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

The water dispenser in the tea room had been refilled with fresh water, and bubbles were rising one after another from the bottom of the container.

Lin Che poured himself a cup of hot water, stood in the tea room for a few seconds, and listened to someone in the administration department next door making a phone call to a supplier.

When I got back to the office, the footsteps in the hallway were much more frequent than in the previous days.

On the fourth day after work resumed, the headquarters of Weiguang basically returned to normal operation.

The printer was humming, and someone was moving chairs in the conference room; the sound of plastic legs dragging on the floor could be heard even through two walls.

The red lanterns at the front desk are still hanging, but no one looks at them anymore.

He placed the hot water in the upper left corner of the table, where a faint watermark had already formed.

The first thing I do in the morning is to open the system management backend.

He clicked on the search notification from Fang Yuan from the day before yesterday and looked at the details.

Search target: System operation logs.

Scope of inquiry: First quarter of 2020.

The timeframe spans three months, without breaking it down to specific dates.

The first quarter of 2020 was the period when Abyss upgraded from v2.0 to v2.1.

As a core developer of the engine, Fang Yuan's reason for reviewing the operation logs during this period is understandable.

He closed the details page without taking a screenshot or making any markings.

Fang Yuan has access to this part of the logs, and the retrieval operation itself is not against the rules.

The time was a bit unusual, it was past 2 a.m.

Checking during work hours and checking in the early morning yields the same content, but choosing the early morning indicates that he doesn't want others to see him checking.

He shut down the background and stopped thinking about it.

The email contained a monthly CCPS summary sent by Xie Yu.

The format is the same as before: a table with three paragraphs of text, and the signature on the last line is done with a 0.38 pen.

The scanned document shows that the handwriting is clearer than the previous one, possibly because a new pen refill was used.

The daily processing volume in Wuhan has remained at around 980 for two consecutive weeks, with fluctuations controlled within 2%.

The price is slightly higher in Chengdu, stabilizing around 1800.

The third batch of applications from Changsha has not yet gone through the formal process.

However, the summary mentioned that "a verbal report has been made to the relevant authorities."

Xie Yu drew a line under that sentence with a 0.38mm pen.

It's very fine; you can't see it if you're not paying attention.

He knew Xie Yu's habit of drawing lines, indicating that he believed there would be further developments in this matter.

I spent most of the morning on the Africa line.

The third document in the "Africa Exploration" folder is a preliminary research checklist, and he added another item to it.

Kenya's mining policy will take effect on February 1, 2023, which is three days away.

Abyss's prediction of this policy is within the 80% range, with a 68% timeframe.

It is within an acceptable range, but there is no historical data to verify the 20% extension.

This ratio just won't come down.

He added a question mark next to the entry and saved it.

There are about nine months left in the window of opportunity, and every day that passes means one less day.

The source for secondary verification of the power shortage data has not yet been determined.

The three countries use different methods for electricity statistics: Kenya uses an annual report, while Tanzania uses a quarterly report.

Uganda doesn't even hold briefings regularly.

To perform cross-validation, a unified third-party data source needs to be found.

He checked the World Bank's open database, and found that the latest data was updated to 2021, which was two years behind.

There are no better options at the moment, so I've marked it and will think of a solution later.

Around noon, a soft clasp sound came from the corridor, metal against metal.

Chen Wei appeared at the door, holding a dark gray folder in his hand.

The folder was fastened with a clasp, and a label was affixed to the outside.

"There are two delivery confirmations from last month that are still missing your signature. Please complete them."

He placed the folder on the desktop, opened it, found the two pages that needed to be signed, and pointed to the location with his finger.

There was a faint ink mark on the edge of my fingernail, like it was left from flipping through a document for a long time.

Lin Che signed his name with a pen and handed the folder back.

Chen Wei took it, checked the signature position, and fastened the clasp.

The clasp makes a soft click when it closes.

"I'll come see you early next week regarding the BVI matter; we'll decide on the exact time then."

Lin Che nodded.

Chen Wei turned and left.

When I left, I tucked the folder between my left hand and waist, with the buckle side facing outwards.

The label is red.

Lin Che watched his figure disappear around the corner of the corridor.

I last saw this folder around mid-December last year.

Chen Wei brought it to the office to check Fangzhou's account list once.

The label was blue that time.

Blue is the archiving label that Chen Wei has used for a long time; almost every folder he passes by has a blue label.

He had never seen Chen Wei use red.

He noted this detail down without giving it much thought.

Chen Wei said he would come for a meeting early next week, and we could ask him any questions we needed when we met.

Not urgent.

I processed several follow-up emails this afternoon.

One of the documents was an annual office supplies procurement confirmation from the administration department, which he signed and replied to.

I checked the status pages of the six unfrozen accounts on Ark. The transaction history was normal, with no abnormal inflows or outflows.

The frozen BVI account still has a red label, separated from the other five.

I clicked in and took a look. The most recent abnormal deposit was on December 22nd of last year, amounting to approximately 1.2 million.

The intervals between these three transactions and the previous three transactions were 17 days, 26 days, and 38 days, respectively.

The intervals are widening.

He logged out of the account page without doing anything.

There was no news from Shen Nan.

After their passports were unfrozen, the two contacted each other much less frequently, and most things were handled via email.

The last time we spoke was the day after the coronation, when we confirmed that my passport status had changed from yellow to green.

Shen Nan said four words on the phone, "Thank you for your hard work."

His tone was the same as usual, without any extra sentimentality.

We haven't been in contact since then.

There's no new information about He Wei either; the compliance department should be finishing up the remaining issues from before the Spring Festival.

However, when Lao Zhou passed by the office at noon, he peeked out and asked him if he wanted to go to the cafeteria together.

He said he had already eaten.

Old Zhou said "Oh," but didn't leave. He leaned against the door frame and took a sip of tea.

"We have a few new faces at GAN-7 today, technical support staff, transferred from Beijing."

Without waiting for his reply, she picked up her enamel mug and left.

Steam rose from the rim of the cup, and the notch on the rim faced the door, just like before.

Around four o'clock, the sky outside the window darkened a bit, as if it was about to rain.

The light filtering through the blinds turned grayish-white.

There were significantly more cars in the parking lot downstairs than on the eighth day of the Lunar New Year; about 70-80% of the parking spaces were full.

The leaves of the roadside trees fluttered in the wind, revealing their grayish-green undersides only to be blown back.

Someone came out of the main building and walked towards the parking lot, a corner of their coat being lifted by the wind.

He finished processing the day's emails and saved the remaining, less urgent ones with tags.

Before closing my email, I glanced at the entry for the African exploration one last time; the question mark was still there.

Turn off your email.

The three icons on the desktop are still in their original positions.

He sat for a while, listening to the buzzing sound from the air conditioner vents.

The wind outside picked up a bit, and the slats of the blinds were gently bumping against each other, making a soft, pattering sound.

Then I opened the system management backend.

I didn't look it up intentionally, I just glanced at it casually.

The data panel on the backend homepage is normal, and all nodes are 100% online.

He scrolled down to the log search entry and clicked on it.

Fang Yuan's name appeared twice in the search history list in the past week.

The first query was made at 02:17 AM on January 29th, covering the first quarter of 2020.

He had already seen this this morning.

The second time was at 11:08 this morning.

He clicked on the details of the second record.

The search scope has changed.

It's no longer a three-month span, but a specific date.

The start and end times are accurate to the hour.

What used to be an entire quarter has been reduced to a few hours within a single day.

Fang Yuan completed the filtering between the two searches.

He already knew which day he was looking for.

Lin Che withdrew from the backstage area.