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

An underground conference room near the Sijiqing Clothing Wholesale Market in Hangzhou.

There are no windows here, and the air is filled with the smells of cheap tobacco, cheap perfume, and anxiety.

Hundreds of folding chairs were crammed together.

Sitting here are not investment banking elites dressed in Armani, but the largest and most humble group in Hangzhou – small and medium-sized sellers on Taobao.

Old Chen sat in the third row.

He was clutching a crumpled report on the express train service in his hand, his knuckles white.

He makes women's clothing.

Five years ago, he only needed to add a few keywords to the title, and orders would come in like snowflakes.

But now, Taobao has changed.

Traffic has become more valuable than gold.

Yesterday, he spent 5,000 yuan on the Express Train program, only to get three completed deals.

The average order value is 59 yuan.

It's not even enough to cover the electricity bill.

"I can't live like this anymore."

The bald man next to him sighed and stubbed out his cigarette in the cap of a mineral water bottle. "Jack Ma went to America to ring the bell, while we're here tolling our death knell. All the traffic has been sucked up by the big brands on Tmall. We C-stores are just stepchildren."

"I heard this meeting today can save lives?"

A fat man wearing a gold chain leaned over from the back row and asked, "Who's that Lin Che? He dares to say he can get free data?"

"Who knows?"

Old Chen gave a wry smile, "I'll just have to try anything, since if I don't get a surge in orders soon, my inventory will crush me."

Just then.

The lights in the conference room suddenly went out.

Only a spotlight in the center of the stage was on.

There was no rousing music coming from the speakers, only a deep, heart-pounding drumbeat.

Lin Che came out.

Instead of wearing the expensive suit he used to impress investors, he changed into an ordinary black T-shirt and held a microphone in his hand.

He doesn't look like a senior executive.

He's more like a rock singer, or... a cult leader.

He didn't speak.

He simply stood there, his gaze, calm to the point of being cold, sweeping over the hundreds of faces below the stage, faces etched with desire and despair.

"Does it hurt?"

Lin Che spoke up.

The very first word pierced everyone's hearts.

"Every morning when I open my eyes, I first owe Taobao 10,000 yuan in data traffic fees."

"We finally got a customer, who compared prices for ages, but ended up placing an order on Tmall."

"I wanted to send 'GG' on WeChat, but the link was blocked, my account was banned, and even my last resort was shut down."

Lin Che's voice wasn't loud, but in the deathly silent conference room, every word sounded like a heavy hammer blow.

Suppressed sobs could be heard from the audience.

That's the resonance after being crushed by life.

"You are the heroes of Taobao."

Lin Che stepped off the stage and into the crowd.

"It was you who carried Taobao to the New York Stock Exchange with each and every package you received."

"But now, you have been abandoned."

"Because the things you sell are too cheap, it lowers the image of Taobao. Because you don't have the money to burn on Taobao Express, you can't catch Jack Ma's eye."

Old Chen looked at Lin Che, who had walked up to him.

There was an eerie light in the young man's eyes.

That light reminded him of a straw he had grasped when he was drowning.

"President Lin!"

Old Chen couldn't help but stand up, his voice trembling, "Just tell me, do you have a way? I'll do anything to clear out my inventory!"

Lin Che stopped in his tracks.

He looked at Old Chen, a slight smile playing on his lips.

"I have."

Lin Che raised the remote control in his hand and pressed a button.

The large screen behind me lit up.

It's not a complicated PowerPoint presentation, but a real-time backend data interface.

Current online users: 10,540,000

Orders to be matched: 3,000,000+

That red number, like a ball of fire, instantly ignited everyone's eyes.

Ten million users.

Three million orders are needed.

Moreover, they are all queuing up to wait for shipment.

"These people are on WeChat."

Lin Che pointed at the screen, "They are also people abandoned by the mainstream internet. They don't care about brands, they don't care about packaging, they only care about one thing—cheapness."

"Taobao doesn't care about this kind of traffic."

"JD.com doesn't value these users."

"But I like it."

Lin Che walked back to the stage, opened his arms as if to embrace the entire venue.

"I don't want your GG fee."

"I don't want your slot fee."

"I don't even want your commission."

The audience erupted in uproar.

Free of charge?

Are there still platforms for doing charity these days?

"I only want one thing."

Lin Che's voice suddenly turned cold.

"Lowest price online".

The image on the screen changed.

A simple formula emerged:

Product price = Cost + 0 profit

"I want you to treat your Taobao stores as warehouses."

"Move all the unsold inventory on Taobao, and all the popular items that were piling up because we didn't have enough money to burn through GG, to Weipintuan."

"As long as you dare to drive the price down to the extreme."

"I dare to make your orders make the printer smoke."

"If Taobao can't give you the traffic, I will."

Lin Che's voice echoed in the conference room, carrying an undeniable air of dominance.

"I'll do the business that Taobao doesn't allow."

A deathly silence.

Then.

It was a volcanic eruption of noise.

"I'll do it!"

Old Chen was the first to yell, tearing the Taobao Express report in his hand to shreds. "Since we're going to fail anyway, might as well take a gamble! I have five thousand pairs of leggings that sell for 19.9 on Taobao, I'll sell them for 9.9 here!"

"I'll do it too! I have 20,000 boxes of tissues!"

"I have laundry detergent!"

"I have a data cable!"

The crowd went crazy.

They were like a pack of wolves that had been starving for too long, finally smelling blood.

This is not a rational business decision.

This is a desperate struggle of a cornered beast.

Lin Che looked at the excited crowd below the stage.

He beckoned.

Zhao Sihai, who had been waiting in the corner, rushed in with dozens of staff members.

He held the "Exclusive Supply Agreement" that he had prepared in advance.

signature.

Press your fingerprint.

One by one, the contracts, still warm from being handled, were piled up in front of Lin Che.

That's the supply chain's pledge of allegiance.

At this moment.

Lin Che severed the roots of Taobao.

He used "low-end production capacity" that Taobao looked down upon to feed "low-end users" that Taobao also looked down upon.

This is a perfect closed loop.

It is also a huge blood-sucking pump.

......

late at night.

End of the meeting.

Lin Che sat on the edge of the empty stage, holding a bottle of mineral water in his hand.

Zhao Sihai walked over, his face full of fat trembling.

"Brother Che, that's too ruthless."

Zhao Sihai looked at the pile of contracts and said, "These people have completely sold themselves to us. They're selling for 9.9 yuan with free shipping. They're not making a single penny. They're just doing this to increase sales volume."

That's enough.

Lin Che unscrewed the bottle cap and took a sip of water.

"What they want is to survive."

"What we want is GMV."

"But......"

Zhao Sihai hesitated for a moment, "With such a large order volume, if we ship them all through Taobao's interface, the big data system will definitely trigger an alarm. And what about Li Mo..."

"Let him report it."

A glint of light flashed in Lin Che's eyes.

I want him to see it.

He stood up and patted Zhao Sihai on the shoulder.

"Sihai, prepare your convoy."

"Starting tomorrow, no empty trucks will be allowed to leave the logistics park in western Hangzhou."

"I want all of Hangzhou to know."

"Weiguang Logistics has already choked the city."

......

the next day.

Integrity and Compliance Department, Alibaba Xixi Campus.

Li Mo sat behind that black desk, his face so gloomy it could drip water.

On his computer screen was a top-secret data analysis report.

This report was obtained by him using all his inside connections and even risking violations by "crawling" it out of the back-end database.

[Analysis of Abnormal Merchant Operation Data]

The report shows:

In the past 48 hours, more than 3000 Taobao C stores have experienced a strange surge in orders.

The traffic sources for these stores are all blank.

In other words, this traffic does not come from within Taobao, but from outside the platform.

The transaction prices were all 50% lower than the industry average.

Even more terrifying.

The shipping addresses of all these stores point to the same place:

No. 77 Gudun Road, Xihu District, Hangzhou City – Weiguang Logistics Distribution Center.

"Good tactic."

Li Mo's fingers gripped the corner of the table so tightly that his nails almost broke.

"Using Alibaba's money to buy traffic with the left hand."

"Using Alibaba's merchants to build supply chains."

"They profit from the price difference by using their own logistics company."

"Lin Che".

"You're sucking Ali's blood to grow your own flesh."

Li Mo suddenly stood up.

He walked to the safe and took out the portable hard drive containing all the evidence.

Previously, his investigation was forced to stop because of Mr. Ma's "co-opting order".

But now, the nature of the situation has changed.

This is no longer a simple "extracorporeal circulation".

This is "hollowing out assets".

If this data is leaked.

Lin Che's situation is more than just going to jail.

The entire stock price of Alibaba will collapse due to this huge black hole of related-party transactions.

"Mr. Ma wants to protect you."

Li Mo looked out the window, his eyes filled with a kind of madness that seemed to want to die together with his opponent.

"But I won't let you ruin this company."

He picked up the phone and dialed an overseas number.

That number does not belong to any Alibaba executive.

It belongs to the anonymous whistleblower hotline of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

"Feed".

Li Mo's voice was hoarse, yet it carried a sense of determination.

"I want to report this."

"Alibaba Group concealed significant related-party transaction risks in its IPO prospectus..."

outside the window.

Dark clouds loom overhead.

A deadly storm aimed at Weiguang Group, or rather, at Lin Che himself.

Finally, on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, they began to gather strength.