The Big Screen Featured His Store, and the Whole Department Called on Him to Speak!

At 1:40 Friday afternoon, Lin Fan arrived alone at the department's main conference room.

The projector fan buzzed as he connected his laptop. The screen lit up, displaying a curve on the first slide—flat for most of the previous half month, then shooting straight into the sky at the end.

The lifeblood of his own store had been blown up two meters wide and projected onto the screen for the whole department meeting. He stood beside the projector for a few seconds, then reached out and adjusted the focus until it was sharp.

He wanted only one outcome from today's meeting: when everyone walked out, they would all carry the same conclusion. The person running the store was an old hand accustomed to the offline knitwear trade, someone outside the platform ecosystem and impossible to trace. Better yet, they would lose interest in tracing him at all.

His advantage was obvious too. He had read through all twelve pages of the case study word by word in advance. He knew exactly what everyone would say. Those few lines from the store owner on Wangwang had been typed by him in the first place. The map in everyone's hands had been drawn entirely by him.

There was another free benefit: the department's best data analysts would be dissecting this store right in front of him today, tearing it apart layer by layer. Seeing how far they could dig and where they got stuck was worth more than figuring it out on his own ten times over.

At five to two, people began filing in. He handed out the bound materials one by one. The supervisors took the front rows. Zheng Haifeng sat down in the second row. Su Qing held her draft and took a seat in the first. Zhou Bin carried a teacup and chose a seat behind and to the side of the supervisors.

After handing out the final copy, Lin Fan retreated to a corner in the back row. He opened a new notebook and wrote four words across the first page: Meeting Minutes.

At exactly two, the department head cleared his throat. His opening remarks were just one sentence. "We've got plenty to cover this month. Let's start with the case study. Little Su, you submitted that one, so you go first."

Su Qing walked over to the screen without taking her draft.

"Supervisors, colleagues, the store I'm presenting on didn't exist at this time last month. Yesterday, it did eleven hundred orders in a single day."

Someone below gave a low whistle.

"I took it apart from top to bottom." She lifted her chin toward the back row. "Next slide."

Lin Fan clicked the mouse.

The screen enlarged the listing date: late August, when Hangzhou was thirty-seven or thirty-eight degrees Celsius.

"During the hottest week of midsummer, it went all in on winter goods. How many merchants in your hands would dare do that? Courage alone wouldn't be enough. He knew the weather would turn cold. Not only that, he knew he had to build up sales and reviews before the cold snap arrived. That was why he entered the market in late August, stayed still for over a month in early September, and quietly built his foundation."

That trip to Yiwu, the first-hand price he had haggled down to 2.9 yuan, the sales figures he had counted item by item while squatting in the garage—now they were being read out in fragments from someone else's mouth, for the entire department to hear.

Lin Fan lowered his head and moved his pen across the page, recording the minutes in neat, orderly strokes.

"Now look at the price war." The screen changed to an eight-day price fluctuation chart. "The copycats cut their price to 8.8 yuan, and this store answered directly with 7.9. That 7.9 was calculated with a calculator. The other side's stall goods cost more than 6.5 yuan. This store had first-hand supply, so it could still profit at 7.9. It wore the other side down until they delisted in eight days, then used the low price to rack up another three hundred reviews. After the battle, its foundation was even stronger than before it began."

A supervisor in the front row added, "Even veteran operators might not dare make that move."

"I also checked the registrant," Su Qing said. "A twenty-five-year-old local guy in Hangzhou. His record is spotless. No second store under his name, no connections to any known major sellers." She set the laser pointer on the table. "The night before last, I contacted the store's customer service under the identity of a category operator. Their story was airtight. They said the owner's family was in the knitwear business and had stocked up while summer goods were cheap. They said the owner spent all year traveling to source goods and didn't manage the store personally. The explanation was too smooth, like it had been memorized. My judgment is that this is either a major seller's alt account testing the waters, or a wholesaler who paid someone to operate the store. Identity pending investigation."

The conference room buzzed.

"Finished?" the department head asked.

"There's one more thing." Su Qing turned to the final page. "While preparing this case study, I collected opinions from peers. Most agreed with me, though there was one different view. A colleague from the neighboring 3C Group believes this store simply stocked up early, caught a sharp cold front, and got lucky more than anything else. I included that opinion to make a point: if the data is laid out like this and you still can't see what's going on, then when the seasons change next year, the merchants in your hands will be the ones beaten into delisting like those copycats."

Someone laughed out loud.

The department head laughed too. He turned and swept his gaze toward the back rows. "Who said it was luck? Are they here?"

Su Qing answered for him directly. "He is. Lin Fan, the one taking minutes in the back row."

In an instant, more than twenty heads turned toward him.

Lin Fan set down his pen.

In half a second, he ran through the situation in his head. He couldn't dodge this. Stammering would only make people suspicious. Besides, rather than sit below and watch them speculate further and further off course, he might as well personally steer them down this wrong branch.

"Hello, Director. Hello, supervisors." He stood, speaking at an unhurried pace. "I said that thing about luck offhand. I hadn't seen such complete data at the time. After hearing Su Qing's presentation today, I take it back."

Su Qing crossed her arms and waited for him to continue.

"But after listening, I have an immature thought." He gestured toward the screen. "I don't think it's a major seller's alt account. When major sellers train alt accounts, they do it in categories and supply chains they already know. There's no need to tie up cash in late August by going all in on a 9.9-yuan small item. The returns are too thin. They wouldn't bother."

Someone in the front row nodded.

"Hiring an operator doesn't add up either. Operators earn service fees and work with the client's goods. This store had the goods first—a first-hand price of 2.9 yuan. Where would an operator find that? Only the owner of the goods could hold that kind of supply."

"So I'm just guessing, but this feels more like an old hand who's spent half his life in the offline knitwear business. He knows stall channels, factory costs, what goods sell in what weather—all of it has soaked into his bones over decades. This year, he saw online business picking up and moved his own goods online to test the waters. Stocking up on winter goods is just his trade. He does it every year. Someone like that isn't part of our platform ecosystem. You can't find him through connection checks or customer service inquiries. He might be squatting in some factory right now, keeping an eye on the goods."

The conference room fell silent for two seconds.

Su Qing froze for a moment, then lowered her head and flipped rapidly through her draft. She stopped on one page.

The department head remembered too. "Hey, Little Su, didn't you just say the customer service rep said the owner's family was in the knitwear business and that he traveled year-round to source goods?"

"That's what they said." Su Qing stared at the page, her voice slowing by half a beat. "I assumed it was made up."

"If they were making it up, why make up a knitwear family? Wouldn't inventing some big company sound more convincing?" The department head slapped the edge of the table. "I think Lin Fan's explanation makes sense. Both ends line up."

Discussion broke out below. The direction of the room visibly took a turn. Several supervisors flipped through their materials and nodded, saying there really had been wave after wave of offline businesses shifting to domestic online sales this year.

Lin Fan sat back down, picked up his pen, and wrote his own words into the minutes exactly as he had said them, without changing a single word. On the surface, it was a newcomer's impromptu remark. Look deeper, and it was a wall that anyone trying to investigate this store in the future would have to run into with their very first step.

"Alright, alright." Zhou Bin's teacup lid clinked as he stood up. "The newcomer's stolen all the thunder already. Am I still supposed to give my finale?"

The whole conference room laughed.

"First, let me make my position clear. Little Su's case study is solid, good enough for an excellence award nomination." After giving her that bit of praise, Zhou Bin abruptly changed direction. "But I don't agree with the conclusion. Old hand, hidden expert—you're all overcomplicating it. Next slide."

The screen changed to a comparison between the dark horse store's data and the category's seasonal-transition curves from previous years. Lin Fan had pulled those numbers out cell by cell the night before.

"I've worked in this category for six years. I also led the verification of the shipping-origin figures last month. What kind of operation haven't I seen?" Zhou Bin tapped the screen with the laser pointer. "This curve is a classic major seller's alt account clearing inventory. They train junior staff while dumping leftover stock. You see a sharp rise; I see a quick death. Fighting a price war at 7.9 yuan means hurting yourself nearly as much as the enemy. It's a gambler's tactic. Win once, and you think you're the God of Wealth. I've seen stores like this before. Every one of them dies."

"I'll give it a date. Once the season changes, its volume will drop by half by the end of October. Before the New Year, it'll be gone without a trace. Remember what I said today. Look back then."

Lin Fan kept his head lowered, his pen moving steadily.

At 7.9 yuan, the net profit per item was three yuan. That figure was printed on page seven of Su Qing's case study. The materials in his hand were open to that page. It had been read aloud, but it had never entered Zhou Bin's head.

The gambler Zhou Bin said would die quickly was the very person whom Zhou Bin had publicly scolded for neglecting his duties the week the store first broke a hundred daily sales. The shipping-origin verification he had used to prop himself up had been completed by that gambler, who had stayed late on duty with him. And the curve Zhou Bin was tapping right now had been pulled together by that gambler the previous night.

The man who had soaked in this category for six years sat closest to the screen, yet he was the person in the room farthest from the answer.

The minutes recorded neatly: Zhou Bin predicted that volume would drop by half by the end of October, and the store would be gone before the New Year.

Keep that one. Bring it out and look at it before the New Year.

The meeting ended at three thirty. The department head wrapped things up. The case study would be submitted for the excellence award through the usual process. Both views on the dark horse store would be included in the minutes for observation. Each group was to go back and see whether any similar stores were emerging in their own categories, and learn how others fought seasonal transitions.

People headed out in twos and threes, still discussing it. Some said that if it really was an offline veteran, there would be nowhere to investigate. Others said Zhou Bin had guts to put down in writing that the store would disappear before the New Year; his mouth was truly tough.

Su Qing carried her materials to the back row and stopped.

"Lin Fan, someone who doesn't understand women's clothing can talk so clearly about supply costs. Why did you pretend to be such an amateur last time?"

"I was talking about business, not women's clothing." Lin Fan closed his notebook. "If you asked me what size or color leggings should come in, I couldn't tell you a thing."

Su Qing stared at him for two seconds without replying. When she reached the door, she looked back.

"Write the minutes carefully. Don't miss a single word from my section."

"Don't worry."

At seven that evening, the office area had emptied out. Lin Fan finished typing the last line of the minutes, read through them once, and left the cursor resting on the section containing his own remarks.

A veteran offline knitwear practitioner transitioning online, outside the platform ecosystem; difficult to reach through both connection investigations and customer service inquiries.

The strongest thing about this path was that ninety percent of it was true. Yiwu was real. The knitwear factories were real. The first-hand supply was real. Only the old hand was something he had invented. Follow the trail to the end, and there would only be a Manager Ma, someone people in Yiwu talked about. Beyond that, there was not a single step further.

He clicked send—to the entire department.

His phone buzzed. A text from Ma Le: 510 orders today. New record. We're completely out of tape. Bring back four rolls.

He replied with one word: Okay.

He locked his computer, turned off the lights, left the office, and turned left toward the convenience store.