Reborn in 2000, starting from the university website

The emergency server expansion had just been settled, and Bai Yuhang and Zhang Jian didn't dare to delay. They first called Zhao Jianjun to reserve a spot, then turned around and ran all the way to the school gate to flag down a red Xiali.

"Master, Daowai New Century Internet Cafe, step on the gas, urgent." Bai Yuhang shoved the still panting Zhang Jian into the back seat, opened the car door and sat in the passenger seat.

The streetlights outside the car window rushed past, and Bai Yuhang unconsciously tapped his fingers on his knees.

The breach on the telecom side has been made, but the remaining 20,000 yuan is the last fuel. How can we make this fire burn so brightly that these investment bigwigs can't sit still? We need to see if we can handle tonight's surge in traffic; the service absolutely cannot collapse.

Bai Yuhang originally estimated that the server would not need to be expanded until a week later, but he never expected that the server would be overwhelmed and almost unable to hold up after only half a day.

It's undeniable that when traffic comes, it's truly unstoppable.

There's no use thinking about it now, all I can do is get anxious and just want to see the data as soon as possible.

As soon as the car stopped in front of the New Century Internet Cafe, Zhang Jian opened the car door and froze: "Wow, is Brother Zhao going to turn this area into a bicycle graveyard?"

The entrance to the internet cafe was densely packed with bicycles and motorcycles, some even piled on top of each other like a human pyramid. Two young men were squatting on the steps outside, smoking and waiting in line. The "Blue Speed ​​Cup" poster on the glass door was worn and faded from being touched by countless hands, with the corners drooping, looking somewhat disheveled. However, to those in the know, it exuded a kind of fanatical enthusiasm.

Pushing open the door, a familiar wave of heat, a mixture of cigarette smoke, instant noodle seasoning packets, and sweat, almost knocked me over.

Normally at this time, the whole house would be filled with shouts of "Go go go" and "Fire in the hole," but today the tune was different.

"Hey! Hey there, Li Xiaoman from Class 3 posted photos on the school's intranet! You have to check them out, they're fucking gorgeous!"

"Quick, quick, get my account verified. I need to see 'who viewed my profile picture.' I think the person with the grayed-out profile picture is the prettiest girl in the next class."

"Stop playing CS, let's see who's missing from our class. Let's add the whole class first. The system just notified me that we only need three more people to unlock the class badge!"

As Bai Yuhang listened to the noisy voices, the tension that had gripped his lips all night finally eased.

A social closed loop has been formed.

"Damn it, these bastards, they're the ones who crashed our server." Zhang Jian cursed and laughed as he hurriedly followed Bai Yuhang toward the private room.

"Stop complaining, these are our bread and butter." Bai Yuhang didn't have time to turn around and quickly walked inside.

The two walked through the crowded hall and headed straight for the innermost private room. Zhao Jianjun had already arranged for the equipment to be vacated, and two bottles of iced tea were thoughtfully placed on the table.

"Get to work." Bai Yuhang took off his coat and threw it on the empty swivel chair.

Without a word, Zhang Jian plopped down, his fingers, which typed faster than he could eat a sausage, instantly began to dance across the keyboard. On the screen, a red curve representing bandwidth usage plummeted like a rollercoaster the instant the China Telecom expansion took effect, only to begin a steady climb again as a new wave of traffic surged in.

"Sixth Brother, your compression algorithm is amazing, you should apply for a patent." Zhang Jian mumbled indistinctly while drinking his beverage. "The image quality is almost unchanged, but the loading speed is twice as fast. These people just want to see the photos of beautiful women as soon as possible. With your compression and transmission algorithm, it's bound to be full of praise. However, isn't there some noise? It's not very noticeable."

"That's because your monitor is faulty. Compressed transmission won't affect the quality." Bai Yuhang stared at the background logs without looking up. "Re-adjust the load balancing I told you about last time. Don't let all requests crash on one server at the same time. Distribute the requests separately and do a good job of distribution."

Just as they were busy, the door to the private room was pushed open. Jiao Liwei led the way, followed by Zhang Qingheng, Wan Lianghao, and finally Jiang Shuo, who looked curious and concerned.

"What are you doing here?" Zhang Jian glanced back. "Didn't I tell you to go to sleep?"

"Sleep my ass." Jiao Liwei slammed several buckets of instant noodles on the table. "I've told Second and Fifth to handle the morning classes. Sixth, you two are racing against time, while we're snoring in the dorm? Are we even human?"

Jiang Shuo didn't speak, but silently walked behind Bai Yuhang and looked at the frantically fluctuating data on the screen. This was the first time he had seen firsthand how 20,000 yuan was "burned," and the first time he had seen how real people's lives were transformed into so-called "traffic."

"This...this is our user?" Jiang Shuo pushed up his glasses, his voice trembling slightly.

"Of course, that's all money." Wan Lianghao patted him on the shoulder from the side. "Old Ba, keep an eye on it. People are registering every second. This is much more exciting than the dead numbers in your ledger."

Time passed by, and apart from the sounds of keyboards clicking and slurping instant noodles, no one spoke in the private room.

Midnight.

Zhang Jian slapped his thigh suddenly: "It's broken! Sixth Brother, it's broken!"

"What's torn? My pants?" Jiang Shuo raised his head groggily.

"370,000 registered users!" Zhang Jian pointed at the screen, his eyes wide. "And their average online time exceeds fifty minutes! Don't these people sleep?"

The room erupted in chaos as several people crowded around the monitor, as if they were looking at some rare treasure.

Bai Yuhang leaned back in his chair, let out a long breath, and rubbed his sore neck.

The total number of registered users exceeded 370,000 in eight days, with more than 60,000 young people registering on the entire network in just one day, and the number is still increasing.

In this internet winter, this data is enough to make those hesitant investors flock to the doorstep.

"Alright, everyone calm down." Bai Yuhang tapped the table to calm everyone down. "Twenty thousand yuan has been spent, but our cash flow is now down to half of what we're holding onto. The upcoming finals have to be a big show, and we have to pull it off. We're not just organizing a competition; we're putting on a show for all the capitalists on the internet, a show called 'The Future.'"

Everyone seemed to understand only a little, but the light in their eyes was genuine.

Just as everyone was about to open a few cans of beer to celebrate, Wan Lianghao, the fourth brother who had been silent and flipping through his diary, suddenly frowned.

"Sixth brother, something's not right."

Wan Lianghao pointed to an inconspicuous data stream on the screen: "It's the middle of the night now. A normal traffic curve should be gradually decreasing or remaining constant, but this data stream is very frequent and very regular. It doesn't seem like browsing; it's more like... moving."