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

Three documents were spread out on Shen Nan's desk.

The tabletop is made of dark wood grain, and next to it is a cup of Americano coffee, which has gone cold. She has been sitting there since four in the afternoon and has barely drunk any of it.

It was already dark outside the window, but the lights were still on on several floors of the building across from the office building. In Hangzhou in December, it gets dark early.

LM-001, Response to Investigation, was updated last week, with seven new compliance guidelines marked.

LM-002, Response to the meeting.

Inside was a "no-answer list" with fourteen questions, each followed by a line of small print: remain silent or relay the lawyer's opinion.

LM-X, case filed and responded.

It was encrypted; only she and Lin Che knew the password.

She created these three documents herself, and she chose the numbers herself. LM is an abbreviation for Legal Memo.

She was watching LM-002.

It's not about changing anything, it's about going over the logic again.

The talks have been conducted in three rounds, with the first three rounds initiated by the two parties who approached the company proactively.

The fourth round was different; it was initiated by Lin Che, and the roles of offense and defense were reversed.

Several items in the "No Answer List" may need to be adjusted, changing "No Answer" to "Provide voluntarily".

But she hasn't decided which rules to change, or to what extent.

She drew a question mark next to the seventh item and spun the pen tip around on the paper.

The phone rang.

It wasn't WeChat, it was a phone call.

An unfamiliar number with area code 010 is displayed on the screen.

From Beijing.

Shen Nan glanced at the number; it wasn't in his contacts.

She answered the call.

"Attorney Shen."

The other person's voice was flat; he was a middle-aged man.

There was no self-introduction.

"2 PM the day after tomorrow, 607."

Shen Nan's pen stopped on the seventh line of LM-002 and did not move.

"Please ask him to bring any technical materials."

That's it.

The other party hung up the phone.

The time from connection to disconnection should not exceed fifteen seconds.

Shen Nan placed his phone on the table; the screen was still lit, and the call log showed a duration of 00:12.

She stared at the number for a few seconds.

Twelve seconds, two sentences.

The first sentence specifies the time and place, and the second sentence specifies the material requirements.

There were no pleasantries, no confirmation of identity, and no question of "Is this convenient?"

010.

This is not Consultant Xu's number.

They have relayed messages through Consultant Xu three times already, from meeting notices to process confirmations, with Consultant Xu acting as the intermediary.

This time, I called her directly.

There was no middleman involved, and I knew her phone number.

She never gave the other party her phone number.

"Technology-related materials."

Shen Nan silently repeated those five words to himself.

During the first three meetings, the other party never mentioned the word "technology".

The keywords for the first three times were "timeline", "correlation" and "fund flow".

This time it's different.

Shen Nan didn't spend time thinking about this question.

She did three things.

The first piece.

She opened her laptop and went into the LM-002 folder.

The seventh item on the "No-Answer List," the one she just marked with a question mark, is about Abyss.

The original setting was "No answer," meaning that if the other party asked any questions related to the underlying technical system, the user would remain silent or relay the information.

She erased the question mark and wrote four words next to it: "Provide voluntarily".

As she wrote those four characters, her pen paused on the paper for a second.

It's finished.

Then I turned to the last page and added a line in the "Special Notes" section.

"The other party requested that we bring technical-related materials; the specific scope is yet to be confirmed, but the direction has changed."

Save and close.

the second one.

She right-clicked and opened the LM-X folder.

Enter the password (six digits), and the folder will open.

There are only two files inside.

One is a legal risk assessment, which lists three possible directions for filing a case and the corresponding strategies for each direction.

One is the worst-case scenario contingency plan, which she named with three letters: LFW.

Legal Firewall.

Legal firewall.

She glanced at the modification dates of the two files; both were from last month.

It is not open.

The significance of LM-X's existence is simply its very existence; as long as this folder still exists, it means that the worst-case scenario has not yet occurred.

If one day she needs to open it, it means things have reached the final stage.

She minimized the folder and pushed it to the bottom right corner of the screen.

After thinking for a moment, I opened it again and checked the "hidden" box in the folder properties.

"Save this for later, it might be useful."

She muttered something under her breath and then closed the folder.

The LM-X has once again become an invisible entity.

Only the icons for LM-001 and LM-002 remain on the desktop, located in the upper left corner.

Clean and tidy.

The third piece.

Shen Nan picked up his phone and opened the chat window with Lin Che.

The previous message was posted by Lin Che five days ago. It contained the complete expression of the "supplementary value," and she helped revise the wording, going through three drafts.

Shen Nan replied with two words: "Received."

Since then, there have been no new messages in the chat box.

Five days of blank space.

Her thumb paused on the keyboard for a moment.

She considered sending a longer message, such as repeating the exact words spoken on the phone, along with her own judgment.

But she didn't.

The cursor in the dialog box blinked for a few seconds.

She typed four words.

"The time has been set."

send.

She placed her phone on the table, screen facing up.

Watching those four words change to "sent" in the dialog box.

Then he picked up a pen and wrote a date in the upper right corner of the LM-002 cover.

The date the day after tomorrow.

Hangzhou, Binjiang District.

Lin Che's phone lit up.

It's not a charger, and it's not a system notification.

It's a message.

He sat up from the sofa and picked up his phone.

The screen displayed Shen Nan's portrait and four words.

The date has been set.

He looked at those four words.

I watched it for about ten seconds.

The light from the phone screen shone on his face; the living room lights were off, and there was only this little bit of light.

No reply.

No reply is needed.

Those four words have said everything that needed to be said.

Shen Nan didn't write down the time or place because it wasn't necessary.

There's only one 607, and the time has already been set by the other party.

He put his phone on the coffee table.

This time the screen is facing upwards.

For the first time in five days, it turned upwards.

On the elevated road outside the window, a truck's brake light flashed briefly and then went out.

The traffic continued to move forward, just like it had for the previous five days.

But things are different now.

the day after tomorrow.

Lin Che stood up and walked to the table.

There was a briefcase on the table, made of black cowhide, empty, with the zipper undone.

Next to it was the Abyss cross-section material he had compiled over the past few days, divided into three folders and arranged in the order of presentation.

The first folder contains the modified logs and timestamps, the second contains historical prediction records, and the third contains the real-time demo scheme.

He zipped up the zipper.

They pulled it open again.

Empty package.

He needs to fill it with things before the day after tomorrow.

He picked up the first folder, flipped through it, and found all the materials inside. He then put it back on the desktop.

Then I glanced at my phone.

Shen Nan did not send any more messages.

Four words are enough.