Rebirth begins with picking up a cold and aloof school beauty

At this moment, Xia Yu had already jogged up to Chen Zhou. Her beautiful peach blossom eyes looked at Chen Zhou, and she made two soft "hmm" sounds, as if she wanted to say something, but in the end she didn't say anything.

Chen Zhou knew that Xia Yu didn't want to embarrass herself in front of outsiders because of her stuttering.

He smiled and said, "Be careful on your way. I'm going to an internet cafe later and will probably play until late afternoon. Then I'll go straight to school. See you then."

As he spoke, Chen Zhou rubbed Xia Yu's head.

Xia Yu blushed slightly at Chen Zhou's intimate gesture, but still nodded happily, "Mmm!"

Then, Xia Yu took a piece of paper out of her pocket and stuffed it into Chen Zhou's hand.

Chen Zhou glanced at it and saw a QQ number and phone number written on it.

Chen Zhou smiled knowingly, "Alright, bye-bye." He waved.

Xia Yu waved to Chen Zhou without saying a word, then turned and ran to catch up with the bus.

Before boarding the bus, Xia Yu glanced back at Chen Zhou, smiled sweetly, and waved to him again.

Chen Zhou smiled, returned her polite greeting, and watched her leave.

Upon witnessing this scene, Liang Wenbo and Liu Xing's mouths gaped open, wide enough to fit a goose egg.

Their eyes practically popped out of their sockets!

Liang Wenbo asked in utter surprise, "Chen Zhou, when did you meet Xia Yu?"

Chen Zhou said, "Just like you, on the first day of high school."

Liang Wenbo: "..."

Liu Xing said with great distress, "Dude, you've changed! You feel like a stranger to me!"

"You actually had a girlfriend behind our backs? And she's the school beauty!" Liu Xing said, increasingly heartbroken.

Liang Wenbo chimed in, "That's right, that's so unfair! So disloyal!"

Liang Wenbo was indignant and spoke with righteous indignation, but the next second, he immediately moved closer to Chen Zhou and asked mysteriously, "Brother Zhou, does your wife have any pretty girlfriends, or sisters or anything like that? Can you introduce me to one?"

"..."

Chen Zhou was speechless for a moment, then corrected him, "First of all, Xia Yu is not my girlfriend..."

Liu Xing interrupted, "Impossible! You two were just like that."

Liang Wenbo said, "That's right! The way she looked at you was strange, and you even touched her head, and she didn't resist!"

"...Believe it or not." Chen Zhou was too lazy to explain, and then added, "Also, you two, don't change the subject. Weren't you just going to make a bet with me?"

"Wenbo, what should you call me now?"

"Liu Xing, you old gourmand, are you planning to eat it all at once or in installments?"

Chen Zhou teased the two men, and Liang Wenbo and Liu Xing looked embarrassed.

They exchanged a glance and pretended to be clueless.

Seeing that the two of them had been humiliated in front of him, Chen Zhou secretly rejoiced and kicked one of them.

The three brothers bickered and laughed as they parted ways.

Liang Wenbo and Liu Xing went to school.

Chen Zhou went to an internet cafe.

Unlike the dirty and chaotic internet cafes he used to frequent.

Now that he's an adult, he goes to legitimate internet cafes. At the very least, the environment is better, the internet speed is faster, and there aren't as many messy people and things around.

To Chen Zhou's surprise, the internet cafe was incredibly popular today, with every seat filled. He had to wait for almost half an hour before he could get a private room.

He came to the internet cafe today not to play games, but to buy computer parts online.

Compared to computer malls that rip you off with all sorts of tricks, buying things online is much more reliable.

But Chen Zhou's entire net worth was only a little over 1900 yuan.

Even in 2008, online bargain hunting was a struggle to make ends meet.

Fortunately, Chen Zhou is a geek by training. He not only has good technical skills but also has many channels. Almost all of the parts he uses are second-hand high-end parts that he finds in hardware enthusiast communities such as GZ Forum and CHH Forum.

These accessories are more than enough for game development.

Having settled this matter, Chen Zhou remembered the note Xia Yu had given him.

He logged onto QQ, but the moment he saw his username and signature, he completely lost control.

His online name was: Lonely, Lighting a Cigarette

His personal motto: I'm not smoking cigarettes, I'm smoking loneliness.

Chen Zhou's face flushed red: "!!!"

People can't even empathize with their younger selves!

That's so cringeworthy!!

What was I thinking back then? I was so lonely! And I never smoked!

Is this really my idea?

Forcing a new poem to express sorrow? Chen Zhou, Chen Zhou, stop pretending!

Chen Zhou cursed himself in his heart, then quickly made some changes.

Username: Spring Breeze Grants Me Another Year of Youth

Personal motto: I will ride the waves for three thousand miles, and live a confident life for two hundred years!

After making the changes, Chen Zhou felt that they looked much better and he felt much more comfortable.

Then, Chen Zhou added the QQ number on the note and noted it as "Chen Zhou".

Shortly after, a "cough cough" notification sounded, indicating that Chen Zhou's QQ friend request had been accepted.

Xia Yu sent a message first: "Chen Zhou, hello there."

"I'm at my grandparents' house right now, what about you?"

Are you at an internet cafe?

The fourth one is a cute emoji.

Chen Zhou smiled, thinking to himself that although this girl stuttered when she spoke, she typed quite fast.

Chen Zhou replied, "Yes, at an internet cafe."

Xia Yu: "What are you playing?"

Chen Zhou: "I'm not playing anything, I'm just chatting with you right now."

Xia Yu: "Oh, I see. Then guess what I'm doing right now?"

Chen Zhou: "I can't guess."

Xia Yu: "I'm chatting with you."

【Cute emojis】

Seeing that the seemingly aloof school beauty actually had such an interesting soul, Chen Zhou's lips curled up. This girl's contrast was too great!

After chatting with Xia Yu for more than ten minutes, Chen Zhou felt that they had a very congenial conversation.

I'm quite happy.

Of course, this is definitely not just because Xia Yu has a stunningly beautiful face!

Okay, well, that's definitely the main reason!

Just then, a guy sitting next to Chen Zhou suddenly slammed his fist on the table and yelled, "The screen's blacked out again! Damn it!!"

Chen Zhou's attention was drawn to his actions and the cursing, and he glanced at him.

The Windows system screen of the computer on the next table had turned black, and a Microsoft message appeared prominently in the lower right corner of the screen: "You may be a victim of software piracy."

Chen Zhou immediately understood; wasn't this the Microsoft black screen incident from 2008?

He smiled and said he had just been thinking back.

At this moment, sounds of slamming tables and angry shouts came from various private rooms and the main hall.

"My computer screen is black again! What's going on?"

"This is the third time my screen has gone black today! It's fucking ruining my game!"

"Network administrator, have all your computers been infected with a virus?"

The network administrator quickly went over to check and also called a technician to resolve the issue.

But the technicians were helpless about it.

He explained to everyone, "I'm sorry, everyone, this isn't a hardware problem, nor is it a virus infection. It's just that the intermittent black screen is caused by a Windows operating system update..."

"The screen should go black once an hour..."

The technician tried to explain to everyone.

But after the guests learned that the black screen problem could not be solved, they all started cursing and swearing.

"If you can't even solve this, what kind of internet cafe are you running?!" and so on.

The internet cafe girl and technician, both working odd jobs: "…………"

Meanwhile, the internet cafe girl noticed that several computers did not have black screens.

She asked, puzzled, "Brother Zhang, why aren't their computer screens black?"

Technician Zhang said, "It's probably because their operating system hasn't been updated, so it's fine."

"oh!"

The internet cafe girl suddenly realized what was happening, then angrily exclaimed, "Microsoft is disgusting! They're taking advantage of their monopoly to bully us like this! They just let the screen go black! Aren't they just taking advantage of the fact that we don't have our own operating system?"

Brother Zhang smiled helplessly, "That's right, but there's nothing we can do about it."

The internet cafe girl added, "But this can't go on like this. Should we call our boss?"

Brother Zhang scoffed and said, "This was Microsoft's doing. Even if you called our boss, or even a hacker, they couldn't handle it!"

The internet cafe girl said dejectedly, "Then there's no way to do it."

Meanwhile, Chen Zhou browsed tech forums and collected opinions from tech enthusiasts on the matter.

As for Chen Zhou himself, he has never objected to companies protecting their intellectual property rights.

But the premise is that you have to give users a choice!

Monopolizing the market while feeding users garbage—isn't that just being a scoundrel?!