We agreed not to date, so why are you crying now that I've become the richest man?

At 12:30 pm, just as Ye Chen had predicted, as the university bell rang and office workers flocked to the cafeterias, the download frenzy in the smartphone community finally reached its true explosive growth.

Screenshots of the silent installation without root access were being wildly circulated on mainstream digital forums such as Gfan, Anzhi, and OPDA, making the main post the most popular on the entire site. Because the Star Market client was compressed to less than 800KB by the team, it could download within half a minute even on the current prevalent 2G/2.5G EDGE cellular networks. Combined with the second set of backup servers introduced in the previous chapter running at full capacity, it precisely withstood the instantaneous high-concurrency handshake from this group of tech enthusiasts, primarily those using HTC Hero, Desire, and Motorola Milestone devices.

On the large screen of the Xingchen Software backend at Zhangjiang Integrated Circuit Port, green dots representing newly activated users are flashing densely across the national map, especially in university clusters and IT parks in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen.

By 1 p.m., just three hours after its launch, the number of unique device activations had skyrocketed to 18,000, almost breaking Ye Chen's conservative target set earlier that morning. The total number of app downloads had also surpassed 60,000.

Meanwhile, in Yanjing, at Tsinghua Science Park, Innovation Works.

The relaxed lunch break atmosphere in the product and R&D area of ​​Green Bean Pods was broken by a burst of rapid keyboard typing.

"Junhua, stop eating and come look at this!"

The technical director, holding a half-eaten lunchbox, beckoned with a serious expression. Several core engineers were already gathered around a dual-screen monitor.

Wang Junhua strode over, adjusted his glasses, and asked, "What's wrong? Has another third-party ported ROM been released on JiFeng?"

"It's not a ROM, it's some new thing that suddenly appeared in Shanghai called 'Starry Sky App Market'." The technical director turned the screen to him, "It went live at 10 a.m., and in less than three hours, they've taken over all the buzz on major Android forums. The most bizarre thing is their underlying technology—they focus on silent installation on mobile devices without root access, and they also have direct connection and traffic splitting via local area networks."

"Silent installation without root access?"

Wang Junhua's brows furrowed suddenly, his gaze falling on the product description: "This is impossible. Android 2.1 and the newly released 2.2 systems have very strict underlying permissions, not granting root access. Ordinary third-party applications can't even get access to write to the system. How did they get around it? Could it be false advertising?"

"We just captured their network packets and decompiled their APK..."

The engineer in charge of the underlying architecture swallowed hard, pointing to the neat, elegant, and highly modular lines of underlying code on the screen, his voice filled with undisguised awe:

"This isn't false advertising, it's true! They've actually exploited a yet-to-be-disclosed local permission verification vulnerability in the Android 2.1 and 2.2 kernels. By encapsulating a lightweight privilege escalation bootloader module, they directly gained access to system-level services in the background, completing a silent installation without anyone noticing! The architecture is incredibly clean; this is definitely the work of a world-class system architect! Furthermore, their PC and mobile device interconnection protocol uses a high-speed P2P local area network, with a transmission rate nearly twice that of our USB driver installation!"

A suffocating silence fell over the work area.

The people present were all top tech enthusiasts who were among the first in China to reap the benefits of the mobile internet boom, and no one understood this better than them.

Green Bean's current success is based on its understanding that novice users don't understand configuration and must connect their phones to their computers via USB cables to install software through computer drivers. Starry Sky's technology, however, allows users to completely ditch their computers and cumbersome driver configurations, achieving a fully closed loop directly on their phones!

This is directly undermining their very foundation.

"Have you investigated this company's background?" Wang Junhua took a deep breath, his expression more serious than ever before. "Is it a project secretly incubated by Tencent or Baidu?"

"Found it... but it's not a giant." The CTO gave a wry smile and handed over a newly printed business registration document. "It's a new company in Zhangjiang called Xingchen Software. The equity structure is clean; it's a completely independent startup technology team."

"An independent startup team?" Wang Junhua stared intently at the report. "How could a newly established company possibly have this level of self-developed system-level capabilities..."

Before the Green Bean Pod team could recover from their shock, the operations manager rushed over, pale-faced:

"Junhua! Something big has happened! The wildly popular games 'Temple Run' and 'Angry Sparrow,' which have recently swept the overseas charts and become a massive hit in China, have just simultaneously launched a full-screen pop-up in their Android versions in China—directly integrating the Star Market's ultra-fast download channel! Simply update the games through the Star Market and you'll receive exclusive limited-edition skins for both games and a massive gold coin pack for free!"

"What?!" Wang Junhua suddenly stood up.

Making software tools isn't scary; what's truly terrifying is that the other party not only possesses system tool technology at a lower level, but also manages to bring in the most terrifying phenomenon-level hit product on the mobile platform to exclusively drive traffic to them!

A devastating blow, the true killing weapon is unleashed at this moment.

At 1:30 p.m., hundreds of thousands of Android players across the country who were playing Temple Run and Angry Sparrow on HTC or Motorola phones received this major bonus pop-up window when they opened the games.

If the morning forum promotions only attracted core technology geeks, then the built-in collaboration of these two nationally popular products directly and precisely targeted the largest existing player base across the entire network!

Driven by the exclusive gift packs, a large number of players flocked to the Starry Sky App Market via the in-game direct link.

Early small download sites that relied on bundling malicious plugins and pop-ups to make quick money had their traffic drained instantly; while Green Bean Pod, which was exploring PC-based mobile assistants, watched helplessly as this torrent of traffic expanded wildly at a speed they could not keep up with.

"Holy crap, I just clicked to claim the gift pack in the game, and Star Market installed in the background in a second. A simple update did the trick, no need to connect to the computer with a data cable or deal with drivers. It's an amazing tool!"

"Downloads from this app store are incredibly fast and don't crash, plus you can get limited-edition skins for free! It's so generous!"

Watching the download curve surge in the background, Wang Junhua leaned back in his chair, his knuckles gripping the coffee cup turning slightly white. After a long while, he finally let out a long sigh.

"Not only has the technology been downgraded, but it has also been tied to a phenomenal hit product as a traffic driver... The domestic Android market has completely changed."

……

At 6 p.m. sharp, the setting sun painted the glass curtain wall of Zhangjiang Integrated Circuit Port into a magnificent golden-red hue.

Deafening cheers and applause erupted in the spacious office hall of Xingchen Software.

At 6:00 AM sharp, the real-time statistics on the central screen stopped at a number that sent shivers down the spines of every startup team...

Within eight hours of its launch, the Xingchen App Market saw a remarkable surge in unique device activations, exceeding 56,000! Total app downloads surpassed 220,000, with an average of 5.6 app launches per user on the first day, and an uninstall rate of less than 0.2%!

In the early 2010s, when the actual number of Android devices in China was less than four million and Nokia Symbian still dominated the market, Xingchen Market activated more than 50,000 new devices in just eight hours. This means that nearly 1.5% of Android users in the country became core supporters of Xingchen Market in just one afternoon!

By locking in users with a revolutionary rootless experience and then feeding back into the channels with a phenomenal gaming ecosystem, Ye Chen, in the fourth month after his rebirth, officially drove an unyielding nail into the most critical choke point of the mobile internet.