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

The news came from within China.

Lin Che had just finished dealing with the remaining issues in Africa and was preparing to book his return flight when Shen Nan walked in with a tablet, his expression more serious than usual.

"Something's happened." Shen Nan handed over the tablet. "There's been a new development on the other side of the ocean."

Lin Che took the tablet.

The screen displayed a briefing sent back through internal channels. The wording was very professional and circuitous, but peeling back the diplomatic veneer, the core meaning was singular.

Someone brought up the name of Glimmer again on that entity list.

To be precise, it's a new initiative targeting microlight, which is being pushed forward. The briefing didn't name the initiator, only stating that recently, relevant parties submitted a proposal to relevant departments to strengthen the review of microlight, citing national security and critical mineral resources.

The reasons are plausible, but the timing is intriguing.

Lin Che stared at the briefing for a long time.

He wasn't surprised. Ever since that encrypted message yesterday, he'd had a vague premonition that this day would come. He just hadn't expected it to come so quickly. The ink wasn't even dry on the agreement in Africa, and the motion from there was already on the table.

The time difference between these two events was so short that it seemed unlikely to be a coincidence.

He won the African mine. He won cleanly and decisively, without a single flaw.

But this victory was simply too beautiful.

It was so beautiful that it made some people who didn't pay much attention to the faint light look at it properly for the first time.

"They acted very quickly," Shen Nan said from the side, his tone also grave. "The mining rights had just been secured when the motions over there intensified. The connection between these two events is all too obvious."

"We won too conspicuously," Lin Che said slowly.

He put down his tablet and walked to the window.

This outcome was actually within his expectations. From the moment he decided to take over this core mining area, he knew that such a victory could not be concealed or hidden. However, when the price actually fell before him, its weight was still somewhat different from what he had anticipated.

The opponent who lost everything at the negotiating table, saying goodbye and turning away, clearly didn't rest after returning to his headquarters. He meticulously exposed a business defeat, escalating it to a higher and more sensitive level.

Unable to defeat Lin Che in the business arena, they sought a different battlefield.

A battlefield where rules, stances, and that vast network are all employed.

Lin Che knew this kind of fighting style all too well. When an opponent loses to you in a fair contest and can't accept defeat, he will often flip the table and try to use external forces to win back what he lost in the game.

He knew better than anyone where the problem lay.

The glimmer of light in the past lay hidden beneath the surface. Its actions and strategies remained largely unseen by outsiders. An unassuming company, quietly accumulating strength in inconspicuous places, was like a fish lurking in deep water, silent and unnoticed. No one paid it special attention, and certainly no one considered it a worthy adversary to be dealt with with great effort.

This concealment itself is the best form of protection.

But this battle in Africa has brought that glimmer of light from underwater to the surface.

To be able to seize a core mining area amidst a group of top competitors; to cause a global-level assessment agency to stumble in its own area of ​​expertise; to send a veteran powerhouse packing; such brilliance can no longer be hidden.

With a victory that was too dazzling, it announced its existence and its importance to everyone.

Explicitization.

These three words represent the most tangible price paid for this resounding victory.

Once a fish leaps out of the water and reveals its astonishing size, it can never return to the untouched depths. What awaits it is the fisherman's net and the hunter's gun.

The more impressively you win, the more you expose yourself to the gazes of those who wouldn't normally notice you.

And in those gazes, there was admiration, there was apprehension, and there was also... hostility.

The new motion on the entity list is the first shadow cast by this hostility.

He Wei also came over to look at the briefing, her face turning pale.

"Will this...be very troublesome?" she asked worriedly. "If they really seize something like the Entity List..."

Having followed Lin Che for so long, she naturally knew the weight of those four words. Once they were truly implicated, it meant that technology, funding, and markets would all be cut off. Countless once-glorious companies had fallen because of this, plummeting from their zenith overnight.

"Not for now." Lin Che shook his head. "A motion, from its inception to its implementation, goes through a very long process. There are hearings, deliberations, and countless opportunities for negotiation in between. Right now, it's just a motion, a signal."

His tone was calm, but there was no trace of ease in that calmness.

He knew this matter wasn't so simple. Today's motion might be tomorrow's shackle. The opponent had lost a round in Africa, but once they retreated, they would unleash a much larger game on an international scale.

That was a chessboard far larger than fighting over a single mine.

On that chessboard, the opponent is no longer a single company, but perhaps an entire set of rules, an invisible net. There, his past effective tactics may no longer hold sway.

Having reached this point, Weiguang was bound to step onto that chessboard sooner or later.

He just didn't expect that this day would arrive sooner than expected because of a great victory in Africa.

He Wei wanted to say something, but Lin Che raised his hand to stop her.

"Don't scare yourself," he said. "We have to take things one step at a time. We've won this battle. As for the next one..."

He didn't continue.

Outside the window was the sky over Narobi, a clear, clean blue. But his gaze went beyond that clear sky, toward a more distant and darker direction.

After a long while, he turned around.

"Shen Nan," he said, his voice devoid of much emotion, "Once you get back, have the legal department keep a close eye on every development regarding that motion. Report any slight movement to me immediately."

"Okay," Shen Nan replied.

"Furthermore," Lin Che added, "we've compiled and archived all the compliance documents we've collected along the way in Africa, leaving nothing out. This includes the documents we obtained through underhanded means. If they ever try to use our immigration status as leverage, this will be our strongest defense."

Shen Nan nodded solemnly. He understood that Lin Che had already begun preparing supplies for the tough battle that was yet to come.

Lin Che paused, then added softly.

He gazed at the clear sky outside the window, his eyes calm, yet revealing a resolute determination that he had already recognized the path ahead and would never turn back.

The new motion targeting Weiguang came faster and was more ruthless than he had anticipated. Yet, there was not a trace of panic in Lin Che's voice.

"There's no escaping it," he said. "What's meant to come will come."