Reborn in 2000, starting from the university website

The sun was high in the sky when Bai Yuhang was woken up by hunger. He and Lao San quickly ate a mouthful of instant noodles and set off.

He and the third brother, both sporting the same dark circles under their eyes, each carrying a plastic bag containing burned CDs, strolled leisurely to Daowai.

As soon as you push open the door of "New Century Internet Cafe," which is covered with scratched cellophane, your body instinctively recoils slightly as you are greeted by a stale smell that is a mixture of braised beef noodles, foot odor, and secondhand smoke.

Inside the counter, Zhao Jianjun was calculating the previous day's accounts, pressing the calculator so hard it was clattering, spitting as he angrily lashed out at a young internet cafe manager with a face full of acne.

"Fifty-eight! How come you're short fifty-eight again? Yesterday you were short twenty, today you're short more than fifty. Did the money grow legs and run away, or did you eat it all?"

The young internet cafe manager kept his head down and neck hunched, not daring to utter a sound. He clutched a wad of crumpled change in his hand, which trembled as he did so, clearly terrified of his boss.

"Brother Zhao, you're in a bad mood." Bai Yuhang put the plastic bag containing the CDs on the counter and pushed Lao San forward half a step. "Let this guy lend a hand to your little internet cafe manager. I've got something good for you, guaranteed you won't miss out on a single penny."

Zhao Jianjun was already furious. When he saw it was Bai Yuhang, he suppressed his anger, threw the cigarette butt on the ground, and stomped it out: "Hmph, all done?! If this thing of yours doesn't work, I'll make you pay for this morning's lost wages."

Bai Yuhang didn't reply, but went straight to the counter and took over the main unit. He turned it on, plugged in the disk, and installed the server software.

Three minutes later, a dark blue interface popped up on the host computer's screen. On the left were densely packed small squares, corresponding to the more than one hundred computers in the internet cafe, and on the right was the billing section.

"Brother Zhao, keep an eye on this," Bai Yuhang pointed at the screen. "Right now, all the machines are showing red lights because the client hasn't been installed yet. Once it's installed, when someone logs in, you click 'Log In,' enter your deposit, and the machine will automatically power on and unlock. When the time is almost up, a prompt will pop up asking the customer to top up. When the time is up or the money is gone, 'snap,' the screen will lock directly, and they won't be able to get away with it."

Zhao Jianjun stared at the screen, his eyes darting around a couple of times before his brow relaxed: "Automatic accounting? No need for anyone to keep records?"

"No need. Even if the network administrator wanted to steal money, he wouldn't succeed. The accounting backend is locked, and reports are generated every day. You just need to come at a set time each day and check the total."

"This is good, interesting." Zhao Jianjun pushed the calculator aside and yelled at the young internet cafe manager, "Don't just stand there, learn from these two college students! Wang Jun, come here!"

The young man in the gray sweater, his hair a mess, emerged from the corner. He was Wang Jun, the internet cafe manager of New Century Internet Cafe. He glanced at Bai Yuhang again, his eyes filled with a hint of professional disdain: "Boss, is this new system reliable? Don't mess up our machines."

"Whether it's ineffective or not, we'll find out by trying." Bai Yuhang picked up the CD case. "Brother Zhao, let's test it out with the ten machines by the window first."

This test left Xiao Wangjun completely stunned.

Traditional Ghost installation is quite tedious, involving a long wait. After the system is installed, you still have to install drivers, set IP addresses, and install software and games one by one.

Bai Yuhang had planned everything out. He set the parameters on the server side, and the new system inherited the main software and games. Even the drivers for various hardware were packaged. Ten machines simultaneously inserted the disks to boot and install the system, and the progress bar ran very fast.

Once the progress bar finishes running, the installation is complete.

"It was all done in twelve minutes?" Wang Jun glanced at the clock on the wall, his mouth slightly agape. "It usually takes me thirty minutes to install a system."

"Of course, we're using our own custom disk, a streamlined kernel with many unnecessary services removed." Bai Yuhang patted the back of a monitor. "It's powered on."

All ten machines lit up simultaneously and entered their desktops. There were no messy icons; everything was clean and tidy, with Internet Explorer in the center and "Qihang Navigation" locked as the homepage.

Just in time for the midday rush, several regulars entered, slapping cash on the counter as they went, chatting and laughing as they took their seats.

"Hey? What's this?" A man with a buzz cut and a ribbonfish tattoo on his neck exclaimed as soon as he sat down. "Where's my Red Alert icon?"

Zhao Jianjun's expression changed. If he angered these regular customers, he would lose money. He was about to speak when Bai Yuhang jogged over.

"Big brother, all the games are in this 'Game Center'." Bai Yuhang gripped the mouse and clicked on the eye-catching red icon on the desktop, which neatly categorized all the games in the internet cafe. "And this system has a personal save function."

"What save file?" The older brother looked incredulous.

"Click here to register an account with your ID number. From now on, whenever you come here to use the internet, no matter which machine you sit on, as long as you log in to your account, your Red Alert progress and CS key settings will all follow you."

This is a simplified version of cloud archiving written by Bai Yuhang. It essentially mounts archive files to a shared directory on the host server. But in 2000, this feature was practically cutting-edge technology.

The older brother entered his ID number with some skepticism, registered, played a single-player game, saved his game, and then Bai Yuhang helped him log in on a different machine.

The archive is still there.

"Holy crap!" the older brother exclaimed, slapping his thigh. "This is awesome! We won't have to fight over this crappy machine anymore!"

With the crisis averted, Zhao Jianjun's expression softened. But less than ten minutes later, a problem arose with his third brother.

"Sixth brother, it's not working!" The third brother ran over, covered in sweat. "The ninth machine just can't connect to the server. It's an IP conflict. I've tried changing it for ages, but it's no use. It seems like the network card protocols are conflicting."

Wang Jun heard the noise and went over, standing to the side with his arms crossed, his meaning clear: See, I told you it wouldn't work.

Zhao Jianjun also looked over, his eyes now filled with scrutiny.

Bai Yuhang walked over, and an error message was popping up on the machine's screen. Without even touching the mouse, he pressed "WIN+R" on the keyboard to bring up the CMD command line window, and a black-and-white command line interface appeared.

The fingers tapped a series of crisp sounds on the keyboard, and the instructions flowed one after another without the user even looking at the keyboard.

`ipconfig /release`

`netsh interface ip set address…`

Less than a minute later, the Enter key was pressed heavily.

"Third brother, all done. I've released and reset the IP address of this machine, it should work now, give it a try."

The network connection icon in the lower right corner of the screen went from flashing yellow and constantly displaying error messages to suddenly brightening, while the small square representing this machine on the server side also changed from red to green.

Wang Jun, who had been watching the commotion from behind, lowered his arms and looked at Bai Yuhang as if he were an alien. He hadn't understood those few lines of instructions at all.

Although Zhao Jianjun didn't understand technology, he had been in business for several years and knew how to deal with people. Bai Yuhang's composure just now couldn't be faked.

By 7 p.m., the internet cafe was packed.

The old-system machines in the internet cafe were plagued by Trojan and worm viruses; even opening a webpage was like constipation, and playing games would frequently result in blue screens. Meanwhile, the row of machines near the window, equipped with the new system, opened webpages instantly, switched games flawlessly, and even online StarCraft ran smoothly without lag.

"Boss! Get me that row of new machines!"

"I need a new one too! This crappy computer crashed again!"

"Don't push, don't push, I was here first!"

The row by the window became highly sought after, with some people even standing in line behind them.

Zhao Jianjun stood behind the counter, never leaving, watching this scene, before stubbing out the cigarette he had just lit in the ashtray.

"Brother Bai," he called out.

Bai Yuhang was adjusting someone's mouse sensitivity when he heard the sound and turned around.

"Take your buddies and come out with me for some skewers. It'll be a tough night." Zhao Jianjun pointed to the remaining hundred-plus machines. "Work through the night, replace them all."

"Alright." Bai Yuhang smiled.

This night is destined to be another sleepless one.

At three in the morning, the internet cafe was still bustling with noise. Lao San and Wang Jun were so tired that they were slumped in their chairs and asleep, while Bai Yuhang was still tirelessly adjusting the last row of machines.

He straightened up, stretched his aching neck, and his gaze inadvertently swept over the corner of the internet cafe.

There sat two men in leather jackets, their computers off and they weren't asleep. Their eyes kept glancing at the server screen at the bar and at Bai Yuhang, and they would occasionally whisper something to each other.

The look in his eyes wasn't like that of a netizen who came to surf the internet; it was more like that of a cat drawn by the smell of fish.

Bai Yuhang narrowed his eyes; it seemed the commotion had spread even faster than expected.

He turned around without making a sound and continued typing, only this time with a bit more force.