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

Lin Che didn't sleep much that night.

Fang Yuan's news was like a tiny thorn pricking his heart. He stood in the room for a long time, going over the events of the past few days in his mind from beginning to end.

The war in Africa was fought flawlessly.

With the mining rights secured and the finances streamlined, even the underhanded attacks from their rivals were turned into ammunition. In the end, it was a resounding victory.

But he knew in his heart that this victory had only moved the battlefield from one place to another.

The real challenges lie within the domestic market.

No matter how strong the opponent in Africa is, they are merely enemies in the marketplace. Victory or defeat depends on vision, strategy, and the cards you hold. Lin Che has fought this kind of battle countless times, and he is absolutely confident.

But those two knives from China are different.

What they're trying to dig up isn't his business, but his very foundation—the very foundation that, once exposed, could bring him crashing down from grace and utter ruin.

He wasn't entirely confident in facing such an opponent. He didn't even know how far his opponent had progressed.

He walked to the table and opened the laptop used only for receiving the highest-level information. The cold light from the screen reflected on his expressionless face.

Besides Fang Yuan, there was another thing that kept him on his mind.

That was another line. A line that was more hidden and even more unfathomable to him than Fang Yuan's.

Long ago, he sensed that an unseen person was watching Fangzhou's funds from the shadows. Unlike Fang Yuan, who investigated openly and honestly, this person remained deeply hidden, never showing themselves, acting like a detached observer, silently recording the flow of every penny of Fangzhou's funds.

In his mind, Lin Che referred to that person as the "reviewer".

He pulled up a monitoring record that had been accumulated over the past few days.

Records show that around the time that Weiguang acquired the African mining rights and the funds were transferred across borders, some extremely subtle probes, not belonging to any known regulatory body, quietly touched that financial chain.

The probes flashed by so quickly they were almost imperceptible. They didn't alert any defenses, left no trace, and simply glanced at the targets before retreating.

But Lin Che still managed to catch it.

He stared at those records, his pupils contracting slightly.

It was the one who did the post-mortem analysis.

He moved.

These past few days, that line had been quiet. So quiet that Lin Che almost thought the person lurking in the shadows had given up. But he was wrong. That person hadn't given up; they were just waiting. Waiting for an opportunity worthy of their intervention.

However, this major move by Weiguang in Africa, and the cross-border flow of funds, ultimately alerted those eyes hidden in the shadows.

He was almost certain that the silent analyst had noticed the unusual movement of funds. A sum of money that had run into trouble domestically, quietly flowed overseas, and ultimately ended up in an African mining area was a crystal-clear signal to someone who was specifically monitoring Ark Funds.

What made him even more uneasy was the judgment that followed.

The person who reviewed the events didn't just observe. He observed to record. He recorded so that one day he could pass these records to a place where the ark would be utterly destroyed.

Lin Che could almost picture that scene.

Somewhere in the world, a detailed report about the Ark and the financial transactions of the Glimmer is being meticulously compiled, page by page. That report might contain clues that even Lin Che thought had long since been covered up. He dared not imagine what kind of turmoil it would cause once it reached its intended recipient.

One light, one dark.

Fang Yuan is that visible blade. Using his own logic, he is gradually approaching the buried truth. He doesn't hide; he's right there, openly and honestly digging forward inch by inch. You can see him, but you can't stop him.

The reviewer is like a hidden dagger. He lies unseen by anyone, passing on what he has gathered to some unknown destination. You cannot see him, nor do you know from which direction his blade will fall.

A visible blade is hard to block, a hidden blade is hard to defend against.

Ironically, these two knives came from two completely unrelated people. One was a stubborn investigator, the other a bystander hidden behind the scenes. They might not even know of each other's existence, yet the blades in their hands were pointed at the same place.

That place holds the deepest, most hidden secret of Ark and Glimmer's journey. It is the past that has been deliberately erased, the path they cannot tell anyone.

Once this secret is revealed, everything Lin Che has painstakingly built—the Glimmer of Light, the Ark, and even the seemingly solid territory beneath his feet—will be shattered overnight.

At this moment, the two knives, as if by unspoken agreement, were pointing in the same direction...

They slowly approached him, towards the ark, towards that secret.

Lin Che turned off the computer.

The room was plunged into darkness again.

Outside the window, the night in Narobi was deep. This resounding victory in a foreign land held little weight in his heart at this moment. A true chess player never becomes complacent after winning a game; his gaze is always fixed on the next game, on that most dangerous key move.

He stood in the dark for a while, then took out his phone and opened the ticket booking page.

He knew that hiding in Africa was useless. Those two knives would fall sooner or later. Separated by thousands of miles, he could do nothing but watch helplessly as those two lines tightened little by little. Rather than passively waiting for death, he decided to go back, back to the very center of that chessboard, to personally dismantle the deadlock before him, and to face the inescapable battle.

Escaping was never his choice.

Along the way, he has encountered too many seemingly unsolvable dead ends. Each time, he faced the biggest problem head-on, dismantled it, and then turned it around to his advantage. This time will be no exception.

Africa was his away game, and he won there. His home turf was his home ground, his foundation, but precisely because of this, his most fatal weakness lay there.

Going back is inevitable.

He was even somewhat impatient. The feeling of being held hostage by two knives at the same time, yet unable to discern the other's true intentions, was not pleasant. Rather than speculating from the shadows, he decided to go back and lay everything out on the table.

He chose the nearest flight.

The destination is within China.

As his fingertips touched the paper and the plane ticket was booked, Lin Che's eyes sharpened once more. There was no slackening after a great victory, only the calm, almost ruthless focus unique to someone about to face another fierce battle.

Africa's hand has been played out.

He closed his phone; a faint light was already appearing on the horizon outside the window. The real battle, however, was waiting for him on the other side of the ocean.