Reborn in 2000, starting from the university website

Su Muqing pushed open the door to Jiang Shuo's office and came in waving a still-warm international fax paper in her hand.

"Robert from the US replied, and the agreement has been faxed over." Su Muqing placed the paper on Bai Yuhang's desk. "It's thirty thousand US dollars. President Zhang has also had someone communicate with him, but this foreigner won't budge an inch. If this were converted to RMB, it could buy a small two-bedroom apartment near the Fourth Ring Road."

Bai Yuhang was looking at the report with Jiang Shuo. He glanced at the signature on the agreement, picked up a pen, signed his name without hesitation, and then handed the form to Jiang Shuo, who was checking the report on the computer screen.

"Old Eight, transfer the money."

The office was silent for a few seconds. Bai Yuhang and Su Muqing both subconsciously looked at Jiang Shuo, waiting for this "tightwad" who had once haggled with the stationery store owner for ten minutes over five cents to jump up and down, or to clutch his chest and cry out in pain.

However, Jiang Shuo simply pushed up his glasses, took the order, and glanced at the amount.

Although his lips twitched slightly, he didn't say a word and picked up the form to sign it.

"Okay, I'll get right to it." Jiang Shuo muttered as he typed, "Thirty thousand US dollars for a house number... I used to think you were crazy, but after learning from Mr. Zhang's CFO for a few days, I understand now. This is called intangible asset premium. As long as this building doesn't collapse, this domain name will be the 'land king' in this industry."

Bai Yuhang laughed and tossed him a cigarette: "Not bad, Lao Ba, your awareness is growing faster than our user base."

In the afternoon, several mahogany photo frames that Jiao Liwei had commissioned were delivered.

Bai Yuhang personally framed several printed certificates representing domain name ownership and hung them on the most prominent culture wall at the company entrance. Under the spotlight, the domain name letters seemed to be gilded.

The domains xiaonei.com, qq.com, qh.com, and yinyuetai.com—Xiaonei.com, QQ, Qihang Navigation, and Yinyuetai—are followed by facebook.com, a name that leaves everyone scratching their heads.

"Come and take a look, everyone." Bai Yuhang waved for everyone to stop what they were doing. "Don't think these few sheets of paper are cheap. In ten years, any frame you point to on this wall will be worth more than the Hailong Building right here."

Zhang Jian, munching on half an apple, leaned over and stared at facebook.com, muttering, "Facebook...? Lao Liu, what kind of weird name is that? It sounds like a wanted poster."

"Don't worry about that, you'll find out later." Bai Yuhang didn't explain, turned around and walked towards the large conference room in the meeting area. "Let's start the meeting."

This was the first company-wide strategy meeting since the establishment of Qihang Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd.

Bai Yuhang stood in front of the whiteboard, holding a marker, and drew a huge circle on it with the word "Account" written in the middle.

"Starting today, the domain name qh2000.com will be used as the company's official website, and a special section will be created on the Qihang Navigation Station." Bai Yuhang tapped the whiteboard heavily with his pen. "For the next two months, the technology department will have only one core task—to get everything working."

He looked at Zhang Xiaolong sitting on his left: "QQ needs to be completely integrated with Renren.com. New QQ registrations will directly generate a Renren.com account, and vice versa. Existing users will be forced to bind their accounts. I want users to have this one account as their pass, no matter where they go in the future. They can browse the class beauties on Renren.com with their left hand and flirt with girls on QQ with their right hand; the data flow must be seamless."

Zhang Xiaolong, who was twirling his pen, smiled and his eyes lit up when he heard this.

As a developer with a product manager mindset, what he hates most is a fragmented user experience.

"That's the right approach." Zhang Xiaolong sat up straight. "Instead of patching up the old code, let's rewrite the entire authentication system. I'll lead the team; I enjoy this job."

"President Su." Bai Yuhang turned to Su Muqing, "Now that we have this closed loop, we have more confidence. The GG price list we discussed before is void, and all list prices will be doubled."

Su Muqing raised an eyebrow, her pen pausing slightly. "Double? The current price is already quite high. If it doubles, the manufacturers we're currently negotiating with might..."

"They'll be scrambling to give us the money," Bai Yuhang interrupted her, his tone certain. "Because we're the only ones in all of China who can precisely target millions of young people. Take it or leave it, we don't need that little bit of money."

After the meeting, Bai Yuhang kept Zhang Qingheng behind.

Since returning from Northeast China, Zhang Qingheng, the seventh brother, has been learning technical skills from Zhang Jian and Zhang Xiaolong. He is diligent and conscientious in everything he does.

"Sixth Brother, what's up?" Zhang Qingheng asked, holding his laptop close to his chest.

Bai Yuhang pointed to the framed photo of facebook.com on the wall, then patted him on the shoulder: "Seventh brother, you need to study the technology carefully, but starting today, I'm giving you a deadly task."

"What kind of mission? Like going through fire and water?"

"It's harder than that." Bai Yuhang pulled a thick Oxford Advanced Learner's English-Chinese Dictionary from the drawer and threw it at him. "Practice English like crazy. I'll give you six months. I want you to be able to have fluent conversations with foreigners, and at the very least, be able to understand English contracts and dialogue texts."

Holding the dictionary like a brick, Zhang Qingheng's face turned green: "Sixth Brother, please spare me! I have trouble even speaking Mandarin with my tongue straight, let alone spoken English..."

"Don't back down yet. This Facebook is reserved for you." Bai Yuhang looked into his eyes, not joking. "In the future, we're going to make US dollars and plant our flag on the other side of the ocean. I plan to hand over that battlefield to you. Haven't you always felt that you're not as good as the third brother in terms of skills or as good at handling things as the fifth brother? This is your chance to overtake him."

Zhang Qingheng was stunned. Looking into Bai Yuhang's trusting eyes, his throat went dry. After a long pause, he nodded vigorously, clutching the dictionary tightly to his chest: "Okay, Sixth Brother, if you trust me, I'll learn! At worst, I'll practice until my tongue is tied in knots!"

After seeing off the resolute-looking seventh brother, Bai Yuhang strolled over to Wan Lianghao's workstation.

The fourth brother, Wan Lianghao, was scratching his head in front of the front-end code on the screen when he saw Bai Yuhang coming over, so he quickly offered him a chair.

"Fourth brother, you're in charge of the front-end. Just working on the webpages isn't enough." Bai Yuhang pointed to the screen. "Open a popular Flash website, flash8.net. Take a look at the examples on that site."

"This thing? Isn't it just a moving GG bar or an animated film?" Wan Lianghao asked, puzzled.

"It's not just GG," Bai Yuhang lowered his voice. "I need you to hire a few people who know Flash ActionScript. Let's try making games on the web. It doesn't need to be too big, just have a clear purpose and logical consistency, like card games or something like 'Happy Farm'. If you have any technical difficulties, come to Allen and me. This needs to be done quietly, no shooting."

Although Wan Lianghao didn't quite understand what "stealing vegetables" meant, since it was about making games, it must be much more interesting than writing static pages, so he immediately accepted the task.

As night deepened, most of the lights in the Hailong Building office building had been turned off, except for the Qihang Technology floor, which remained brightly lit.

Zhang Xiaolong and his technical team are finalizing the code merge; the sound of keyboard clicks is like a sudden downpour.

Bai Yuhang stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, watching the river of cars flowing along Zhongguancun Street outside. The neon lights were reflected in his pupils, flickering on and off.

The new architecture will go live early this morning, and the May Day Golden Week is just a few days away. 2000 will be the first period of explosive growth in domestic Internet traffic, and also the first tough battle to test the mettle of this new force.

"Boss, a cigarette."

Jiang Shuo walked over at some point, handed Bai Yuhang a cigarette, and lit it for him. "Judging from this, everyone's going to stay up all night again tonight. I just approved some late-night snack funds and ordered sixty servings of the recently popular spicy crayfish at Hu Da Restaurant in Dongcheng. The boss and his men have already set off to pick it up."

"Hey Lao Ba, you're not so sluggish with money now?" Bai Yuhang took a deep drag of his cigarette, the nicotine making his tired brain much more alert.

"Spend where you should, save where you should." Jiang Shuo looked at their reflections in the glass, adjusted his glasses, and said, "I know that if we win this battle, our company will truly have a firm foothold in Beijing. At that time, I can afford not only crayfish, but also abalone."

Bai Yuhang exhaled a smoke ring, watching the smoke slowly dissipate on the glass.

"Let the storm rage on," he whispered. "Our ship is sturdy enough."