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

Shen Nan arrived in Hangzhou on the third day.

Without prior notice, at 10:40 a.m., the front desk called on an internal line to say that Attorney Shen had arrived.

Lin Che asked the receptionist to bring him up.

Shen Nan wore a dark gray overcoat, with the top button of his shirt fastened, and carried a dark brown briefcase that he had used for several years; the corners of the briefcase were worn white.

His face was expressionless, but there were dark circles under his eyes, indicating that he probably hadn't slept much during the four and a half hours he had traveled from Beijing.

He glanced around the office as he entered, his gaze lingering on the desk for less than a second, before placing his briefcase on the sofa and sitting down.

"Did it fly over?" Lin Che asked.

"The high-speed train departs at six in the morning."

Have you eaten?

"I ate in the car."

Lin Che poured him a glass of water, hot, and the glass quickly became fogged up.

Shen Nan took it and placed it on the coffee table, but didn't drink it.

He opened his briefcase, took out a transparent file bag containing several sheets of A4 paper and a USB flash drive.

"I've read the assessment report."

When did you watch it?

"You transfer it to me that evening."

Lin Che nodded.

He sent the PDF to Shen Nan via encrypted email around 4 PM that day, and Shen Nan read it that evening.

"Twelve pages," Shen Nan placed the file folder on the coffee table, "I'll break it down into three parts."

Lin Che sat down in the chair opposite Shen Nan and waited for him to speak.

"The first section, the four pages of architecture assessment, isn't much to say. The fact that it's 80% acceptable is good news. The few areas needing improvement are technical adjustments, not involving changes to the core architecture, so compliance costs are low."

Lin Che himself had made these judgments, and they were consistent with Shen Nan's conclusions.

"The second part has a 60-day verification period."

Shen Nan paused for a second before speaking.

He moved the water glass on the coffee table aside to make room, as if he was about to lay out what he was about to say.

"The 60-day figure itself isn't a problem. Two months of technical verification is a normal pace for this level of assessment—neither too fast nor too slow—which shows that the other party wasn't deliberately delaying or rushing to make a judgment."

He pulled a piece of paper from the file bag, covered with dense handwritten annotations, alternating between blue and red pens.

"However, there is a clause in the 60-day verification period that needs attention: 'The Abyss system will remain in its current running state during the verification period.' The legal meaning of this sentence is that you cannot make any upgrades, iterations, or feature extensions to Abyss within 60 days."

"Freeze period."

"Yes, it's essentially a technology freeze period."

Shen Nan turned the paper over and pushed it to the center of the coffee table so that Lin Che could see it.

One section of the annotation on the paper was circled in red pen, with a question mark written next to it.

"The third part, and the most crucial one."

Shen Nan pointed his index finger at the red circle.

"The emergency circuit breaker mechanism is jointly activated by both parties; neither party can trigger it independently."

Lin Che looked at the red circle without saying anything.

"The phrase 'jointly held by both parties' might only be a principle statement in the draft stage," Shen Nan said. "But once it becomes a formal plan, these six words will become specific operational rules: who represents Party A, who represents Party B, how many people need to sign simultaneously to initiate the process, and the validity period of the signatures in hours."

He paused for a moment.

"The issue now is not 'whether to accept the circuit breaker,' but how to allocate control over the circuit breaker mechanism."

Lin Che picked up the water on the table and took a sip.

Shen Nan took the USB drive out of his briefcase and placed it on the coffee table. The USB drive had a silver metallic casing and was very small, not much bigger than a fingernail.

"Here are five circuit breaker allocation models that I've compiled," Shen Nan said. "From A to E, A means the right to initiate the circuit breaker is unilaterally given to the other party, E means the right to initiate the circuit breaker is unilaterally given to our side, and B to D are three different joint signing compromise schemes."

Which one do you think they would accept?

"They won't accept anything below a C."

Shen Nan spoke in a very flat tone when he said this.

This is not a guess, it is a judgment.

A score below C means that the center of control is on Lin Che's side, and the evaluator at this level will not allow the evaluated party to have a greater say.

"What about A?"

"A is the bottom line," Shen Nan said, looking at Lin Che. "If they insist on A, can you accept it?"

A is a situation where the right to initiate the action is entirely unilateral, belonging to the other party.

This means that at any time, the other party can decide to shut down Abyss unilaterally without Lin Che's consent.

Lin Che did not answer immediately.

He turned his chair slightly and glanced out the window.

In late December, the sky in Hangzhou was still gray. The office buildings in the western part of the city stood in a row in the gray light, looking lifeless.

"Unacceptable."

Shen Nan nodded; he had expected this answer.

"The final negotiation space lies between B and C," Shen Nan leaned forward slightly from his seat, "joint signatures from both parties, two to three people, with an initiation timeframe of 24 to 72 hours. This is the most likely solution I've identified."

He tapped twice on the coffee table with his finger, as if simulating the positions of two signatures.

"Option B involves one signature from each party, with a 72-hour time limit. The other party holds slightly more authority, roughly a 60/40 split."

What about Option C?

"C is a joint signature by one person and one entity, valid for 24 hours, with the profits split 50/50."

The gap between 64% and 55% is not large, but in this level of negotiation, 10% is the entire distance between the bottom line and the concession.

"But there's one thing you need to understand."

Shen Nan's tone changed when he said this.

It's no longer in the tone of legal analysis; it's something more direct.

"This isn't a technical issue; it's a control issue."

He put the annotation paper away and returned it to the file folder.

"The technical assessment report concludes with 'national capabilities that need to be protected,' which sounds good, but protection presupposes controllability, and controllability presupposes someone holding the switch."

Lin Che understood.

Shen Nan wasn't objecting to the handwritten words.

He was telling Lin Che the other side of that line of text.

The opposite of "needing to be protected" is not "not needing protection," but rather "the protector will demand equal control."

This is the price to pay.

"Are you ready?" Shen Nan asked.

It's not asking him which option he's prepared to accept.

The question was whether he was prepared to accept that "the coronation is not a free gift."

"Sixty days," Lin Che said, "enough to talk."

Shen Nan glanced at him for a second, then said nothing more.

I picked up the water glass from the coffee table and took a sip.

The cup made a soft tap on the coffee table when it was put down.

The sky outside the window was still gray, showing no sign of clearing up.

The office was warmly lit, but Shen Nan didn't take off his coat, as if he was ready to stand up and leave at any moment.

The USB drive was still lying on the coffee table, silver in color, not much bigger than a fingernail, containing five possibilities.

Shen Nan spoke again.

"They'll demand unilateral initiation rights," he said softly, but each word was firm. "How are you going to negotiate?"