Rebirth 2004: A lone figure in the literary world

Chapter 387 The First Person in History

"I still don't understand why I voted for "The Last Lesson" over "Harvest". Hiss~~~~!" Ma Boyong picked up a piece of tripe and stuffed it into his mouth while speaking. As a result, he grimaced because of the burn.

It was already late March, and the weather in Yanjing was gradually warming up, with the temperature at night above zero. If there was no wind, it wouldn't be too cold.

Especially the mutton slices in the copper stove hot pot!

In a courtyard house in Chaoyang District, Yanjing, the "veterans" of "Tide Culture" let their employees go home early today, leaving only Lan Ting, the editor of "Youth·Non-Fiction".

Then they moved tables and chairs, and fiddled with charcoal and copper pots, setting up such a "grand scene" in the yard.

Then some people started cutting mutton, some started preparing the sauce, some started buying charcoal... Around 6 o'clock in the evening, everyone in the courtyard started eating the hot copper pot shabu-shabu.

Speaking of which, "Tide Culture" has moved to this courtyard for more than two months, and this is the first time we have had a proper "house-warming wine".

Although there were dinners before, Zhang Chao was not there. When he was not there, I always felt that something was missing...

It was a rare occasion that he returned to Yanjing these days, so naturally everyone had to have a good meal - Ma Boyong suggested that since it was "room-warming wine", they should not go out to eat, but simply buy the ingredients and eat directly in the yard.

This proposal was unanimously agreed by others.

This courtyard was originally a club. After it was sold to Zhang Chao, some kitchen utensils were left in the storage room. There happened to be a large copper pot for hotpot, so the convenient and quick hotpot became the first choice.

Although everyone is not professional, the meat is not cut evenly, and the sauce is not as flavorful as in the restaurant, the psychological satisfaction that comes from gathering with friends, the lively atmosphere, and cooking by yourself cannot be replaced by any luxury restaurant.

It was not until the mutton on the table was cleared and the wine was drunk that Ma Boyong asked the question.

As soon as he finished speaking, everyone put down their chopsticks and pricked up their ears to listen.

Zhang Chao did not give his manuscript to his own magazine "Youth" but to "Harvest" - although it is the top pure literature magazine in the country, it is really strange.

If Zhang Chao had not taken the initiative to talk about this matter with the editors of "Youth" and showed them the manuscript of "The Last Lesson", I'm afraid even they themselves would have suspected that Zhang Chao was dissatisfied with the magazine's recent work and wanted to use this method to criticize them.

This is what everyone inside "Chao Tide Culture" thinks, not to mention the outside world's suspicions about "The Last Lesson" being actually published in "Harvest".

Zhang Chao smiled and said, "It's not as complicated as you think. I just want to try and see if I can publish my work without relying on fame in the single-article submission market. If I want to give it to Youth Party, what's the suspense?"

Xu Ruiya was still a little confused and said, "Really? I don't believe it..."

Zhang Chao's words fully explain his loneliness. A writer as famous as him can barely keep up with the commissioned works, so how can he have time for such an "incognito tour"?

Ma Boyong also said: "After the completion of "The Great Doctor", you have not serialized new novels in "Youth·Grand View". Boss, do you know that we are in great need of manuscripts?"

Zhang Chao said, "Everyone, don't stop, hurry up and eat - aren't you starting a new series? And isn't there also the second part of Liu Cixin's The Three-Body Problem? Now his novel has become a phenomenal work.

I've been surfing the Internet recently and have seen a lot of discussions about "Dark Forest", "Water Drop Battleship" and "Sophon".

Shuang Xuetao spoke up at this time: "What magazine thinks there are not enough good works? No, I have to drink three glasses of wine as punishment!"

Zhang Chao looked at Shuang Xuetao in surprise: "Why have you changed so much recently? You can even persuade people to drink!"

This one sentence made Shuang Xuetao's face turn red, and he turned back into the shy boy from Northeast China.

At this time, Li Wandong whispered something in Zhang Chao's ear. Zhang Chao burst into laughter and said after a while: "So you are in love! No wonder..."

Shuang Xuetao said embarrassedly: "She asked me to be more active... and not just sit there eating."

Zhang Chao said, "Then I have to drink this wine." He drank the slightly milky rice wine in front of him. He was determined not to drink alcohol at first, but after returning from Shilei Village, he started to drink some low-alcohol rice wine, but only with his best friends and relatives.

Although it is called rice wine, it is actually not much better than fermented glutinous rice and is not very intoxicating.

Seeing Zhang Chao finish his three cups, Ma Boyong continued, "I really think it's a pity that The Last Lesson was given to Harvest. Your short story is really well written and bold."

Zhang Chao, who drank three cups in a row, had a slightly red face. He asked with a smile, "Oh? Don't flatter me, so don't talk about the good things. Tell me why you feel bold?"

Ma Boyong said while eating hot pot, "Of course, how can a fantasy novel about the future be so closely related to reality? Everyone writes about the timeline far in the future, but your novel is so close to reality.

In a few years, the real world will catch up with the novel's timeline, and by then readers will think your 'prediction' is inaccurate and may laugh at you."

Li Wandong continued, "I've read your novel, and it's a bit exaggerated. I don't know much about literature, so I don't know if this is some kind of trick used by you writers. But how could we programmers be laid off by a company at the age of 40?"

Do you know how difficult it is to recruit a qualified programmer now? Even those green hands who have been trained in crash courses for half a year or a year and can’t even write web page code are being sought after by companies. "

Zhang Chao said somewhat dissatisfiedly: "Teacher Wan Dong, after reading this, do you have any other feelings besides this?"

Li Wandong was stunned and said, "Also...Also, you have advertised our Weibo several times, but the Weibo messaging thing... feels a bit mysterious..."

Zhang Chao asked, "Why is it so mysterious?"

Li Wandong thought for a while before saying, "Weibo Chuanxin is an instant messaging software, which I can understand. But the problem is that the instant messaging software market is dominated by QQ. Although there are some other challengers in the market, they have little hope.

Companies like MSN are about to withdraw from the Chinese market; and Sina UC has been around for five or six years but has not made any progress.

Although our Weibo has a large user base, compared with Sina and Microsoft, I can’t imagine how Weibo can do something that even giants like them can’t do.”

Zhang Chao sighed, feeling a bit disappointed with his friend.

He waved to Ma Boyong and said, "Give me your phone."

Ma Boyong handed his iPhone to Zhang Chao with a confused look on his face. Zhang Chao held the iPhone and said to Li Wandong: "Here is the opportunity!"

Seeing that Li Wandong still couldn't understand, Zhang Chao asked, "How many jailbreak apps have emerged since the iPhone system was cracked?"

Li Wandong thought for a moment and said, "About... thousands? But these vulnerabilities will soon be blocked by Apple. We still need..."

Zhang Chao said: "What if Apple launches its own 'App Market', then these jailbreak apps will have a chance to be legalized?" Zhang Chao's words hit Li Wandong's head like a thunderbolt.

As an old IT man, although he has strong technical skills, some "ideological stamps" have been deeply engraved in his mind and cannot be erased for a while.

Before the iPhone, there were so-called "smartphones" on the market - whether it was Nokia's "Symbian system", Motorola's "Linux system" equipped with JAVA technology, or even BlackBerry and Palm, they could all say that their systems were "smart".

However, these "smartphones" almost never allow users to easily install third-party applications other than the software and games that come with them.

At this time, "civilian masters" who are keen on cracking system restrictions appeared. They made various flashing packages for these "smart phones" and provided various JAVA games and software to make these phones a little "playable".

Manufacturers will also continue to patch and block loopholes when launching new mobile phones.

During the first generation of iPhone, Apple and hackers also played this cat-and-mouse game. Apple even sued one of the hackers and sent him to jail.

As someone who came from the era of flashing phones, Zhang Chao certainly knew that Li Wandong's thinking at the moment was still at the stage of "iPhone is just a big-screen, touch-screen Symbian", and he did not realize what huge changes the mobile phone market would usher in.

But this is normal. After all, let alone technical personnel like Li Wandong, even Nokia probably did not expect that its dominant position in the mobile phone industry would fall to the bottom in just five years.

Then Microsoft implanted a Trojan horse codenamed "Stephen Elop" into the company, and then it was tricked three times by the Windows Phone system, and finally had to accept the fate of being acquired by Microsoft...

Of course, this is all later. Zhang Chao first needs to make Li Wandong in front of him wake up.

If there is anything that established the future status of iPhone, it was not the 3.5-inch "giant screen", nor the silky multi-finger touch, nor the camera that was praised as the best in the world, but the App Store launched on the second-generation iPhone 3GS.

It is the launch of AppStore that has made the development of application software for mobile phones no longer a personal act driven by passion, or a B2B closed loop that can only be achieved by companies connecting with mobile phone manufacturers, but has become a big commercial pie that individuals and small studios can participate in sharing the profits.

Even in 2024, before Zhang Chao was reborn, the quality of iPhone apps was still far superior to that of Android phones.

Before that, almost no one thought that Apple would abandon the closed practice of mobile phone manufacturers and open its mobile phone system like it opens its computer system, finding a new path for millions of programmers around the world.

Zhang Chao said: "Just think about it, if Apple creates its own 'App Store' and opens up the application development interface, then the applications developed by everyone can be put on the shelves in the store like commodities.

Some applications are free, such as QQ, which is definitely free; some applications are paid, such as some games..."

Zhang Chao stopped talking for a while and returned the phone to Ma Boyong. He knew that Li Wandong would need some time to digest what he had said. After all, what he had said now had a great impact on him.

Fortunately, this generation of iPhone does not have a gyroscope and GPS chip, otherwise Li Wandong’s brain would probably have crashed if he had said “shake”.

But these are all later stories, and Zhang Chao does not expect Li Wandong to change his mind now. As the iPhone 3GS will not be released for several months, it is a good idea for "Chaoxi Culture" to do some preliminary research and development on "Weibo Chuanxin".

Of course, this name is a bit too long and needs to be condensed.

This was also a little thought he kept in his heart - "Harvest" was a bimonthly magazine, published on the 15th of every odd month.

He sent the manuscript just after the 15th, deliberately avoiding the March issue of "Harvest". At the same time, the work is a short story, so "Harvest" would definitely not make a supplement in April for this work of less than 3 words.

If it was published, it would definitely be in the May issue of "Harvest" - and the early releases of new iPhone models were all in June.

As for his new work, would it be more topical if it were published in Youth Magazine, or Harvest Magazine or any other literary magazine? The answer is self-evident.

What's more, there is the gimmick of submitting to a public mailbox instead of using influence to contact the editor directly. By then, I'm afraid it will become a hot topic again.

The "Weibo Messenger" that appears repeatedly in "The Last Lesson" and can be used for video chatting, as a wallet, and for swiping subway cards... will appear in the iPhone App Store in one month.

Although the iPhone had not yet been officially launched in China in early 2008, according to a survey by Business Week, at least 40 iPhones were running on China's operator networks.

In 2009, iPhone 3GS was officially introduced in China.

More importantly, in the second half of this year, the first generation of Android phones will also be released - the way we use mobile phones and the Internet will be completely overturned.

Even a behemoth like Penguin has been very confused in the past two years. QQ is not well adapted to this environment, and its reputation and user experience are terrible.

It took it several years to adapt to the new environment and launch a new product that revolutionized its own QQ, and it safely entered the "mobile Internet" era.

However, many Internet giants were not so lucky and failed one after another, which is quite regrettable.

Since the opportunity is right in front of him, Zhang Chao certainly doesn't mind letting his friends give it a try to see if the crowbar he provides can move the boulder of this era.

As for whether this would stimulate the Penguin to react in advance and "come from behind" with the industry-unrivaled "Sharingan", that was not something he could control.

But two things are certain:

First, after the launch of "Weibo Message", as long as the response is not too bad, the commercial value of "Tide Culture" will jump by an order of magnitude, and may reach a height that he had never thought of before.

Second, even if Penguin realized what was happening, the product it made would not be called "WeChat".

It was past 8 o'clock in the evening. Everyone had eaten and drunk enough, and the temperature began to drop. Zhang Chao put down his chopsticks, stood up and said, "It is a great pleasure to meet you today. If we meet again in the future, we can have a drink together. Let's say goodbye now."

After saying this, he flicked his sleeves lightly, and left the courtyard alone with Xiaolongnu, the Divine Condor, and...

Watching Zhang Chao's back disappear at the gate, Ma Boyong couldn't help but ask Li Wandong: "I don't quite understand what he just said. Do you think it's reliable?"

Li Wandong said: "I also thought it was unreliable at first. But the more I think about it, the more I feel there is a chance... No, I need to go back and think about it carefully."

At this time, Shuang Xuetao stood beside the two of them and said, "He really works too hard!"

Ma Boyong, Li Wandong: "Hmm?"

Shuang Xuetao looked confused and said, "Isn't it? Didn't he ask us to do this "Weibo Message" so that the prophecies in the novel would not come true? He is the first person in history to work so hard for literature and even take the initiative to intervene in the future."

(End of this chapter)