Reborn in 2000, starting from the university website

Chapter 129: Six New Features Launched

At 2 a.m. on Monday, the night breeze in Zhongguancun was somewhat cool.

In the temporary office area on the second floor of the Sohu Network Building, Chen Yizhou was staring at Lao Zhao using drawing software to painstakingly cut out the pixelated image of cabbage in "Happy Farm", and he was so anxious that he kept scratching his head.

While Chen Yizhou's team was working tirelessly through the night to copy Farmville, Qihang Technology was brightly lit on the sixteenth floor of Hailong Building.

Zhang Xiaolong pushed up his glasses and stared at the monitoring data on the screen.

"Mr. Bai, the server load on each node is normal, and there is sufficient bandwidth redundancy."

Bai Yuhang sat in a swivel chair in the office area, holding a half-cup of warm tea in his hand.

"Let's go."

Zhang Jian grinned and slammed his finger down on the Enter key. "Let's go!"

There was no pre-event promotion or large-scale publicity.

Six major features, including QQ Mail, QQ Groups, video chat, QQ Show, Red Diamond VIP membership, and HaiNei.com's "Parking Wars," were launched silently and simultaneously across the entire network without any prior warning.

Wan Lianghao leaned closer to Zhang Jian's screen and pointed to the update notification that popped up in the lower right corner.

"Mr. Zhang, you've done a pretty discreet job with this pop-up."

"Keeping a low profile is fatal; that's what makes a big deal." Zhang Jian rubbed his hands together. "If that old bastard Chen Yizhou isn't asleep by now, he'd probably be knocked unconscious by this update package."

Less than ten minutes after the update was released, the background data started fluctuating wildly.

Zhang Jian stared intently at the screen. "The concurrent data for QQ groups has increased. Group creation requests are exceeding 300 per second, and users are spontaneously adding members faster than expected."

"Nonsense, who wants to post on a BBS and wait for replies?" Zhang Xiaolong scoffed. "This is called real-time group chat. Pulling classmates, colleagues, and gaming guilds into one chat box to brag—isn't that a million times better than some dry forum on 5Q campus network?"

Jiang Shuo squeezed into the technical department's office area, his eyes fixed on Wan Lianghao's computer screen.

On the screen, a tiny figure wearing a virtual Adidas-like jacket and sporting a flamboyant blue-purple hairstyle is swaying back and forth against a shimmering background.

The price is also marked next to it: one yuan for a single item, and three yuan for a set.

"Lianghao, do people actually buy these virtual clothes?" Jiang Shuo swallowed.

"You? Seriously, I'm not kidding, you don't know anything." Wan Lianghao opened a newly created QQ group called "Qihang Technology," which had over 120 members. "Look at this list."

Jiang Shuo crouched down to get a closer look and saw that in the group member list, among a row of gray and white avatars, a dazzling red diamond icon suddenly lit up, and the name also changed to a noble red.

"Holy crap, who is this? He's so conspicuous!" Jiang Shuo exclaimed, his eyes wide.

"It's me, your brother! What's gotten into your eyesight? I'm the first Red Diamond member, the first QQ VIP, I even have Red and Yellow Diamonds!" Wan Lianghao chuckled. "One Diamond costs ten yuan a month. If you pay, you'll be the coolest kid in the group. Don't pay? Even if you don't go invisible, you'll still be at the back of the list when you log in."

Jiang Shuo quickly lowered his head to do the math. "One diamond membership costs ten yuan a month, with fourteen million users. Even if only one-tenth of them subscribe, we're rich! We're rich!"

Bai Yuhang walked over and patted Jiang Shuo on the shoulder.

"Don't just focus on the money, let's go check out the technical department."

Jiao Liwei walked in carrying several boxes of freshly grilled skewers from a street vendor downstairs.

"Mr. Bai, just before I went downstairs, the data for grabbing parking spaces exploded. There are posts on HaiNei.com cursing that a colleague got a ticket on his newly bought used Alto and was fined fifty virtual coins."

"The point is to get users involved, to criticize, and to interact." Bai Yuhang picked up a skewer and stuffed it into his mouth. "The harsher the criticism, the higher the stickiness. Didn't Chen Yizhou want college students to have purely social interactions? I want to see if his pure forum is more interesting, or if setting an alarm in the middle of the night to put a ticket on my roommate's car is more interesting."

On the other side of the office area, Zhang Xiaolong sat in front of his computer, adjusting his glasses. He had just sent over a dozen test emails with extremely large attachments using QQ Mail.

As the founder of Fomail, few people in China understand email better than him. Yet, at this moment, staring at the sending progress bar on the screen, which was completing several times faster than he had previously remembered, he unusually swore.

"Holy crap, this compression ratio is simply unreasonable." Zhang Xiaolong repeatedly checked the backend transmission logs, then turned to Bai Yuhang. "Mr. Bai, I just ran an extreme test of the data compression and distribution model algorithm you wrote on the public internet of the email system. It works the same for users uploading to the server and downloading. The size of attachments stored on the server is compressed by an average of 60%, and there is zero loss in the transmission of streaming media files. If this were released, all the email services on the market would have to shut down."

Bai Yuhang was eating the kebabs Jiao Liwei had bought, without even looking up: "Basic stuff, don't make a fuss. Brother AIlen, this algorithm is our trump card, we've patented it, don't let Chen Yizhou and his gang learn it."

"Them?" Zhang Xiaolong sneered. "Even if we give them the source code, they can't figure it out on their few broken servers."

Beside him, Zhang Jian was shouting and waving at the computer screen, gesturing wildly like a big monkey. The screen displayed a slightly blurry but perfectly smooth video.

"Hey Bo, move the camera a little to the left, let me see what your buddy next to you is doing!" Zhang Jian shouted into the microphone.

In the video, Yang Bo is sitting in an internet cafe across from the Hailong Building, wearing a huge headset that comes with it, and shouting, "Mr. Zhang, this guy next to me is stealing vegetables! Don't mind him, look at how choppy my video is!"

"Cut my ass! I can see every single pimple on your face!" Zhang Jian slammed his fist on the table with glee.

On the other end of the video call, Yang Bo rubbed his hands excitedly: "Incredible! Absolutely incredible! This internet cafe usually takes forever to load a webpage, but now, with our video chat, there isn't even a single frame drop! Mr. Bai's algorithm is amazing!"

Wan Lianghao leaned closer, his big head squeezing into Zhang Jian's camera's field of vision, and waved at Yang Bo on the screen: "Brother Bo, could you also check if anyone in the internet cafe has bought the QQ avatars I designed?"

"Lianghao, come on, who buys this stuff in the middle of the night?" Yang Bo rolled his eyes on the screen. Then the image shifted, and he pointed the camera at a computer next to him. "Hey, holy crap? Lianghao, look at this guy, he's actually wearing it! Just like you, a whole three-yuan white punk outfit! Pretty fashionable!"

Upon hearing this, Wan Lianghao straightened his back instantly and said smugly in his Northeastern accent, "See? That's the power of art! The masses have absolutely discerning eyes!"

Jiang Shuo had somehow joined in, staring intently at Zhang Jian's screen with shining eyes: "Brother Bo, ask your buddy, does it hurt to spend money when you top up your account?"

"Get lost, Jiang Shuo, you're obsessed with money." Zhang Jian shoved Jiang Shuo aside and continued shouting into the microphone, "Brother Bo, the test is complete, the public network environment is extremely stable. Hurry back and get some skewers, Brother Jiao's skewers are almost gone! Or you can wait downstairs and get a batch for the administration colleagues, then we can all come up together!"

After hanging up the video call, Zhang Jian turned to Bai Yuhang, his face full of admiration: "President Bai, I'm impressed. This data compression technology, even for video, is amazing. Not only in China, but even in Silicon Valley, foreign programmers would be groveling before us. What can Chen Yizhou use to compete with us? His mere percentage of user retention?"

Bai Yuhang threw the skewer into the trash can and grabbed a piece of grilled chicken tendon.

"Just you wait and see, this is nothing." Bai Yuhang smacked his lips in a calm tone, "The real show will start after dawn."

Zhang Xiaolong took a sip of water, his tone calm. "It's foreseeable that by daybreak tomorrow, computer webcams and microphones will be sold out."

Bai Yuhang smiled and nodded in agreement, took out a tissue to wipe his hands, and looked out the window towards the Sohu Network Building not far away.

Sohu's ten million US dollars is destined to be nothing more than a bang in the face of this series of combined attacks.

Chen Yizhou's "Crazy Vegetable Garden," which he rushed to finish overnight, was already outdated before it was even released.