Chapter 133 Hopelessness

Chapter 133 Hopelessness

Wang Xiaochuan returned to his workstation and looked at the group of people around him in the Sohu office, piecing together a web application that was destined to become a laughing stock in the industry in the most primitive and ridiculous way. A strong sense of sorrow welled up in his heart.

Wang Xiaochuan's life is like that of a child prodigy. He was already used to being called a child prodigy when he was studying at Chengdu No. 7 High School. He won the National Mathematical Olympiad at the age of twelve, was specially admitted to the Department of Computer Science at Tsinghua University at the age of eighteen, and became the vice chairman of the Tsinghua Science Association at a young age. His mind is full of algorithms and architectures that can change the world.

This time, he came to 5Q Campus Network for a part-time job because he wanted to do something that was truly technically demanding, so as to add a brilliant touch to his resume.

Now, he sits in this office filled with the smell of Tiger Balm and plasters, leading a group of middle-aged people who can't even press keyboard shortcuts properly, engaging in the crudest theft in internet history.

He switched back to his own computer screen, where Qihang Technology's code was still running in the background.

Every time he saw the code in front of him, he couldn't help but sigh; it was simply a work of art.

Data distribution, concurrent processing, redundancy mechanisms—all these designs, every line of code, reveal the composure and ambition of an excellent programmer.

There isn't a single superfluous character in this code; it's as clean as a freshly washed white shirt.

Wang Xiaochuan could even imagine that the person who wrote this code was definitely a pure and top-notch geek.

But now, he has to use a pile of scrap metal cobbled together from plagiarism to crash headlong into this wall of sighs.

Then look at the group of people behind me.

"Hey, Lao Li, have you finished setting up the database tables?" Lao Zhao asked his bald-haired colleague who had been assigned to the same company, while holding a goji berry cup.

Old Li was adding water to his thermos without even looking up.

"Why build a database? There's no time for that." Old Li tightened the lid on his cup. "Didn't President Chen just say that as long as the front-end works, that's enough? I just wrote a loop. When a user clicks to steal crops, the number on the front end is decremented by one. If it gets too high, we can just assign a higher value. If they click a few more times, the crops will become barren again. It doesn't matter whether the data is stored in the back-end or not. Anyway, people play games online just for fun."

Wang Xiaochuan felt a wave of dizziness and almost fell off his chair.

Frontend reduced by one? Not written to the database? Is this what you call an online game? Can't I play Minesweeper or Spider Solitaire?

"Brother Li," Wang Xiaochuan said, barely suppressing the urge to curse, pointing at his screen, "Will this even work? After a user clicks 'steal vegetables,' just refresh the page, and the vegetables will grow back, right?"

Old Li waved his hand dismissively, acting like someone who'd been there all along.

"Young Master Wang, you don't understand," Old Li pulled up a chair and sat down, speaking earnestly, "The app refreshes, but the dishes are still there. Don't users feel like they've gotten a great deal? That's called improving the user experience and giving netizens a benefit. Besides, if our server in the data center really had to read and write the database thousands of times per second, it would immediately start emitting black smoke, believe it or not? I'm saving the company from hardware wear and tear."

Old Zhao came over and pointed to his screen.

"Old Li is right. Old Li, take a look at this dog. How's my work? Mr. Chen wants a one-to-one replica. This white-edged dog wouldn't look out of place in your vegetable garden, would it?"

Old Li squinted and glanced at it from afar.

"It doesn't look out of place. What Mr. Wang said earlier is right. If you add a white border, it'll be like the dog is an angel descended from heaven, with its own halo. As long as it barks a couple of times to scare people, that's fine."

Several older comrades nearby nodded in agreement, praising Old Li for his extensive experience.

"Old Li's overall perspective is truly remarkable; we have to look to the veteran comrades for that."

"Exactly, what Mr. Chen wanted was for the page to be animated, so here it is."

"Yes, yes, as long as there are no bugs or errors, we've successfully completed the mission. We can leave on time, and no one can find fault with it."

Wang Xiaochuan shut up completely.

He pushed the keyboard forward, not wanting to do anything anymore. He crossed his hands behind his head and stared blankly at the incandescent light bulb on the ceiling for a while.

This isn't writing code; it's clearly digging up graves for Chen Yizhou, 5Q Campus Network, and even Sohu.

Ten million US dollars in promotional expenses, just to attract traffic to see this single-player version of cabbage that revives upon refreshing, and a dog with a halo of Buddha?

If Wall Street investors knew that Sohu's social empire was built on front-end code minus one, they'd probably hide the Nasdaq clock overnight.

Wu Tao's tactic of using someone else to do his dirty work was like stabbing Chen Yizhou in the heart of a major artery, without even drawing blood.

Wang Xiaochuan's only thought now is to wait until this absurd farce ends, then go to the sixteenth floor of Hailong Building to meet Bai Yuhang, the person from Qihang Technology.

He wanted to see what kind of person could lead a group of college students to be so aggressive and decisive in front of a behemoth like Sohu.

Zhang Chaoyang's office on the top floor of the Sohu Network Building.

Several newly printed data reports were scattered on the large mahogany desk.

Zhang Chaoyang leaned back in his chair, his fingers pinching his brow tightly, his face grim.

Wu Tao arrived at the top floor a step ahead of everyone else, sat on the opposite sofa, and slowly skimmed the tea leaves from an exquisite teacup.

"Teacher Zhang, you've seen these data too." Wu Tao put down his teacup, his tone filled with heartache. "We at Sohu have spent over two million US dollars, and we haven't even heard a peep. 5Q Campus Network's daily active users have plummeted to below four digits, but that's not all. The worst part is that these college students took our five-yuan red envelopes and immediately went to HaiNei.com to top up their accounts. This isn't social media promotion; we're paying Bai Yuhang for this!"

Zhang Chaoyang didn't reply, his eyes fixed on the precipitous drop in the report, feeling a tightness in his chest.

He had originally hoped that Chen Yizhou, with the foundation and vision of ChinaRen, could tell a compelling social story to Wall Street before ringing the bell on Nasdaq, thus making up for Sohu's shortcomings in social applications.

Now, the story has turned into an accident, and Sohu has become Zhongguancun's ATM and a laughing stock.

"I've seen the combo attack Qihang Technology launched in the early hours of the morning," Zhang Chaoyang said, his voice slightly hoarse. "Real-time group chat, video chat, virtual avatars, parking space grabbing. In terms of product strength, underlying logic, and user stickiness, it's miles ahead of 5Q Campus Network. Chen Yizhou keeps talking about pure social networking, but what happened? He got utterly crushed by a few college students."

"That's right," Wu Tao quickly chimed in. "President Chen is still obsessed with his crazy vegetable garden. I heard from his subordinates that in order to meet the deadline, he had his people use graphic design software to cut out images from overseas websites. Professor Zhang, if this were displayed on our Sohu homepage, Wall Street investors would think we've switched to making pirated goods or agricultural products."

Just then, the office door was suddenly pushed open.

Chen Yizhou strode in, his tie askew, his eyes bloodshot, looking like a gambler who had lost all his chips.