Reborn not to be a beast of burden, I set the rules.

The large lecture hall was packed with students for the introductory philosophy class on Monday morning.

As usual, Xu Wei slipped over to Ye Ming's side as the bell rang and stuffed her schoolbag under the desk.

She nudged Ye Ming with her elbow, and her eyes fell on the book "Website Building from Beginner to Expert" spread out on his desk. The notebook was covered with dense architectural diagrams and crisscrossing arrows.

He completely disregarded the "cave metaphor" being taught by the professor on the podium.

Xu Wei leaned close to his ear, her breath as light as a feather.

Ye Ming felt as if a kitten was approaching his ear, but he didn't stop writing or look up.

"Ye Ming, are you giving a philosophy lesson, or secretly getting extra coding lessons?"

"Philosophy class."

Xu Wei poked at the thick book, her tone teasing: "Then how about you look at this?"

Ye Ming turned a page and added a node to the architecture diagram: "I understand everything the teacher taught."

His tone was calm yet self-assured.

Xu Wei choked for a moment, glaring at his profile: "Do you know how annoying you are? Everyone else in the class is taking notes, and you're the only one doing it differently."

Ye Ming finally looked up, his gaze sweeping over her with a smile: "Besides, aren't you the really great person here? You wouldn't refuse to let me see the notes, would you?"

Looking at his determined expression, Xu Wei's ears turned slightly red, and her slight awkwardness vanished.

She pouted and muttered, "Fine, fine, you're just being pedantic, so you're right. You're always researching this, but what have you actually come up with?"

Ye Ming paused, looking into her bright eyes, and said earnestly, "I'm still learning. I'll show it to you first when I finish it."

Anyone can make empty promises.

A simple promise made Xu Wei's heart skip a beat. Why did this guy always say things like that?

She hurriedly turned her face away, deliberately cleared her throat, and muttered softly, "That's more like it..."

After a while, Ye Ming's phone on the table lit up again.

Xu Wei leaned closer, a sly glint in her eyes: "Hey, your phone's lit up, isn't it? Judging from your expression, I bet it's a message from Su Qing, right?"

Ye Ming's pen suddenly stopped.

This Su Qing, I'm ignoring her myself, why is she still sending me messages from time to time? Does she really think she's a sounding board?

Xu Wei pressed on, asking, "Did you go back?"

Ye Ming said calmly, "No reply."

Why aren't you replying?

Why bother replying? Instead of replying to her, you might as well draw an architecture diagram.

Ye Ming put down his pen and glanced at her helplessly: "You ask so many questions."

Xu Wei burst out laughing: "Okay, okay, class monitor is annoyed with me."

She waved her hand and sat up straight, but couldn't help but smile as she muttered softly, "But you're fine the way you are."

She didn't say the second half of her sentence—it's good to ignore those messy people.

Ye Ming didn't reply, but kept his head down and continued drawing and thinking, though a smile quietly spread across his eyes.

The afternoon English class was a completely different story.

Ruan Xing, like a little sparrow, sat next to Ye Ming and chattered incessantly.

She talked about her anxiety about passing the CET-6 listening test and her plans for a National Day gathering, her eyes sparkling.

"Ye Ming, you were in the server room again yesterday, weren't you? Your dark circles are practically down to your chin! You can't possibly spend all seven days of the National Day holiday in the server room, can you?"

Ye Ming flipped through his English book and said succinctly, "Spend time in the computer lab."

Ruan Xing's eyes widened: "Are you crazy! You've spent seven days straight in the computer lab?"

She paused, then muttered softly, "But with that kind of drive, you're bound to succeed at anything you set out to do."

Just as she was about to continue complaining, Ye Ming's phone suddenly lit up.

A message popped up on the screen, with the character "Su" in the sender's name.

Ruan Xing's eyes lit up, and she leaned closer, lowering her voice: "Hey! Someone texted you! It's a girl, right? Aren't you going to reply?"

Ye Ming casually turned off the screen without even glancing at it.

Ruan Xing stuck out her tongue and blinked: "Okay, okay, student leaders are all aloof, I know. But you're... kind of cool."

She turned back to her book, but after a few seconds she couldn't help but want to speak again.

Ye Ming suddenly remembered the phone call from his past life, turned to look at her, and said seriously, "When you go out, be more careful. If someone invites you out for drinks or socializing, call me immediately if you feel something is wrong."

Ruan Xing was stunned, blinking as she looked at him, a warm feeling slowly spreading in her eyes: "Are you worried about me?"

Why would I care? We've been classmates for a long time, I just don't want anything to happen to you.

Ye Ming did not respond, but simply turned back to reading his book.

Ruan Xing stared at his profile, a warmth spreading through her heart. She nodded obediently, "I know! The class monitor is right, I'll remember!"

Thursday afternoon, in the computer science lab.

The error message on the screen had been mocking Ye Ming for over half an hour.

He repeatedly checked the grammar, compared it with his notes, and even restarted the environment.

The code stubbornly continued to report errors, like an invisible wall separating him from the world of successful operation.

Sometimes, what makes us feel most powerless is not a colossal object, but a speck of dust that is right next to us yet invisible.

He rubbed his throbbing temples.

The server room was empty, with only the low hum of the machines.

This kind of silent solitude in the face of the unknown is more agonizing than the roars of a leader in a meeting room in a past life.

Back then you knew the problem was with others; now you know the problem lies only with yourself.

Just as he was about to give up and start typing it all over again, a hand reached out from the side and gently tapped a spot on the screen with its index finger knuckle.

"There's an extra underscore here."

Ye Ming was taken aback and looked in the direction of the finger: use_rname.

That damn, invisible underline is lying there quietly.

He turned around abruptly.

A teacher wearing black-rimmed glasses stood beside him, leaning slightly forward to look at the screen.

He was wearing a gray-blue shirt with the cuffs rolled up to his forearms, and he had a clean and calm demeanor that was typical of someone who spent a lot of time in the laboratory.

It wasn't seriousness, but a calmness born from being accustomed to all sorts of mistakes.

Ye Ming quickly corrected the error and put the program running.

The error message that had been bothering him for so long disappeared.

"Thank you, teacher!" He quickly stood up.

The teacher waved his hand, gesturing for him to sit down, and then pulled a chair over from the side.

"You've been looking for a long time?"

"Um...it's been almost an hour." Ye Ming said somewhat awkwardly.

It's pathetic to only use an underscore.

"normal."

The teacher's tone was flat, making it impossible to tell whether it was meant to comfort or state a fact.

"When I first started learning, I only saw the logic I wanted to write and couldn't see the actual characters I was writing."

The eyes are there, but the hands aren't, and the heart isn't either.

In programming, the so-called "building strongholds and fighting a protracted battle" means relentlessly battling with every letter and every symbol.

Once you win the battle, the road will be open.

Ye Ming was startled. The ten words, "eyes see, hands don't, and heart doesn't follow," accurately captured his anxious and blind state just now.

"What's your name?" the teacher asked, adjusting his glasses.

"My name is Ye Ming. I'm a freshman in the School of Humanities."

The teacher nodded, his gaze returning to the screen where his code, though it had run successfully, was still quite immature.

"It's a good thing that a liberal arts student like you is willing to immerse yourself in this. You seem to have no shortage of logic and patience."

He changed the subject, his tone still calm, but with more weight.

"However, programming is not just about making machines obey, but also about making yourself and others understand it. Even if you spell 'userName' correctly, this variable name is not a good name."

Ye Ming was stunned. The name was wrong?

"userName is too vague".

The teacher casually wrote a few words in the blank space of his notebook.

Is it the login username? The displayed name? Or the full name?

In the database, it might be called login_name; on the profile page, it should be called display_name; in the form, it might just be input_name.

A vague name can turn into a hundred conflicting, vague concepts as your code grows.

The art of naming is the art of eliminating ambiguity. This is "correctness" even before grammar.

As Ye Ming looked at those words, it was as if another layer of mist had been lifted.

He was only concerned with "whether he could run" before, but the teacher was already talking about "how to run clearly and run far".

"My surname is Zhang, Zhang Bingwen, and I am the advisor of the Computer Association."

The teacher put down his pen, as if mentioning it casually.

"If you have any questions in the future, you can come and ask me. I'm usually in the department every Saturday morning."

Ye Ming suppressed his surprise and quickly thanked him.

Remembering Li Yue's reminder, he hesitated and asked, "Teacher Zhang, I'm a bit confused about how to make the front-end and back-end of the website work together more clearly."

Zhang Bingwen seemed to have been waiting for him to ask this question. Instead of answering directly, he asked, "What do you envision the website to ultimately become?"

Ye Ming took a deep breath and explained his rough ideas for the "Rebirth Simulator," including simple random events, attribute allocation, and different life paths.

Zhang Bingwen listened quietly and nodded.

"That's an interesting idea. But you can't just focus on a few scattered points like 'login' and 'display.' You need a map first."

He picked up the pen again and drew three squares on the paper, connecting them with arrows.

"Front-end is responsible for display and interaction; it's what players see and click on in the browser."

The backend is responsible for processing and judging, which involves the rules and probability calculations you set.

The database is responsible for remembering everything: the player's choices, outcomes, and status.

He clicked the arrow connecting the front and back ends.

"Here, we need to define a clear language. When the frontend sends a 'request,' it should specify what data it wants and what operation it needs to perform."

The backend sends a 'response', giving you the result or informing you of success or failure.

Don't mix the front-end and back-end logic together; that's a mess, and you won't be able to add new ingredients later.

A few words, a minimalist blueprint.

The tangled mess of "how to connect HTML to PHP" and "how to send data back and forth" that had been tangling in Ye Ming's mind was now clearly untangled by these boxes and arrows.

"Of course, this is the ideal map," Zhang Bingwen smiled. "In reality, you'll encounter pitfalls and take detours. But if you have this map in your mind, you'll know where you are even if you get lost. This is more important than learning a hundred function calls."

He stood up and looked at his watch.

"That's all for today. Remember two things: first, make sure your names are clear; second, keep your mind clear. When you get back, you can draw out the process of your simulator using this block-based approach. Don't write any code yet, just draw it out clearly first."