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

Lin Che did not return to his house in Binjiang that night.

He stayed in the office very late, not because he was working overtime, but because he didn't want to move.

I've reviewed the CCPS data, checked the Ark backend, and read Xie Yu's report. There are no new emails in my inbox.

After He Wei left, he brewed a cup of tea, Tieguanyin, not Lao Zhou's Biluochun, but loose tea from his own drawer.

The tea had been steeping for a long time, and its color had darkened, revealing a bitter taste. He took a sip but didn't throw it away.

He had seen everything he could, but he did not stand up.

It was completely dark outside the window. The windows of the office building across the street were turning off one by one, as if someone was turning off the lights floor by floor from top to bottom.

Finally, only the spotlights in the lobby on the first floor remained on, illuminating the stainless steel frame of the revolving door and reflecting a small patch of cold white light.

He turned off the fluorescent lights in the office and only turned on the desk lamp.

The lamp's beam was very small, illuminating only the center of the tabletop, leaving the surrounding area dark.

The computer screen was still lit, and the four icons on the desktop cast faint shadows under the combined light of the desk lamp and the screen.

Lv4.

Abyss-v4.

in case.

Screenshot_20221226.

He looked at the third one.

"if".

He himself couldn't quite remember when he created this folder.

Around the time when Abyss v2.0 had just been launched, he created an empty folder late one night and named it that.

Nothing has been put in it.

From its construction until now, it has never been neglected.

"If" is a word that leaves no room for further explanation.

If what?

He hadn't thought about it.

Or rather, he had thought about it, but never put that idea into any words or documents.

"If" is just "if," an empty shell, a placeholder, placed on the desktop to remind him that a possibility exists.

That possibility is now becoming a reality.

Chengdu is bright, passports are green, the Ark is unfrozen, and the circuit breaker mechanism has been signed.

"If" is changing to "is".

He double-clicked the folder.

A blank white screen.

Just like Lv4, there's nothing there.

He stared at that blank space for a long time.

The light from the table lamp reflected off the screen, creating a thin layer of glare. He could see his face reflected on the screen, blurry and overlapping with the white blank space.

Then he made a decision.

He moved the mouse over the icon of the "If" folder, held down the left mouse button, and dragged it.

The folder icon followed the mouse cursor as it moved across the desktop, and was pulled out from the queue of four icons in the upper right corner.

When dragged, the icon becomes semi-transparent with a light blue border.

He opened "This PC" and went to drive D.

The root directory of drive D contains some system folders and backups of several old projects, which are not arranged very neatly, and he himself has forgotten what some of the names are.

He dragged the "If" icon into the root directory of drive D and released the mouse.

The system displayed a "Movement complete" message, which then disappeared in a flash.

The folder disappeared from the file list on drive D, standing out among a bunch of folders with English names.

The desktop originally had four icons, but now only three remain.

Lv4.

Abyss-v4.

Screenshot_20221226.

"If" is no longer there.

But it was not deleted.

It was simply hidden away, moved from the desktop to the root directory of drive D, and moved from a place you could see every day to a place you can't see unless you actively open it.

It's not about throwing it away, it's about putting it aside for now.

It's not that I don't want it anymore, it's that I don't need it standing there to remind him anymore.

He closed the "This PC" window.

The three icons on the desktop have been rearranged, and the original "If" space is now empty, leaving a blank area on the desktop.

The system did not automatically move other icons to fill that space, leaving a gap between the three icons.

Lv4 and Abyss-v4 are next to each other, with a space in between, followed by screenshot_20221226.

An unseen empty space.

He did not adjust it manually.

Just leave it empty.

I turned off the computer.

The screen went dark, leaving only the keyboard and mouse pad visible in the light from the desk lamp.

He also turned off the table lamp.

The office went completely dark.

The light outside the window was the city's base color light, with streetlights and distant high-rise buildings blending together and seeping in through the window, turning the carpet on the ground into a dark gray.

He stood up, grabbed his coat, put it on, and left the zipper undone.

The teacup was still on the table, the Tieguanyin tea had gone cold, but he didn't throw it away; he'd deal with it tomorrow.

Ready to leave.

As I walked to the door, I glanced back at the direction of the desk.

I can't see anything anymore. The computer is off, the desk lamp is off, and there's only a faint light coming from the window.

"If" is no longer on the desktop.

He opened the door and went out.

The motion-activated lights in the hallway were activated by the footsteps, and the white light instantly illuminated the entire corridor.

He waited about thirty seconds for the elevator to open, then stepped inside and pressed the button for the basement.

The mirrored wall in the elevator reflected his entire body: a dark coat, unbuttoned, hands in his pockets.

As the elevator descended, he leaned against the handrail, watching the floor numbers jump from 5 to 4, 3, 2, 1, B1.

The door opened; it led to the parking lot.

The parking lot lights are energy-saving sensor lights, most of them are off, only a few near the entrance and exit are still on.

His car was parked against the wall, and all the other parking spaces were empty. He was the only car left on the entire B1 level.

I got in the car, started the engine, and backed out of the parking space.

The roller shutter door at the garage exit automatically rose when it sensed the vehicle, letting in the cold air from outside.

In mid-January, the temperature in Hangzhou at night is around three or four degrees Celsius, not the coldest but still quite cool.

As the car drove out of the park, he glanced at the headquarters building of Weiguang in the rearview mirror.

All the windows on his office floor were dark; only the lobby on the first floor of the entire building was still lit.

Cut to the next scene.

Beijing.

Mid-January.

at night.

A narrow street with gray walls on both sides. The walls are at least three meters high, and a few old locust trees with all their leaves fallen can be seen on top of them.

The streetlights cast a warm yellow glow, illuminating a row of snowdrifts at the base of the wall. The snow was already dirty, and the edges had turned into ice crystals.

At the end of the street was a building.

Three stories, with gray brick walls, not modern glass curtain walls, but the kind of old building from the 1970s or 80s that has been renovated.

There was no signboard or house number. The main entrance was a dark brown wooden door with a stone lion base on each side. The lions were gone, leaving only the bases, which were covered with a thin layer of snow.

All the windows on the first floor had their curtains drawn, so you couldn't see inside.

A light was on in one of the windows on the second floor.

Warm yellow light leaked through the gaps in the curtains, illuminating the gray wall outside the window, forming a very thin vertical line.

There was no one on the street.

no car.

Only the streetlights illuminated the snowdrifts, and the snowdrifts reflected the streetlights.

And the light from that window.

A shadowy figure flickered behind the curtains, then quickly stopped moving.