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

On the same evening.

It's not Beijing, and it's not Hangzhou.

A corner workstation on the seventeenth floor of an office building.

The city lights outside the window are far away, blurred by a layer of rain and mist.

This city doesn't freeze in winter, but it does rain.

It's fine and dense, and it's been raining non-stop since this afternoon.

The sound of rain hitting the windowpane was very soft, like someone tapping on it with their fingertips from outside.

A man is sitting in front of a computer.

Silver-rimmed glasses, the lenses reflecting the light from the screen.

He was wearing a thin, dark blue sweater with slightly pilled cuffs and a loose collar.

There was a cup of tea on my left, which had been cold for a long time, with a layer of tiny bubbles floating on the surface.

On the right is a stack of printed papers, the title of the top one is highlighted with two lines.

His corner workstation on the seventeenth floor was quiet; he was the only person on the entire floor at this time.

Only his lamp was on; the others were all off.

Looking from the elevator entrance, the entire floor appears as a point of light amidst the darkness.

It was so quiet you could hear the airflow from the central air conditioning ducts, a low, constant hum.

He was reading a report.

I'm not writing, I'm reading.

He finished writing this report 42 days ago. It is 47 pages long and includes 31 charts and graphs as appendices.

After writing it, he submitted it to an internal system, marked it "to be read," and sent it to his direct supervisor and his supervisor's supervisor.

It's been forty-two days, and the status has remained "pending review".

No one read it, no one replied, no one reported it to higher authorities, and no one asked him why he wrote such a report.

It was like being thrown into a black hole.

The report's title was long, technical, and full of abbreviations and jargon.

The core conclusion can be summarized in one sentence: the prediction accuracy of a certain AI system reached 92%, which is highly likely to exceed the upper limit of existing models.

92%.

He checked the number three times.

The first run used the standard method and processed the data for a whole day.

The second time, cross-validation was used, with three different sets of reference lines.

The third round was done by hand, using a pencil and paper, counting one by one.

The results were the same for all three tests: 92%, with an error of ±0.3%.

He thought that at least one person would talk to him when he submitted the report.

Even asking a simple question like, "Have you verified the source of your data?" would be helpful.

No.

During the first week, he checked the system status once a day.

The second week, it was changed to once every two days.

The third week was changed to once a week.

By the sixth week, he had given up hope.

He even wondered if there was a bug in the system and the report had never been delivered.

But he checked twice, and the delivery record was complete; it had been delivered, but no one had opened it.

He opened it by accident today.

I didn't come here on purpose; I just clicked into that system while working on another document.

The report is still available.

The title is still there.

92% are still there.

But the situation has changed.

The words "to be read" have disappeared.

Instead, there's a small, blue icon on the right side of the status bar.

Read.

He stared at the icon for about five seconds.

His back tensed slightly within five seconds, and the back of the chair sensed the change.

Then he pushed his silver-rimmed glasses up and brought them closer to the screen.

Below the icon is a line of small gray text, so small that it's hard to see unless you look closely.

Reading time: 15:47 on December XX, 2022.

3:47 PM.

This afternoon.

Someone opened his report at 3:47 PM today and read it.

He didn't know who it was.

The "read" status in the system does not display the reader's identity, only the time.

Even the reader's department is not displayed.

15: 47.

He remembered this exact time.

He recalled what he was doing at 3:47 PM today.

In the conference room, we hold a project meeting to report on the progress of data analysis in the fourth quarter.

During his report, he discussed the year-on-year changes in a set of consumer indices.

At that time, someone elsewhere opened the report he had written that no one had read for forty-two days.

I opened it, read it, and the system marked it as "read".

His fingers paused on the keyboard for a moment.

Then he did something.

He opened a folder on the desktop.

This folder is encrypted, its icon is the same as other folders, it's mixed in with a bunch of ordinary files, and it doesn't have a name.

The password was eight characters long, a mix of numbers and letters, and he typed it very quickly.

The folder is open.

There are three files inside.

The first one is a copy of the 92% report, which is exactly the same as the version submitted to the system.

The second is a list of data sources, which marks the acquisition channel and time for each set of data, totaling seventy-three data sources.

The third one is a text file, only one page long, with a few lines of text.

The last line of several lines is in red.

Bold, red, 14-point font.

It contrasts sharply with the black of the other rows.

His gaze fell on the line of red text.

He had read the contents in red many times; he would read them every time he opened this folder.

Then turn it off.

This is both a habit and a confirmation.

This time he didn't turn it off immediately.

He stared at the line of red text for about ten seconds.

For ten seconds, his breathing was very slow, and the sound of airflow could be heard from his nasal cavity.

The screen's light reflected off the lenses of the silver-rimmed glasses, casting a blurry shadow of red text.

His eyes blinked behind his glasses.

Then he opened the first file, a copy of the 92% report.

On the last page of the report, in a blank space, he added a line.

Status Update: Read. Reading time: 15:47. Reader unknown.

After typing that line, he paused and added another sentence.

"42 days since submission. First status change."

Save.

Close the report.

He glanced at the red note, then glanced at it again.

The red color shines brightly against the dark screen background, like a small lamp.

Then I closed the encrypted folder and entered the password to lock it.

The screen returned to the desktop, with file icons neatly arranged, making it impossible to tell which ones were encrypted.

Everything returned to normal.

He picked up the glass of cold tea on his left and took a sip.

The tea is Tieguanyin, but it has been steeped for too long, turning black in color and tasting bitter.

He frowned and put the cup back in its place.

A shallow water stain was left on the table at the bottom of the cup.

The rain and fog outside the window were thicker than before.

The city lights became a blurry halo in the rain and mist.

He looked out the window, the halo of light reflected in the lenses of his silver-rimmed glasses.

Forty-two days of silence were broken by a "read" status.

He didn't know who read it, nor did he know what would happen after he read it.

But he knew one thing.

Someone is watching.

He turned off the computer monitor and stood up.

I poured the cooled Tieguanyin tea into the bathroom sink, rinsed the cup, and put it back on the table.

I picked up my coat and headed for the elevator.

The lights on the seventeenth floor went out.

The entire floor was completely dark.