Reborn in 2000, starting from the university website

The snoring in the private rooms of the New Century Internet Cafe rose and fell like a symphony. Zhang Jian leaned back in his chair, mouth agape, drool dripping from the corner of his mouth onto his collar, his hands still gripping the keyboard tightly, as if he were typing in his sleep.

Bai Yuhang wasn't asleep. He rubbed his sore eyes, lit a cigarette, and re-examined the website on the screen that had driven college students across the country crazy.

Enter the URL of Qihang Navigation into your browser's address bar and press Enter. The page loads instantly.

The Qihang Navigation website is now richer in information, no longer just a simple navigation site, but a display of links and information flow. News, email, chat rooms, and games are "links" prepared for ordinary netizens who don't know what to do online; while the eye-catching "Qihang Selected" section in the center of the screen, directly below the search box, is the "hook" that Bai Yuhang and the Qihang Technology team have planted.

Qihang Music Station, Qihang Campus Network, Qihang Weather, Qihang Stocks, Qihang Perpetual Calendar...

Bai Yuhang clicked to enter the music station.

There are no fancy Flash animations or banners here, just simple and straightforward charts. This week's hottest charts, monthly top hits charts, charts from Hong Kong/Taiwan, Mainland China, Europe and America, and more.

The data scraping script runs day and night in the background, moving MP3 resources that can be found on the Internet into its own server as cache sources like moving hamsters.

In 2000, internet speeds were indeed slow. Instead of waiting for buffering time elsewhere and experiencing buffering issues, users preferred to download directly from Qihang.

According to the data, Renren.com and the music site are browsed together, indicating that users are more accustomed to browsing information on Renren.com while listening to music on the music site.

He then opened the school's intranet.

The blue and white UI stood out refreshingly in the smoky internet cafe. A simple logo was in the upper left corner, and the login box was on the right. The slogans in the middle—"Go to Renren, find classmates," "Find old classmates, make new friends," and "Record life with photos and diaries"—were simple, even a bit rudimentary, but that was exactly the effect Bai Yuhang wanted.

The current registration requirements for the campus network are very strict: you must have an IP address from a university that has already opened the network, or an email address from the education network, or a dedicated channel from an internet cafe that has signed a contract with Qihang.

This "even somewhat arrogant" threshold has ironically become a symbol of a certain status. Those who can register are "insiders"; those who can't are "outsiders," making the campus network's authentication registration a highly sought-after and scarce resource.

Once logged in, the homepage displays a feed of friends' activities, which is essentially a real-time "fresh news" feed covering the entire site. It's clear at a glance who changed their profile picture, who posted a blog entry, or who complained about the cafeteria food on the class message board.

In the era of Web 1.0, for netizens accustomed to browsing single information pages on portal websites, seeing such an interactive information page was an absolute game-changer.

Users can also click the heart icon at the bottom of each news feed to mark it as "like". Countless users spend their time scrolling down the page to refresh for new content, just to find the information they are interested in and click the "like" button.

Bai Yuhang clicked the mouse a few times, but his brows furrowed.

The hierarchy is too deep.

The current structure is "..." and "...". Users have to remember the starting navigation and then find the sub-entry points, which artificially creates obstacles for the current traffic distribution.

If you're going to build a matrix or a network of websites, you need to lay a solid foundation.

Bai Yuhang quickly opened Wanwang's domain name lookup page. His fingers typed on the keyboard: xiaonei.com.

Not registered.

He then typed: yinyuetai.com.

Not registered.

Bai Yuhang's lips curled into a smile. In 2000, the internet was still a wilderness, full of untapped gold. These two domain names, which would be priceless in the future, were now like pebbles on the roadside, unwanted and ignored.

"Get up and get to work." Bai Yuhang kicked Zhang Jian's chair leg.

"Huh? Who? Who's cheating?" Zhang Jian suddenly woke up, dropping the sausage in his hand to the ground, where it rolled twice and got covered in dust.

"We're not cheating, we're expanding our territory." Bai Yuhang turned the monitor around. "Third brother, fourth brother, wake up. The current subdirectories aren't good enough; they make us look like a makeshift operation. I'm going to separate the campus network and the music site, and create subdomains: music.qh2000.com and xiaonei.qh2000.com. Also, I need to register two more independent domains."

Wan Lianghao rubbed his sleepy eyes and pushed up his glasses: "Sixth Brother, what are you doing messing around with domain names in the middle of the night? The current ones are working fine, aren't they?"

"It works now, but it won't work once we have a million users." Bai Yuhang pointed at the screen. "We need to build brand awareness among users. Xiaonei is Xiaonei, not an accessory to the navigation. Lao Ba, wake up, keep track of the expenses, and get ready to spend money."

Jiang Shuo, who had been sleeping soundly in the corner, sat up abruptly as if he had come back to life upon hearing the words "pay up," instinctively clutching the account book in his arms: "Pay up what money? Didn't we transfer 20,000 to the telecom company tomorrow? There's really not much left in the account!"

"Buying domain names won't cost much." Bai Yuhang couldn't help but laugh at Jiang Shuo's miserly appearance. "Two top-level domain names, it's only two hundred yuan. But those two hundred yuan could potentially bring back an immeasurable brand premium in the future."

"Two hundred yuan is still money..." Jiang Shuo muttered, but still obediently opened the ledger and began calculating by the light of the screen. "Could I skip the egg for breakfast?"

"Fine, save your eggs for the domain name." Zhang Jian gloated from the side.

The sky was already turning white, and the people who had stayed up all night in the internet cafe began to log off one after another.

Looking at the successfully submitted domain registration form, Bai Yuhang felt a weight lifted from his heart. Although he still had to wait until later that day to make the bank wire transfer, he had at least secured his place.

At 7:30 a.m., the streets of Harbin were bitterly cold.

The group of six from dormitory 206, wrapped in military overcoats, with dark circles under their eyes, and holding hot soy milk and fried dough sticks, mingled with the crowd of students rushing to their early classes.

Zhang Jian yawned as he walked, his steps unsteady as if he were stepping on cotton: "Sixth Brother, are we considered big bosses with millions in assets? Why do we still have to go to that stupid early morning study session?"

"Because even a millionaire boss who fails a course will get a severe scolding from the counselor." Bai Yuhang took a bite of the crispy fried dough stick, looking at the spire of the main building of the university shining brightly in the morning sun. "Let's go, our journey is to the stars and the sea, but our task now is not to be late."

Jiang Shuo walked at the back, clutching his account book tightly and carrying his breakfast. Looking at the group of brothers joking around in front of him, he pushed up his glasses and revealed a barely perceptible smile.

Although he was reluctant to spend the money, he felt that these people seemed capable of actually succeeding.