Reborn in 2000, starting from the university website

These guys, who are usually too lazy to even wash their socks in the dorm and would save them up for a week before washing them, were now unpacking boxes as quickly and efficiently as if they were opening blind box gifts.

The rows of cardboard boxes stacked against the wall were cut open to reveal the black, matte machine bodies inside.

Zhang Jian hugged an unopened IBM NetVista host, rubbed his face against the cool chassis, and looked at it with more affection than if he had seen his own father.

"Holy crap! Another Pentium III chip! This graphics card... this memory..." Zhang Jian muttered the specs while turning back to shout at Wan Lianghao, "Fourth brother! Stop touching the tables and chairs, come and see, this is real manly romance! This thing's compilation speed is off the charts!"

Wan Lianghao pushed up his glasses and was squatting on the ground studying the adjustment lever of the Herman Miller chair. Hearing this, he pouted and said, "What's wrong with the chair? Lao Liu said that for us technicians, the back is the most important thing. This is called 'If you want to do a good job, you must first have the right tools.'" Although he said that, he had already honestly rushed to the computer case and was happily laughing with Zhang Jian, each holding a Philips 21-inch LCD monitor.

Although Jiang Shuo was reluctant to spend the money, he couldn't resist touching the top-of-the-line equipment in the room.

He carefully placed the keyboard on the table, even wiping away non-existent dust with his sleeve, muttering to himself, "This set must cost over 20,000 yuan... If anyone dares to eat instant noodles on this keyboard from now on, I'll fight them."

"Alright, stop focusing on how beautiful it is." Bai Yuhang stood in the center of the office area, clapped his hands, and said, "Let's divide up the territory first."

The 360-square-meter apartment is practically a football field compared to the cramped dorm room 206 where you have to turn sideways to even turn around.

The best-lit, most open-view, 40-square-meter private office facing south naturally belonged to Bai Yuhang.

No one objected, after all, Lao Liu was the one who started this whole thing, and as the captain, he needed a proper helmsman's seat.

Next to it is Su Muqing's office. Although she hasn't officially moved in yet, everyone knows that it's reserved for the boss's wife... oh no, for a very important partner.

Zhang Jian, as the technical director, and Jiang Shuo, as the accountant, each got a single room. There were four other single rooms vacant, and the remaining 200-square-meter open space became the brothers' office space.

Jiao Liwei quickly assumed the role of "head housekeeper," rolled up his sleeves, and began giving orders: "Fourth brother, seventh brother, you two are skinny, crawl under the table and lay the cables. I've labeled all the network cables, so don't plug them in haphazardly. Fifth brother, stop looking in the mirror at your hair, go and clear out that pile of cardboard boxes and stack them at the freight elevator entrance, so they don't block the way."

"Okay!" Liu Jing replied, his face full of smiles even though it was hard work.

Wan Lianghao and Zhang Qingheng didn't hesitate either. Each of them held a pair of network cable pliers and darted in and out of the brand-new desk like two groundhogs.

"Seventh Brother, hand me your end! Don't pull it forcefully, it's stuck!"

"Fourth Brother, this crystal head seems a bit loose. Let me press it again."

With a crisp "click, click" as the RJ45 connector clicked into the port, the indicator lights on the router began to flash wildly in rows, the green lights forming a continuous line, like the heartbeat of this office.

While everyone was busy, Jiao Liwei wiped his sweat and walked to the French windows.

Bai Yuhang was standing there smoking, looking down at the swarm of people below like ants.

Jiao Liwei took out a Hongmei cigarette, and Bai Yuhang lit it for him.

"Sixth Brother." Jiao Liwei took a deep breath, the smoke he exhaled hitting the glass and dissipating. "It's like a dream. Just two days ago we were arguing with a bunch of internet cafe owners in Harbin, and today we're standing here looking at Zhongguancun."

"You're already dizzy?" Bai Yuhang chuckled. "We've only just entered."

"I'm not dizzy, I'm worried about these guys getting dizzy." Jiao Liwei glanced back at Wan Lianghao and Liu Jing, who were vying for the window seat, and lowered his voice, "These guys used to be so undisciplined, but now they've really become a regular army, and they have to manage millions of yuan in funds and business. I'm afraid they'll get arrogant."

"So we still need you as the boss to keep things in check." Bai Yuhang flicked his cigarette ash. "I'm in charge of stepping on the gas, and you're in charge of keeping an eye on the brakes so the car doesn't fall apart. Especially Lao Ba, even though he's in charge of the money, you have to keep a close eye on him and make sure he's not too stingy. Money that should be spent must be spent, and you can't let him approve even a single penny that shouldn't be spent."

Jiao Liwei nodded emphatically, his eyes flashing with ruthlessness: "Don't worry, if anyone dares to mess up at this critical juncture, I'll cripple them without you even having to say a word."

After finishing his cigarette, Jiao Liwei stubbed it out in the makeshift paper cup ashtray, turned around, and yelled into the room, "Get the hell out of here! Once you're done, Lao Liu's treating! Hot pot downstairs! All you can eat!"

"Awooo—!"

The room erupted in howls of wolves, and the speed of work visibly tripled. Zhang Jian even turned on all the floor outlets to speed up the wiring and connection process, working until his hands cramped up, all in order to get meat sooner.

Half an hour later, the entire company's network was working again.

Zhang Jian eagerly pressed the power button on his new computer.

The IBM boot screen flashed by, and then the Windows 2000 blue sky and white clouds desktop lit up.

As the yellow-green network cable interface light began to flash wildly, Zhang Jian wiped his hands on his pants before solemnly placing them on the two-thousand-yuan IBM mechanical keyboard in front of him.

"Sixth Brother, this feels even smoother than touching a girl's hand, right?" Zhang Jian exclaimed as he pulled out a server IP address and root access key that Pony Ma had personally written and given to Bai Yuhang.

The note was crumpled and stained with sweat, from when I moved the computer case earlier.

Jiang Shuo pushed up his glasses, stood behind and stared intently at the screen, muttering to himself, "Touching it once costs two thousand yuan, knocking it once costs two million four hundred and eighty thousand. Third brother, keep your hand steady, don't knock all the money away."

"Shut up, or I'll kick you out of the finance office," Zhang Jian cursed, his fingers flying across the keyboard.

Instead of the familiar OICQ login box, a black-and-green remote terminal interface appeared on the screen. As the last command was typed, the Enter key clicked crisply.

There were no explosive special effects as expected; instead, the screen was instantly filled with a waterfall of scrolling code.

"Beep beep beep—"

A series of sharp, familiar notification sounds suddenly rang out in the spacious 300-square-meter office. But the sound didn't come from someone's friend coming online; it came from the backend monitoring system—a server overload warning beeping.

Zhang Jian stared at the rapidly changing data streams on the screen, his eyes practically glued to the monitor.

"Holy crap..." Zhang Jian's Adam's apple bobbed, his voice trembling, "Sixth Brother, look! This isn't chat history, this is... this is God's-eye view!"

On the screen, connection requests from over 500,000 OICQ users online simultaneously across the country flowed like a tide from his fingertips. He casually typed a line of code and brought up the user database.

The account ranked first was none other than the super administrator account with ID number 10001.

"This is Pony Ma's account." Zhang Jian pointed to the lit-up avatar, then turned to Bai Yuhang, his expression a mix of laughter and tears. "Sixth Brother, now I can just press enter and kick Pony Ma offline, and even change his password to 'I'm a Pig' on the side. This feeling... is fucking awesome!"

Bai Yuhang leaned against the table, lit a cigarette, and looked at the penguin on the screen that originally belonged to Shenzhen but now belonged to this office.

"Don't touch him. He's our technical advisor, let's give him some face." Bai Yuhang exhaled a puff of smoke and pointed to the real-time online number in the lower right corner of the screen. "See this number? That's the number we bought for over two million. From now on, we'll decide what these 500,000 people talk about and watch."

Jiang Shuo leaned over for a look and saw only a dense array of numbers, but he understood that the number of "online users" was constantly increasing.

"These...these are all living people?" Jiang Shuo swallowed hard. "If I gave each of them a dollar..."

"You've got potential." Bai Yuhang chuckled and patted Jiang Shuo's head. "They'll give you more than just one yuan in the future."

Zhang Jian slapped his thigh, forgetting all about IBM, and excitedly jumped up from his chair: "This is real sovereignty! Before, we were tenants renting a house; now we're landlords! This penguin will have to obey our Northeastern dialect from now on!"

In the office, the constant "beep beep beep" of the buzzing still echoed, like the cannons of a new king's coronation. Although noisy, to the people at Qihang Technology, it was the sound of gold coins falling into their pockets.