Reborn in 2000, starting from the university website

In the afternoon, on the tenth floor of the Sohu Network Building, in the office of the Vice President of Operations.

The door was pushed open without knocking. Chen Yizhou strode in, clutching a transfer order that Zhang Chaoyang had just signed. He was now the vice president of Sohu, wielding the power of preferential resource allocation, and his leather shoes practically dented the carpet as he walked.

"Mr. Wu, busy?" Chen Yizhou pulled out a chair and sat down with an air of authority, gently handing the transfer order in his hand to Wu Tao's large desk.

Wu Tao was looking at the report in his hand when he looked up and saw Chen Yizhou. His face immediately lit up with a warm, professional smile. He stood up, went to the tea table, filled a cup with hot water, and brought it to Chen Yizhou.

"President Chen's new appointment is making waves! I just checked the data for 5Q Campus Network—1.2 million registrations a day. That's impressive." Wu Tao sat down on the sofa opposite him. "Teacher Zhang kept praising you to me, and for quite a while now. What's up, need your help, buddy?"

Chen Yizhou picked up his water glass, blew on it, then put it down without drinking.

"Mr. Wu, 'Crazy Vegetable Garden' must be launched the day after tomorrow. Mr. Zhang's intention is to allocate all site resources unconditionally." Chen Yizhou tapped the transfer order on the table. "I need the ten top backend engineers from the technical department to assist Wang Xiaochuan of 5Q, as well as a batch of IBM servers that were just purchased last month in the server room. Before the end of today, the personnel and equipment must be transferred to my department."

Wu Tao's smile remained unchanged, and he readily agreed without hesitation.

"No problem. Mr. Chen's management unit is a crucial part of Sohu's IPO in the US, and I'll do everything I can to fill it." Wu Tao slapped his thigh. "Don't worry, I'll personally go to the technical department to pick the right people, and I guarantee I'll arrange everything perfectly for you. I'll talk to them about the server room in a bit, and the equipment will be transferred directly there."

Chen Yizhou nodded in satisfaction, stood up, and straightened his suit and tie.

"Brother, I have nothing more to say. Thank you for your hard work, Mr. Wu. After we crush those college students from Qihang, I'll toast you a couple more times at the victory celebration."

Watching Chen Yizhou walk out the door triumphantly, Wu Tao's smile gradually faded, until it turned as cold as ice. He crumpled the transfer order that Chen Yizhou had brought into a ball with his hands, stood up, and threw it towards the office door, where it finally landed on the floor.

In the void, a few silent, cursing Chinese characters were shouted.

He plopped down in the boss's chair, paused for a moment, tugged at the hem of his suit jacket, shook his head, exhaled a breath of stale air, then turned around, grabbed the landline on the table, and dialed an internal number.

"Old Li, come to my office."

Less than a minute later, Li Jiancheng, the head of the technical department, rushed in, sweating profusely, and closed the door behind him.

"General Manager Wu, General Manager Chen just went to the technical region and specifically asked to take several core backend staff from our Groups 1 and 2. Didn't you see his gesturing and showing off, like he was picking up a donkey? He also wants to take a batch of new backup servers from the main site. This won't do! The news channel's traffic depends entirely on these machines. If the staff are taken away and the backup servers are switched over, we won't be able to keep up with our daily maintenance!" It seemed that Director Li was clearly quite anxious.

Wu Tao leaned back in his chair, picked up his teacup, took a sip, and spoke slowly.

"What's the rush? Teacher Zhang himself said resources should be allocated accordingly, so of course we have to consider the bigger picture." Wu Tao put down his teacup, raised his eyelids, and said, "Doesn't Group Two have a few old hands who just coast along? And those old servers that were replaced last month, aren't they still usable and haven't gone through the disposal process?"

Li Jiancheng was stunned and blinked.

"Mr. Wu, what do you mean...?"

"President Chen comes with the halo of the world's largest Chinese community and his team, and their technical foundation is solid." Wu Tao's lips curled into a sneer. "Good steel should be used on the blade. Some of our marginal employees are perfect to be sent to President Chen's team to be exposed to advanced concepts."

"Since he needs people, let's give him enough. Anyone he specifically names who is one of our key technical personnel can go to his team, take a look, and then call them back. Let them do what they're supposed to do. At worst, they can take personal leave and work from home. Keep attendance records as usual, and keep their paychecks."

"As for the servers, just power on the old machines and give them to him. They're more than enough to run a farming game. The new machines will have to be kept for the main website news portal."

Li Jiancheng swallowed hard, almost bursting out laughing.

"But what if President Chen finds out..."

"What did we discover? This is called revitalizing redundant assets and rationally allocating resources." Wu Tao tapped the table. "Didn't he bring ten million US dollars? This little difficulty shouldn't be a problem for him. Besides, remember this: President Zhang only said to allocate resources, not that we have to give him the best. If there's a problem, it's because Chen Yizhou is not adapting well. What does it have to do with us?"

Li Jiancheng understood immediately and nodded, suppressing a laugh.

"Understood, Mr. Wu. I'll get on it right away. I guarantee I'll send Mr. Chen all of our most senior technical staff and the best optimized servers."

Wu Tao waved Li Jiancheng away and turned to look out the window. He and Zhang Chaoyang were eating instant noodles and pickled vegetables in the basement of the China World Trade Center, rushing to finish their work, while Chen Yizhou was nowhere to be seen. Now, with this broken shell and a scrap of paper, he thinks he can just ride roughshod over the old minister? Does he really think Sohu's job is so easy to get?

At 3 PM, on the second floor of the Sohu Network Building, in the temporary office area set up by 5Q Campus Network.

Li Jiancheng led ten people in, swaying and staggering. The ten "elite soldiers" were lined up loosely, some carrying thermos cups with peeling paint, some rubbing their eyes and yawning, and a fat man picking at his nails, making them look exactly like a group of senior citizens on a tour.

The person in charge of the liaison was Wang Xiaochuan, the technical vice president of 5Q Campus Network.

Wang Xiaochuan is only twenty years old this year. He is a part-time vice president of technology, but is actually a student in the Computer Science Department of Tsinghua University. He is a typical tech geek. He doesn't care about anything except coding, and he can't tolerate the slightest technical flaw.

Chen Yizhou put in a lot of effort to recruit him as a key technical asset.

Wang Xiaochuan took the list from Li Jiancheng, glanced at the two lines on the paper, then looked up at the ten people standing awkwardly in front of him, his brows furrowing instantly.

"Director Li, this list isn't right, is it?" Wang Xiaochuan pointed to the paper. "General Manager Chen went to General Manager Wu's office and specifically requested the backend core members of Group Two. I haven't heard of any of these names before."

Li Jiancheng, all smiles, took a half-step closer: "Oh, Mr. Wang, what a coincidence. Several key personnel selected by General Manager Chen have all taken personal leave these past few days."

Wang Xiaochuan looked at him without saying a word.

Li Jiancheng continued to laugh it off: "But don't worry, Mr. Wang. Mr. Wu specifically instructed that 5Q Campus Network is the top priority of our group and absolutely cannot be delayed! That's why Mr. Wu took charge and had ten of the most senior and experienced colleagues from our technical department transferred over to you. Look at this Old Zhao, he's been with the company since Sohu was founded, and he's already worked there for three years. He's definitely a veteran."

Old Zhao, whose name was mentioned, had a receding hairline, wore a plaid shirt and jeans, and was so mysterious that his age was hard to guess at a glance. He was holding a transparent thermos cup with goji berries, and grinned as he nodded to Wang Xiaochuan: "Hello, Mr. Wang. I have a question. Does this project include dinner? I have a sensitive stomach and need to eat on time."

Wang Xiaochuan's eye twitched slightly, and he squinted to examine Old Zhao's withered face more closely.

Then, he turned to another, slightly younger man: "This time, we need to rewrite a whole set of Flash data interaction interfaces and also prepare contingency plans for high concurrency handling. Have you done similar concurrent processing before?"

Old Zhao scratched his head and chimed in, "High concurrency? Remember the testing before Sohu's main site went live in January 1998? When it crashed, I was responsible for going to the server room to unplug the network cable and restart it. I was pretty fast, does that count?"

The clatter of keyboards in the surrounding office area fell silent for a few seconds.

Wang Xiaochuan pushed up his black-rimmed glasses, pressed his hand against the list Li Jiancheng had brought, and sighed softly.

He is a smart man, and even more so, a pure technologist.

Within Sohu, the kind of internal strife and backstabbing that characterized the workplace made him feel nauseous at the mere sight of it.

Chen Yizhou was making grand pronouncements, but in reality, he couldn't even make a ripple with the resources on the ground. With a bunch of broken servers and these old hands, how could they possibly fight this battle?

"Okay." Wang Xiaochuan didn't bother with any more words. "Please thank President Wu for his great help. Everyone, please find a seat wherever you like. Don't strain your neck or back from standing for too long."

Watching Li Jiancheng leave with a satisfied expression, Wang Xiaochuan stared at his computer screen at his workstation at the underlying code architecture of Qihang Technology's "Happy Farm," which he had already had stripped of. His expression shifted.

This code is written so cleanly.

It's concise, logically rigorous, and practically a work of art.

Looking back at the group of seasoned veterans huddled together discussing what dishes the cafeteria would serve that night, a thought suddenly popped into Wang Xiaochuan's mind.

A team capable of writing this kind of code would never waste its energy on office politics.

If I have the chance, I really want to meet Qihang Technology and its young boss, Bai Yuhang.