Reborn in 2000, starting from the university website

In the computer room of the university, only the low hum of the computer case fans remained, and the air was filled with the dry smell of static electricity and the slightly warm smell of plastic.

Bai Yuhang didn't go to the celebratory barbecue. Instead, he resisted his craving for cigarettes and sat in front of the best-equipped machine by the window. The screen's glow made his face look pale as he kept typing away on the keyboard.

The other party's OICQ avatar was flashing wildly in the lower right corner, accompanied by a series of coughs.

On the other side of the chat window is "Blue Sky No. 1," a customer service representative from a long-established data center in Beijing—China Telecom IDC Data Center.

"Four thousand for three months, dedicated 4 Mbps bandwidth, plus a free dedicated public IP address. Dude, this is already an insider price, no discounts."

Bai Yuhang's fingers never stopped typing, while his other hand rapidly switched between FTP windows: "The price is fine. But I can't make the transfer right now, the bank is closed. Can you open an account for me first thing, and I'll send you a picture of the wire transfer slip at nine o'clock tomorrow morning?"

"That won't do, there's no such rule."

"Take a look at my current IP traffic yourself." Bai Yuhang sent over a screenshot of the monitoring data, and added, "The US virtual host I'm using is about to crash. Hundreds of requests per second are coming in. You know what this traffic means. If my site crashes tonight, I might not buy your hosting tomorrow. Don't talk to me about rules. Rules are rigid, but performance is flexible."

There was a full two minutes of silence on the other end, as if they were consulting their superiors or weighing the pros and cons.

"Okay, I'll give you special permission. I've sent you the key. If you don't see any money by tomorrow, I'll shut down your service and post your story as a scammer on the CSDN developer forum."

Thanks.

Bai Yuhang's lips twitched slightly. Whatever. Time was running out, so he quickly opened the FTP software.

This is a race against time.

The original US server was overloaded, and the packet loss rate had soared to 40%, with even SSH connections becoming intermittent, like an asthma patient.

Bai Yuhang had to break the files into several small packages and drag them to the new server whenever he could find a spare moment. Fortunately, most of Qihang Navigation's current web pages are static HTML and not very large; if there were even a few more large images, he would have been stuck here tonight.

Meanwhile, at the east gate of the university, there's "Fat Sister Barbecue".

There were several piles of meat skewers and beer on the table, but the atmosphere was a bit dull.

The fifth brother, Liu Jing, who is usually the most lively, is now poking holes in the tablecloth with a stick, as if he has a grudge against that plastic sheet.

"Is this mutton not marinated enough?" Zhang Jian, the third brother, took a bite and frowned. "It tastes like chewing wax."

"What's the point of pickling fresh mutton? It's just that you have no taste in your mouth." The eldest brother, Jiao Liwei, stubbed out his cigarette, glanced at the clock on the wall, and said, "It's eight o'clock. I'm not at ease with Lao Liu all alone there. We're all eating and drinking well, while the heroes are left to eat steamed buns. That's not fair."

"What's the point of eating then?" The fourth brother, Wan Lianghao, slammed a freshly opened bottle of Harbin beer on the table, foam spilling all over his hand. "Pack it up! Take it back! Give it to the sixth brother to take back! Let's enjoy it back home!"

"Boss! To go! Extra cumin! And two more baked flatbreads, please!"

The group, carrying plastic bags that were still sizzling with oil, hurried back. The six of them walked in a rush, overtaking everyone they saw, like a race walker.

Outside the computer room, Lao Ba Jiang Shuo was coming out of the library, carrying two thick books, "Advanced Mathematics" and "College English".

As he passed the glass window of the server room, he instinctively stopped.

It was pitch black inside, with only a small light shining from one corner.

Bai Yuhang had his back to the window, his shoulders slightly hunched, and his fingers were typing on the keyboard at a speed that sounded like he was playing the piano.

Instead of game footage scrolling across the screen, lines of tedious and complex code instructions appeared. Green characters danced on a black background, reflected on the glass, and overlapped with Jiang Shuo's reflection.

Jiang Shuo pushed up his glasses, his brows furrowing slightly. He didn't understand why Bai Yuhang, who was clearly frivolous and involved in unorthodox pursuits, possessed a kind of focused intensity that made him feel pressured.

He had never seen that kind of aura of control in the student council president, nor even in those so-called "successful alumni" lectures.

"That's... a Linux command? chmod 777, is that giving permissions to the folder?" Jiang Shuo muttered to himself, shook his head, suppressed the strange feeling in his heart, and turned to leave, only to see Teacher Yu, who was in charge of the night shift in the computer room, walking over with a keychain.

"Bai Yuhang, you're such a student. You never come, and when you do, you stay until the very end. It's time to lock the door! Hurry up and save your work!" The teacher knocked on the open door frame, and the iron key made a crisp sound as it struck the iron door.

Bai Yuhang recognized the voice as Yu Yi, his cybersecurity teacher. Without turning his head, his voice, though slightly hoarse, carried an undeniable authority: "Teacher Yu, give me ten more minutes. Just ten minutes, it's a matter of life and death."

"Help me every day, you students, either the system crashes or you didn't save your homework..." the teacher muttered, but hearing the rapid typing on the keyboard, he didn't pull the switch. He just went back to the next office to wait, lighting a cigarette on the way.

Finally, the last file has been uploaded.

Bai Yuhang quickly switched windows, logged into the domain management backend, and pointed the DNS resolution to that brand new Beijing IP.

Press Enter.

The webpage that was loading in a loop popped up instantly. It opened in a second. The smooth experience was like suddenly having a bowel movement after a week of constipation. It was so satisfying.

Bai Yuhang let out a long breath, leaning back in his chair, feeling his back was soaked with sweat. But he didn't rest; a thought suddenly flashed through his mind.

We've got the traffic, but how do we retain it?

A few dead links won't do; we need to add some stickiness so that these netizens feel "this website understands me."

He quickly searched for and retrieved links to the most popular posts on Sohu, Sina, and Tianya communities, based on his memory. He then opened his editor and manually wrote the HTML code. Below the search box on the navigation page, he added a striking scrolling red text: "Trending Searches Across the Internet".

"NATO bombing... | Faye Wong and Nicholas Tse holding hands... | Pi Zi Cai's 'First Intimate Contact'... | Office 2000..."

In 2000, this was practically cheating.

If you don't know what to look at online, let me tell you what netizens across the country are watching.

This was the earliest form of "algorithm recommendation," although it was done manually.

"Sixth Brother!"

The door to the server room was pushed open, and a strong aroma of cumin and mutton dispelled the static electricity smell in the room.

Jiao Liwei led a group of people in and rushed in. He put a bag of kebabs on the table, opened the bag, and the oil stains almost got onto the keyboard.

"Is it done yet?" Zhang Jian was the first to crowd in front of the screen, not minding the crowd.

"Just switched over, it's safe now. They added a little feature." Bai Yuhang picked up a skewer of mutton, took a bite, and thought, "It's really delicious. Life is only meaningful when someone cares about you." He continued, "Perfect, let's check the data."

Seven heads were crammed in front of a 15-inch CRT monitor, and the sound of each other's breathing could be heard clearly.

The counter in the background, which was jumping in the hundreds, suddenly started to spin wildly, as if someone had kicked it. The last few digits even merged into a blurry image.

38000.

42000.

48000.

The previous lag disappeared, and long-suppressed access requests poured in like a flood. The new server was like a money-devouring beast, greedily consuming traffic from all over Harbin and even other places.

"Holy crap..." The fourth brother, Wan Lianghao, widened his eyes, stopping chewing his flatbread. "Is this counter broken? Why is it ticking like a running meter?"

"It's not broken." Bai Yuhang pointed to the constantly refreshing PV "50000". "PV value, that's the number of pages visited. Look at the UV, 14056, that's 14,000 real people. Right now, we have the eyeballs of 14,000 people in our hands."

At 8:30 pm, prime time, coupled with the smooth experience of the new server, the layout of the internet cafe over the past few days, and the continuous use by users, a habitual dependence has emerged, and the PV value directly broke through the 50,000 mark.

A moment of silence fell over the computer room, followed by a suppressed growl. Zhang Qingheng tried to shout, but Jiao Liwei quickly covered his mouth: "Don't shout! We'll attract Teacher Yu to pull the power! Hold it in!"

The group patted each other's shoulders, their faces flushed, their excitement even more intoxicating than the beer they'd just drunk. Behind those 50,000 numbers lay Bai Yuhang's strategic planning, their tireless efforts over the past two days, a milestone they'd achieved in this era, and above all, the recognition from their users.

"Alright, alright, hurry up and leave, we're about to lock up! Ugh! I wasn't looking, and you guys are already eating...this smell...get out of here!" Teacher Yu from the computer lab at the door couldn't stand it anymore, waving his keys and urging them on, "Take your trash with you! Tomorrow morning it'll smell like mutton, the administration will dock my pay!"

Bai Yu stood up, swallowed the last bite of meat, and bowed solemnly to Teacher Yu: "Thank you, Teacher Yu. These ten minutes of your time were well worth it. I'll treat you to some skewers another day."

The teacher was amused and waved his hand, saying, "Get lost, you smell like barbecue skewers."

Stepping out of the computer room building, a gust of cold wind blew, and the group felt their bodies heat up. The sweat was chilled by the wind, but their hearts were burning with excitement.

They ran right into Jiang Shuo by the building.

He stood in the shadow of the streetlamp, looking at his roommates, who were arm in arm and full of life, with a complicated expression, as if he were looking at a group of alien creatures.

"Old Eight?" Bai Yuhang stopped and casually pulled out a few skewers of untouched roasted lamb from his bag, handing them over. "Fresh out of the oven, still hot, want to try some?"

Jiang Shuo was stunned for a moment. Looking at the greasy stuff, he instinctively wanted to refuse, thinking it was unhygienic. But looking at Bai Yuhang's eyes, which shone frighteningly bright in the night, he inexplicably took it.

"You guys...did you manage to do it?"

"Just getting started." Bai Yuhang smiled, offering no further explanation or boasting about the stats. He turned and called to his brothers, "Let's go! Back to the dorm! Let's get some barbecue! Old Seven, sing that lousy song of yours again!"

There were eight people; seven walked together, and one followed half a step behind.

Jiang Shuo held a skewer of meat in his hand, took a bite, and found the taste to be surprisingly alright.

I don't know which tone-deaf person started it, but their raspy voice boomed across the empty campus: "Dog Fugui, woof woof woof woof..."

Then came a chaotic chorus, singing off-key to the tune of Grandma's house. The fifth brother even mixed in a few lines like "Sister, you boldly go forward" and "Chop the Japanese devils' heads with your big sword," so loud that it could shake the snow off the trees.

Bai Yuhang walked in the middle, listening to the howling of his brothers, and looked up at the starry sky of 2000.

Although the city lights obscured most of the stars that day, it was still incredibly beautiful.