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

The air seemed to freeze in the Waldorf Astoria's roadshow hall.

All eyes were focused on the Chinese man standing on the stage.

Li Mo's shirt was soaked.

Sweat streamed down his hairline and into his eyes, stinging painfully.

But he didn't even dare to wipe it.

Right now, he's like a gambler walking a tightrope, with a bottomless abyss beneath his feet and the only way out on the other side.

He held the laser pointer in his hand, his knuckles white from excessive force.

"Smack."

He pressed the next page.

The image on the big screen changed.

It was a huge map of China.

But it's different from a regular map.

On this map, first-tier cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen appear gloomy.

On the contrary, in those vast inland areas, in those unheard-of counties and rural areas, countless red dots are spreading wildly like a virus.

It looks startling.

"Gentlemen and ladies."

Li Mo's voice was a little hoarse, but due to the surge of adrenaline, it carried a chilling excitement.

"In the United States, Amazon caters to the middle class."

"You're used to using credit cards, used to next-day delivery, and used to paying for services."

"But in China."

Li Mo suddenly waved his arm, pointing to large red areas on the map.

"The real gold mines are not within the Fifth Ring Road."

"And here!"

"In these county towns where you can't even pronounce their names!"

"In these corners forgotten by all the internet giants!"

The audience was completely silent.

These Wall Street elites, dressed in bespoke suits, stared at the blood-red map with bewildered expressions.

This was completely beyond their comprehension.

In their model, e-commerce is about selling things to wealthy people.

Poor people?

How much profit can a poor person make?

The representative from Muddy Waters, a blond, blue-eyed white man sitting in the first row, sneered.

He adjusted his posture, crossed his legs, and looked utterly disdainful.

"Mr. Li, your story is very touching."

He spoke, his voice filled with undisguised sarcasm.

"But please forgive my bluntness."

"These red dots represent people whose monthly income may be less than one hundred dollars."

"Making money off the poor?"

"Is this Alibaba's new strategy? Relying on scavenging garbage to boost performance?"

A few scattered laughs rang out from the audience.

The laughter was grating, like scraping glass with a knife.

Li Mo's face stiffened for a moment.

In that instant, that deep-seated inferiority complex was about to resurface.

But he subconsciously glanced at the corner of the hall.

In the shadows.

Lin Che leaned against the wall, toying with the coin in his hand.

Although he couldn't see the young man's expression clearly, Li Mo seemed to hear him say coldly in the young man's ear:

"Fight back."

"Don't be a coward."

Li Mo took a deep breath.

He remembered the conversation techniques Lin Che had taught him in the car.

That set of rhetoric used to brainwash these arrogant capitalists.

"wrong!"

Li Mo suddenly roared, interrupting the Muddy Waters representative's words.

The shout was so sudden that the white man was startled and dropped his pen.

"Completely wrong!"

Li Mo turned around and pulled a whiteboard over from beside the podium.

He grabbed a black marker and wrote a formula on it.

Customer acquisition cost ≈ 0

"You're saying they don't have money?"

"Yes, they really don't have much money."

"but!"

Li Mo poked the whiteboard with the tip of his pen, making a "tap tap tap" sound.

"The time of poor people is worthless!"

"The social connections of the poor are valuable!"

He turned around, like an enraged lion, staring intently at the muddy waters representative.

"In the United States, if you want to acquire a new user, you have to pay Google a GG fee and Facebook a protection fee."

"What is the cost per user? Fifty dollars? Or one hundred dollars?"

The representative from Muddy Waters frowned but remained silent.

This is common sense in the industry.

Traffic for e-commerce is becoming increasingly expensive, which is a pain point for everyone.

"But what about us?"

Li Mo stretched out a finger and waved it in the air.

"penny."

"Even lower."

"All we need to do is give users a pack of tissues that costs one cent in a supermarket."

"Or a free bag of laundry detergent."

"He would send our link to all his relatives just for that little bit of benefit."

"Send it to his village secretary, and to his second uncle!"

"He'll bring us ten, twenty, or even fifty new users!"

Li Mo became more and more excited as he spoke, his spittle flying under the spotlight.

"This is viral growth!"

"This is what we call—social e-commerce!"

He slammed his hand on the whiteboard, making the shelf shake.

"Didn't you ask why the server crashed?"

"That's the reason!"

"Because this speed of dissemination surpasses any marketing campaign in human history!"

"This is a nuclear explosion!"

"This isn't a technical malfunction at all; it's a torrent of public enthusiasm that has breached our defenses!"

The audience was silent.

The mocking laughter that had been heard earlier had completely disappeared.

Everyone gaped, staring intently at the thick black "0" on the whiteboard.

That number seemed so out of place in the lavish banquet hall.

So rough.

But at this moment, it exudes a breathtaking magic.

That's the smell of money.

.......

The chief analyst at Goldman Sachs, sitting in the third row, had slightly trembling hands.

He quickly pulled a small financial calculator out of his pocket.

Fingers flew across the keys, making a rapid "click-click-click" sound.

It wasn't just him.

The sound of calculators echoed throughout the hall.

It was like a sudden downpour.

These people are the most cunning vampires in the world.

They don't need to understand any of the sentiments surrounding "lower-tier markets".

They only need to do the math.

If customer acquisition cost is truly close to zero.

So even if a user's lifetime value (LTV) is only ten dollars.

Even if they only buy the cheapest toilet paper and garbage bags.

The return on investment (ROI) of this business is also infinite.

This is exorbitant profit.

This is an example of exorbitant profits that defies common business sense.

"My God..."

The Morgan Stanley fund manager took off his glasses and wiped the fog off.

He turned his head and whispered to his colleague beside him:

"Isn't this just an online Costco?"

"Even crazier than Costco..."

"Think about China's population density."

"This model simply cannot be replicated in the United States, after all, our neighbors may be two miles apart."

"But in China..."

The manager swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down.

"Those people living in pigeonhole-like apartment buildings, those people living in villages..."

"This is practically a nuclear weapon."

The tense and oppressive atmosphere changed.

The murderous intent to "pay for a life" dissipated.

Instead, there is a kind of greed that is visible to the naked eye.

They were like a group of sharks that had smelled blood.

Several bigwigs who had already taken out their phones, ready to give the traders the order to "sell Yahoo!"

My finger is hovering over the red "Sell" button, hesitating to press it.

I hesitated for two seconds.

They silently moved their fingers to the green "buy" button.

The phones of several people in the front row started vibrating wildly.

"Buzzing—buzzing—"

That was an inquiry call from the risk control department at headquarters.

After all, Muddy Waters' report is still unfolding, and the servers are still down.

But no one answered the phone.

Nobody wants to be distracted at this time.

They were afraid of missing the next word Li Mo uttered.

They were afraid of missing out on this ticket to trillions of dollars in wealth.

Lin Che, hiding in the shadows of the last row, saw all of this.

He watched the changes in the expressions on the faces of those elites.

From disdain to shock, and now to fervor.

It's like watching a spectacular circus performance.

He tossed the coin in his hand high into the air.

"bite."

The coin traced a silver arc in the air before landing back in my palm.

He glanced at it.

It's a human head.

The profile of the mangled image of Washington seemed to be giving a mocking smile to these greedy people.

"The fish has taken the bait."

Lin Che said softly.

His voice was so low that only he could hear it.

.......

"I don't believe it!"

A sudden roar shattered the delicate, frenzied atmosphere.

The muddy water representative in the first row suddenly stood up.

His face looked terrible.

As a professional short-selling firm, he was all too familiar with this atmosphere.

This is a sign that the bulls are about to launch a counterattack.

If Li Mo can tell this story convincingly, and if these investors believe this nonsense...

Then their huge short positions will instantly become worthless!

It could even bankrupt them!

This must never be allowed to happen!

The Muddy Waters representative clutched the short-selling report tightly in his hand, the paper crumpled and wrinkled.

He pointed at Li Mo on the stage, his voice shrill:

"The story is very interesting, Mr. Li."

"You could go to Hollywood and become a screenwriter."

"But stories can't put food on the table!"

He waved the report in his hand as if he were wielding a rusty knife.

"You say you have 600 million users?"

"You're saying this is a stress test?"

"Where's the evidence? Where's the data?"

What we're seeing now is a webpage that's still displaying an error message!

"It's an inaccessible server!"

"Perhaps this is all a scam! A Ponzi scheme disguised as a DDoS attack!"

"You say those users are real? Then let them come out!"

The question posed by the representative of Muddy Waters was extremely tricky.

It hit the most painful spot directly.

Yes.

No matter how eloquently you speak, if you can't provide real data to support your claims, then it's all just castles in the air.

The entire room fell silent instantly.

Those investors who were just about to place an order withdrew their hands.

All eyes turned back to Li Mo.

This time, it came with scrutiny and skepticism.

Li Mo stood on the stage, stared at by the snake-like eyes of the representative of Hunshui.

Cold sweat broke out again in a flash.

He felt his throat was dry.

He instinctively wanted to find the USB drive and flip through the PowerPoint presentation.

but.

The PPT only contains concepts and charts, but no real-time backend data.

What should I do?

Li Mo panicked.

His gaze began to wander, instinctively looking towards that dark corner of the hall.

That was his only lifeline.

In the shadows.

Lin Che had anticipated this moment.

He remained leaning against the wall, in a languid posture.

Seeing Li Mo's pleading look, he did not panic.

He slowly raised his hand.

He made a cutting gesture.

That means "cutting the song".

It also means "to reveal one's hand".

Upon seeing this gesture, Li Mo's heart skipped a beat.

A strange sense of confidence surged from the soles of my feet to the top of my head.

That was an almost blind trust in Lin Che.

Since he said cut.

Then cut it!

Li Mo took a deep breath.

He raised his hand and wiped away the sweat that was about to drip into his eyes.

then.

A smile appeared on his face.

That was a smile that Lin Che had specifically taught him, a smile meant to infuriate people.

Three parts sarcasm, seven parts arrogance.

It's like watching a child who hasn't been weaned yet.

"Do you need evidence?"

Li Mo's voice calmed down, no longer roaring like before.

But this tranquility is all the more powerful.

"You need data?"

He looked at the furious, muddy waters representative and gently shook his head.

"it is good."

"Since you won't shed a tear until you see the coffin."

"Then let's connect with Hangzhou."

Let the facts speak for themselves.

Li Mo turned around, with his back to the audience, and faced the huge LED screen.

He raised his right hand high.

He snapped his fingers crisply in the air.

"Snapped!"

The sound, in the deathly silent hall, was like a starting pistol.

"Switch to the live monitoring screen here!"

As he finished speaking...

The beautifully designed PowerPoint presentation behind them suddenly disappeared.

The entire screen went black instantly.

The lights in the hall dimmed as well.

This sudden darkness made one's heart skip a beat.

This is the calm before the storm.

The representative of Muddy Waters stared intently at the dark screen, his lips trembling slightly.

The report in his hand trembled even more violently, making a rustling sound.

A very bad premonition suddenly welled up in his heart.

It's like the hunter suddenly becoming the prey.

A white circle appeared in the center of the screen.

That's the loading progress bar.

A line of small print jumps below:

Establishing Secure Connection to Hangzhou Node...

(Establishing a secure connection to the Hangzhou node...)

Progress: 99%

The progress bar is stuck at 99%.

The entire venue had several hundred people, including several hundred Wall Street elites who controlled trillions of dollars.

At that moment, everyone held their breath.

They didn't even dare to breathe loudly.

It was as if behind that screen that was about to light up, there lurked a monster capable of devouring everything.

The muddy water representative stared wide-eyed, his eyeballs bloodshot.

He cursed wildly in his heart:

"It must be fake..."

"It must be a recording..."

"It must be a scam..."

however.

next second.

"drop."

A crisp connection success notification tone resounded throughout the venue.