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

No. 969 Wenyi West Road, Hangzhou.

Alibaba Xixi Campus.

Nine o'clock in the morning.

Sunlight streamed onto the massive glass curtain wall, refracting a dazzling light.

This is the Mecca of the Chinese internet, a sacred place in the hearts of countless programmers.

But in the monitoring hall of the "Infrastructure Business Group" on the ground floor of Building 4, there was an atmosphere of anxiety.

"Drip—drip—drip—"

The infrared monitoring alarm, which should have been quiet, suddenly emitted a piercing buzzing sound.

On the huge central screen, a red traffic curve is climbing wildly and irrationally, almost piercing the edge of the screen.

"DDoS attack?"

The supervisor on duty, Lei Ming, slammed his Starbucks coffee cup on the table, spilling coffee all over the floor.

"What is the security department doing?! How did they allow such a massive attack to get in?"

"Lei, something's not right!"

The operations engineer next to me, his fingers flying across the keyboard, was sweating profusely. "It's not an external attack! The IP sources are all real mobile devices, and... and all this traffic bypassed the firewall because they're accessing our whitelisted domains!"

"What domain name?" Lei Ming rushed to the screen.

The engineer retrieved the DNS resolution logs.

Amidst the dense code, a line of yellow characters stood out:

This is Taobao's core root domain.

"Are those people at Juhuasuan crazy?"

Lei Ming roared, "Why didn't you report this big promotion in advance? What if such a large concurrency load crashes the core switch? Investigate! Who is in charge of this subdomain?!"

Five minutes later.

The engineer looked at the asset claim records on the internal network, and his expression became somewhat strange.

"Lei Gong... this domain name is an idle asset that was applied for half a year ago."

"The department that applied is the Wireless Business Unit."

"The person in charge is... Lin Che."

Lin Che.

It's that name again.

In the past few days, as news of the roadshow has spread back to China, this name has become somewhat taboo within Alibaba.

Some say he's Jack Ma's favorite, others say he's crazy.

Lei Ming gritted his teeth.

No matter who it is, anyone who jeopardizes the stability of the core system is a class enemy.

"Walk!"

Lei Ming grabbed his employee badge and strode menacingly toward the elevator.

"Go to the wireless division, I want to unplug his network cable!"

......

Ten minutes later.

The Wireless Business Unit, a separate office in the corner.

Lin Che was sitting in an ergonomic chair, holding a cup of freshly brewed Longjing tea.

The aroma of tea wafts through the air.

He looked out the window at the orange name tags of the workers coming and going in the park, looking as relaxed as if he were on vacation.

Across from him, Fatty Wang was giving a tense report via encrypted video link:

"Brother Che, the server load on Alibaba's side is already at 90%! If we don't expand our capacity soon, Taobao's firewall might automatically shut us down!"

"Don't rush."

Lin Che blew on the tea leaves floating on the water.

"The people delivering the expanded capacity are already on their way."

"Bang!"

The office door was suddenly pushed open.

Lei Ming stormed in with two maintenance personnel, his murderous aura practically tearing the door frame apart.

"Lin Che!"

Lei Ming pointed at Lin Che's nose, spitting as he spoke, "Immediately! Right now! Cut off your traffic! Your damn domain name is using up 40% of Juhuasuan's outbound bandwidth! It's increased the latency of the core transaction link by 30 milliseconds! Can you take responsibility if something goes wrong?"

Lin Che did not move.

He didn't even stand up.

He simply put down his teacup, the porcelain cup clinking against the table with a soft "thud".

"Good morning, Mr. Lei."

Lin Che smiled and gestured to the chair in front of him. "Don't be so angry. Sit down and have a cup of tea?"

"Drink your ass!"

Lei Ming, a typical tech-savvy guy, wasn't buying it. "I'm immediately telling the network administrator to cut off your DNS resolution! This is unauthorized use of company assets! It's a major security incident!"

As he spoke, he pulled out his walkie-talkie and was about to give the order.

"etc."

Lin Che's voice wasn't loud, but it carried a chilling undertone.

He slowly opened the drawer and took out a document.

The documents were packed in a kraft paper bag, sealed with a bright red seal across the seam.

"Lei Gong".

Lin Che slid the file across the desktop and stopped it in front of Lei Ming.

"I suggest you take a look at this before you cut it."

Lei Ming glanced at him suspiciously and picked up the document.

The cover features a line of bold text:

Alibaba Wireless Innovation Business Incubation Agreement - Code Name: Project W

At the end of the document, two stamps were prominently displayed.

One is the official seal of the Wireless Business Unit.

The other one is the personal seal of the group's Chief Operating Officer (COO), Lao Xiao.

Lei Ming's hand trembled slightly.

He opened the contents.

It was written in black and white on the paper inside:

"...In order to cope with the competition on mobile devices, we hereby authorize Lin Che's team to use the group's idle domain name resources to conduct gray-scale testing of the social e-commerce model..."

"...The relevant technical departments should provide the highest priority resource support..."

This document is genuine.

"this......"

Lei Ming's momentum instantly deflated by half when he saw the bright red seal.

Even the most technically gifted person in a big company is afraid of official seals.

Since the COO has signed off, this is a "strategic mission".

If he forcibly cuts off the operation, causing the "strategic mission" to fail, he cannot bear the blame.

"Lei Gong".

Lin Che stood up, walked to Lei Ming's side, and patted him on the shoulder.

"This is the project that Mr. Ma and Mr. Xiao valued most during the roadshow."

"As you know, we're in a quiet period right now."

"If a technical issue causes a sharp drop in data, affecting the stock price..."

Lin Che didn't finish his sentence.

But the meaning in his eyes was already quite clear.

Lei Ming swallowed hard.

Looking at Lin Che's young yet unfathomable face, he suddenly felt a chill run down his spine.

This young man had meticulously calculated the company's processes, rules, and even the weaknesses of human nature.

"but......"

Lei Ming's tone softened, becoming more of a negotiating voice: "The traffic is just too huge. If we don't divert the traffic, it will really affect the main site."

"Then I'll have to trouble you, Mr. Lei."

Lin Che smiled, a very genuine smile.

"Could you please ask the infrastructure department to help us with dynamic CDN acceleration? Distribute the traffic to edge nodes across the country."

"This way, it won't affect the main site, and the user experience will be better."

This was originally Lin Che's request.

But in the current context, it has become Lei Ming's lifeline.

If he doesn't do this, he'll be responsible if the main site crashes; he'll also be responsible if he cuts off Lin Che's contact.

The only way to survive is to help Lin Che optimize his system.

"......OK."

Lei Ming gritted his teeth, as if he had swallowed a fly, "I'll give you VIP access, but let me make this clear: if the traffic doubles again, I'll have to report it to the technical committee."

"no problem."

Lin Che extended his hand. "It's a pleasure doing business with you."

Lei Ming did not shake hands, but snorted coldly and turned to leave with his men.

They came to confront and demand an explanation.

When he left, he became Lin Che's free senior maintenance engineer.

The office door closed again.

Lin Che sat back down in his chair and picked up his cup of tea again.

The tea had cooled slightly, but it tasted even sweeter.

On the screen, Fatty Wang's face was beaming with joy.

"Brother Che! Amazing! Just now, our bandwidth restrictions were lifted! And the latency dropped by 50%! It seems Alibaba gave us a dedicated line!"

"This is what a big company is like."

Lin Che looked out the window.

To him, Lei Ming's hurried departure was like that of a puppet being manipulated.

"In large companies, compliance with procedures is more important than whether the matter is right or wrong."

"As long as you have that red stamp, you can move the company's servers home, and they'll even help you call a moving company."

He picked up his phone and glanced at the time.

"Increase the dosage."

Lin Che issued the order.

"Since we're using Alibaba's servers, how can we not make them run like crazy and reward Lei Jun's hard work?"

......

late at night.

Lakeside Garden, Hangzhou.

This is Jack Ma's private residence, and also where the Alibaba dream began.

In the study, Mr. Ma, dressed in a traditional Chinese cloth robe, was practicing calligraphy.

On the rice paper, the character "静" (quiet) has just been written with the last stroke.

The hustle and bustle of New York these past few days has given him some time to calm down.

"bite."

The phone on the desk lit up.

Mr. Ma put down his calligraphy brush and picked up his phone.

It's a red dot in my WeChat Moments.

The message was sent by a primary school classmate of his from many years ago, with whom he rarely kept in touch.

Mr. Ma clicked on the red dot.

A striking, cheap-looking red link popped up:

[Hey old classmate, help me cut the price! I'm just 0.1 yuan away from getting that pressure cooker!]

Mr. Ma frowned slightly.

How could such crude marketing appear in his WeChat Moments?

He instinctively wanted to paddle across.

But his gaze suddenly stopped on the domain name of the link.

Is this Alibaba's domain name?

Mr. Ma's pupils contracted instantly.

He didn't need to click in; with his amazing business intuition, he instantly sensed the logic behind it.

Someone is using Alibaba's resources to do something crazy on WeChat's turf.

Moreover, the matter has spiraled out of control to the point that even his elementary school classmates have been implicated.

"Lin Che..."

Mr. Ma murmured the name to himself.

Apart from that young man in New York who dared to talk to him about "greed," no one else had the guts or the means.

Mr. Ma was not angry.

Instead, a playful smile slowly crept onto the corners of his mouth.

He tossed his phone on the table and stared at the still-wet ink on the character "静" (quiet).

"That's interesting."

Mr. Ma muttered to himself.

"The Trojan horse has entered the city."

"Since we can't kill him..."

A glint of light flashed in his eyes.

"Let's see if we can use it to our advantage."