143: Chapter 144: B2B Cashback Circumventing Monopoly Regulation: Compliance Loopholes in a Multi-Billion-Dollar War of Attrition

A forty percent win rate on paper might be worth a gamble for an ordinary entrepreneur.

But for a handler like Shen Du, who had once crawled through the abyss of capital, this could provide no substantial sense of security whatsoever.

Once this multinational commercial war, driven by massive foreign capital, broke out, there would be no buffer zone on the domestic business landscape where it could be called off.

This was by no means an ordinary friction where one could sit down, drink tea, and compromise by conceding a few points of profit.

Instead, it was a fight to the death where one had to grit their teeth and push through the pressure of hemorrhaging.

It was a war of attrition that would only end when one side's capital chain completely snapped and their market share was entirely stripped away by the other.

Mid-June.

The continuous plum rains made the air in Shanghai unusually muggy and sticky.

Yet, inside the highest-specification conference room on the top floor of Jiyuan Technology headquarters, there was an oppressive, chilling cold.

Shen Du had issued the highest-level mandatory summons since the company's founding.

Technical Expert Su Hua, Operations Manager Zhang Nan, Lin Zimo, Chen Fei, Xu Hao, and General Manager Chen Shengqiang, who held a tight grip on the group's financial reins—these six core executives, who now controlled half of the domestic mobile internet industry, had pushed aside all their cross-border meetings, financing negotiations, and business inspections.

They all took their seats on both sides of this long mahogany conference table.

The central air conditioning in the conference room emitted a low-frequency hum, gently blowing cold air.

The six executives sat upright.

In front of each of them sat a bottle of mineral water with the seal still unbroken.

The temperature difference between the indoors and outdoors caused a fine layer of condensation to form on the transparent bottle walls, silently sliding down the plastic labels and into the grain of the solid wood tabletop.

No one reached out to touch the water, and no one whispered to each other.

Everyone's gaze instinctively focused on Shen Du, who sat at the head of the table with an extremely cold and stern expression.

They were all smart people who had fought their way up from the grassroots markets.

Just by looking at Shen Du's combat-ready stance—stripping away all emotion and leaving only absolute rationality—this group of professional managers, who had handled daily turnovers in the tens of millions, felt their back muscles involuntarily tighten.

Their keen business instincts were screaming warnings.

Outside, a storm capable of overturning Jiyuan Technology's entire foundation must be silently approaching.

Shen Du had no superfluous opening remarks, nor did he distribute any paper documents.

He crossed his fingers and placed them steadily on the mahogany tabletop.

His cold, sharp gaze swept across the crowd, directly slamming the most critical intelligence into the oppressive air.

"Latest intelligence.

Those core gates of the Beijing Circle that we clashed with in the sinking market last year have already used the opportunity of official liquidation to sever their domestic physical industries and transferred all their base positions overseas."

Shen Du's voice was not loud.

But in the quiet conference room, it carried a physical weight that pierced the eardrums:

"Currently, they have already completed a merger with offshore capital from Wall Street."

Hearing the words "overseas" and "merger," the muscles around the eyes of the executives present clearly twitched slightly, but no one spoke up to interrupt.

"Throughout all of last year, those northern families dumped over one billion US dollars in subsidy funds on us."

Shen Du's gaze swept across the faces of General Manager Chen Shengqiang, Technical Expert Su Hua, and the others in turn:

"And this time, taking advantage of the loosening of the national foreign capital entry policy, the volume of funds they are preparing to dump is a full ten times that of last year."

Shen Du paused for half a second and coldly announced the number: "Ten billion US dollars.

Pure cash."

The moment his voice fell, the already quiet conference room plunged into a deathly, physiological silence.

There were no exclamations, no questions, and certainly no exaggerated emotional outbursts.

For this group of top-tier professional managers who were well-versed in financial accounting, when an astronomical figure with destructive attributes was slapped directly onto the table, their brains instinctively began to calculate frantically.

Ten billion US dollars.

At the current exchange rate, that is equivalent to over sixty billion RMB.

Currently, Jiyuan Technology and Meituan are like money-printing machines in the Short Video and local life sectors.

The monthly net profit has already broken through the twenty billion RMB mark.

But this proud financial report, which could look down on the domestic internet circle, was instantly made to appear extremely thin in the face of a ten-billion-dollar multinational capital fund.

Even if both companies stopped all R&D investment and spent not a single penny, they would need to earn money sleeplessly for nearly three years to barely fill this massive numerical gap on the books.

And what was even more suffocating was that in the shura field of mutual capital strangulation, those bloodthirsty foreign capital giants would never mercifully leave you three years to save money and develop step by step.

As long as this huge sum of money was concentrated and poured out within a month in the form of a subsidy war, the market moat that Jiyuan Technology had painstakingly built would be forcibly washed away in an instant by the massive amount of US dollars.

Watching the tense jawlines and stagnant breathing of the group, Shen Du did not speak to interrupt this instinctive fear.

For this group of rational professional managers, only by letting them personally weigh just how heavy the butcher's knife hanging over their heads was, would they not harbor any wishful thinking when executing the brutal defensive war to come.

Until this heavy sense of oppression had completely settled in the conference room, Shen Du slowly unclenched his crossed fingers.

He leaned forward slightly, cutting his steady tone into the group's desperate financial calculations:

"Ten billion US dollars is indeed a volume capable of smashing a moat, but no matter how huge the capital is, it must follow the commercial common sense of capital seeking profit."

Shen Du's voice was as calm as drawing a line on a report:

"As long as the national red line strictly prohibiting malicious dumping remains, foreign capital will not dare to burn through all ten billion in thirty days and engage in mutual destruction.

What Wall Street wants is a living domestic sinking market that can continuously provide them with monopoly super-profits, not a pile of ruins."

He picked up a signature pen from his side, and the cap tapped lightly on the thick solid wood tabletop.

"Since their goal is to eat up the entire plate, this strangulation war will inevitably be drawn out to a cycle of five or even ten years.

By spreading the ten billion in dead accounts over a timeline of sixty months, the extreme firepower we have to face each year will only be two billion US dollars."

Using this cold mathematical division, Shen Du forcibly dismantled that insurmountable mountain of pig iron into a scale that Jiyuan Technology could physically withstand:

"Using the current monthly net profit of two billion RMB from Meituan and Jiyuan to fill this pit, even if we stop all dividends and book expansion in the coming years, it is enough to bite tightly onto the opponent's multinational tracks and drag their capital consumption cycle until they collapse."

Hearing this precise dismantling that turned a macro dead-end into smaller, manageable parts, the extreme cold pressure in the conference room finally showed a subtle loosening.

The originally stiff breathing rhythm of several executives eased slightly, imperceptibly.

But Shen Du did not give them any room to breathe.

He changed the subject, his gaze pinning itself on the technical lead on his left, Lin Zimo.

"This money is currently still being settled in offshore accounts, and the other party is keeping the time node extremely tight.

The specific time for building positions is in a completely silent state."

"Lin Zimo."

Shen Du called his name on the spot and issued a tactical order.

Hearing his name, Lin Zimo immediately straightened his back.

The fountain pen in his hand was poised in the air over his notebook, his eyes revealing the focus unique to technical personnel.

"After the meeting, immediately stop the computing power occupation for non-core businesses.

Turn the guns of the entire big data team around for me."

Shen Du's gaze was unusually cold and sharp:

"Stay locked on the foreign exchange anomalies of all corporate accounts of competing companies on the market around the clock.

Use the API interface of industrial and commercial data to screen their equity change records in real-time.

The moment their first batch of US dollars passes through the gate and completes the compliant identity exchange, your server room must sound the highest-level alarm for me."

Lin Zimo nodded heavily, quickly carving this high-priority death order into his mind.

After deploying the big data monitoring defense line, Shen Du did not pause at all.

He pushed a stack of unbound A4 paper documents, still warm from the printer ink on the edges, directly along the central axis of the mahogany tabletop.

The paper rubbed against the solid wood grain, making a dull rustling sound as it slid in front of the core executives.

"This is the defense plan I am going to execute next."

Letting Technical Expert Su Hua, Operations Manager Zhang Nan, and the others reach out to distribute and circulate the documents, Shen Du leaned back in his chair and threw out a strategic concept that completely overturned Jiyuan Technology's previous mode of burning money for expansion.

"Everyone knows very well that the anti-monopoly law that the country has just implemented is by no means a piece of empty paper.

It is a regulatory red line with strong punitive attributes.

As a leading local enterprise that is being closely watched, if we dare to do as we did in last year's ride-hailing war—blatantly converting massive amounts of funds into cash red packets and smashing them toward C-end users for malicious dumping—without the foreign capital having to lift a finger, the industrial and commercial department's huge fines will crush us first."

Shen Du looked at the executives who were quickly scanning the documents, his tone leaving no room for negotiation:

"Therefore, starting from today, Jiyuan Technology and Meituan will completely stop all direct money distribution, subsidies, and money-burning user acquisition activities aimed at C-end users."

This sentence was like an order to forcibly cut the main artery, causing the business managers who were reading the documents to pause at the same time.

Stopping subsidies for users, in the hand-to-hand combat of the mobile internet, usually meant voluntarily disarming.

But Shen Du's next sentence immediately displayed the almost cruel fund-scheduling wrist of a top-tier handler.

"The C-end pipeline is cut, but the ammunition in our hands will not be fired a single cent less."

Shen Du bent his index finger and tapped it heavily twice on the hard tabletop:

"What replaces it is a complete transfer of the blood transfusion pipeline."

"We are going to pour the two billion RMB in net profit generated by Jiyuan Technology and Meituan every month into the B-end market, without leaving a single cent behind.

We will no longer subsidize even one ordinary user.

Instead, we will provide targeted blood transfusions directly to the resident food delivery merchants, e-commerce suppliers, and core creators on the live streaming platform through the most extreme commission-free policies, excess cashbacks, and computing power tilt."

General Manager Chen Shengqiang, who was responsible for controlling the group's overall finances, turned the A4 paper in his hand to the last page.

He stared at the financial calculation model regarding "merchant commission-free and tiered rebates" on it.

His two eyebrows were tightly knitted together.

As the chief steward who dealt with cold, hard numbers all year round, he keenly grasped the core point of the capital flow:

"General Manager Shen, from a purely financial perspective, regardless of whether this monthly net profit of two billion is distributed to end-users or exempted for B-end merchants, the platform's cash flow blood loss is exactly the same.

What essential difference can this 'old wine in a new bottle' bloodletting have in dealing with foreign capital strangulation?"

Facing this professional questioning from the financial handler, Shen Du leaned back slowly, settling completely into the wide leather chair back.

"The difference lies in who will bear the physical weight of that anti-monopoly red line for the platform."

Shen Du's tone revealed an extremely cold rationality, like dissecting a complex business specimen:

"If we directly send red packets to C-end users, in the qualitative analysis of industrial and commercial regulation, this is called 'malicious dumping that disrupts market order,' and it will be caught every time."

Shen Du's gaze swept across the crowd, completely peeling open this risk-avoidance mechanism hidden behind the rules:

"But if we transfer the money to B-end merchants as a full blood transfusion in the name of 'commission reduction' and 'supply chain support,' on the official audit books, this is called 'optimizing the business environment and supporting small, medium, and micro entities.'"

Hearing this qualitative conversion at the compliance level, the actions of several executives in the conference room to flip through documents paused in unison.

"As long as the resident merchants get real, excess profits, under the laws of the free market, in order to grab more traffic and orders in our pool, they themselves will grit their teeth and lower prices at the terminal.

The food delivery that end-users eat and the goods they buy will still be lower prices, cheaper than foreign-funded competing products."

Shen Du bent his index finger, his knuckles tapping out a dull thud on the hard mahogany tabletop.

"This time, those fighting a crazy price war at the front desk are the merchants who are fighting each other for orders.

And Jiyuan Technology is just a clean, compliant platform that is even conceding profits to support entities."

Shen Du's deep gaze penetrated the slightly cold air, looking directly into General Manager Chen Shengqiang's eyes:

"This chasm filled with profit is not called a subsidy; it is called an irresistible ecological barrier.

General Manager Chen, do you understand how to do this math now?"

Inside the spacious and enclosed conference room, no one raised any further objections.