Originally, the account had 3.73 million, but after transferring back and forth, one account had 4.476 million and the other had 746,000, earning 1.492 million in 10 seconds.
Lin Yang dared not delay; time was money, and once such a bug was fixed, it would truly never reappear.
If not now, when would be the time to take advantage?
He immediately transferred all 4.476 million from his account to his small account.
Similarly, discount information appeared below the transfer amount, still in striking red text.
"20% discount, -895,200, actual payment 3,580,800."
The second the transfer was successful, the small account received 4.476 million, plus the 746,000 earned in the previous round, bringing the total in the account to 5.222 million.
Immediately after, he promptly transferred the money back to the main account.
Transferring 5.222 million, with an actual payment of 4.1776 million, resulted in a net gain of 1.0444 million.
The second round earned over two million back and forth.
Even now, only 20 seconds had passed.
The intelligence indicated that this bug in the blue payment software would last for 5 minutes.
Lin Yang continued to move the money back and forth, unwilling to waste a single second.
As the number of transfers increased, the discount amount for each transfer also grew, from the initial 746,000 to 1.044 million...
Lin Yang transferred between the main and small accounts without stopping, but after just over two minutes, a transfer failed notification suddenly appeared.
"Transaction abnormal, transfer failed."
Lin Yang was puzzled; the intelligence clearly stated the bug would last five minutes, so why was there a problem after just over two minutes?
He tried again, but each time he received the same notification.
Lin Yang only stopped attempting transfers at 2:40, when the discount information no longer appeared.
The disappearance of the discount information meant the bug had been fixed.
Lin Yang opened the Xingcheng Bank mobile banking app to check his card balance.
He was stunned when he saw the displayed number was eight digits, starting with a 9.
Before the bug, he only had 3.73 million, and each transfer only earned 20%, which was only a few hundred thousand.
How did his bank card suddenly have nearly one hundred million in just over two minutes?
However, he quickly figured out the problem.
Each transfer increased the money in the account by 20%, making the balance 1.2 times the original; 60 transfers would be 3.73 million multiplied by 1.2 to the power of 60.
The calculated result was terrifying, exceeding one hundred billion.
The reason for the transfer failure notification must have been that his transfer amounts became too large later on, attracting official attention.
Originally, without anyone knowing in advance, if this bug was discovered, one wouldn't earn much by exploiting it.
After all, the bug only appeared for 5 minutes.
But Lin Yang, through intelligence, knew about the bug in advance and made all preparations to exploit it for money, which led to the amount becoming abnormally large after dozens of transfers, making it difficult not to attract official attention.
An unprovoked sense of worry rose in Lin Yang's heart.
Originally, if others had unintentionally gained the 20%, the officials would announce after discovering the bug that they would not reclaim it and would bear the loss themselves.
But anyone with eyes could see that he deliberately used the bug to accumulate money, and the amount was huge, nearly one hundred million.
Would the officials not seek to recover the losses from him, given the enormous sum?
If it was really recovered by the officials, wouldn't all his efforts be in vain?
"Buzz buzz..."
Just then, his phone's message notification sounded.
It was a WeChat message from his roommate, Qin Zhiyuan.
Lin Yang opened WeChat and found a news link.
"Z Payment Treasure P000-level incident, 20% discount on all orders from 14:35 to 14:40?"
Below the link was his message.
"Lin Yang, have you heard? Z Payment Treasure has a bug, all orders get a 20% subsidy! Did you manage to get some of it?"
"I wish I had known there would be a bug, I would have kept transferring money to myself during that time."
Looking at the WeChat message, Lin Yang smiled.
There were probably many people who, like Qin Zhiyuan, regretted and were annoyed that they hadn't discovered the bug earlier.
He opened his Moments to check and found dozens of new posts within a few minutes.
"Z Payment Treasure bug, 20% discount! Too bad I only bought a phone screen protector, saved 2 yuan!"
"I checked, I paid at 2:34:59, why didn't I wait one more second to enter the password!"
"Shocking! I heard someone exploited the Z Payment Treasure bug by transferring money back and forth to themselves and got over 20,000 in benefits!"
"What kind of luck do you all have? Why do I always only get the news after things have happened!"
...
Lin Yang browsed these Moments and found that most of them were regretting not seizing the opportunity of the bug to get benefits.
Those who were luckier and happened to stumble upon the benefits felt exceptionally fortunate.
Lin Yang smiled; a few tens or hundreds were called 'getting benefits,' but nearly one hundred million, he didn't know how to describe it.
The 2.2 million in his card had turned into nearly one hundred million in just a few minutes.
He just didn't know if such a large amount would ultimately be reclaimed by the officials.
Although the intelligence said the officials would not reclaim it, this was, after all, nearly one hundred million, not a small sum of a few hundred or a few thousand yuan.
He wondered what others would think if they knew he had made nearly one hundred million using the bug.
Closing WeChat, Lin Yang opened his browser to look at the latest news.
Although he now had nearly one hundred million in his card, he was actually unsure.
So he kept searching for news related to the Z Payment Treasure bug.
News of Z Payment Treasure's 20% discount on all orders had already spread widely, but the officials had not yet released any statement.
Around 3 PM, he finally found the official statement.
"Statement regarding already issued marketing discount funds: Since it is our mistake, the cost and responsibility must be borne by ourselves. We will not reclaim any marketing discount funds that have already been issued from anyone. Please rest assured."
"Phew..."
Upon seeing this message, Lin Yang finally breathed a sigh of relief.
This meant that from this moment on, the money in his card truly belonged to him.
Nearly one hundred million—most people wouldn't earn that in a lifetime, or even several lifetimes of work.
Yet, he had earned it in just over two minutes.
More importantly, with this money, he had capital.
When he received new intelligence pushed by the system next week, he could use that intelligence to earn even more money.
At the same time, an interview video about the Z Payment Treasure bug also went viral online.
In the video, a reporter interviewed a Z Payment Treasure official spokesperson.
"May I ask how much loss this incident caused?"
"It's a 1 billion level loss, including a single user who extracted nearly one hundred million in marketing discount funds through repeated transfers."
"Extracting one hundred million in a short time, this situation is clearly intentional, why aren't you reclaiming it?"
"It was precisely because of this user's large fund movements that official attention was drawn, which prevented even greater losses. Given this, we decided not to reclaim the marketing discount funds."
...
This video garnered over a million likes and three to four hundred thousand comments within minutes of being posted.
Lin Yang smiled knowingly; it was just as he had guessed—the large fund movements attracted official attention, which allowed them to discover the bug early.
He clicked on the comments below the video to view them.
"I often use Z Payment Treasure, but didn't today, sob sob sob..."
"I filled up 500 yuan worth of gas, and I wondered why it was discounted by 100, but I didn't react in time, otherwise I would have really gone for it."
"Didn't you notice the person who extracted nearly one hundred million?!"
"Who is it? How could they extract one hundred million? Do they have inside information and prepared in advance?"
"20% at a time, to extract one hundred million, the principal must be substantial too. Even if I knew in advance, I couldn't get one hundred million!"