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

The elevator reached the seventh floor, and when the doors opened, there was no one in the hallway.

Lin Che came out; the floor had just been mopped and was still damp.

The radiators were already at the right temperature, and an occasional water hammer could be heard from the pipes.

The eighth day of the first lunar month marked the first day of work at the Weiguang headquarters.

The lights in the administration department were on, and someone was carrying bottled water to the break room; cardboard boxes were stacked up against half a wall.

A sheet of A4 paper was posted on the door with two lines of text: "Grand Opening. All departments can collect their keys from the front desk."

He walked down the corridor, his shoes making a slight squeaking sound as they hit the damp tiles.

As he passed the finance office, he heard the sound of keyboards clicking inside; someone had arrived earlier than him.

The technical department side was still dark, and the doors were all locked. Most people wouldn't arrive until after 10 a.m. when work resumed on the eighth day of the Lunar New Year.

When he arrived at his office door, he took out his key and opened it.

The moment the door was pushed open, a rush of air that had been suffocating for two weeks rushed out, mixed with the smell of dust dried by the heating.

The green light on the air conditioner panel is on, and the temperature is set at 22 degrees Celsius, the same setting I had when I left last time. No one has changed it.

The cup on the table was still in its original position, the coffee stain at the bottom of the cup dried into a brown circle.

He took the cup to the tea room to wash it, filled it halfway with hot water, brought it back, and placed it on the upper left corner of the table.

The dark gray coat draped over the back of the office chair was left behind before I left. I hadn't worn it for two weeks, and there was a crease at the collar.

He picked up his coat, dusted it off, and put it back on.

I turned on the computer, entered the password, and waited for about ten seconds.

When the desktop lights up, three icons are quietly arranged in the lower right corner of the screen.

Lv4 folder.

Abyss-v4.

Screenshot_20221226.

These three icons have been arranged in this way since the last time I left, and haven't changed for two weeks.

Open the Lv4 folder, and you'll find a new subfolder called "Africa Exploration".

Created before I left, the three documents are arranged by date.

The latest revision was made on the afternoon of January 14th.

Abyss-v4 is empty when I open it.

There are no markings under the icon, and the folder contains no files.

It's just an empty shell sitting there, and it's been like this ever since it was created.

He looked at it for two seconds, then turned it off.

The screenshot from 20221226 was not opened; the thumbnail was too small to see the content clearly, but he knew what was in the picture.

Two weeks ago, he sat in that unmarked building in Beijing. The exterior walls were gray, the door was a dark brown wooden door, and the window faced east.

A dark blue folder lay open on the mahogany table; turn to the second page.

The second name following "core participant" is "Lin Che".

That happened on January 15th.

The outline of the corner tower was reflected on the windowpane, and the light from the east shone in, making the national emblem watermark on the document float briefly in the light.

It is January 29th.

Fourteen days later.

The Spring Festival was very quiet.

On New Year's Eve, I heated up two dishes and a soup in the kitchen of Binjiang Community. After eating and washing the dishes, I sat on the sofa and scrolled through my phone until almost midnight.

There were sporadic firecracker sounds outside the window. In Hangzhou, the regulations are strict, so only one or two muffled bangs could be heard from afar.

I woke up very early on the first day of the Lunar New Year. Around 7 a.m., I sat in the living room drinking water. The curtains were not drawn, and my phone, which was on the coffee table, did not ring.

From the first to the third day of the Lunar New Year, he sent back a batch of New Year's greetings, most of which were sent in groups. He sent them back in groups, repeating the same wording more than a dozen times.

Shen Nan sent a separate message, not a group message, just four words: "Happy New Year."

He replied with three words, "You too."

On the fourth day of the Lunar New Year, Chen Wei sent a short WeChat message: "Let's talk in person after the New Year. There are some things that are inconvenient to say over the phone."

He replied with a "okay".

No further questions were asked.

Chen Wei said at the end of last year that "the situation is complicated and needs to be discussed in person," referring to the abnormality on the BVI side.

The four sums of money, totaling less than 5 million, all had their sources marked as "unknown".

The interval is widening, and the sixteen-bit mixed code has no match when reversed.

This message is likely a continuation of the same event.

Things that can wait don't need to be rushed.

From the fifth to the seventh day of the Lunar New Year, he went through all three documents in the "Africa Exploration" folder.

I added a few data points that needed verification to the side notes in the second document and saved it.

The authorization letter for Africa was issued on January 14th, covering three East African countries, Microlight Technology, and a twelve-month period of joint supervision.

The red stamp is round and about 4 centimeters in diameter, with raised ink that feels tactile.

This file is now located in a subdirectory of the Lv4 folder, alongside two other files.

The window of opportunity is 18 months, from the third quarter of 2022 to the first quarter of 2024, and nearly half of it has already passed.

There isn't much time left.

I also opened the Abyss-v4 folder once during the holiday.

I looked for a few seconds, but it was still empty, so I closed it.

I don't know what to put in it, and I'm not sure where to start thinking about this.

He looked up from the desktop and opened his email.

There were 47 unread emails, most of which were node reports automatically pushed by the system.

The cold chain logistics for medicines will not stop during the Spring Festival holiday; data from the four CCPS cities will continue to be processed.

The Chengdu stamping process has been completed, and the stamp on the document personally signed by Director Zhang is dated January 11th.

He noticed this detail when he first used the word "please".

Temperature control in Wuhan is at 99.7%, with no fluctuations for two weeks, and the average daily processing volume remains around 980.

I inquired about the third batch in Changsha before New Year's Day, but there was no new information during the Spring Festival, and it wasn't mentioned in the email either.

It took about twenty minutes to read through these numbers.

There is no fundamental difference from last month's report; things that should be stable remain stable, and things that should be advanced are advanced.

After the six accounts on Fangzhou's side were unfrozen, there have been no major moves, and there were no unusual fund inflows or outflows during the Spring Festival.

The SEC's flag has been downgraded from Active to Observation.

At this rate, I should be able to get into Archive in about three months.

The BVI account is still frozen; it's marked with a separate red label in the system, separated from the other five accounts.

He didn't click to see the details, waiting for Chen Wei to finish explaining in person.

Inserted in the middle was a work schedule for the technical department forwarded by Lao Zhou.

The main text consisted of only one line: "Work resumes on the eighth day of the Lunar New Year. No overtime is scheduled for GAN-7 before the Lantern Festival. Avoid all-nighters."

The last two words are Lao Zhou's catchphrase, which he includes with everyone he sends.

He marked it as read, but didn't reply.

I wonder if Old Zhou's enamel mug is still filled with Biluochun tea.

The last time we met, we had just changed the tea. I said I was tired of Longjing tea; that was in early January.

He spent about two hours processing the emails, replying to those that needed to be replied to and marking the rest as read and archived.

Several emails that need follow-up have been tagged and scheduled for tomorrow or the day after.

The office blinds hadn't been opened, so he reached out and tugged on the cord, letting light seep in through the gap.

There weren't many cars in the parking lot downstairs; about 30% of the spaces were occupied. The attendance rate on the first day of work wasn't high.

Red lanterns posted by the administration department hung on the roadside trees in the green belt, swaying twice in the wind.

In the distance, someone was moving things; cardboard boxes were stacked three layers high on a handcart, and they were moving very slowly.

The afternoon sunlight slanted in, casting a row of horizontal lines on the slats of the blinds.

He leaned back in his chair, took a sip of the hot water, but it had already gone cold.

The cup tapped on the table when it was put down, and the sound was a bit loud in the quiet office.

There's nothing I need to do in the office today.

I've read all the emails, labeled them all, and there's nothing new to add to the folder for now.

He closed his email and moved the mouse to the bottom right corner of the screen, preparing to shut down the computer.

The three icons on the desktop reappeared, their arrangement unchanged.

Exactly the same as two hours ago.

As soon as the mouse hovered over the power button, a gray notification popped up in the upper right corner of the screen.

The push notifications from the system management backend have very small font sizes, making them easy to miss if you're not paying attention.

Internal account abnormal retrieval alert.

An internal account accessed the system operation logs outside of working hours and initiated a retrieval request for a specified time period.

检索时间：2023年1月29日，凌晨02:17。

Account holder: Fang Yuan.

The notification window hangs quietly in the upper right corner of the screen, waiting to be clicked to view the details.

Lin Che's hand remained on the mouse, without moving.