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

After a moment of silence, Chen Wei made the first move.

He sat up straight, turned the page to the "marked" section, and revealed the contents that followed.

There are three more pages following, which are denser and more detailed than the previous diagrams.

The edges of the paper had some creases, as if it had been read repeatedly.

The first page is a table, hand-drawn, with grids drawn using a ruler, and all the lines are straight.

The table lists four columns: encoding characteristics, propagation path, covered accounts, and detection method.

Each column was filled with content, the handwriting was very small, and in some places where there was no room to write, it was written vertically next to the grid lines.

Chen Wei didn't explain each item in detail; instead, he turned the page over and let Lin Che read it himself.

"The technical details are all here; you can take your time to look through them."

"Let me state my conclusion first."

He turned to the second page.

This page contains another illustration, in the same style as the previous four traces, hand-drawn, in black pen.

But the structure of this diagram is completely different.

The first four charts trace the funds from bottom to top, from the entry point to the nominee holding layer; each chart represents a single line.

This diagram was drawn from top to bottom, starting with a box at the top and branching out into many lines.

Like an upside-down tree, with roots at the top and branches at the bottom.

There are many intersections between the lines, densely covering most of the page.

"This is the tracking system architecture I reconstructed based on the results of four tracing steps."

Chen Wei used the tip of his pen to point downwards along the lines, starting from the top square.

"At the very top is the designer, the overall controller of the entire system."

"The first layer below is the execution layer, which is responsible for registering shell companies and choosing the timing of injection."

"When to deposit money, how much to deposit, which route to take, and how often to allocate funds—all of these are determined by this one layer."

"The second layer is the intermediary layer, which is the intermediary number and is responsible for registering offshore entities in batches."

"We offer a one-stop service for registration, name registration, and annual review, without asking who the client is or what the money is for."

"The third layer is the nominee holding layer, and the Vantage Points are located in this layer."

"Responsible for holding and managing shell companies, ensuring that these shell companies appear to be operating normally in their respective jurisdictions of incorporation."

"The fourth layer is the injection layer, which is the four sums of money themselves flowing from the shell company into Ark."

"A four-tier structure with a clear division of labor, with each tier separated by a nominee shareholding relationship."

He paused for a moment.

"When investigating, we can only trace it up layer by layer, and with each layer we go through, we have to change the legal framework of a different country."

"BVI, Cayman Islands, Samoa, Singapore, Luxembourg, Seychelles, Hong Kong."

"There are seven jurisdictions, and each place has different rules for information disclosure."

"Some places are very cooperative, while others won't even let you ask questions."

"It took more than three months to track down four payments, not because I was stupid, but because this system was designed with anti-tracking features in mind."

"Each layer is a firewall."

"When a tracker wants to be tracked, they will leave clues for you to follow."

"When you don't want to be tracked, you can't even find the door."

"The fact that I was able to reach the third floor means they allowed me to reach the third floor."

"Above that is where they don't want me to see."

Lin Che looked at the diagram that resembled an inverted tree.

The lines in the picture are very neat, and the spacing between the squares is almost equal.

When Chen Wei drew this picture, he first used a ruler and pencil to lay out the outline, and then traced it with a pen.

The pencil marks can still be seen in some places.

There are also some handwritten notes between the boxes and lines, the handwriting is very fine.

Next to the execution layer it says "more than six months", and next to the intermediary layer it says "more than one year".

The hosting layer is labeled "Replaceable", and the injection layer is labeled "Completed".

These notes show that Chen Wei did more than just draw a diagram; he clearly understood the operational logic of the entire system.

The use of "more than six months" and "more than one year" indicates that this system was not set up temporarily.

It took at least a year and a half of preparation from registering the first shell company to receiving the first sum of money into Ark.

"This tracking system has one key feature."

Chen Wei's finger touched the connecting line between the second and third layers on the diagram.

"The connection between the intermediary layer and the holding layer is not a single-line connection, but a cross-connection."

"One intermediary ID can serve multiple nominee entities, and one nominee entity can also connect with multiple intermediaries."

"A network structure, not a chain structure."

"The advantage of a chain-like structure is its simplicity; you only need one line to trace it."

"But the problem with chain-like structures is their fragility; if one link breaks, the entire chain becomes unusable."

"The trade-off for a mesh network is complexity, high construction costs, and troublesome maintenance."

"But the advantage is its strong resilience."

"This design has a result."

"The discovery of any one node will not affect the continued operation of other nodes."

"I found Vantage Point, but it's only a node on the third level."

"There might be two, three, or five other nodes on the same level, but I couldn't find them."

"And even if the entire third layer is cleared, the execution layer still exists, and the designers still exist."

"We can re-register a batch of shell companies, change the intermediaries, and build a new third layer."

"The old one will be demolished, and the new one can be built in a month."

"The cost is very low, and the time is very short."

"The trackers received disposable tools; they could be thrown away after use."

"The Ark only removed someone else's gloves, not their hands."

He paused for a moment.

"That's why the folder labels changed from blue to red."

Lin Che glanced at him.

Blue represents standard archiving, while red is something Chen Wei has never used.

He noticed the red label when he first saw it last Wednesday, but didn't ask about it.

At the time, I thought Chen Wei had changed the classification method, or that the document was of a higher level.

Now I know.

The red color doesn't mean Chen Wei's filing habits have changed; it means the nature of the investigation results has changed.

Blue represents "controllable", and red represents "the opponent's system is at a higher level of defense than the Ark".

It's not just a little higher, it's much higher.

Four-layer structure, seven jurisdictions, mesh-like cross-connections, and replaceable nodes.

Ark's financial defenses were as thin as paper in the face of this system.

"The last thing."

Chen Wei turned to the last page of the folder.

When turning the page, his finger paused on the edge of the paper, as if confirming whether to turn it or not.

Then it flipped over.

The paper was thicker and whiter, as if it had just been printed, and its texture was completely different from the old pages that had been flipped through countless times.

In the middle of the page is an enlarged version of the inverted tree diagram, with only the top two layers remaining.

The first layer is a large box, and there is no name inside the box.

There was only a handwritten question mark, written heavily with a black pen.

The handwriting was pressed into the paper, and the marks could be seen on the back.

The second layer is the execution layer box, which is connected to the lower intermediary layer, proxy layer, and injection layer by a dashed line.

"I can't catch up to this floor."

Chen Wei pointed his finger at the question mark.

His fingertip pressed against the paper, and the question mark inscription dented beneath his finger.

"The registration information for the agent's ID stops at Vantage Point."

"The actual controller of Vantage Point cannot be found."

"Philip Kwok is just a figurehead; he won't say anything when asked."

"The contact point for those reviewing the event also ends at Vantage Point."

"All the lines point to this one point, but above that point, there's nothing."

"It's like a wall; you can see it, but you can't get over it."

He withdrew his finger.

"The person who designed this tracking system is not on the third level, nor on the second level."

"At the very top."

"I spent three months tracing through four levels, and finally reached a node on the third level."

"But the top-level box is empty."

"Empty means I don't know who he is, and I have no way of knowing."

The office was silent for two or three seconds.

The light outside the window dimmed a little more; the afternoon was almost over.

Chen Wei flipped back to the last page and aligned it with the previous content.

The document includes a four-page traceability diagram, a page for label definition, a page for technical tables, a page for system architecture diagram, and a page for a top-level enlarged view.

Eight pages, more than three months, seven jurisdictions, four-layer structure.

Everything was packed in this dark gray folder, labeled with a red tag.

He closed the folder.

When the clasp is fastened back, the metal touches the metal.

Click.