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

Anhua County, Hunan Province.

This is a typical small, third-tier county town in China.

4:30 a.m.

The sky was still a bluish-gray, and the only people on the streets were old men sweeping the streets and the occasional coal truck passing by.

"A perfect hand! A self-draw!"

In a smoke-filled family-run mahjong parlor, Li Guifang pushed over the mahjong tiles in front of her.

She is 45 years old, an ordinary housewife, and also the vice captain of the square dance team.

Her eyes were a little sore from staying up all night, but she was still full of energy.

"Oh my, Sister Guifang is having such good luck today."

As she took out her money, Sister Wang from across the hall yawned and pulled out her phone. "I'm not calling anymore, I need to go back and make breakfast for my grandson."

Li Guifang happily counted the banknotes, and casually picked up the Redmi phone with a cracked screen.

A glaring red dot hangs on the WeChat icon.

It's that family group chat called "We're a Loving Family".

At this time normally, the group chat would only contain "Good morning" emojis from elders.

But today is different.

The group chat was flooded with a red link.

The message was sent by her nephew, who works in Guangdong.

[Breaking news! I just got a box of Qingfeng tissues for free! Free shipping too!]

[@Everyone, help me cut the price, you get it too!]

[You're only 0.1 yuan away from getting it for free!]

"You're kidding, right?"

Li Guifang muttered something.

As a middle-aged woman with rich life experience, she has always scoffed at such free lunches.

A box of Qingfeng tissues costs 29.9 yuan in the supermarket.

Giving it away for free? Unless the boss is crazy.

But the words "0 yuan" and "Qingfeng tissues" were just too tempting.

That's real hard currency.

It's more effective than any coupons or vouchers.

As if possessed, she stretched out her index finger, which had just touched the mahjong tiles and was still slightly oily, and tapped it down.

"Splash—"

A glittering golden effect popped up on the phone screen.

A large golden sword descended from the sky and slashed hard at a red envelope that read "29.9 yuan".

Congratulations! You're incredibly lucky!

[I've already helped my friend save 29.8 yuan!]

You've also won a free order!

Immediately afterwards, a new pop-up window appeared.

The picture shows a can of Golden Dragon blended oil.

Below is a bright red progress bar, which is 99% complete.

Ms. Li Guifang, you are only 0.5% away from receiving your free Golden Dragon blended oil!

Countdown: 23:59:59

Li Guifang's breath hitched for half a second.

Golden Dragon Fish.

A bucket costs over 60 yuan in the supermarket.

Now, it's just a little bit more...

"If that's true, wouldn't we be making a fortune?"

Greed is like a seed that instantly takes root and sprouts in the heart.

The system promptly displayed a prompt:

Share to 3 groups to instantly get a speed-up slashing attack!

Li Guifang did not hesitate at all.

She quickly clicked "Share".

Square dance groups, elementary school classmates' groups, neighborhood group buying groups...

"bite."

"Ding ding ding".

"Ding ding ding ding..."

That instant.

It's not just Anhua County.

In Zhumadian, Henan; in Dazhou, Sichuan; and in Bijie, Guizhou.

Countless people like Li Guifang, living outside the Fifth Ring Road, were awakened in the dim light of dawn.

They may not understand what internet thinking is or what viral marketing is.

But they know how to "take advantage".

Their fingers have become the most efficient medium of communication in the world.

......

Shenzhen, Nanshan District.

Tencent Building, 38th floor.

This is the nerve center of the entire Chinese social network.

Compared to the lively atmosphere of the county town, this place is as cold as a giant ice cellar.

The central air conditioning was kept at a constant 22 degrees Celsius, and blue ambient lighting illuminated hundreds of servers running at high speed.

The on-duty engineer, Zhao Liang, had just brewed a cup of instant coffee.

He stared at the "WeChat Real-time Traffic Monitoring Screen" that took up the entire wall in front of him.

On the screen, the map representing national traffic trends is usually a dull dark blue at this time.

Only in first-tier cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen will there be sporadic bright spots.

"Um?"

Zhao Liang took a sip of coffee, and his brows suddenly furrowed.

On the map.

A small red dot suddenly appeared in the previously pitch-black Midwest.

Followed by.

Two, four, eight...

The red dots resembled drops of red ink falling into water, beginning to spread wildly.

The Sichuan Basin is lit up.

The heart of the Central Plains is now illuminated.

The Northeast Plain is now illuminated.

"Abnormal traffic?"

Zhao Liang put down his coffee cup and his fingers flew across the keyboard.

"Did some celebrity cheat on their partner? Or was there an earthquake somewhere?"

Normally, only sudden events of this scale affecting the entire population can cause such an abnormal surge in traffic.

"It's not news."

The colleague next to him pulled up the data source, his voice tinged with fear.

"It's an H5 page sharing."

"All the traffic is pointing to the same type of domain... wait, these domains had zero traffic just ten minutes ago."

Zhao Liang stared at the curve that took off almost vertically.

Shares: +200,000/minute

Two hundred thousand shares per minute.

What does this mean?

This has already exceeded the peak growth rate of Spring Festival red envelopes.

"Investigate the source!"

Zhao Liang roared, "Is this a worm virus?"

"It's not a virus..."

My colleague's face was pale in the reflection of the screen. "It's a 'help cut the price' ad. Users are spreading it spontaneously. This K-factor... is at least over 5."

"In other words, everyone who comes in will drag at least 5 people down with them."

Zhao Liang gasped.

He looked at the map of China, which was almost completely red.

That's not a map.

Those are mouths wide open, frantically devouring WeChat's social traffic.

And the destination of this traffic all points to a bunch of strange domain names disguised as "public welfare" and "health preservation".

"This is an attack."

Zhao Liang made his judgment and reached for the red emergency call number.

"This is a nuclear strike targeting WeChat's underlying social network."

......

Hangzhou, western part of the city.

Headquarters of Weiguang Media.

The temperature here is close to 40 degrees Celsius right now.

Although it was a basement, the heat emanating from dozens of servers turned it into a giant sauna.

"Buzzing—"

The roar of the cooling fan was deafening.

Wang Pangzi was covered in sweat, his shirt was soaked through and clung tightly to his fat.

He was holding two cell phones, which were still ringing incessantly.

"Boss! Alibaba Cloud just called to warn us that our bandwidth utilization has reached 98%! If we don't increase capacity soon, it will trigger a circuit breaker!"

"Our customer service hotline has been ringing off the hook! Everyone's asking when that box of tissues will be shipped!"

Lin Che stood in front of the huge projection screen.

On the screen is the real-time backend data of the group buying platform.

Total Users: 12,450,300

Active Sessions: 3,200,000

Pending Orders: 1,500,000

Twelve million users.

This is the number that JD.com accumulated over ten years.

And he did it in just one night.

Lin Che took off his suit jacket and casually threw it on the ground.

He walked to the server rack and felt the scorching heat.

That's the smell of money burning.

"Expand capacity."

Lin Che's voice was frighteningly calm, a stark contrast to the surrounding heat.

"Take my black card and buy bandwidth."

"Buy as much as you want."

"No upper limit."

"But Brother Che..."

Fatty Wang wiped the sweat from his eyes. "This is all freebies! We lose 10 yuan on each order, and we've burned through tens of millions in just one night! This isn't doing business, it's throwing money away!"

Lin Che turned around and looked at Fatty Wang's face, which was full of heartache.

He walked up to the map and ran his finger across the red area.

"Fatty."

"What do you think these are?"

Lin Che pointed to the lights in those third- and fourth-tier cities.

"Is it... a 'wool party'?" Fatty Wang asked tentatively.

"No."

Lin Che shook his head, his eyes becoming incredibly deep.

"This is the last virgin territory of the Chinese Internet."

"They are the 'silent majority' who are disliked by Taobao, ignored by JD.com, and forgotten by the elites."

He clenched his fist tightly, as if he had grasped the entire lower-tier market.

"People within the Fifth Ring Road wouldn't understand it."

"They thought this was spam traffic, from low-end users."

"But they forgot that in China, this is the most genuine base."

Lin Che turned his head and looked at the constantly changing red number on the screen, representing the number of new users.

"This isn't throwing money away."

"This is the creation of nuclear weapons."

"When this number surpasses one hundred million..."

Lin Che paused, a cruel smile curving his lips.

"Even Jack Ma and Pony Ma have to sit at the negotiating table and listen to me."

Just then.

The red light on the screen suddenly started flashing violently.

That's a system alert.

[WARNING: Domain blocking detected]

Fatty Wang screamed, "Brother Che! Tencent has made its move! They've started blocking our entry points in Shenzhen!"

Lin Che remained calm.

He glanced at the clock on the wall.

Six o'clock in the morning.

Tencent's response was even faster than he had anticipated.

"Don't rush."

Lin Che walked to the console and hovered his finger over the Enter key.

That was the last "surprise" he prepared for Tencent.

"Switch to backup link".

Lin Che pressed the button.

"Activate... Trojan horse."

The data stream on the screen switched instantly.

The domains that originally pointed to those "public welfare websites" suddenly all redirected to a new address.

That's a long-dormant second-level domain of "Juhuasuan," a subsidiary of Taobao.

Lin Che looked at the screen and said softly:

"Ma Huateng, the ball is now in your court."

"By daring to block this domain name, you are declaring war on Alibaba."

"Before the two giants are ready for a full-scale war..."

Lin Che smiled.

"You can only watch me drain your data."