1990s Shanghai, Huanghe Road. Once night fell, gold dust filled the air. Neon light fell like heavy brushstrokes across every face — half wild abandon, half quiet sorrow.

On the day Zhi Zhen Yuan opened, the firecrackers nearly shattered every pane of glass on the street. Li Li stood at the top-floor window, looking down at the boiling crowd below. Back then, everyone believed that as long as the lights burned bright enough and the scene was grand enough, this flowing banquet could last until the end of time — the hall was full of voices, full of life.

Uncle said: "After the great heat, there is always a great cold."

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Zhi Zhen Yuan's dominance made the whole of Huanghe Road tremble. So it came: one night the power was cut, the ingredients ran short, the chefs were poached, the other proprietresses blockaded the entrance, and Lu Meilin even dragged in her old flame to stage a palace coup…

And now, Binance finds itself caught in the middle of that famous "siege of Zhi Zhen Yuan." Is this a battle of commerce? Or the birth pangs of an era settling its accounts?

I. The Art of the Cut and the Fury of the Bill

"The mind is thinking about business; the eyes are calculating."

The essence of the exchange business is, in truth, the same as "taking a cut" on Huanghe Road. Whether it's king cobra or dry-fried beef ho fun, the guests at the table are negotiating million-dollar deals — the restaurant takes its table service and beverage fees, just as the exchange takes its unyielding commission. No matter how large or small the trade, the meal must be eaten.

When markets were good, everyone was a "Boss Zong" — free-handed, treating the table fees and drink money as tips thrown with a flourish. The louder the laughter inside Zhi Zhen Yuan, the thicker the tally of cuts taken. In those days, nobody thought there was anything wrong with the cut. Everyone was dreaming inside the bubble.

But when the thunderclap of "10/11" fell in 2025 — twenty billion dollars evaporating in a few hours, the Fed's rate storm and global geopolitical black swans converging into one — Huanghe Road changed.

When the guests' pockets held only a few coins, that previously invisible, taken-for-granted "cut" became the most conspicuous evidence of guilt. People began settling accounts, searching for "the one who made off with the money." Just as Zhi Zhen Yuan was targeted en masse — not entirely because Li Li had done anything wrong, but because on this street that had grown cold, her lights still burned the brightest and her table of cuts was still the largest.

In times like these, denouncing Zhi Zhen Yuan becomes a visceral instinct and a kind of political correctness. Retail investors need an outlet for their anger; competitors need a crack to pick through for scraps; regulators need a sacrifice they can hold up and show.

II. Politics Is the Face; Business Is the Core

"Outsiders see the front door. Insiders know the back door."

Some say this is a political necessity — that someone has to be found to carry the blame for the wreckage left after "10/11." That is both right and wrong.

On Huanghe Road, politics was never a cloud floating overhead — it was mud on the ground. When the macro environment deteriorates and every restaurant on the street is losing money, order must be redistributed. Zhi Zhen Yuan was targeted because it was the "one look and you understand it" target. Did Hong Lu earn less? No. But Zhi Zhen Yuan was too conspicuous — conspicuous enough to unsettle the rules of the old world. It was too profitable — profitable enough to inspire envy, jealousy, and hatred.

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"On Huanghe Road, everyone is waiting for someone else to stumble — so they can take their place."

The siege by competitors, the abuse in Chinese and English CT, are all waiting to hear the sound of that stumble. Nobody is pursuing justice — they are pursuing survival space. But if Zhi Zhen Yuan were torn down, would the customers, the ingredients, and the capital that once flowed there really flow to Jin Meilin? Or to Hong Lu next door? Honestly, hard to say.

What they forgot is this: the reason Zhi Zhen Yuan became Zhi Zhen Yuan is because it held up the entire atmosphere of Huanghe Road.

Whether whoever takes Zhi Zhen Yuan's place could become the next Zhi Zhen Yuan — hard to say. But it certainly won't be Hong Lu or Jin Meilin, still standing where they are.

III. Zhi Zhen Yuan Is Not Only Binance — It Is Every One of Us

"I am my own harbor."

You ask where Binance's "Boss Zong" is?

In the drama, when Zhi Zhen Yuan was besieged by all the other proprietors, Uncle summoned the Hong Kong chef, Boss Zong delivered the king cobra, and together they held the fort. But in the barren wilderness of reality, nobody can save Binance — unless it can do as Li Li did: in the deep of a powerless night, grind out a kind of composure that speaks through silence.

But the deeper truth is this: Zhi Zhen Yuan is not just about Binance alone — it speaks to our entire crypto industry.

The chefs who were poached are the elites bleeding out of this industry. The supply lines cut off are the global liquidity that has run dry. The filth thrown at Li Li is the decade-long prejudice and fear that the mainstream world has directed at this "wild child."

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If we only know how to undercut each other when we're losing money, and search for scapegoats when the bill comes — then this industry of ours will forever remain a nouveau riche operation on Huanghe Road, never becoming something that endures. When Zhi Zhen Yuan is besieged, the entire street is slowly committing suicide. Because once the highest neon light goes dark, this street reverts to the gray, dusty old days it came from.

Who still remembers how long it took the industry — after FTX collapsed — to undo the equation: blockchain = fraud in the world's eyes?

IV. When the Blossoms Fall, Only One Remains

"You know the Empire State Building in New York? Running from the bottom to the roof takes an hour. Jumping from the roof takes eight point eight seconds."

We are all living through those eight-point-eight seconds right now.

The voices screaming on Chinese and English social media, the cold glint flickering in regulatory documents — all of it will eventually fall silent as time moves on. Zhi Zhen Yuan finally closed. Li Li entered the monastery. Boss Zong returned to the fields. The splendor of Huanghe Road was, in the end, nothing more than a rehearsal for desire.

This siege of the crypto industry is actually a painful shedding of the old skin. It forces us to ask: if there were no splendor of "the cut," no towering standard-bearer to shelter us from the wind and rain — what would we have left?

"Most of life is illusion. The other half — impossible to tell real from false."

The isolation that Binance faces now is a long corridor it must walk alone. But for our industry, the true "Boss Zong" is not any single person — it is every believer who, having seen clearly that the blossoms have all fallen, still chooses to hold fast to the conviction of "one person, one Bitcoin."

If we cannot bind ourselves into one rope, then when the last neon light finally goes dark, there will be no more legends on Huanghe Road — only scraps of paper scattered in the cold wind.

"At the time I could not see her face clearly. Ten years later, I still could not see her face clearly. But I had seen myself clearly."

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Afterword

Those who know me well know I have never been interested in chasing algorithmic traffic — so an article is whatever it needs to be. Some have said this is an affectation of false modesty, and they're not entirely wrong. To be blunt: even if I put up a full Bitcoin for promotion, I probably still couldn't reach the heights of other voices in this space — influence is what it is.

And then the clever ones among you start thinking: so does that mean this time it's different?

🤣 Rest easy — it's the same as always.

I too have a dream of achieving a single article with 1 million views, to impress people a little. But the algorithm has its season, and human effort has its limits. In the moments when I occasionally flash with something — when I can combine and record emotion, the roads I've walked, the books and films I've absorbed, my practice and my observations — that is enough.

A tribute to every lone brave soul who, even in their most frightened moments, still chose to speak up for this industry.

What is "great cold"? The coldest is when no one asks.


Source: https://x.com/agintender