Reborn in 2000, starting from the university website

8 PM on May 6th.

In the office area on the sixteenth floor of Hailong Building, the piercing server peak alarm suddenly blared incessantly.

The half-empty can of Red Bull in Zhang Jian's hand fell to the ground with a "thud," splashing the pale yellow liquid all over the floor. He rushed to the monitoring screen, frantically checking the various metric curves of the server.

The cause of the alarm was quickly found: the red line representing concurrent demand was rising at an extremely alarming vertical angle.

"Third brother, peak user demand has arrived! Memory usage is at 95%!" Liu Zhi's voice trembled as he furiously typed on the keyboard. "The lingering heat of the Harbin e-sports competition, coupled with the headlines on major portals these past few days, has all exploded tonight!"

Jiang Shuo pushed up his glasses, staring at the ever-increasing numbers on the screen, and stamped his feet in frustration: "This isn't just traffic, it's a death knell! If it crashes now, all the PR efforts of the past few days will be wasted!"

"Shut up, Lao Ba!" Zhang Jian was sweating profusely. "The business code of the new architecture has only been merged in half, and testing hasn't even started yet. We simply can't withstand this surge."

Liu Zhi gritted his teeth and turned to Zhang Jian: "Director Zhang, if all else fails, we'll have to activate the emergency plan. Force a network shutdown and traffic restriction to protect the core database, otherwise the whole system will collapse!"

Forced internet shutdown means shutting out millions of users during the peak traffic period of the Golden Week holiday.

Tomorrow's headlines will change from "Internet Godfather" to "Internet Joke".

"We can't let it stop!" Zhang Jian's eyes were bloodshot as his fingers flew across the keyboard, trying to manually clear the cache. "Allen, is there any way?"

Zhang Xiaolong stared at the screen, his brow furrowed: "The physical limit has been reached. Even if asynchronous I/O is used, and the code is streamlined, it still takes time to process the queue."

Just at this critical moment, the door to the CEO's private office at the very back was suddenly pushed open with a bang.

Bai Yuhang walked out with messy hair and bloodshot eyes, but his gaze was frighteningly bright.

He held a black 4GB USB flash drive in his hand and threw it directly onto Zhang Jian's desk.

"Third brother, integrate my newly updated underlying distribution model." Bai Yuhang pulled up a chair and sat down. "Hot update and replace it immediately."

Zhang Jian paused for a moment, then grabbed the USB drive and plugged it into the computer: "Sixth Brother, is this amazing trick you've been working on these past few days going to work?"

"Stop talking nonsense, switch to it, and press Enter."

Liu Zhi, watching from the side, was terrified: "President Bai, hot update? The memory usage is already at 98%! Even the slightest fluctuation could trigger a memory meltdown!"

Bai Yuhang didn't look at him, he just stared at the screen: "Knock."

Zhang Jian gritted his teeth and pressed the Enter key heavily.

The forty or fifty people in the office area were all holding their breath. Only the computer case fans were emitting a desperate, strained roar.

The footage on the monitor screen suddenly froze.

one second.

two seconds.

three seconds.

Those three seconds felt like an eternity to everyone present. Jiang Shuo even closed his eyes, clasped his hands together, and began to pray.

"drop--"

A crisp notification sound broke the silence.

The frozen screen refreshed. The load curve, which had been a vibrant red representing concurrent demand, plummeted from its 99% peak as if doused with ice water.

80%...70%...finally, it stopped steadily at the safe water level of 65%.

Meanwhile, the concurrent processing capacity metric on the other side directly broke through the original physical limit, with the numbers jumping wildly. Under extreme pressure, the server remained as stable as a rock.

"Holy crap!" Zhang Jian jumped up, excitedly slapping Liu Zhi on the back. "He's alive! He's back from the dead!"

Liu Zhi stumbled from the impact, but he ignored the pain, staring intently at the screen, muttering to himself, "What kind of divine algorithm is this... it somehow turned a four-lane road into an eight-lane road..."

Cheers erupted from the office area, as if the roof had been blown off.

Bai Yuhang leaned back in his chair and let out a long sigh.

2:00 AM on May 7th.

Zhang Xiaolong typed the last line of code, adjusted his glasses, and said, "It's done."

QQ and Renren.com have officially been integrated.

Zhang Jian couldn't wait to log in with his test account. On the school's intranet page, he clicked on Wan Lianghao's avatar. Instantly, a smooth QQ chat window popped up in the lower right corner of the screen.

"Fourth brother, give me a reply!" Zhang Jian typed a few words.

Wan Lianghao received the message immediately, and he casually changed his QQ signature to: "I'll eat crayfish until I throw up tonight."

Almost simultaneously, Zhang Jian refreshed the Renren (校内网) page, and the same update appeared in Wan Lianghao's personal feed.

"That's incredible." Liu Zhi stood behind, watching the smooth and seamless operation. "One account can access two major platforms. In the domestic internet landscape, that's absolutely a game-changer."

As dawn broke, major forums and internet cafes across the country were in an uproar.

Netizens woke up to find that the penguin icon in the lower right corner of their computer and their frequently visited Renren.com had "merged." This smooth experience of posting about class beauties with one hand and flirting with girls on QQ with the other was incredibly addictive.

At three o'clock in the afternoon, Jiang Shuo held the printed report, his hands trembling.

"Mr. Bai, the data is in." Jiang Shuo placed the report on Bai Yuhang's desk. "Daily new registered users exceeded 400,000! User retention rate: 88%!"

Bai Yuhang glanced at the numbers and a smile played on his lips: "As expected."

In May 2000, multiple sources indicated that the number of internet users in China did not exceed 30 million.

The astonishing figures of 400,000 new users in a single day and over 8 million registered users in total signify that Qihang Technology has truly transformed from a rising star into a social media behemoth that no one in China dares to mess with.

The last night of the May Day holiday.

The office area of ​​Hailong Building is no longer filled with the sound of keyboards being typed; instead, the sound of corks popping as champagne is opened can be heard.

Jiao Liwei pushed a small cart piled high with various cooked foods and drinks.

Zhang Jian and Wan Lianghao were drinking beer from bottles, while Liu Zhi and his brothers from Shenzhen were completely at ease, mingling with the group from Harbin and Beijing as if they were one of them.

Bai Yuhang stood alone in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, holding a glass of champagne, watching the endless stream of car lights in Zhongguancun.

A faint scent of perfume wafted over.

Su Muqing walked to his side, also holding a glass of wine in her hand.

She wore a fitted blazer today, looking both capable and feminine.

"Internet Godfather, what are you thinking about?" Su Muqing turned her head to look at him.

Bai Yuhang clinked his glass against hers, making a crisp sound: "I'm thinking, this should only be the beginning."

Su Muqing looked at the reflections of the two of them side by side in the glass window, and the corners of her mouth turned up slightly.

"Then I wish our ship a smoother voyage."

The two exchanged a smile, everything understood without a word.