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

Two days before departure.

Lin Che was organizing materials in his office.

The door was closed, and there weren't many people in the corridor; most of my colleagues had already left work.

The table lamp was on, but the main light was off, so only the area on the table was illuminated by the table lamp.

The three documents in the African exploration folder were printed in a paper set and placed in a dark blue document bag.

The document bag is new; I picked it up from the administration department this afternoon, and the zipper is still quite tight.

I also printed out a copy of the legal memo that Shen Nan sent and tucked it into the second layer of the document bag.

The registration certificate, account opening confirmation letter, and initial transfer approval form of the Mauritius bridging entity are arranged in chronological order.

He Wei's final compliance checklist arrived yesterday, and all twelve items were approved.

The two "Pending Confirmation" entries have been changed to "Passed," and the red pen marks have been covered up.

He placed the compliance checklist on top of the file folder.

A piece of paper was spread out on the table.

He flipped through each document one by one, checking them one by one to make sure nothing was missing.

I paused when I flipped to Shen Nan's legal memo.

The last page of the memo is a list of attachments, containing six reference documents.

The title of the fourth reference document is "Chain of Authorization Letter Issuance in Three East African Countries".

He had seen this document before; it was a complete record of the authorization letter from drafting to issuance.

The issuance chain lists all personnel and entities involved in the issuance.

Each step has a corresponding name, date, and contact information.

He flipped to the page with the issuance chain and scanned it from top to bottom.

The process involves four stages: the issuing party, the reviewing party, the witnessing party, and the archiving party.

Each step is followed by a name and date.

The section for the reviewer lists the name of an organization, followed by the name and phone number of a contact person.

Contact person: David Leung.

The phone number is a mobile number with a Hong Kong area code.

Starting with 852.

He looked at the number for two seconds.

Then I put down the memo and turned on my phone.

I scrolled to the very bottom of the call log and found the one I had marked a few months ago.

An unfamiliar number.

The call record was from an afternoon last year, and he didn't answer it.

After checking, I found that the number was registered in Hong Kong, but there was no further information.

The call only rang for four or five seconds before hanging up, without leaving a voice message.

I marked it at the time and then ignored it.

He compared the number on his phone with the number on his notes.

The phone screen is placed to the right of the memo, with the two numbers aligned vertically.

Look at each number one by one.

Eight digits, not a single one off.

Exactly.

He looked at it again to make sure he hadn't misread it.

It is indeed the same number.

He put down his phone and leaned back in his chair.

The owner of the unknown number is named David Leung.

Act as the liaison for the reviewing party in the chain of authorization letters issued in Africa.

This person called him, but he didn't answer.

The call was made in the latter half of last year, but he couldn't quite remember the exact date.

But it will probably be around September.

Early September.

That period coincided with the window when the third abnormal fund from the BVI entered Ark.

The third investment, $152 million, was made on September 1, 2022, by Global Vector Fund in Luxembourg.

The call time and the third deposit time almost coincided.

The overlap in time is not necessarily a coincidence.

He picked up Shen Nan's memo again and turned to the page with the issuance chain.

In addition to his phone number, David Leung's name also has a notes section.

The remarks column indicates the affiliated organization.

He glanced at the organization's name.

Six English words, with the first letter capitalized.

I looked at it for two seconds.

Then I put down the memo and turned on the computer.

He found Chen Wei's notes from their last meeting.

It wasn't Chen Wei's folder; that one was taken away.

These are a few keywords that he jotted down during the interview, and they are stored in an untitled document.

He didn't take notes during the interview; he typed out these keywords from memory after the interview.

The document contained only a few lines of text, consisting of names and numbers heard during the interview.

He found a name inside.

Vantage Point Advisory.

The third layer of the BVI tracking system consists of nominee entities.

The anonymous reviewer ultimately connects with the registered user of the node.

This name has appeared twice already.

He compared the name with the organization David Leung belonged to on Shen Nan's memo.

David Leung is not affiliated with Vantage Point Advisory.

It's another name.

But he had seen this name in his interview notes as well.

When Chen Wei was discussing the third instance of tracing back, he mentioned the Luxembourg-based Global Vector Fund.

There are seven names on the list of qualified investors, two of which are family offices.

David Leung's organization is one of those two family offices.

The two lines intersect.

A line of inquiry begins with an unfamiliar number, passes through the verification process of the issuing chain, and points to David Leung.

David Leung works for a family office.

This family office appears on the list of investors in Global Vector Fund.

Another line traces back from the third entry in the BVI.

The Luxembourg fund's investor list points to the same institution.

The intersection of the two lines is not a person, but an organization.

But the person in charge behind the organization is David Leung.

He wasn't a stranger who made a random phone call.

He was the intermediary.

One foot is on the chain of authorization letters issued in Africa, and the other foot is on the investor layer of the BVI tracking system.

The people who help you and the people who are watching you are on the same side.

Or to be more precise, there is overlap between the organizations behind the people who help you and the organizations behind the people who are watching you.

He sat for a while.

The office was quiet, and it was completely dark outside the window.

The lights from the parking lot downstairs shone through the gaps in the blinds, casting fine lines on the ceiling.

The table was covered with papers, and the file folder was open.

He didn't tell anyone about this discovery.

He didn't call Shen Nan or send a message to Chen Wei.

This information needs time to be processed.

David Leung's role in the issuance chain was as a liaison for the reviewing party.

If there is a problem with him, the reliability of the entire issuance chain needs to be reassessed.

But now we are about to depart.

Reassessing the issuance chain means delaying departure.

Delayed departures mean the window of opportunity will continue to shrink.

He did not yet have enough information to determine whether David Leung was a friend or foe.

Not answering a phone call can be a warning or a test.

It could also be nothing at all.

It could also be just a routine contact in the issuance chain, where the reviewer's contact person calls the issuing party to confirm information, which is a normal procedure.

But if it's a normal procedure, why did it only ring for four or five seconds before hanging up?

Normal communication will not only ring for four or five seconds.

Do not make judgments about things you do not know.

Write this down and I'll look it up when I get back from Africa.

He turned back to the first page of Shen Nan's memo.

A small circle was drawn in pencil next to David Leung's name.

The circle was drawn very lightly and was not visible unless you looked closely.

The advantage of pencil drawings is that they can be erased at any time.

If the inspection finds no problems, just wipe it off; it won't leave a trace.

Then continue organizing the materials.

The compliance checklist is placed on top, the legal memo on the second layer, and the registration certificates and approval forms on the third layer.

Place the research documents at the bottom, three copies, arranged by date.

He zipped up the file folder and placed it on the right side of the desk.

Then he took out a printed copy of Chen Wei's interview notes from the drawer.

A single sheet of paper, a few lines of text, in his own handwriting.

The characters were written so small that only he could recognize them.

He placed this page and the page containing Shen Nan's memo on the issuance chain side by side on the table.

The light from the table lamp shone directly onto the two sheets of paper.

The two papers have the same organization name.

The name on the paper on the left appears in the investor category of the BVI tracking system.

The name on the paper on the right appears among the parties involved in issuing the authorization letter in Africa.

The same organization appears in two completely different documents.

One is the trace left by the person who pursued you, and the other is the process followed by the person who helped you.

He looked at it for a few seconds.

Then put the two sheets of paper away and place them in the folder on the left side of the desktop.

I closed the folder.