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

Martin didn't rush to talk about money.

He pressed the call button on the table.

Two minutes later, a man with thinning hair, wearing a T-shirt and slippers, pushed open the door and came in.

He is Tony, a technical partner in Tencent's strategic investment department.

"Inspect the goods."

Martin only said two words.

Lin Che readily pushed the laptop over, the "Micro Group Buying" backend management interface still open on the screen.

Tony didn't waste any words, and didn't even glance at Lin Che.

He sat down and his fingers flew across the keyboard.

The traceroute command.

whois is a reverse lookup.

netstat packet capture.

Lines of green code appeared on the screen, scrolling across it like a waterfall.

The only sounds in the conference room were the clatter of keyboards and the hum of the air conditioner vents.

Lin Che leaned back in his chair, looking at the smoke detector on the ceiling.

He wasn't worried.

Because the "goods" he used were even more real than the real thing.

That was a top-level resource that he risked his career by using his Alibaba P7 privileges to connect to the "Double Eleven Backup Cluster".

"Um?"

Tony's fingers suddenly stopped.

He took off his thick-rimmed glasses, leaned closer to the screen, and stared at the line of IP addresses twice.

Alibaba Cloud - East China Region 2 - High Voltage Cluster.

This is the highest-level server segment within Alibaba. Only core Double Eleven projects or strategic projects personally overseen by Jack Ma are qualified to be deployed here.

Even if a typical startup has the money, it's impossible to rent such a place.

Tony turned around and glanced at Martin.

His expression was solemn, and then he nodded.

The meaning behind that look was very clear:

This is not some unorthodox method.

These are the coordinates of the nuclear missile silos.

Martin began to tap his pen unconsciously on the table.

"Click, click."

The frequency is very high.

He watched the real-time transaction stream refresh like a waterfall on the big screen.

Behind every line of code is the roar of server fans in the Hangzhou Binjiang Park data center.

Every order consumes Alibaba's computing power, electricity costs, and bandwidth.

But the user relationship chain that ultimately settles out is here, in Tencent's conference room, waiting to be packaged and sold.

"Mr. Lin."

Martin spoke up.

"The technical skills are fine. The background is also fine."

He closed the pen cap.

"But the business logic is flawed."

Martin stood up.

He walked to the huge floor-to-ceiling window and pointed outside.

That place is Nanshan District, Shenzhen.

Skyscrapers stand tall, their glass curtain walls reflecting the blinding sunlight.

In a high-end shopping mall, well-dressed white-collar workers are queuing up to buy a Starbucks cup that costs thirty yuan.

"Mr. Lin, look."

Martin's voice carries an elitist sense of superiority.

"The people who live here won't forward links for five dollars. Their time is more valuable than money."

He turned around and looked at Lin Che.

"The second half of China's internet era is about consumption upgrading, like JD.com, providing better services and selling more expensive products. Not..."

He pointed to the page on Lin Che's computer screen that was full of "9.9 yuan shipping included" and "one yuan group purchase".

It's like pointing to a pile of garbage that smells of cheap plastic.

"Instead of letting the e-commerce environment that we've worked so hard to cultivate degenerate back into a wholesale market."

This was the prevailing bias in 2014.

Investors within the Fifth Ring Road, sipping Evian water and discussing the rise of the middle class, are oblivious to the real, vast, and silent China.

Lin Che smiled.

He picked up the crumpled A4 sheet of paper from the table.

That was the "strategic draft" that Martin had picked up and then returned.

He turned the paper over to the other side.

Take out a black ballpoint pen.

"Mr. Martin."

Lin Che's voice wasn't loud, but it was very steady.

How many people do you think there are in China?

"1.3 billion." Martin frowned, wondering what he was trying to tell her.

"How many people have you flown on an airplane?"

Martin paused for a moment.

Lin Che did not wait for his reply.

He drew a pyramid on a piece of paper.

Then, on the wide base at the very bottom of the pyramid, a circle was drawn heavily.

The pen tip tore through the paper with a "rip" sound.

"Less than 100 million."

Lin Che raised his head, his eyes sharp as a scalpel, cutting through that exquisite elite bubble.

There are still 1.2 billion people who have never been on an airplane.

"There are 800 million people with a monthly income of less than 2,000 yuan."

"For these people, time is the least valuable currency."

Lin Che pointed out the window.

"Here, you spend 30 yuan on coffee to stay awake while working overtime, but outside the Fifth Ring Road, some people are willing to post ten links in a group chat and bother twenty relatives just to save 50 cents on delivery fees."

The meeting room was deathly silent.

Martin's finger froze in mid-air.

Lin Che stood up.

He patted the box of cheap mineral water that Tencent had provided for free on the table.

The plastic bottle made a rattling sound.

Then, he pointed to the exquisite bottle of Evian in front of Martin.

"Martin, you drink Evian because you only have one mouth."

Lin Che's voice echoed in the well-air-conditioned conference room.

"But people who drink this."

His palm pressed heavily on the box of cheap water.

There are 1.3 billion mouths.

Martin stopped spinning his pen.

He stared at the ripped base of the pyramid.

The light from the whiteboard reflected off the lenses of his glasses, and his gaze shifted from initial disdain to a thoughtful expression that seemed to have struck a nerve.

Tencent owns WeChat, the largest user base in China.

However, WeChat's monetization strategy has always been awkward.

Selling Google Ads? That's Baidu's business. WeChat is too restrained; they don't dare to release too much of it.

Doing e-commerce? JD.com provided an entry point, but the conversion rate was pitifully low.

Because WeChat has too many different users.

Some people were drinking Evian, while others were drinking plain boiled water.

Tencent has been trying to sell Evian to people who drink plain boiled water.

"Social credit + time cost = traffic monetization".

Lin Che wrote down this formula next to the pyramid.

"WeChat's greatest value is not its traffic, but its social trust."

"What Microgroup buying does is allow users to use their social credit to redeem that 50-cent discount."

"This is not called a downgrade in consumption."

Lin Che threw the pen on the table.

The pen rolled twice and stopped in front of Martin.

"This is called turning silent time into gold."

Martin looked at the pen.

He glanced at Lin Che again.

At that moment, he felt like he wasn't facing a young entrepreneur.

Instead, he was a farmer holding a sickle.

What he saw was not lush green chives, but a wasteland covering the mountains and plains waiting to be harvested.

"That's interesting."

Martin took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

This is his habitual action when he is thinking.

"Your theory is very convincing. But at Tencent, theory alone is not enough."

He put his glasses back on, reverting to his shrewd investor persona.

"I want to see the barriers."

"If I had the WeChat team create an identical group-buying feature tomorrow, and gave them a billion users, what would you use to compete with me?"

This is the true intention revealed at the end of the story.

The ultimate weapon of major companies: copying + blocking.

Lin Che looked at him.

The corners of his mouth rose slightly.

There was no fear in that smile, only a kind of mockery that had been anticipated all along.

He took his phone out of his pocket.

The screen displays a text message that I just received.

From: Alibaba Operations Department.

Message: [WARNING: Your test cluster will perform a routine reset in 30 minutes. Please back up your data beforehand.]

Countdown: 29 minutes and 58 seconds.

Lin Che placed his phone face down on the table.

It made a "snap" sound.

"Mr. Martin, it seems you've forgotten something."

Lin Che stood up and straightened his collar.

"I'm not here to ask for funding."

"I'm here to dispose of stolen goods."

He pointed to the "Alibaba Cloud - High Voltage Cluster" IP address that was still displayed on the computer screen.

"This system is still connected to Alibaba's core processes."

"Mr. Ma will probably see my 'stress test report' in about an hour. If Tencent's name isn't on that report by then..."

Lin Che leaned down, placed his hands on the table, and looked directly into Martin's eyes.

"Then it will become a chain of evidence in an antitrust lawsuit."

"I've already thought of the title: Tencent is using WeChat's monopoly to maliciously block Alibaba's innovative businesses."

"At this crucial juncture of the IPO, do you think Wall Street will believe you, the 'copycat,' or Mr. Ma, the 'victim'?"

Martin's expression changed.

This time, things have really changed.

He originally thought he was reviewing a startup project.

Only then did he realize that what he was holding in his hands was a hand grenade with the fuse already pulled.

Moreover, this grenade was manufactured by Ali.