Reborn in 2000, starting from the university website

On the sixteenth floor of Hailong Building, a small conference room had an A4 sheet of paper with the words "No Trespassing" pasted on its glass door.

Inside, Bai Yuhang and Zhang Qingheng had been in seclusion for two days.

The whiteboard was covered with various modules and arrows. Bai Yuhang casually tapped a few keywords on the blackboard: SNS, UGC, information flow, strong relationship chain.

These core concepts of Web 2.0, which would not have truly taken off until 2005, were being relentlessly instilled into Zhang Qingheng's mind at this moment.

"Sixth Brother, according to your logic, this website isn't about us providing content, but about letting users produce content themselves?" Zhang Qingheng stared at the brand-new database structure on the whiteboard, his jaw almost dropping.

"Right." Bai Yuhang typed a line of anti-scraping security code on the keyboard. "This is called an ecosystem. We only build the platform; the users perform the show themselves. As long as the relationship chain is locked, this platform will never collapse."

Zhang Qingheng's pen flew across the notebook as he jotted down notes.

He felt that this was not like any other website currently on the market, but rather a digital ecosystem with self-replicating capabilities.

He looked at Bai Yuhang as if he were looking at a monster.

This isn't writing code, it's writing gibberish.

On the third day at noon, there was a knock on the door.

"Sixth brother, seventh brother, dinner's ready!" Zhang Jian's voice rang out from outside the door.

Bai Yuhang didn't even look up: "Put it by the door."

The door was pushed open a crack. Zhang Jian, carrying two boxes of Kung Pao Chicken, sneaked in furtively. "Have something hot to eat. Lao Ba blew up a lot today, added chicken legs..."

Before he could finish speaking, Zhang Jian's gaze inadvertently swept over the screen in front of Bai Yuhang.

On the screen, a piece of test code for a "dynamic timeline (News Feed)" is running. Simulated user updates are refreshing in real time in an extremely smooth and resource-efficient manner, like a waterfall.

Zhang Jian loosened his grip, and with a "thud," the two lunch boxes slammed onto the conference table, splashing soup all over his wrist.

"Sixth Brother, what the hell are you typing... Holy crap!" Zhang Jian's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets, his mouth twitching as he frantically shoved the projector screen in front of him. "This data stream push method, why isn't there even a refresh action? Did you cut out database polling?"

Zhang Jian's shout immediately attracted the attention of people in the outer office area. He then picked up Bai Yuhang's mouse and started flipping through the code.

Zhang Xiaolong walked in front, carrying a water cup, with Liu Zhi following closely behind.

"What's wrong?" Zhang Xiaolong leaned closer, and his gaze froze the moment it fell on the curtain. His usually expressionless face suddenly flashed with a fanatical light.

"The asynchronous interaction logic has been refactored." Zhang Xiaolong stared at the few dozen lines of minimalist code that flashed by, not even bothering to put down his water glass. "This is even more impressive than the data compression and distribution model you wrote before. You're going to directly transfer the server's load to the front-end browser's cache?"

Liu Zhi, watching from behind, swallowed hard: "And this security isolation architecture... it's amazing. Data packets are automatically sliced, encrypted, and distributed during transmission. Who could possibly intercept those packets?"

In less than ten minutes, this small conference room with the sign "No Trespassing" was completely transformed into a pilgrimage site for the Qihang Technology Department.

A group of technical backbones from top tech companies, disregarding everything else, crowded outside the conference room, listening to the exclamations of the managers inside, collectively worshipping Bai Yuhang's code art that seemed to defy all odds.

Zhang Jian got up and bent over to clean up the lunchboxes, muttering as he wiped them: "President Bai, what kind of alien technology is in your brain? Old Liu, from now on, don't call him 'boss,' call him 'Grandmaster.'"

While a group of tech enthusiasts were worshipping code inside the Hailong Building, a few kilometers away near Tsinghua University, in room 805 of building 13 in Huaqing Jiayuan, the atmosphere was so oppressive that it was hard to breathe.

Wang Xing sat in front of his computer, the screen displaying the interface between HaiNei.com and QQ.

He scratched his hair in frustration and slammed the mouse he was holding onto the table.

"It's unplayable." Wang Xing stared at the Qihang community closed loop on the screen, which was far ahead in China and had extremely high user stickiness, with a furrowed brow.

He had just conceived an idea for real-life social networking on campus, and was planning to gather a few classmates to put it to the test before graduation. But now, to his horror, he discovered that before he even had a chance to write a single line of code, Qihang Technology had completely blocked that path. They had even iterated on features he hadn't considered, releasing two versions already.

How can we fight like this?

Meanwhile, in the United States, far across the ocean, some people are also suffering from sleepless nights.

ChinaRen founder Chen Yizhou sat in his Silicon Valley apartment, holding a deep analysis report on Qihang Technology that had just been sent from China by its major investor, Sohu.

Looking at the terrifyingly vertical user growth curve on the report, Chen Yizhou broke out in a cold sweat.

His proud ChinaRen community, compared to the behemoth that is Qihang, is like a child still playing in the mud.

"Have you had anyone test their underlying code?" Chen Yizhou turned to ask his technical partner.

The partner shook his head with a wry smile: "We tried. Several top hacker forums in China took the job, wanting to probe their defenses. But we were all blocked. They have a brand-new, robust underlying security system, practically impenetrable. We couldn't even find a backdoor."

Chen Yizhou slumped back in his chair, dejected. He realized that an unshakeable unicorn had emerged in the domestic social media landscape.

Bai Yuhang not only blocked the path of social networking on domestic campuses, but is even redefining the new rules of the entire domestic Internet.

Hailong Building, small conference room.

Bai Yuhang typed the last line of code for Facebook's core architecture and pressed the save button.

He stretched and rubbed his sore eyes. Beside him, Zhang Qingheng had already fallen asleep in his chair, clutching a notebook full of notes, muttering English variable names.

The Nokia phone on the table vibrated.

Bai Yuhang glanced at the caller ID and answered the phone.

"Yuhang, did I disturb your seclusion?" Zhang Lei's voice came through the receiver, revealing undisguised excitement.

"Just finished the framework, the last line of code. Mr. Zhang, any news?"

"I've made progress on the 'white glove' for the CEO of the North American region of the international station that you asked me to find." Zhang Lei smiled. "This girl is a ruthless character from a prestigious university and Wall Street. Her resume is perfect, her methods are vicious, and she has extensive connections in the US. She's an absolute master at dealing with politicians and capitalists."

"Sounds good." Bai Yuhang picked up the half-empty bottle of mineral water on the table and took a sip.

"However..." Zhang Lei's tone shifted, becoming somewhat playful, "This 'vicious dog' has a big appetite. She wants more than just a high salary; she also wants stock options. It remains to be seen whether you, Boss Bai, have the guts to keep her in check."

Bai Yuhang put down the water bottle, his gaze falling on the flashing Facebook source code on the screen, a cold smile curling at the corner of his mouth.

"Let her name her price. I want to see just how sharp the teeth are from across the ocean."