Reborn in 2000, starting from the university website

Chapter 128 Everyone's busy with their own things

The office of the Vice President of Operations on the tenth floor of the Sohu Network Building.

Chen Yizhou, holding a freshly printed GG scheduling request form, pushed open the door and walked in. He skipped the formalities and slammed the form onto Wu Tao's large desk.

"Mr. Wu, push 5Q Campus Network for the next 48 hours, and launch 'Crazy Vegetable Garden' at midnight the day after tomorrow. I need a banner on the Sohu homepage and a pop-up in the lower right corner of the news channel, and push it for another 72 hours." Chen Yizhou's tone was stiff, with an unquestionable command.

Wu Tao was looking down at the report when he heard this, so he looked up and his face immediately lit up with a warm smile.

He didn't look at the list of requirements on the table, but stood up and slowly walked to the tea table to get a cup of hot water.

"Mr. Chen's efficiency is truly astounding. He rewrote the underlying architecture in just two days; I'm genuinely impressed." Wu Tao placed a water glass in front of Chen Yizhou. "However, regarding the resources—"

"President Zhang slammed his fist on the table at the summit, ordering all resources on the site to be allocated unconditionally." Chen Yizhou invoked his authority.

"Of course, we must resolutely implement Teacher Zhang's instructions." Wu Tao returned to his seat, picked up the demand form, glanced at it, and looked troubled. "The homepage banner is definitely no problem. But Mr. Chen, this schedule was already full last month. Lenovo computers and Nokia mobile phones, the contracts have already been signed. If we force them to withdraw now, the penalty for breach of contract will not be a small amount."

"The penalty for breach of contract will be included in my promotion fee! Deduct it directly!" Chen Yizhou waved his hand.

"Mr. Chen is very kind." Hao Tao gave a thumbs up, then opened a drawer and took out a thick stack of approval forms. "Let's follow the proper procedures. Please fill out these resource exchange forms and breach of contract compensation applications, and I'll have the legal and finance departments expedite the approval process immediately. However, Old Li from finance just flew to Shanghai yesterday to check the accounts, and he won't be back to sign them until the day after tomorrow at the earliest. What do you think—"

Chen Yizhou's eye twitched violently. The day after tomorrow? By then, it'll be too late!

"Fine, I don't want the homepage banner anymore." Chen Yizhou suppressed his anger, pointing to the list, "What about the news channel pop-up? That shouldn't require a penalty, right? You can give it to me with a phone call right now."

Wu Tao sighed, leaned back in his chair, and looked heartbroken.

"President Chen, Sohu is one of the leading large-scale portal websites in China. Our news channel is our face, and it emphasizes seriousness and authority." Wu Tao tapped the table earnestly. "Imagine, netizens are looking at international affairs and national events, and suddenly a pop-up message appears on their screen saying 'Come steal some cabbage!'"

This—this seriously undermines the seriousness of the news. If Wall Street investors saw this, they'd think Sohu had switched to wholesaling agricultural products.

Chen Yizhou placed his hands on the table, staring intently at Wu Tao.

"Mr. Wu, are you using procedures as an excuse to deliberately obstruct me?"

"Oh dear, Mr. Chen, that's too much to say." Wu Tao looked completely innocent, spreading his hands. "I'm only thinking about the company's overall image. If Teacher Zhang were here, he'd definitely have to consider Nasdaq's feelings too, right? How about this, I'll take charge and immediately move the secondary pages of the sports and entertainment channels to the top spot. Although the traffic won't be as high as the homepage, every little bit helps."

Chen Yizhou stared at Wu Tao's wide, round face, his teeth grinding together. He grabbed the order form from the table, turned, and strode towards the door.

"I thank Mr. Wu for the little favor!" Chen Yizhou slammed the door and left.

Wu Tao picked up his teacup, blew on the floating leaves, and a mocking sneer curled at the corner of his mouth.

Trying to act like a vice president to me?

In this land, if you're a dragon, you have to coil up; if you're a tiger, you have to lie down.

Do you really think it's so easy to get freebies from Sohu?

Wu Tao hummed a little tune and casually tossed a stack of approval forms back into the drawer.

The cumbersome internal procedures and factional infighting have quietly become the first soft noose around Chen Yizhou's neck.

Our gaze shifts back to the sixteenth floor of the Hailong Building.

Despite Sohu's overwhelming and almost frantic financial offensive, Qihang Technology remained as calm as a rock, not even the sound of keyboards clicking out of tune.

The CEO's office was filled with the aroma of tea. Bai Yuhang leaned back in his boss's chair, holding a glass teacup, and slowly poured the tea into a glass teacup.

This old rock tea was something he swiped from Zhang Lei's office yesterday; it does indeed have a mellow flavor.

Jiang Shuo pushed open the door and squeezed in, carrying several financial statements, his face full of barely suppressed excitement.

"Mr. Bai, Chen Yizhou has really fattened up the printing shops in Zhongguancun these past two days. His red-and-white flyers are even being used by the old lady selling pancakes downstairs to wrap her fruit." Jiang Shuo slammed the report on the table. "I heard he's burning through at least two million RMB a day. But guess what? Our Happy Farm's fertilizer sales have doubled in the last two days. And a lot of the five-yuan red envelopes from Sohu have gone into our corporate account."

Bai Yuhang blew on the hot tea, took a sip, and poured a cup for Jiang Shuo as well.

"Sohu is willing to be a generous benefactor, so we should be grateful." Bai Yuhang put down his teacup. "By the way, Zhang Lei's tea is quite good. Next time you go to the China Venture Capital Fund, remember to get me two more cakes from his cabinet."

"Alright, he has a set of Yixing teapots and bowls that he hasn't used yet, I'll bring them back for you too." Jiang Shuo was overjoyed.

Outside the office area, Zhang Jian and Zhang Xiaolong were sitting at their workstations, staring intently at the rapidly scrolling data stream on their screens.

"AIlen, the API is working!" Zhang Jian pressed Enter, turned around and shouted, "The QQ group 100,000 concurrent users stress test passed stably. The server matrix didn't have a single problem, and the load balancing stress test passed."

Zhang Xiaolong stared at the monitoring curve on his screen, expressionless as he pushed up his glasses.

"The underlying logic is clear, so this is all normal behavior." Zhang Xiaolong picked up his water glass. "I heard that Chen Yizhou took a few obsolete old servers from Sohu and wanted to run high concurrency. I'm really afraid that the cables in their server room will catch fire first."

"That old bastard doesn't know any technical stuff." Zhang Jian sneered. "If their makeshift team can figure out how to run high concurrency, I'll eat my keyboard."

Wan Lianghao put down his laptop and came over, interjecting in a thick Northeastern accent.

"Mr. Zhang, stop thinking about eating the keyboard and come look at my Red Diamond VIP icon." Wan Lianghao turned the screen around. "The graphic designer revised it three times according to Mr. Bai and Mr. AIlen's wishes, and now it's so red it's dazzling. As long as you subscribe for a month and post it in your QQ group list, you'll definitely be at the top. And this QQ Show, there are twenty sets available this time, and you can also sell individual pieces. Look at my set with the emo hairstyle and big sunglasses, one yuan per piece, three yuan for the set. I'm even thinking of buying a set with my own salary."

Zhang Jian glanced at the flashy virtual characters on the screen and clicked his tongue twice.

"Lianghao, your art team's pricing is outrageous. You're selling a few lines of pixel code for three yuan."

"That's called a sense of prestige, you don't know anything about it." Wan Lianghao rolled his eyes at him.

"Alright, I see it clearly. I'll go talk to the telecommunications bureau right away and ask them to expand the lines for the voice information service so it doesn't crash tonight!" Jiang Shuo said hurriedly and ran off.

Bai Yuhang walked out of the office with a teacup in his hand, looked at his group of energetic brothers, and nodded to them.

"Everything's ready, we're just waiting for the right opportunity." Bai Yuhang's gaze swept over everyone. "I saw a pop-up on Sohu, isn't Chen Yizhou's Crazy Farm supposed to launch in two days? When they're making a big fuss about getting people to farm there, our QQ email, QQ groups, QQ Show, and Red Diamond members will all get a full update."

Zhang Jian clenched his fist, his knuckles cracking.

"Got it! He's using money to create a fake boom, let's just give him a crushing blow. Let him see what a real social ecosystem is."

Bai Yuhang smiled, turned around, and walked back to his office. Sohu's ten million US dollars in spending was destined to be utterly ineffective against Qihang's series of moves.