hadn't left his workstation all night. Now he was leaning back in his chair, his eyelids drooping, but he was still awake.

On the screen in front of him was a sub-billboard displaying real-time logistics data for the twelve nodes of the Ark Cloud Warehouse.

Outbound order count: 28,640,000+.

Twenty-eight million six hundred and forty thousand packages are being or will be dispatched from twelve cloud warehouse nodes.

What does this number mean?

This means that starting this morning, express delivery outlets across the country will face a sudden surge in demand.

More than 28 million packages need to be sorted, loaded onto trucks, and delivered. These packages are all filled with cheap factory goods directly from factories in the Yangtze River Delta region—hoodies, T-shirts, socks, data cables, phone cases, and thermos cups.

Nine yuan and ninety cents, twelve yuan and ninety cents, fifteen yuan and ninety cents.

The unit price is ridiculously low, but the quantity is frighteningly large.

More than 28 million parcels were handled by Ark Cloud Warehouse's own logistics system, with an average logistics cost of 1.8 yuan per parcel.

The factory has gone completely mad.

At 3 a.m., the factory manager of Yongsheng Garment Factory received an order notification automatically pushed by the Ark Cloud Warehouse system—an additional 1.5 million gray sweatshirts, to be delivered within three days.

He thought there was a bug in the system.

I called to confirm three times; it's not a bug.

He arrived at the factory at four in the morning, woke up all the workers, and started all three production lines. The sound of sewing machines filled the empty factory.

The same goes for Xinyuan Knitting Factory next door, and for those three hardware and general merchandise OEM factories in Yiwu.

All six factories started operating in the early morning.

The exclusive sales agreement for eleven million units was used up overnight, with nearly three million units consumed. The production schedule for the remaining eight million units was compressed from "two months" to "three weeks".

The machines are running, the lights are on, and people are moving.

In the manufacturing industrial belt of the Yangtze River Delta, six factories started operating at full capacity overnight because a young man in his twenties shouted "Link up" into the camera from a storage room.

This is the first ripple of credit expansion.

Lin Che used future money—more precisely, the credit lines of 31.47 million people for the next month—to buy 14.7 billion worth of spot goods tonight.

These goods need to be produced, packaged, and transported, and each step requires labor, raw materials, electricity, and logistics costs.

These fees are real money.

But it wasn't emitted by a dim light.

The factory provided the initial padding.

Why would a factory be willing to cover the costs?

Because the exclusive sales agreement is there, and the orders are there, Weiguang's settlement cycle is T+7—payment is automatically made seven days later.

The factory is not worried about not receiving payment because Weiguang has a credit line of 50 billion yuan, which is more reliable than any promise from the client.

So the whole chain works like this: users buy goods with credit, factories produce goods with cash, and Weiguang gets control over both the users and the factories without spending a penny.

The 50 billion yuan lay there, motionless, but it triggered the circulation of 14.7 billion yuan worth of goods, supported more than 3,000 workers in six factories, and generated logistics demand for more than 28 million parcels.

Use future money to buy present goods.

This isn't a new concept; credit cards are all about this.

However, the credit limit on a credit card is granted by the bank, and the bank earns interest from it.

The credit limit for Weiguang was granted by Abyss, which only seeks to gain users' attention and data.

Few people understand this difference yet.

But Lin Che could understand it.

He stood at the very back of the command center, against the wall, his hands in the pockets of his 9.9 yuan sweatshirt.

He hadn't slept all night, but his face showed no signs of fatigue, and his eyes were bright.

He looked at the numbers on the big screen for a while, then closed his eyes.

I went over it in my mind.

50 billion is the anchor, credit purchase is the leverage, C2M is the ammunition, live streaming is the fuse, and Abyss is the brain.

These five items completed their first collaboration between midnight last night and 8 a.m. this morning.

Results: 14.7 billion.

And this was only the first night.

The repayment date for credit purchase is the 15th of next month. Before that, the credit limits of these more than 31 million users will continue to be consumed in the Weiguang ecosystem—they will continue to buy things on Weiguang because the credit limit can only be used on Weiguang.

This means that BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent) is about to discover something that will drive them to despair: even if their billions in subsidies haven't run out, even if they continue to give out red envelopes, cash, and coupons—

It's useless now.

Because users' spending power for next month has already been overdrawn by Weiguang.

The user's wallet is empty, not because they are poor, but because they owe Weiguang (a financial company).

They no longer have the resources to spend money on BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent).

Salaries are drawn from the bottom of the pot.

It's not about taking your salary.

It's taking a cut from your users' salaries.

Lin Che opened his eyes, took out his phone from his pocket, and saw more than a hundred unread messages on the screen. He swiped them all away, opened the notes app, wrote a line, and then locked the screen.

He walked over to Xie Yu's side.

Xie Yu was still looking at the big screen, looking somewhat dazed, as if he had just woken up from a dream but was unsure if he was still dreaming.

Lin Che handed him the phone.

Xie Yu glanced down at the memo on the screen, which contained only one line:

"Prepare three draft cross-shareholding agreements."

He didn't understand.

"Cross-shareholding? With whom?"

Lin Che picked up a printed battle report from the table next to him—it was just produced by the data team, two pages of A4 paper, the ink not yet completely dry, and it felt a little sticky to his fingertips.

He folded the battle report in two and handed it to Xie Yu.

"Wash your face and change into your bespoke suit."

Xie Yu took the battle report, his fingers still trembling slightly.

"Those old guys over there should wake up by now."

Lin Che glanced out the window. The sun was out. The winter sun in Hangzhou wasn't very warm, but it was very bright, casting a white light on the glass.

"Prepare to welcome guests."