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

The email appeared in my inbox at 9 a.m. the next day.

Lin Che arrived at the office at 8:30. He first made himself a cup of tea, then turned on his computer and habitually checked the data panel in the CCPS backend.

The daily average is over 5200, consistent with Xie Yu's report yesterday, with no fluctuations.

Temperature is controlled at 99.7°C with no fluctuations.

everything is normal.

Then he opened his email.

There are three new emails in my inbox.

The first email was a year-end summary template sent by the Weiguang Administration Department, sent to a group.

The second email was a subscription push from a tech forum.

The third letter.

The sender is not an unfamiliar address; it is the email address corresponding to the 010 number.

Lin Che recognized the email address. The last time he received it was a meeting notice in conference room 607, which stated, "Please go to the designated location at X o'clock on X month X day to cooperate with the relevant work."

This time is different.

He opened the email.

Let's look at the title first.

Invitation to the Abyss System Technical Verification Phase Working Meeting

invite.

It's not a "notification" or a "meeting arrangement," it's an "invitation."

Now let's look at the main text.

The main text is very short, consisting of three paragraphs.

The first paragraph states: "Based on a comprehensive assessment of the preliminary technical evaluation, the project now enters a 60-day technical verification phase."

The second paragraph states: "To advance the various work arrangements for the verification phase, we hope you will attend the following working meeting."

The third paragraph contains the time, location, and list of attendees.

We hope you will attend.

It's not "Please cooperate".

Lin Che scrolled down the email a little to look at the meeting information.

时间：2023年1月5日，上午10:00。

Location: Meeting Room B, 2nd Floor, Building 3, No. XX, XX Road, Haidian District, Beijing.

Meeting Room B, 2nd Floor, Building 3.

It's not 607.

607 is underground with no windows. The door is an encrypted access control system, and you have to go through three checks before you can enter. The corridor lights are motion-activated and only turn on when someone walks past them.

Every time I walk through that corridor, my footsteps bounce back and forth between the concrete walls, the echoes are dry and there is no extra sound.

The table was rectangular, and the person in charge of national security sat opposite him. Next to him was a recording device with a red indicator light that was always on.

The temperature in that room was always exactly 20 degrees Celsius, no more, no less, a dry 20 degrees Celsius. If you stayed there for too long, your lips would peel.

Meeting room B is on the 2nd floor.

There are windows on the second floor.

Having windows means there is sunlight, and having sunlight means this is not a space designed to exert pressure.

Lin Che looked at the address again.

He had been to this address, XX Road, XX Number, four times, and each time he had been to room 607.

However, 607 is located at the end of the west corridor on the basement level, while meeting room B is on the second floor above ground.

Same courtyard, different floors, different rooms, different meanings.

From underground to above ground.

From 607 to Conference Room B.

From "Please cooperate" to "We hope you will participate".

Three changes.

Each one, taken individually, might have a different interpretation.

607 may have been under maintenance, so we changed rooms.

The wording may simply be a difference in administrative style.

However, if all three changes appear in the same email, they all point to the same direction.

He continued looking down at the list of attendees.

When you scroll to the bottom, the background color of the list area is different from the main text; it's light gray, and the font size is also smaller.

Attendees:

1. Lin Che (Weiguang Technology)

2. Shen Nan (Legal Counsel)

3. The name of the person in charge of national security (whom he knows).

4. The female member of the technical evaluation team (he recognized her; she was the one who wrote that handwritten note).

5. An unfamiliar name

6. Another unfamiliar name

Six people.

He had met and dealt with the first four, and he knew their roles in this matter.

He had never seen the fifth and sixth ones on any occasion.

He glanced at the order in which the two names were placed.

Following the head of national security and the technical evaluation team.

In a typical conference participant list, there are two sorting rules: by the number of strokes in the surname or by the rank of the employee.

If we're judging by the number of strokes in the surname, the positions of these two names don't tell us anything.

However, if it is based on the rank of the position.

He copied the fifth name and pasted it into the search engine.

No results were found.

It's not that I found irrelevant people; it's that there were absolutely no results. The page says "No relevant content found."

I switched to another search engine and got the same results.

The sixth name is the same.

Two engines, two searches, zero results.

Two names that do not exist on the Internet.

People who can leave no trace on the internet either have deliberately cleaned up their online presence or were never in a public system from the beginning.

Neither of them are ordinary people.

Lin Che closed the search page and returned to his email.

He read the email again from beginning to end, this time very slowly, word by word.

"Based on the preliminary opinions of the technical assessment, this means that the technical assessment report has completed its internal process and is no longer a "discussion draft".

"To advance the various work arrangements for the verification phase," which means that the 60-day verification period has officially begun.

"We hope you will attend," which means that Lin Che's role at this meeting is no longer that of a person being scrutinized.

He was a participant.

Those who are to be interviewed will not receive an "invitation" or be "hoped" to attend.

These two words are only used for those who are equal or needed.

He picked up his phone, took a screenshot of the email, and sent it to Shen Nan.

No text was attached, only a screenshot was posted.

Shen Nan replied with four words two minutes later.

"I saw it."

Then, half a minute later, the second message arrived.

"Let me check the fifth and sixth names."

Shen Nan noticed it too.

Without Lin Che needing to circle them or remind him, Shen Nan's first reaction upon seeing the list was the same as his: Who are these two people?

Unfamiliar names appearing at meetings of this level are not added on the spot, nor are they just there to make up the numbers.

Ten minutes later, Shen Nan sent a third message.

"No results found. This should be the same as your result; there is no information available through public channels."

Then comes the fourth point.

"But I noticed the way the list was ordered. It wasn't based on the number of strokes in the surnames. The person in charge of the National Security team, surnamed Zhao, was third, and the person in charge of the technical evaluation team, surnamed Li, was fourth. If it were based on the number of strokes, Zhao would be after Li."

It's not based on stroke order.

That is, according to another rule.

By position.

The two names following the head of national security and the technical evaluation team, if listed by position, would be of a higher rank than the head of national security.

Shen Nan did not voice this conclusion.

He doesn't need to say anything.

Lin Che put down his phone.

The sky outside the window is brighter than yesterday; the clouds are dispersing, and sunlight is shining through.

In late December, the sun rarely shines in Hangzhou. The sunlight streams into the office, casting a warm patch of light on the desk.

He looked at the patch of light, where dust particles from the air were slowly drifting, illuminated by the sunlight.

1 month 5 day.

Ten days left.

He opened the calendar app and marked a red dot on the January 5th page.

Then I typed a line of text next to it.

"Meeting Room B, not 607."