Reborn in 2000, starting from the university website

late at night.

In the innermost private room of the New Century Internet Cafe, all that could be heard was the hum of the computer case cooling fans.

"After observing for two hours, the server's access load module has indeed dropped significantly and is very stable. The crisis is over," Bai Yuhang announced with a sigh of relief.

After hearing this, a feeling of exhaustion, like a tide washing over them, washed over the young men, leaving them listless.

Zhang Jian slumped in his chair like a fish that had lost all its tendons. The half-eaten sausage in his hand was long since cold, and he had no appetite for it. He stared intently at the background logs on the screen, searching for the cause of the previous problem, occasionally uttering a few swear words that only programmers would understand.

"Damn, we've solved the case." Zhang Jian suddenly straightened up and slammed the mouse down. "Guess what? What almost choked our server just now wasn't the concurrency, it was these users' 'faces' and their personal photos."

"Face?" Jiao Liwei leaned closer, looking completely bewildered.

"Look," Zhang Jian said, opening the server's storage directory and pointing to the shockingly large 'User_Photos' folder. "Are these people crazy? Each profile picture file is over a megabyte! And they're all uncompressed BMP format! In just a short time, they've uploaded over five thousand profile pictures alone. If I don't fill up my hard drive, who will?"

Bai Yuhang stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray piled high with ash, then leaned over and glanced at it.

The screen was covered with photos. Some were of people using point-and-shoot cameras with the flash going off in front of a mirror, some were of people who had gone to a photo studio to have their photos scanned, and some even had their ID photos scanned. The resolution was appalling, but the eagerness to "show their faces" was palpable even through the screen.

"We all underestimated one thing, and I was careless." Bai Yuhang casually clicked on a picture of a young man with a hairstyle reminiscent of Aaron Kwok, striking what he thought was a cool pose. "Netizens these days have been stifled online for too long. Before, when we were in chat rooms, using aliases like 'Light Dance Flying' or 'Pizi Cai,' nobody knew who was real or not. Now, suddenly there's a place where we can tell the whole world 'This is me,' and once this desire for self-expression explodes, it's more powerful than a flood."

"This isn't a desire to show off, it's narcissism!" Zhang Jian pointed to one of the users' upload records. "Look at this guy, he uploaded eight different pictures just to choose an avatar. This one has his face slightly turned to the side, this one has his bangs a little messier... Dude, do you think our server is your personal photo album?"

Wan Lianghao chuckled as he listened, then slapped his forehead: "Oh no, there's a problem with the logic we wrote for the upload interface. When the user uploads and previews, the file is already stored on the server, but in the end, he only selects one to confirm, leaving the remaining seven as unusable images... We didn't write any deletion logic."

The people inside looked at each other in bewilderment.

So, half of that 20,000 yuan expansion fee was spent on these college students' worthless videos?

It's not entirely unjust.

"Change it." Bai Yuhang made a decisive decision, his knuckles tapping loudly on the table. "Third brother, write a script right away to clean up all the images that aren't linked to the user's homepage. Also, you must use an image compression algorithm. No matter if they upload BMP or TIFF, compress them all into JPGs before loading them into the library, and keep the quality below 70%. Every megabyte of hard drive space is real money these days. We're not running a charity; we have no obligation to store their junk files."

"Yes, ma'am. I love doing this job. I'm good at deleting databases." Zhang Jian rubbed his hands together, and a relieved smile finally appeared on his face.

As the script ran, the red alert on the original server hard drive finally stopped.

It was already 2 a.m. As is customary, this was the time when Qihang's campus network would be shut down for maintenance.

"Sixth Brother, isn't that strange?" Wan Lianghao stared at the real-time online number. "It's already 2 AM, we posted a maintenance notice, why aren't these people logging off? There are still over 20,000 people online, and they're all constantly pressing F5 to refresh."

Bai Yuhang leaned back in his chair, watching the constant stream of user refresh requests, a playful smile curving his lips.

"This is the 'Pavlov effect' that we've developed."

"What? Huh?" Jiao Liwei was peeling garlic to prepare instant noodles when he looked up and asked.

"A conditioned reflex." Bai Yuhang pointed to the screen. "For the past week, we've been launching new features every night in the middle of the night. Three days ago it was 'Like,' and yesterday it was 'Friend Impressions.' These users have been 'tamed' by us. They stay up all night just to wait for the moment we launch the server, wanting to see what new tricks we have up our sleeve. It's like unwrapping a present; it's addictive."

"It's definitely addictive," Wan Lianghao sighed, propping his legs up on the computer case. "I used to think OICQ was really fun, adding whoever I wanted and chatting about anything and everything. But these past few days, looking at our school's intranet, I suddenly find OICQ a bit boring."

"Because that's a plaza, and this is our living room."

Bai Yu stood up at the station, stretched his stiff neck, his joints cracking. "On OICQ, it's all strangers. You chat and then it's over, nobody knows anyone. But here, when you see that the aloof class beauty from the next class post a casual photo, or the girl you have a crush on gets 'stepped on' by someone else, that voyeuristic desire and social pressure will force you to look, you have to reply. If you don't come, you'll be out of touch."

"It's a dimensional reduction attack," Zhang Qingheng clapped his hands, summarizing it succinctly. "We're using the oppressive feeling of a familiar social network to attack the novelty of stranger-based social interactions."

As they were talking, a heavy sigh came from the corner.

Jiang Shuo sat on a small stool, clutching the account book tightly in his arms, looking at the transfer slip that Jiao Liwei was filling out with a pained expression.

"Twenty thousand...!" Jiang Shuo's voice trembled, as if someone was cutting his flesh. "That's all going to China Telecom? Half of the savings we accumulated from selling software has burned through in one night."

"Old Eight, stop acting like a miser." Zhang Jian's mood improved, and he started to be sarcastic. "If we hadn't expanded the capacity earlier, we wouldn't have been able to handle the traffic. If the server had crashed, all our code would have been worthless. And with the user base increasing, Old Six also said that the bandwidth and hard drives need to be increased within a week, which is just a matter of a few days."

"That makes sense, but the money's being spent way too fast." Jiang Shuo pushed up his glasses, his brows furrowing into a deep frown. "Old Liu just said that every photo is money, but I don't think these are photos at all. They're just banknotes being thrown into a fire pit. We're not making any income right now, just spending without any return. I don't even dare to look at these accounts."

Bai Yuhang walked over and patted Jiang Shuo's stiff shoulder.

"Old Eight, think long-term." Bai Yuhang pointed to the incredibly vibrant photos of young faces on the screen. "You think this is burning money? No, this is alchemy."

"Alchemy?"

"This real data, real names, real classes, and every photo they uploaded, every 'like' they left—in today's internet, this is an untapped gold mine." Bai Yuhang's voice wasn't loud, but it sounded exceptionally confident in the late-night private room. "Once we break a million users, believe it or not, even if we just randomly put up a guy selling socks on the homepage, they'll sell out."

Jiang Shuo stared blankly at Bai Yuhang, then glanced at the account book in his arms, and finally gritted his teeth: "Fine! As long as it makes money, I'll keep track of the accounts! But this month's living expenses... can everyone be a little more frugal? I think Lao San is wasting too much money on sausages, can we switch to steamed buns?"

"Damn it! Lao Ba, you're taking revenge on me!" Zhang Jian yelled in despair. "How can I write code if I don't eat meat!"

A burst of laughter erupted in the private room, dispelling the chill and weariness of the winter night.

Outside the door, the first rays of dawn were faintly seeping in through the gaps in the curtains.