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

9:00 AM, January 3rd, Singapore.

Ark Fund's office is located on the 27th floor of an office building in Raffles Place. It's not a large space, and the team consists of six people who do cross-border industrial investment.

Business isn't usually too busy; I'm lucky if I can review two or three projects a month. Most of my time is spent drinking coffee and waiting for emails.

Today is different.

After finishing his call with Lin Che, trader Chen Wei sat at his desk for about thirty seconds without moving.

He has been doing cross-border M&A for eight years and has seen all sorts of strange clients.

Some people asked him to buy Icelandic fishing boats, others asked him to buy copper mines in Africa, and last month a Middle Eastern family fund asked him if he could acquire a Japanese hot spring hotel.

But no one ever asked him to buy the mask factory at a premium.

The company in Vietnam has a monthly production capacity of 20 million ordinary medical masks. The factory is located in the suburbs of Ho Chi Minh City. The owner, surnamed Nguyen, is in his fifties and has been making masks for twenty years. However, the company has not been doing well for the past three years. The mask market in Southeast Asia has an overcapacity, and prices have been at the bottom.

Mr. Nguyen wanted to sell his factory before the Lunar New Year and return to Hanoi to retire.

The asking price is high, but sellers with this mindset can easily cut the price by 15% to 20%.

The one in Thailand is simpler.

With a monthly production capacity of ten million units, located in the suburbs of Bangkok, the business is facing difficulties. The owner is already looking for buyers, and the quoted price is very reasonable.

The normal procedure is: first negotiate the price, then conduct due diligence, then discuss the terms of delivery, and finally sign the contract.

The entire process takes a month if it goes quickly, and two to three months if it goes slowly.

What was Lin Che saying?

10% premium. Contract signed on the same day, all to be completed before January 20th.

Chen Wei rubbed his temples, turned on his computer, and started working.

I called Vietnam first.

Mr. Ruan's assistant answered the phone, saying that the boss was having breakfast and would be waiting a moment.

After waiting for five minutes, Boss Ruan came online, his voice muffled as if he were chewing something.

Chen Wei gave the price quote.

The other end of the phone went silent; the chewing sounds stopped.

How much did you say?

Chen Wei repeated it again.

Mr. Ruan probably thought he had misheard.

It was 10 percent higher than his asking price.

He hesitated for a few seconds, during which Chen Wei could almost hear the other person's mind racing: Is this a trap? Is there something I don't know?

"We demand a contract be signed as soon as possible," Chen Wei said, "ideally today."

"today?"

"Yes, I've prepared all the legal documents. Once they're signed, the deposit will be credited to your account today."

After a few seconds of silence, Boss Nguyen said something in Vietnamese, probably asking his assistant to get some documents.

"good."

It's faster in Thailand.

The other party was in a hurry to get rid of the product, and after hearing the price, they only confirmed the payment time once before agreeing.

Chen Wei hung up the phone and leaned back in his chair.

The Singapore skyline is visible outside the window, and the sunlight is wonderful, a completely different world from the hazy atmosphere in Hangzhou.

He picked up a pen and wrote a line on the last blank page of the meeting minutes: All production capacity must be delivered by January 20th.

After writing it, I looked at it for two seconds, then added a "Note" in front of it and circled it.

Mask factory, purchased at a premium, delivery in twenty days.

He couldn't figure it out.

But this is not something he should be able to figure out.

The client gives the money, he executes it; traders who ask too many questions don't last long.

Simultaneously, a buying spree of raw materials was also launched.

Meltblown fabric is sourced from suppliers in South Korea and Japan, while nonwoven fabric is sourced from India and Vietnam.

All purchases are made under the name of an SPV under Ark Fund, with a unified external explanation: "Routine strategic reserves for the healthcare industry."

If this is said out loud, no one will think much of it.

It's perfectly normal for funds to make industry investments and stockpile raw materials at the end of the year.

Chen Wei sent an encrypted email summarizing the day's operations back to Hangzhou with a very plain title: "Ark Medical Sector - Q1 Procurement Progress".

After sending it, he took a sip of coffee. It was cold, and the bitterness made him frown.

.........

On the same day, in Hangzhou, late at night.

Most of the lights at the Weiguang headquarters were off, except for those in Lin Che's office and the server room. The server room lights, however, were always on; that doesn't count.

Lin Che sat in front of the computer, the screen displaying the backend management interface of the Abyss system.

The report has been completed.

Early warning of infectious diseases based on abnormal signals from social media - a special analysis of the Wuhan area.

He opened the report and read it from beginning to end.

The data source is real.

Searches for medical supplies in Wuhan have indeed increased in the past month, though not dramatically, but significantly compared to the same period in previous years.

The density of ride-hailing orders near the hospital is about 12 percent higher than the same period last year.

There have been unusual fluctuations in the sales of face masks in pharmacies, especially for N95 masks, which have increased nearly threefold. Although the base number is small, the signal is very clear.

The report was very professional.

Data visualization, anomaly signal annotation, risk rating matrix—it has everything you need.

The technical team did an excellent job, and Abyss's data aggregation capabilities are fully demonstrated in this report.

He turned to the last page.

Conclusion section.

Bold, size 14:

Overall assessment: Moderate risk; continued monitoring is recommended.

He stared at the line of text for five seconds.

My finger was on the mouse, but I didn't move it.

The office was very quiet; you could even hear the air conditioner blowing.

A thin beam of light from the emergency light at the end of the corridor shone through the crack in the door, falling on the floor like a white scratch.

He granted edit permissions.

The cursor jumped to the conclusion column and selected the words "Medium risk, continued monitoring recommended".

Delete it.

Entering new content: High risk, it is recommended to immediately activate the full emergency plan.

My finger hovered over the Enter key for a second.

If one day someone comes to investigate...

He pressed save.

A new record has been added to the system log.

Timestamp, operator, values ​​before and after modification, all are recorded.

The server will automatically back up data; it cannot be deleted or overwritten.

This is the system architecture he designed himself. All data operations in Abyss must be traceable, and any modifications must be logged.

He designed these rules to prevent others from tampering with the data.

He is the one who is now falsifying the data.

He closed the report, shut down the system background, and returned the screen to the desktop.

The wallpaper is the default one, a picture of blue sky and white clouds.

He glanced at it, found it too bright, and turned down the screen brightness.

That log is sitting on the server.

It will not disappear, it will not be forgotten, and it will not become irrelevant with the passage of time.

It will always be there, waiting quietly.

Waiting for someone who cares.

.........

July 4th, morning.

When Xie Yu opened his email, the first message was an Abyss warning report forwarded by Lin Che.

He clicked on it and looked at it very carefully.

He could roughly understand the data part.

Search volume increased, order density was abnormal, and mask sales fluctuated.

Putting these numbers together, it's clear that something's wrong in Wuhan.

But there's an invisible chain of logic between "something's not right" and "high risk, we recommend activating a full emergency plan immediately."

A procurement list was attached to the report.

Masks, disposable medical three-layer, quantity...

He glanced at it, thinking he was seeing things, rubbed his eyes, and looked at it again.

You read that right.

Disinfectant, protective clothing, forehead thermometer, thermometer, infrared thermometer, disposable gloves, medical waste bags.

The number of each item is ridiculously large.

It's not the volume of one city, but the volume of twelve cities simultaneously.

He took a deep breath and started making a phone call.

The first call was to Hangzhou Cloud Warehouse.

After hearing the request, the other party paused for two seconds and said, "Mr. Xie, this quantity... we don't have enough space in our warehouse. We still have leftover stock from Double Twelve on our shelves that we haven't cleared out."

"Teng, reserve 30% of the warehouse space for emergencies. Return any leftover stock from Double Twelve that needs to be returned, and transfer any that needs to be allocated to other cities."

"Well... okay."

The second call was to Shenzhen.

The other party was even more direct: "Mr. Xie, no holiday for Spring Festival? My people bought their train tickets two months in advance."

"No, everyone is on duty, and the disinfection process has been upgraded to the highest standard."

"What is the highest standard? Previously, our highest standard was only twice a day, but this time—"

"The body temperature of all personnel entering and leaving the warehouse is measured four times a day and recorded."

There was a three-second silence on the other end of the phone.

"Mr. Xie, what exactly happened?"

Xie Yu opened his mouth as if to say something, but then swallowed it back.

"As instructed by Chairman Lin, the Abyss early warning report recommends activating the emergency response plan and implementing it to the highest standards."

When he heard himself say those words, his voice was so calm that even he was surprised.

But after hanging up the phone, he leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling for a long time.

We'll target the cloud warehouses in each of the twelve cities one by one.

The reactions were different. The person in charge in Chengdu asked, "Is there a mistake?" The person in charge in Wuhan didn't say much and directly asked, "When will the procurement budget be approved?" The person in Changsha said, "Okay, I'll arrange it" and then hung up. The person in Shanghai hesitated for a long time and finally said, "The employees will have objections."

Xie Yu kept the same story to himself, repeating the same words over and over again.

Chairman Lin's instructions: Abyss early warning report, highest standard.

As he spoke, he himself felt that he had worn out his words.

late at night.

After finishing his last phone call with the logistics supplier, Xie Yu rubbed his neck and stood up.

A pile of documents and notebooks lay on the desk, the handwriting even worse than in the morning.

He picked up his coat and prepared to leave.

My phone vibrated.

News push notification.

He glanced at it habitually, his thumb already ready to swipe it away.

Then it stopped.

A financial media outlet's news flash had only one line in its headline: "Sources reveal that Alibaba is closely monitoring Weiguang Technology's recent unusual operational activities, which may affect the cross-shareholding settlement process."

He stared at the line of text for five seconds.

Then he turned his head and looked at the end of the corridor.

The light in Lin Che's office was still on.