Reborn in 2000, starting from the university website

Saturday evening, as darkness fell.

The seven people in dormitory 206 were preparing to go to an internet cafe for an all-nighter. Jiang Shuo, who usually sat at his desk without fail at this time, suddenly closed the "Advanced Mathematics" book he had just opened and stood up.

"I'll go tonight too."

The air in the room fell silent for a moment.

Liu Jingzheng, who was holding up the heel of his shoe, almost lost his balance upon hearing this. He turned around and stared at Lao Ba as if watching a spectacle. Bai Yuhang was putting on his coat, his movements uninterrupted, but a faint smile played on his lips, a confident expression that he had long since seen through the boy's thoughts.

"Let's go, we just happen to need someone to watch our bags," Bai Yuhang joked casually, breaking the awkward silence.

The New Century Internet Cafe was bustling with noise and filled with smoke. Zhao Jianjun was covering for Wang Jun at the front desk, who hadn't eaten yet. He was fiddling with two walnuts in his hand when he looked up and saw the group of guys from room 206 coming in in a big swarm. This time, there was an unfamiliar face in the group.

"Brother Zhao, this is our dorm's eighth oldest, Jiang Shuo." Jiao Liwei stepped forward and offered him a cigarette. "We're all here today, let's stay up all night."

Jiang Shuo was a little flustered. He pushed up his glasses and extended his hand: "Hello, Boss Zhao."

"Okay, okay." Zhao Jianjun was a seasoned veteran. He could tell at a glance that the boy had a scholarly air about him and that he wanted to fit in but was too shy to let go. He smiled and shook hands. "You're a college student after all. You look so cultured. Since you're all here, don't crowd in the lobby. We'll give you two private rooms inside. They're next to each other, so it'll be quiet."

The eight people sat down in two separate rooms. This time, they didn't rush to work; instead, they first went to the competition server that Zhang Jian had configured and played Counter-Strike for an hour.

This was the first time the dormitory had organized a team-building activity outside of the basketball court.

This server was arranged by Bai Yuhang with the help of Shi Hongchao. It's a machine in the backbone data center of Harbin Telecom Company. Ensuring the server's online connection rate guarantees the stability of the competition.

Although Jiang Shuo was incompetent, running around aimlessly with a B31 submachine gun like a headless fly, he shouted louder than anyone else.

"Old Eight! Look at the radar! Don't rush! That's a bandit's den!" Zhang Jian shouted through his headset.

"Huh? I'm dead... I saw a shadowy figure at the window, so I pulled the trigger."

"That's a hostage!"

Amidst the laughter, the subtle barrier that had existed before melted away considerably in the hail of bullets.

The one-hour test ended, and the server was rock-solid, with extremely stable speed. One by one, the eight players logged out of the game, and the atmosphere in the two private rooms instantly became more free and diverse:

Wan Lianghao and Zhang Qingheng had their computers side by side, their screens filled with dense code, arguing fiercely about the logic for upgrading a "like" feature on the school's intranet; Bai Yuhang, with a cigarette in his mouth, stared at the backend data stream, calculating the extended logic of the recommendation algorithm on a draft paper; Zhang Jian, while stuffing a sausage into his mouth, continued to fine-tune and optimize the server settings.

Meanwhile, Jiao Liwei and Liu Jing each guarded a machine, watching TV dramas on a pirated website. On one screen, Emperor Kangxi was traveling incognito and flirting with a commoner girl, while on the other screen, Xu Zheng, sporting a pig-faced appearance, was shouting "Little Dragon Girl."

Only Yang Bo, amidst the clatter of the keyboard and the background noise of TV dramas, calmly flipped through a thick, brick-like textbook for the bar exam, occasionally typing and taking notes on the computer.

Jiang Shuo sat in the corner, watching this scene, and his already weakened defenses completely collapsed.

This isn't about neglecting one's duties; it's clearly about each person having their own path, but when combined, they all achieve a wider success than him.

Early Sunday morning, just as dawn broke in Harbin, long queues had already formed at the cash registers of more than 30 internet cafes across the city that displayed banners for the "Blue Speed ​​Cup" e-sports competition.

These gamers, who usually hate filling out forms and registering accounts, had to patiently go online and open the flight school's intranet in order to form a team to play in the competition.

"What a hassle, do I have to fill in my real class just to play a game?" A long-haired, blond thug muttered, reluctantly typing "Harbin No. 19 Middle School".

The moment the Enter key was pressed, a clean list box suddenly popped up on the right side of the screen—"People You May Know".

The blond-haired man's eyes widened.

The first profile picture was of the girl who sat in front of him in junior high school and had a crush on her for three years.

"Holy crap?" The blond guy's hand trembled, and the mouse almost flew out of his hand. He had only intended to fill in the blanks casually to get by, but now he immediately sat up straight. He wasn't in a hurry to enter the game anymore. He clicked on the gray avatar and found that the other person had also left a message on the "Class Message Board" looking for classmates.

The same scene was playing out in various internet cafes in Harbin.

Bai Yuhang's recommendation algorithm, based on real data, is like throwing a depth charge into a calm lake. A registers, and the system automatically sends an email to his classmate B: "Your old classmate A is waiting for you on Qihang's campus network." B clicks in out of curiosity and finds C and D also there, immediately getting caught up in this invisible web.

What's even more amazing is the "Recent Visitors" feature.

In the spring of 2000, when QQ was still struggling to make money to survive and QQ Space was nowhere to be seen, knowing "who secretly viewed my profile" was like a devastating blow to young people with overflowing hormones.

"Third brother! Look at these data!" Wan Lianghao pointed to the backstage area, his voice trembling.

The curve that was originally expected to grow steadily is now soaring upwards at an almost vertical angle.

"Damn it!" Zhang Jian dropped the sausage in his hand on the table. "The server is going to crash! Aren't these people here to play games? Why are they all uploading profile pictures? The bandwidth is maxed out!"

Nginx is indeed robust, but physical bandwidth has its limits. A large amount of uncompressed image data stream flooded the channel originally reserved for CS competition registration.

Bai Yuhang quickly stubbed out his cigarette, his eyes chillingly calm: "Expand capacity."

"Now?" Zhang Jian's eyes widened. "The process with China Telecom will take two days, and the cost..."

"Go to Telecom and get special approval. Transfer the money from the company account." Bai Yu stood up, his tone leaving no room for doubt. "We're building user trust right now. As long as the server doesn't crash, this money is well spent. Also, enable our image compression and slow down the upload interface a bit. We'll sacrifice some speed to ensure smooth operation."

A crisis was averted with Bai Yuhang's swift and decisive actions.

By noon, everyone was so busy they didn't even have time to eat instant noodles. Jiang Shuo, holding a bucket of braised beef noodles, watched Jiao Liwei frantically sorting through a pile of messy receipts and finally couldn't hold back any longer.

He put down his instant noodles, walked over to Jiao Liwei, his face flushed red, and after a long pause, finally managed to squeeze out a sentence: "Boss, this debt... I'll settle it for you."

Jiao Liwei was taken aback and looked up at Bai Yuhang.

Bai Yuhang was leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed, resting. Hearing this, he opened his eyes and his gaze swept over Jiang Shuo's face, which was filled with apprehension and shame.

There was no mockery, nor any embarrassing forgiveness.

Bai Yuhang casually grabbed a handful of crumpled receipts, invoices, and temporary expense records written on cigarette pack paper from Jiao Liwei's desk and slapped them into Jiang Shuo's arms.

"Wanting to join is a good thing, but first, let's sort out these messy accounts." Bai Yuhang closed his eyes again. "Not a penny can be off; this is the CFO's probationary period assessment. If you can't sort it out, don't blame others."

Jiang Shuo hurriedly grabbed a pile of scraps of paper, as if they were priceless treasures, and nodded emphatically: "Hey! Don't worry, Sixth Brother... no, President Bai!"

With the official start of the "Blue Speed ​​Cup" preliminary rounds, the popularity of Qihang Campus Network has exceeded everyone's expectations.

After Beijing Telecom urgently increased its bandwidth, the backend IP display showed that users were no longer limited to Harbin. In Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and even several major cities in the south, a dense array of user login records began to appear.

"Have you added me on Qihang?" has become the latest secret code among college students across the country.

The sun was shining brightly on Sunday afternoon.

The guys in room 206 have all gone back to school.

Just as his brothers were reveling in the soaring data, Bai Yuhang went downstairs alone and walked to the IC card phone booth at the bottom of the dormitory building.

He pulled his collar tighter to block out the still-chilly wind of early spring in Harbin, took out a worn-out IC card from his pocket, inserted it, and skillfully dialed a Beijing number he knew by heart.

A long "beep-beep" sound came from the receiver.

Bai Yuhang tightened his grip on the receiver slightly, a rare gentleness appearing in his eyes.

"Feed?"

The call connected, and that cool yet somewhat familiar voice traveled across thousands of miles.

"Mu Qing, it's me." Bai Yuhang said softly into the receiver, "It's been a while since we last contacted each other, how are you?"