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

The afterglow of the setting sun slanted across the red brick dormitory buildings of Jiaotong University's Minhang campus, making the iron railings of the balcony of room 417 scorching hot.

Ye Chen rested one hand on the railing, his phone pressed against his ear.

Through the receiver, cheers and table-pounding echoed from Zhangjiang Integrated Circuit Port, thirty kilometers away, rising higher and higher, almost shattering the diaphragm of the miniature loudspeaker.

Technical Director Chen Wei's rapid breathing came through the radio waves:

"President Ye! 56,320 units! We not only met your target of 50,000 units before nightfall, but we exceeded it by more than 6,000 units! The uninstall rate is less than 0.2%! We're causing a sensation in the Android community!"

Ye Chen watched the students carrying books walk by on the tree-lined path below, his expression calm. He withdrew his right hand from the railing and put it into his pocket.

"The data is out; it's done a good job."

"50,000 units is just the passing grade. It's only 6 p.m., and the first wave of geeks and gamers hasn't been fully absorbed yet."

Just then, the tightly closed glass door of the dormitory was opened a crack.

Sun Haoyu's round head popped out, one hand covering his rumbling stomach, the other banging loudly on the wooden door frame.

"Old Ye! Which girl are you chatting with on the phone? It's 6:05! If we don't go to the second canteen soon, those animals will eat every last drop of the braised lion's head meatballs, even the broth, with their rice!"

Lu Wenbo, who was sitting in front of the computer inside the room, also shouted at the top of his lungs:

"Haoyu is right, at this hour the line for the second meal is probably almost all the way to the stairwell!"

Hearing this, Ye Chen turned around and glanced at Sun Haoyu, who was starving, his lips curling into a smile as he waved at him.

"Alright, stop taking pictures. If you smash the door frame, the dorm supervisor will make you pay for it. Let's go."

He then turned around and briefly explained into the microphone:

"Old Chen, I'm going to have dinner first. I'll send you the details later."

After hanging up the phone, Ye Chen opened the balcony door and went into the house, casually grabbing the light blue campus card from the upper left corner of the desk and stuffing it into his jeans pocket.

"Let's go. Whoever doesn't get a lion's head meatball today is responsible for getting hot water back to the dorm."

Ye Chen smiled and patted Sun Haoyu on the shoulder.

The three locked the dormitory door and walked down the noisy staircase.

Sun Haoyu and Lu Wenbo were arguing about which lineup to choose for their Dota 2 match that night, while Ye Chen, with one hand in his hoodie pocket, walked half a step behind on the steps.

He held an iPhone in his right hand, his eyes slightly lowered, his thumb rapidly tapping on the keyboard.

Recipient: Chen Wei.

"Notify the finance department that since we have exceeded the target of 50,000 units, take out the 100,000 yuan reserve fund that we specially withdrew from the bank yesterday and locked in the safe, and use it as a special bonus for the first day of achievement for the technology and operations team. There is no need to wait until the end of the month. It will be directly distributed to everyone according to their contribution before 8 pm tonight. In addition, have the administration go to a nearby restaurant to pack some good food for dinner to tide us over. After we finish this peak tonight, you take everyone to the most upscale restaurant in the area for a late-night snack to celebrate. The company will pay for it all."

Click send.

As soon as the text message notification ended, Sun Haoyu, who was going downstairs ahead of him, glanced back:

"Old Ye, with that typing speed, it's a waste not to play games. You're typing on a touchscreen phone almost as fast as a mechanical keyboard!"

"Practice makes perfect; I learned it by coding regularly."

Ye Chen slid his iPhone into his pocket, took a few quick steps down the last few steps, and pushed open the dormitory building door.

In the evenings of mid-October, the main roads of the campus are full of students carrying lunchboxes or hot water bottles.

The three of them rushed into the second catering building and headed straight for the braised dish window on the far end of the second floor.

On the stainless steel long plate, only two lone braised lion's head meatballs remained, glistening with oil as they soaked in the brown broth.

Sun Haoyu, who was at the front of the line, stared wide-eyed. After swiping his card and holding his tray, he raised his voice and shouted:

"Auntie! Give me both of those big meatballs!"

Just as the auntie serving the food reached out with her iron ladle, Ye Chen, who was half a body length behind Sun Haoyu in line, had already swiped his card. With his left hand holding the plate, he used his right hand to swiftly and accurately grab the largest lion's head meatball on the side of the table and put it into his own plate a second before the iron ladle could fall.

The movements were fluid and graceful, without spilling a single drop of soup.

"Auntie, I'll have this one, plus a side of stir-fried vegetables, thank you."

Ye Chen put his chopsticks back without changing his expression.

Seeing this, Sun Haoyu froze on the spot, holding his plate, staring at the last remaining seedling on the plate. He turned to Ye Chen and yelled at the top of his lungs:

"Ye Chen! You son of a bitch! You intercepted me halfway through at the cafeteria window, don't you have any sense of camaraderie?!"

Lu Wenbo, who was behind him, laughed so hard his shoulders were shaking, and came up with a plate to add insult to injury:

"Haoyu, be content. Old Ye saved one for you. If it were me, I would have taken all the soup for you."

The three of them, carrying their trays, sat down at a four-person table near a pillar.

Ye Chen took a bite of the lion's head meatball; the meat was firm and had a perfect balance of salty and sweet.

While chewing on the meatballs, he pressed his left hand on the edge of the table, took out his iPhone 4, slid it to unlock, and brought up the background traffic monitoring line graph of the Starry Sky software.

On the screen, the real-time concurrency curve, which had slightly decreased around 4 or 5 pm, suddenly became steeper starting at 6:15 pm, like a giant beast raising its head and charging straight upwards.

Chen Wei's reply message popped up:

"Manager Ye, I just announced the bonus and the late-night snack in the office lobby. The 100,000 yuan in cash is already on its way from the safe, and the administration staff have gone to pack up dinner! The guys' eyes are practically glowing, and they're yelling that they won't leave work for late-night snacks until they blow up the data tonight!"

Ye Chen swallowed the food in his mouth, his slender fingers tapping on the screen:

"Don't just get excited. Fifty-six thousand units is just an appetizer. It's only 6:30 now. The real peak of installations and downloads will come between 8 and 11 p.m., when college students across the country go back to their dorms and turn on their computers, and office workers go home and connect to Wi-Fi and their computers. Immediately warm up and connect the reserved third set of backup servers to the network in advance, and increase the bandwidth redundancy of the content delivery network by another 30%. There cannot be even a second of download lag."

Sun Haoyu, sitting opposite Ye Chen, was gnawing on half a meatball. Seeing Ye Chen looking down and constantly pressing his phone, Sun Haoyu's eyes darted around, and he stretched his neck further and further, trying to peek at the screen by leaning his head across the middle of the table.

"Old Ye, you've been massaging this since you came downstairs, your fingers are practically sparking! Who were you chatting with so enthusiastically? Was it that senior Li Xue from the External Relations Department? Or that aloof campus belle Gu from the Foreign Languages ​​Department?"