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

3 PM, Weiguang headquarters, top floor.

This floor is not used normally; it is reserved for future administrative expansion. It contains only one meeting room, with floor-to-ceiling windows on all four sides, offering a view of half of Hangzhou's skyline.

The air conditioning was on in the meeting room today, and the temperature was set to 20 degrees Celsius. There was bottled water and tea on the table, but no fruit or snacks.

It's so simple it's almost cold.

Lin Che sat at the head of the long table.

He hadn't deliberately chosen this seat, but there was only one chair at the head of the table; the rest were arranged along both sides. It was unclear who had arranged it—perhaps someone from the administration department, perhaps Xie Yu.

The main seat faces the floor-to-ceiling window, with a white wall behind it. Nothing is hanging on the wall.

There are two things on the table.

On the left is a printed document with the cover reading "Confirmation Letter of Joint Credit Grant by Three Major Banks". The bottom right corner is stamped with the official seals of the three banks, all red, stacked together, indicating 50 billion yuan in black and white.

On the right is a tablet computer with its screen lit up, displaying the core data of Weiguang Credit Purchase as of 2 PM today: number of users, credit exposure, bad debt rate, repurchase rate, and repayment prediction model.

The numbers are densely packed, but the most crucial ones are highlighted in red:

Total number of credit purchase users: 37,820,000

Total credit exposure: ¥71,400,000,000

Real-time bad debt rate: 0.31%

Credit line of 500 billion: ¥0

37.82 million users.

A credit exposure of 71.4 billion.

The bad debt rate is 0.31%.

The 50 billion hasn't been touched at all.

These two items were placed on the table, one on the left and one on the right, like two knives.

At 3:10, the elevator arrived.

Qian Minghui came out first.

He came alone, without an assistant.

He was wearing a very ordinary dark coat, without a tie, and carrying a briefcase. The briefcase was small and thin, as if it only contained one or two documents.

He entered the conference room, but before sitting down, he looked around.

I saw two things on the table, Lin Che in the main seat, and the hazy Hangzhou skyline outside the floor-to-ceiling window.

Then he pulled out a chair and sat down, in the middle of the left side of the table, not too far from the head of the table.

"President Lin." He nodded.

Lin Che nodded.

There was no small talk.

At 3:15, Zhou Guoping arrived.

He was alone, wearing a light gray shirt with a down vest over it—Hangzhou in December is a bit warmer than Beijing, but not exactly warm either.

When he came in, he was holding a takeaway coffee cup with the Starbucks logo printed on it, and he had drunk most of it.

He sat on the right side of the table, across from Qian Minghui.

"Hello, Mr. Lin."

"Hello, Mr. Zhou."

The two people arrived.

There should be three people.

Five minutes have passed.

3:20.

3:25.

Lin Che didn't urge him.

Qian Minghui was looking at his phone, while Zhou Guoping finished his coffee, placed the paper cup on the table, and twirled it with his finger.

At 3:28, the elevator rang again.

When Sun Zheng entered, the temperature in the conference room seemed to drop by two degrees.

It wasn't a real surrender; it was something he brought in—the expression on his face looked like it had been scraped with a knife.

His suit was new and looked very presentable, but the collar of his shirt was buttoned too tightly, leaving a red mark.

There was a small bandage wrapped around the base of my right palm—it was from a cut on a piece of glass yesterday.

He glanced at the things on the table, saw the 50 billion credit confirmation letter, saw the credit purchase data on the tablet, and then looked at Lin Che in the main seat.

He did not sit down immediately.

I stood there for two seconds.

For those two seconds, he and Lin Che made eye contact.

It's hard to say who looked away first.

Sun Zheng pulled out a chair and sat down next to Qian Minghui.

All three people have arrived.

Lin Che glanced at them, then picked up a file bag from the ground next to the main seat—it was made of brown kraft paper, the same material as the one that contained the approval document for the government pilot program yesterday, but thicker.

He broke the seal and pulled out three documents, each about twenty pages long, bound together, with the same title printed on the cover:

Draft Framework Agreement on Strategic Cross-Shareholding between Microlight Technology and BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent)

He pushed the three portions in front of the three people respectively.

"See for yourselves."

Qian Minghui was the first to open it.

He read very quickly, his eyes scanning each page from left to right, his fingers turning the pages at a steady pace. When he reached the seventh page, he paused, turned back a page, read it again, and then continued.

Zhou Guoping read slowly, starting from the first line of the first page and reading word by word, his lips moving slightly as if he were reciting silently.

Sun Zheng opened the cover, glanced at the framework summary on the first page, and then closed the file.

"What do you mean?"

His voice wasn't loud, but it was firm, like stone hitting stone.

Lin Che did not answer his question.

"Page three, core clause one," he tapped the document in front of him with his finger, "Weiguang Technology will contribute its Credit Purchase ecosystem data and Ark Cloud Warehouse logistics network as intangible assets in exchange for 12% of the equity in Alibaba's e-commerce sector, 9% of the equity in Tencent's financial technology sector, and 7% of the equity in Baidu's search engine sector."

Sun Zheng's expression changed.

It wasn't anger, but something deeper than anger—he was digesting the meaning behind those numbers.

A 12% stake in Alibaba's e-commerce division—based on today's market capitalization after the crash—is worth approximately 200 billion yuan.

Nine percent of Tencent's fintech sector is worth approximately 150 billion yuan.

Seven percent of Baidu searches are in the Google search section—approximately 60 billion yuan.

The total is 410 billion.

Lin Che used the data from Credit Purchase and the assets of Cloud Warehouse to exchange for 410 billion yuan worth of core asset equity.

"On page five, in the third core clause," Lin Che continued, "after the cross-shareholding is completed, the user data interfaces of the three platforms will be unilaterally opened to Weiguang, and Weiguang's Abyss system will obtain the right to access anonymous behavioral data from the three platforms."

Qian Minghui turned to the fifth page, read that line, and then closed the document.

He didn't get angry.

He looked up at Lin Che, his eyes filled with something complex—not anger, not resentment, but a sense of relief, like "finally seeing the full picture of the opponent."

"Mr. Lin," his voice was flat, "you're not trying to defeat us."

"no."

"You're going to eat us."

Lin Che neither denied nor confirmed it.

He switched the data page on his tablet to another interface—the repayment prediction model for Weiguang Credit Purchase.

The curve is a steadily rising line, which begins to accelerate in the third month, and by the sixth month—

"Within six months, the number of users of Weiguang Credit Purchase will exceed 100 million," Lin Che pointed to a certain point on the curve, "and the total credit exposure will reach 300 billion. At that time, more than 20% of online consumption in China will be completed through credit purchase."

He looked at the three people.

"You can choose to sign today and become shareholders in this ecosystem."

He paused for a moment.

"You can choose not to sign. If you don't, I'll send this agreement to your second and third largest shareholders, and they'll sign it. Then you won't be shareholders anymore, you'll be competitors, and you've seen how I deal with competitors."

It's quiet now.

A plane flew by outside the window, very high up, and the sound of its engine came through the floor-to-ceiling window, muffled.

Sun Zheng gripped the edge of the document with his right hand, his knuckles white, and a band-aid stretched tightly over his wrist.

His lips moved twice; the first time no sound came out, the second time:

"I need to have a lawyer review this document."

"Okay," Lin Che said, "I'll give you twenty-four hours."

"It's too short."

"That's enough. Your stock price is falling every day. Every day you sign a contract later, you lose one less share."

Sun Zheng clenched his teeth, and a vein throbbed on his temple.

Qian Minghui had already turned back to the last page of the document—the signature page.

The signature fields for all three parties are empty, with a line of small print at the bottom:

"Following the signing of this agreement, the equity transfer between the parties shall be completed within fifteen business days."

He picked up the bottled water on the table, unscrewed it, took a sip, and put the bottle down.

"I need to report to headquarters," he said.

"Okay," Lin Che said.

Zhou Guoping remained silent. He read the document from beginning to end, closed it, placed it on the table, and gently pressed the cover with his palm.

"Mr. Lin, in exchange for a 7% stake in Baidu Search's Google Analytics platform, could you include priority access to Weiguang Credit Purchase within Baidu's search ecosystem in the consideration?"

He's negotiating terms.

This means he has already decided to sign.

Lin Che glanced at him: "We can talk."

The three men's attitudes were divided into three levels: Zhou Guoping was already discussing the details, Qian Minghui was going through the procedures, and Sun Zheng was still resisting.

But resistance is pointless now.

Because the two things on the table—the 50 billion yuan credit confirmation letter and the credit data of more than 37 million users—are not bargaining chips.

It's a judgment.

Lin Che stood up.

"Please take your time reading this. If you have any questions, please contact Xie Yu."

He walked around the table and went to the floor-to-ceiling window.

The Hangzhou skyline stretched out before me, and the Qiantang River curved in the distance, its surface a hazy gray, making it impossible to distinguish between water and sky.

Nearby are city buildings of varying heights, with the frames of tower cranes protruding from several buildings under construction.

He stood by the window, his hands in his pockets.

Behind me, three people were looking down and flipping through documents; the rustling sound of the pages turning was the only noise in the conference room.

The door was pushed open.

Xie Yu walked in and stopped two steps behind Lin Che.

He took a deep breath.

"Chairman Lin."

Lin Che did not turn around.

Xie Yu never used this title.

He has always been called "boss," but occasionally he is addressed as "General Manager Lin" in formal settings.

"Chairman Lin"—only a true group leader deserves these two titles.

"The preliminary legal procedures for the equity transfer have been initiated, and the first batch of documents is expected to be delivered to the legal departments of the three companies tonight."

Lin Che stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, looking out the window.

He didn't speak.

His silhouette was reflected in the glass, blurry, overlapping with the skyline outside the window, making it impossible to distinguish between the person and the city.