The Red Era: Living in Seclusion in a Siheyuan as a Boss

Chapter 820 Come on, let's steal some vegetables!!!

Faced with strong competition from 5Q.com, Wang Xing paced back and forth in his office late at night.

Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the neon lights of the Liujiazhuang High-tech Zone Information Industry Park were blurred into spots of light in the rain.

He suddenly stopped, grabbed a marker, and wrote "Three Strategies to Break the Stalemate" on the whiteboard: open alumni registration, launch a campus ambassador program, and initiate support for content creators.

With the backing of "Jingxi Capital", "Xiaonei.com" began to expand more rapidly. At this time, student users alone could no longer satisfy Wang Xing's ambition. Soon after, he announced that "Xiaonei.com" would be renamed "Renren.com" and that registration would be open to all netizens.

It's hard to say whether this decision is right or wrong, but from the current perspective, relying solely on the future imagination of college student users is too limited.

Meanwhile, Facebook, which "Xiaonei.com" drew inspiration from, also chose to relax registration restrictions, so choosing a safe follower strategy is not a major mistake.

The benefits of open registration were obvious. Soon after the name change, "Renren.com" had over 5 million registered users and a daily active user base of 3500 million.

The successful Renren.com chose to go public on the New York Stock Exchange a few years later. Renren.com, known as the "Facebook of Tokyo University", once had a market value of more than 8 billion US dollars, surpassing a number of Internet giants such as Net1 and NewWolf, and became the third highest Internet company in terms of market value, second only to Baidu and Tencent (Ali was not yet listed at that time).

After changing its name to "Renren.com", it quickly entered a period of rapid growth.

In the era before short videos, the most popular social networking site on campus was called "Renren".

Renren.com acted as a bond, connecting high school, university, and even junior high and elementary school classmates. Whenever they met a new classmate or found an old classmate, they would follow each other on Renren.com, just like WeChat later did.

In short, the most fashionable way to make friends online at this time was to add each other as friends on Renren.com.

Another factor that made Renren.com so popular was playing the "Farm Game" on the platform.

Farm Game quickly became a hit across the internet after it was launched on Renren.com.

This game is very simple to play.

Growing vegetables: Buy seeds, plant them in the soil, and water, weed, and kill pests regularly.

Steal crops: Go to your friend's farm to "steal" mature crops; your friend can also steal from you.

Upgrade: Earn coins to buy higher-level seeds, decorate your farm, and unlock new land.

Setting an alarm clock, getting up in the middle of the night, and "stealing vegetables" in the middle of the night... This is the once-popular "vegetable stealing trilogy".

To prevent their crops from being stolen, players will actually set alarms to log in on time to feed their dogs. Some extreme players will even record the harvest time of their friends' crops, just to steal their crops before their friends log on. Some friends will even use whether or not someone steals their crops to prove whether their friendship is genuine.

And all of this is the charm of "stealing vegetables"—the interactive gameplay of this game truly embodies the meaning of social games.

This has driven everyone from the elderly to elementary school students to go crazy for it.

With the popularity of "Happy Farm", a large number of parody quotes appeared online.

Xu Zhimo: Gently, I stole, just as gently as I came, gently clicking the mouse, not letting a single fruit slip by.

Cao Xueqin: I got up in the middle of the night just to steal your vegetables, a bunch of absurd words on the ground, a handful of bitter tears.

Beethoven: I will strangle the vegetable thief.

Edison: The success of a vegetable thief = 99% speed and 1% patience.

Nokia: The key to success in online farming is defense.

Supreme Treasure: There was once a field of ripe vegetables in front of me, but I didn't pick them up (my computer was too slow). I only regretted it when they were stolen. There is nothing more painful in the world than this.

If God could give me another chance, I would say three words to that vegetable thief: "Go to hell!"

Wang Shuo: When we go to steal vegetables, it's all about speed. After all, it's really fun to steal them, even if it's just for a quick thrill and then we die.

Wei Hui: I'm a farmer, I'm not afraid of anyone, brazenly stealing your vegetables.

Qiong Yao: There is a girl from a wealthy family who loves to grow vegetables. A promising young man in her father's company falls in love with her, but she falls in love with a married man who steals her vegetables. Thus, a story about property, love, friendship and vegetable garden unfolds.

Fan Zhongyan: Stealing vegetables is good. Every little bit of grain we steal is a little bit of grain. Our country is not rich yet. We should be the first to worry about the world's troubles and the last to enjoy its pleasures.

Yue Fei: Everyone should steal vegetables early, otherwise who will you steal from if you wait too long? Don't waste your youth and regret it later!
Dante: Steal other people's vegetables and let them grow them.

Lu Xun: I stole two vegetables, one was a radish, and the other was also a radish.

Napoleon: The words "cannot be stolen" do not exist in my dictionary.

……

Did you steal any vegetables today?

Li Fang, a sophomore in college, is a loyal fan of "Happy Farm". She sets an alarm on her phone every day and gets up in the middle of the night to "steal vegetables" without fail, rain or shine.

Li Fang's roommate, Zhang Ting, initially scoffed at this behavior, thinking it was simply absurd to get up in the middle of the night to play games.

But one night, when she groggily got up to go to the bathroom, she found Li Fang excitedly clicking the mouse in front of the computer screen. The colorful farm crops on the screen looked particularly tempting under the moonlight.

The next day, Zhang Ting also secretly registered an account, and from then on, the constant sound of alarm clocks in the dormitory became the norm.

Zhang Xiaoyan, an 18-year-old freshman, is also obsessed with "stealing vegetables" (a virtual vegetable game). She loves growing tomatoes and pumpkins because they are her favorite foods.

The dormitory life has also been made much happier by Happy Farm. "If I can't get back to the dormitory to steal vegetables, I'll ask my roommates to help me. If I can't remember which farmer's vegetables are ripe, I'll write them down in a notebook."

One day, Zhang Xiaoyan was going to Hong Kong for a trip. Because it was inconvenient to access the internet, she couldn't harvest vegetables from her farm, which made her very anxious.

In order to harvest the crops, Zhang Xiaoyan made three international calls in a row before finding someone to help her harvest them; otherwise, her classmates would definitely have stolen them all.

One summer evening, a chilly wind was blowing inside, but the class's QQ group was buzzing with activity. You said, "So-and-so, it's time to harvest your vegetables!"

He said, "So-and-so, how many of these did I steal from you?"

With the addition of multiple screenshots, Wang Dapeng, the user of the barbed wire fence, was immediately paralyzed. His Little Tyrant game console collapsed under the weight of those images, unable to restart.

Curiosity killed the cat, and Wang Dapeng thus stumbled into this deep pit, sinking in and unable to get out.

When Wang Dapeng joined the seemingly simple Happy Farm game on Renren.com, he discovered that he was really out of touch; he was ranked 53rd!
He has 55 friends.

From then on, days of jealousy and rivalry began!
In the first few days, Wang Dapeng was an honest and kind farmer. Although he did not collect vegetables at fixed times, he would go up to collect vegetables twice a day, feeling that losing a few vegetables did not matter.

Until one day, a greedy best friend of mine...

As the saying goes, everyone can run a farm, happily build a garden, secretly improve their health, and make life more wonderful.

The popularity of Renren.com's "Happy Farm" has even spawned a group of "professional vegetable thieves".

Wang Lei, a senior computer science student at a prestigious 985 university, developed an automated online farming script and sold it on the campus forum for 5 yuan per copy. He earned enough for a month's living expenses in just one week.

The cafeteria ladies no longer greet each other with "Have you eaten?" but instead chat about whose pumpkins are ripe in their gardens.

"The game 'Happy Farm' has influenced Guangzhou teenagers to steal vegetables and then be punished by planting more vegetables."

Shunde, November 15 (China News Service) -- "Influenced by the online game 'Happy Farm,' several teenagers from Guangdong Province were punished by being forced to plant vegetables after stealing vegetables at a nearby tourist resort farm."

According to the person in charge of Changlu Leisure Resort Farm in Shunde, Guangdong Province, recently, many vegetable plots in the farm have been robbed by "online farmers," leaving them in ruins. Today, the farm's security personnel caught several 10- to 15-year-old "vegetable thieves" and punished them by making them grow vegetables on the farm. The "online little farmers" experienced the real joy of growing vegetables.

A vegetable farmer at Changlu Farm pointed to several plots of land near the roadside and told reporters that this was a "severely affected area".

In recent days, several vegetable plots in the farm have been repeatedly targeted by vegetable thieves. Some green vegetables and ripe fruits have been stolen, leaving only old vegetable heads and leaf stems without fruits in the plots, which have been trampled into a mess.

According to the vegetable farmer, the three teenagers who were stealing vegetables were caught by security personnel this afternoon when they came in again to steal vegetables.

It is understood that the teenagers who "steal vegetables" were influenced by online farming games and applied the virtual online farming game to their real lives.

To give the three boys a real experience of growing vegetables, the staff punished them by making each of them plant five rows of vegetables.

It is understood that the three teenagers live in the city of Guangdong Province and came to Changlu Farm in Shunde with their families for tourism.

They usually enjoy playing the game "Happy Farm" online.

Today, I came to Changlu Farm in Shunde with my parents. When I saw a lush green vegetable field, I couldn't resist my curiosity and took a few plastic bags to pick vegetables.

Xiaoyu, the boy who "stole vegetables," said, "We just wanted to experience the process of stealing vegetables in real life."

Growing vegetables online is easy, exciting, and fun, but growing vegetables in real life is very tiring. I didn't realize it was so hard and required so many procedures. I'll never steal other people's hard-earned produce again.

On this day, this news on the internet made people both laugh and cry, and it also made the "Renren" social networking site an instant hit across the entire internet.

This also made "Happy Farm" a huge hit.

The once wildly popular "Happy Farm" game fostered a habit of "stealing vegetables" among many people, and savvy businesses have also brought the game's scenes into reality.

Around 4 p.m., in a vegetable market near Changle Road in Qinhuai District, Jinling City, vendor Gao grabbed a man named Zhao and went to Bailuzhou Police Station to report the incident.

Mr. Gao pointed out that his stall often ordered fewer dishes during this period, and he had also paid attention to it.

At 3:50 p.m. that day, a stylishly dressed man appeared at the market and, taking advantage of the crowd, quietly took away cucumbers, tomatoes, and other vegetables. Gao then grabbed the stylish man.

The police officers observed that Zhao was in his early thirties, dressed fashionably and neatly, and did not seem like someone who would steal vegetables for petty gains.

Faced with the stall owner Gao's irrefutable accusation, Zhao was speechless and admitted that he had indeed stolen the stall owner's vegetables.

To find out what happened, the police quickly found the surveillance footage from the market.

To the surprise of the police and the stall owner, the surveillance footage showed that Zhao had been stealing vegetables every day for a week before the video recording began.

Zhao confessed that he had stolen vegetables more than 20 times, but each time he only took a few scallions or a section of lotus root, which were all very small amounts.

It took the police a long conversation with Zhao before he finally opened up.

It turns out that Zhao had been playing the game "Happy Farm" on Renren.com recently and was really enjoying the feeling of stealing vegetables.

Zhao found "stealing" his friend's vegetables very exciting and used it to relieve stress.

One day, by chance, he passed by the market and suddenly had the idea of ​​stealing vegetables in real life.

So Zhao secretly took a bundle of vegetables from the stall owner, Gao, who was busy with his business and didn't notice.

From then on, Zhao felt that he had become addicted to the game in real life, and his habit of stealing vegetables became unstoppable.

"I just felt more satisfied taking some food. There wasn't enough food for me, and it was useless. It just made me feel better," Zhao told the police in the mediation room of the police station.

Zhao's explanation left the police speechless. Considering the low value of the vegetables Zhao stole, the police gave Zhao a serious reprimand and mediated between Zhao and the stall owner, Gao.

Zhao voluntarily compensated the stall owner, Gao, with 2000 yuan and apologized to Gao.

Before leaving, the police reminded Zhao that he might have psychological problems and that he could seek further consultation and treatment from a psychologist.

Mr. Zhao accepted the police officer's advice and said he would see a doctor soon.

Happy Farm was originally developed by a team called Five Minutes.

Wang Xing had a keen eye and realized that although the game was simple, it perfectly matched the social attributes of Renren.com.

Renren.com immediately acquired the Five Minutes team.

A game called "Happy Farm" was launched on Renren.com and quickly became a hit across the internet, attracting tens of millions of players.

Some people even lose sleep over this, and some deliberately set alarms to get up in the early morning to harvest their crops in order to prevent others from stealing them.

Professor Wang, a psychology professor at a prestigious 211 university, remarked during a class analysis of this phenomenon: "This is not just a game, but also fills the spiritual need of modern urban dwellers who yearn for a pastoral life."

The "vegetable stealing craze" can be described as a spectacle in the history of Southeast University's internet.

Data shows that "Happy Farm" has more than 1600 million daily active users, and a company in Nanjing even issued a special "Regulations on Punishing Employees for Stealing Vegetables".

Behind this nationwide frenzy lies a collective "nature deficit disorder" brought about by rapid urbanization—when people are confined in a forest of reinforced concrete, virtual farms become an outlet for emotional catharsis.

Xiao Lin, a white-collar worker in Yanjing: "I usually work overtime until the early hours of the morning. I can only sleep peacefully after stealing my colleagues' vegetables. Even though I know it's fake, the moment of harvesting is particularly healing."

The shift from "stealing" to "planting" reflects the trajectory of this generation's psychological maturation.

Psychological research shows that middle-aged people crave a greater sense of control over their lives.

When career advancement hits a bottleneck or the pressure of children's education increases, gardening, an activity that allows for "visible growth," provides a rare sense of certainty.

A survey conducted by Yenching Normal University showed that among people involved in urban agriculture, 78% said that "watching the seeds germinate is more fulfilling than completing KPIs."

Xue Daoming, a psychological counselor in Yangzhou, found that among her clients, players of the game "Happy Farm" experienced particularly significant relief from anxiety through farming.

At that time, what netizens did not know was that the game "Happy Farm" seemed simple, but it had an exceptionally long lifespan, remaining active on the internet for more than a decade before being defeated by WeChat's social mini-programs.

This cycle of agricultural sentiment, which has lasted for more than a decade, reveals the spiritual paradox in the urbanization process of Tokyo University.

We desperately flee our rural homes to come to the city, only to rebuild our connection with the land in the urban jungle.

At the rooftop farm in the Information Technology Park of Liujiazhuang, there is an interesting sign: "Stealing vegetables is not welcome here, but you are welcome to grow your own."

At the same time, Renren.com's campus ambassador program is also gaining popularity in universities.

The most active "internet celebrity students" in every school are vying to apply for this identity. They organize offline events, promote new features, and the exclusive badges they receive shine brightly on their personal homepages.

Zhou Ming, a third-year student who won the title of "Best Campus Ambassador" in Yenching University's annual campus personality selection, even received internship offers from several internet companies as a result.

With the surge in users, Renren's servers frequently crashed during peak evening hours.

The technical team had to work in shifts 24 hours a day, and the coffee cup of the operations manager, Lao Chen, always had a strong Americano aroma.

But whenever he sees the constantly updated number of people in the background, a smile of satisfaction appears at the corner of his eyes.

In this golden age of the internet, Renren.com is writing its own legend.

(End of this chapter)