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

Lin Che recognized the name in the box.

It's not a person's name, it's a company name.

Vantage Point Advisory is registered in Hong Kong.

This name appeared once three months ago.

The anonymous reviewer was identified during the security department's investigation of contact nodes in the investigation report of the incident.

At the time, the name was listed in the fourth paragraph of the report and marked as "low priority".

The person who made the annotation was an analyst from the security department, who added a brief note: "Registered company, no direct connection."

Because the registered user of the contact node is a small Hong Kong company whose business scope does not overlap with Ark's.

The security department determined the correlation to be low and did not pursue it further.

After the report was completed, the name was archived, and no one has mentioned it for three months.

Now it has reappeared.

In the third layer of Chen Wei's BVI tracing diagram, within the red pen-drawn box.

Chen Wei did not speak immediately.

His finger was still pressed on the square. He waited two or three seconds to make sure Lin Che saw it before continuing.

Vantage Point Advisory was registered in Hong Kong in 2018.

"As a cross-border investment advisor, I actually handle very little business."

"The revenue reported in the annual report has consistently been below one million Hong Kong dollars."

"The registered address is in an old office building in Wan Chai, on the 14th floor, where six or seven small companies are rented out."

"I sent someone to check it out in person."

"The address for Vantage Point is at the very end of the corridor; there's no company name on the door, only the room number."

"The door was locked. I asked the company next door, and they said that almost no one comes to this place."

"There are thousands of companies like this in Hong Kong; they're inconspicuous."

Lin Che did not speak.

His gaze lingered on the red-bordered box, the words inside of which were small but clear.

Chen Wei withdrew his finger and pulled another piece of paper from the folder's inner compartment.

A passage of Chinese text was printed on the paper, formatted as if exported from an internal system, with a rather small font size.

"Following the anonymous debriefing incident last September, the security department conducted a contact tracing report."

"The message sent by the reviewer passed through three relay nodes."

"The first node is located overseas, with its IP address pointing to Southeast Asia; the specific country has not been confirmed."

"The second node performed encrypted forwarding, bouncing between several different jumpers three times, leaving very little trace."

"The third node is the final recipient, registered in Hong Kong."

"The last registered user was a Hong Kong company."

He placed the paper next to the diagram and pointed to a name in the second line of the fourth paragraph.

"This is the place."

Vantage Point Advisory.

The same name appeared in two completely different surveys.

One is a third-tier holding entity for abnormal funds in the BVI.

One is the final contact point for the anonymous reviewer.

The investigation into the BVI was conducted by Chen Wei, tracing back from the financial side.

The investigation conducted by the reviewers was carried out by the security department, tracing back from the source of the information.

Two groups of people, from two different directions, investigated different things, but ended up at the same company.

The two lines have never intersected, until now.

Lin Che's gaze shifted between the two documents.

The Vantage Point in the diagram is in the third-layer box, with a red pen-drawn border.

The Vantage Point on the investigation report is in the second line of the fourth paragraph, printed in bold.

Same name, same registration number.

He didn't speak.

Chen Wei took the investigation report back and put it back into the folder.

The movements were slow, as if giving Lin Che time to process the information.

"I checked the company's shareholder structure."

"The nominal shareholder is an individual named Philip Kwok, who holds a Hong Kong identity card."

"This name is recorded as the nominal director of seventeen companies simultaneously in the Hong Kong Companies Registry."

"A professional agent, but only in name."

"The person who truly controls Vantage Point is behind him."

He paused for a moment.

"I had someone look for Philip Kwok; he's in Hong Kong, living in Kwai Chung."

"It took three tries before they answered the phone."

"After answering, he said, 'I only provide registration services and do not participate in any business decisions,' and then hung up."

"That's standard script; that's what agents say when they're asked."

"But he paused for a second or so before hanging up, as if he was considering whether to say another word."

In the end, he didn't say anything.

The office was quiet for a few seconds, with only the sound of the air conditioner and the occasional soft clatter of the blinds.

"It's even harder to follow up further; we've basically exhausted all the information at the agent level by this point."

As Chen Wei said this, his right hand unconsciously touched the edge of the folder's clasp.

The metal surface made a very slight rubbing sound under his fingertips.

He did this action more than once; he started doing it as soon as he sat down.

"But something caught my attention."

Chen Wei flipped back to the first page of the diagram and pointed to a string of numbers next to the box labeled Whitecap.

"I used the intermediary number shared by the first and third transactions to perform a reverse lookup."

"The reverse investigation took about two weeks because offshore intermediaries' client records are not publicly available, so we had to use other channels."

"This registration number has been used to process 23 offshore entity registrations over the past three years."

"Nineteen out of the twenty-three transactions have absolutely nothing to do with Ark; they are normal business transactions."

"However, there are four transactions that correspond exactly to the four source entities of these four BVI receipts."

He drew a circle on the diagram, enclosing the boxes around the four source entities.

The circles were drawn very slowly, leaving a deep mark on the paper.

"Four shell companies, located in four different offshore jurisdictions."

"BVI, Samoa, Luxembourg, Seychelles."

"They appear to be independent entities, with different registration dates, different amounts, and different shareholding structures."

"But all were registered through the same intermediary number, and all were completed within two years."

"The final service recipient for this intermediary ID is identified as a contact person in the remarks section of the registration record."

Chen Wei glanced at Lin Che.

Vantage Point Advisory.

The two lines intersected twice at the same point.

The first instance is a direct match of the entity name; the third-level nominee in the BVI is the final contact node for the reviewer.

The second step is to trace the intermediary number in reverse, and the registered contact of the four shell companies is the same company.

Not a coincidence.

It's unlikely that a coincidence will hit the same name in two independent investigations, and then hit it again when the investigation is reversed.

Three hits on the same target constitute a targeted correlation in the field of financial tracking.

Behind the BVI's unusual funds and the anonymous reviewers are the same group of people.

Or at least they went through the same channel.

Lin Che leaned back in his chair, shifting his gaze away from the diagram.

He glanced out the window.

The light filtering through the blinds had shifted to an afternoon angle, turning yellowish, and fell on the opposite wall.

The red label on Chen Wei's folder appeared darker under this light, almost a dark red.

The clock on the wall pointed to a little past two o'clock; Chen Wei had already been speaking in this office for three hours.

Then he looked back at Chen Wei.

"What was the purpose of these four sums of money going into the Ark?"

This was the first sentence he uttered since he started telling the story of Chen Wei.

From the phrase "starting with this pen" to now, Chen Wei has been speaking for nearly three hours.

He didn't utter a single word, even after four strokes of tracing, two intersections, and three layers of proxy holding.

It's not about asking "who controls Vantage Point".

It's not about asking "What is the relationship between the reviewer and the BVI?"

Ask directly about the purpose.

Chen Wei did not answer immediately.

He gathered the four pages of the diagram, aligned the corners, and placed them back on the left side of the folder.

The four sheets of paper made a slight rustling sound when stacked together.

The red dots and squares show through the ink on the back of the paper, as if the pen was pressed very hard when writing.

There are a few more pages on the right side of the folder, which I've been reading since the very first point, but I haven't turned to them yet.

He turned to the first page on the right.

The paper on this page is different from the illustration on the left; it's whiter and newer, as if it was just printed recently.

There is a title line at the top of the page, with two characters, one size larger than the body text, and a horizontal line drawn below it.

Chen Wei did not read it aloud.

Lin Che has already seen it.