Just a heads-up, we're launching next Friday. After the launch, we'll have a burst of updates to keep you satisfied, with at least 20 chapters on launch day alone. Moreover, the update frequency after launch will at least double. So, the author needs to accumulate more draft chapters. Also, the free period is extended by a week longer than usual. Please understand, thank you.
Even though Liu Chuanye told his classmates he wouldn't use QQ voice chat, when 9 AM rolled around, he couldn't help but log into QQ and try to start a voice call. To his surprise, not only was QQ voice chat unusable, but he couldn't even log into QQ.
"It's crashed already?" Liu Chuanye muttered in surprise, then forgot about QQ. While playing Red Alert, he waited for He Anrong to come online.
An hour later, He Anrong still hadn't come online. Liu Chuanye, having failed to defeat three challenging computer opponents, angrily closed the game. He first tended to his virtual vegetables and then tried logging into QQ again, but it was still inaccessible.
"It's still down? OO only crashes for a maximum of twenty minutes, right? How come QQ has been down for an hour straight?" Liu Chuanye muttered in disbelief. Shaking his head, he switched to playing Heroes of Might and Magic II.
By noon, he quickly settled for instant noodles, and coincidentally, managed to break through with Kong Xiu. He then went to Jiangdong to focus on farming and recruiting. While He Jin and the Yellow Turbans were still fighting in the central plains, Liu Chuanye had already captured Sichuan and Jiangnan, occupying more than half of the Chinese map, with hundreds of generals under his command. His great undertaking was promising!
Liu Chuanye, in a good mood, was preparing to continue his conquest of the Three Kingdoms when a piece of music suddenly started playing. Liu Chuanye exited the game to check and found that his classmate had initiated a QQ voice call.
"Didn't you all say you were going to use QQ voice chat today?" Liu Chuanye asked, connecting to the call with a smile.
"Don't even mention it. This QQ is too garbage. I haven't been able to use it successfully at all today!" his classmate began to complain grumpily. Unlike Liu Chuanye, who only tried it a couple of times, this classmate had been glued to QQ all day, determined to experience QQ voice chat.
After more than three hours, except for managing to log into QQ successfully before 9 AM, he had only managed to log in once more. Before he could even click the QQ voice chat button, QQ automatically logged him out and then crashed.
"It's okay, OO crashed for a whole night once, didn't it? Maybe QQ will be fine this afternoon!" Liu Chuanye chuckled.
"Let's hope so!" the classmate continued to relentlessly criticize QQ.
At this very moment, in Tencent's backend, everyone at Tencent was almost slumped over their chairs. Despair was written on every face and in every pair of eyes.
It was understandable, as anyone in this situation would be desperate.
At 9 AM, CEO Ma announced the opening of QQ voice chat. Everyone was full of confidence, preparing for the first traffic surge, when the surge directly overwhelmed them.
In just three seconds, Tencent's 80 million yuan servers all crashed. The massive traffic surge instantly overloaded Tencent's servers, leaving no time for operation. All server groups were down.
"This makes no sense. OO didn't crash in just 3 seconds! How could I only last 3 seconds?" CEO Ma muttered to himself, while Zhang Zhidong had already started taking action, ordering his subordinates to prepare to restart the servers.
After all, Zhang Zhidong had the most psychological preparation for traffic surges. He had even anticipated such a situation, so he was the first to react.
Zhang Zhidong was quick, leading the staff in skillfully restarting the servers. Meanwhile, CEO Ma also snapped out of his stupor and, without a word, joined the command for server restarts.
At that time, perhaps very few users knew that Tencent had actually set a record by completing the restart and launch of all servers in just five minutes, much faster than OO's team. This was the strength of QQ's technical team, accumulated over more than two years.
The reason no one knew was that after this restart and launch, they couldn't even last three seconds. In two seconds, the servers crashed again due to the continued influx of traffic.
The staff could only stare blankly, restarting the computers again just 2 seconds after a successful restart.
This despair was like your computer freezing, and after finally managing to reboot it, you just clicked on the screen, and the computer immediately bluescreened again.
"Chairman, our prediction was wrong. Our servers simply cannot withstand the traffic from QQ voice chat. We must immediately disable the QQ voice chat function, otherwise, I fear our servers will suffer significant wear and tear if they continue to crash and restart like this!" Zhang Zhidong, realizing the futility of the situation, immediately said to CEO Ma.
"No! Try again! Try again!" To his surprise, CEO Ma rejected Zhang Zhidong's request without hesitation and instead asked Zhang Zhidong to continue restarting the servers.
"Boss, it's no use. Our servers can't handle it. We can only suspend QQ voice chat service until the server cluster is expanded!" Zhang Zhidong said again.
"I said no!" CEO Ma tightly gripped the mouse. "If our QQ voice chat is shut down like this, won't all users in the world know that our QQ voice chat is inferior to OO voice chat?"
"Boss, this is just a matter of face..."
"No, this isn't about face. It's about how users perceive QQ and OO. If OO has voice chat and we don't, then in the minds of all users, our QQ's technical strength will be inferior to OO's. Do you understand how huge a blow this would be to us?" CEO Ma said through gritted teeth. Zhang Zhidong nodded, somewhat understanding. While he didn't quite grasp these matters, he trusted CEO Ma's judgment, so Zhang Zhidong gritted his teeth and ordered his subordinates to restart the equipment for the second time.
This time, during the restart process, Zhang Zhidong removed all server restrictions, cleaned the servers three times, adjusted the server's computing power allocation, and even performed hardware maintenance, doing everything possible to the extreme.
Therefore, it took a full hour to restart the servers.
This time, they held on for a relatively long time, about 9 seconds, almost reaching 10 seconds.
Then, the entire system crashed again.
But this wasn't the most frustrating part. The most frustrating part was that one server started smoking. Upon inspection, several units of this server were damaged and unusable, requiring maintenance from Compaq's after-sales service.
How long the repair would take depended on when Compaq's after-sales service could arrive. But even if Compaq flew over immediately, it would take at least a day.
"Boss..." Zhang Zhidong walked up to CEO Ma, hesitating to speak.
"I know what you mean. You don't need to say it!" CEO Ma sighed, slumped onto a chair. After a long period of hesitation and deliberation, he finally spoke, "Since it has crashed, continue checking the servers. Check them meticulously, and reopen the servers around midnight!"
"Ah!" Zhang Zhidong's mouth dropped open. Was CEO Ma losing his mind? He had just urged him to restart quickly, and now he wanted to reopen it after midnight. What was going on?
"Our QQ voice chat must go online successfully!" CEO Ma said through gritted teeth. "Even if it can only be online for ten minutes, that's fine. In any case, QQ must successfully run QQ voice chat, do you understand?"
"But boss, it's only 12 o'clock now. If we reopen it after midnight, what about these 12 hours?" Zhang Zhidong asked with difficulty.
"Just issue an announcement!" CEO Ma sighed. "Say that our cleaning lady accidentally poured water on the power supply, causing a complete power outage in the server room, and we are working around the clock to restore it!"
"Uh... yes..." Zhang Zhidong's mouth opened, wanting to argue, but then he realized that this seemed to be the best solution. He closed his mouth, completely shut down all QQ functions from the backend, and then started a server to support the company's official website data. A public announcement that would shock the entire internet for 20 years was then released.