Chapter 1 The Beginning

The nerdy guy nicknamed A-Qiang, with glasses, was twenty-two years old and about to graduate.

His younger brother was currently studying at Donghuang Rose Middle School as a special student exempt from tuition and fees, with excellent grades. Aside from being good at his studies, he had no other outstanding features, and was practically invisible at school.

He was in the same class as Jiang Yu, so of course he knew the well-known Su Dashao and He Dashao on campus.

In recent days.

That classmate of Jiang Yu, following his brother's request, had sent out a total of twenty or so letters.

Huang Zewen, Zhao Yimeng, and others were also on the target list, the only criterion for selection being whether or not their families were wealthy.

The "fishing letters" had been sent out, but no one had taken the bait yet.

The nerdy guy, unable to figure out how to promote it, was filled with melancholy.

That evening.

A user registered as "RealMan" suddenly appeared in the program interface developed by the nerdy guy and Little Fatty, and sent a symbol—"?".

Next to it in the list were two users, the nerdy guy and Little Fatty.

It was a multi-person instant messaging program; anyone could register and chat.

The idea was good.

But currently, students at the university preferred to use iCQ, and no one paid attention to the simple product developed by the two nerdy guys for their own amusement.

At the other end of the internet cable was the Zhao family mansion on Bishop's Hill.

Zhao Yimeng sat in front of the computer, her face full of nervousness, fear, and a little anxiety.

The door was locked.

She had also received that letter: "Come in~".

The charm of the internet lay in hiding behind the scenes, not being afraid of social embarrassment.

This girl, with a hint of curiosity and longing for the unknown, had then, on a whim, stumbled in under the username "RealMan."

The situation before her was clearly different from what she had imagined.

Zhao Yimeng's big eyes were filled with great confusion, her long eyelashes fluttering.

Although she didn't know much, she had only accidentally glimpsed the webpage a male classmate had opened in computer class.

But…

Where were the pictures? Where was the text?

Near the Ruins of St. Paul's, in a small building.

Su Yehao was waiting for Yin Liuli, waiting for her to finish work so they could go back to the apartment together.

It was nine o'clock in the evening, and he was a little sleepy.

The apartment on the top floor had been ventilated for more than half a month, but he could still smell the renovation. To make it easier for Yin Liuli to keep accounts, a Dell computer had just been installed in the study of the apartment last week.

While playing the Spider Solitaire game, Su Yehao suddenly remembered the program he hadn't successfully installed in the afternoon. He logged into his Yahoo mailbox and started downloading again.

The internet speed was a little faster than at school.

A small program of a few megabytes took four minutes to download.

After installing it.

He found that the software was called "Chat Room," which surprised him.

Following the prompts to register, he named himself "HappyLittleFroggy," with a four-digit account—0029.

Not sure if only twenty-nine people had registered, Su Yehao saw in the side user bar, "RealMan," "A-Dai," and "A-Qiang." The function was simple, not showing whether they were online.

A familiar melody echoed in his head.

Su Yehao continued to play Spider Solitaire, humming: "A-Zhen fell in love with A-Qiang, on a starry night…"

Just then.

He noticed a line of text appear on the chat interface.

RealMan: "What is this place for?"

A-Qiang: "Promotion, finding investment, my program is especially great!"

RealMan: "...Where? I can't find it."

A-Qiang: "This chat room!"

RealMan: "...Where is this? Sorry, it's my first time entering an adult website, I have no experience."

Seeing this, Su Yehao burst out laughing!

He immediately typed back:

"Big brother, this is not an adult website, please, it's already 1997, have some knowledge, okay? If you're lonely, just search for pictures on Yahoo. A-Qiang, what's this about discussing business in the email?"

No emoticons, the page was too simple, just pure text symbols.

RealMan: "...Okay, I don't understand."

The nerdy guy, A-Qiang, hurriedly replied:

"Are you rich students from Donghuang Rose Middle School? My project is guaranteed to be a hit, do you want to invest? Just a few thousand dollars of pocket money, let's be bosses together, let's get rich together!"

He spoke without any skill, and was too direct.

Su Yehao realized that the other party might be a newbie, and continued typing, writing: "A bit like iCQ, who wrote the program code? Original?"

At the Casino City University, the nerdy guy A-Qiang was stunned and replied:

"You know your stuff! My friend and I wrote it. Copying code gets you jail time, we only drew inspiration from AoL's ideas. iCQ is one-on-one chat, my chat room can accommodate twenty people to communicate simultaneously."

He opened a browser and quickly searched for AoL.

America Online, a company with a market value of hundreds of billions of dollars, had indeed launched a chat room product.

According to the news, AoL's chat rooms currently had as many as two million users, charging a monthly membership fee of $19.95 a month, and the number of paying users was increasing dramatically.

Su Yehao felt it was a little interesting and immediately asked, "Twenty people? What about more?"

A-Qiang: "...Haven't tried it, not that many users!"

Through the screen.

Because of the previous misunderstanding and asking the wrong question, making her seem ignorant, Zhao Yimeng was so ashamed that she hugged her knees.

She looked up and saw "HappyLittleFroggy" and "A-Qiang" chatting enthusiastically.

Discovering that they were discussing investment, Zhao Yimeng then focused her attention on the program itself, and suddenly realized its practicality.

For example, between colleagues in a company, or students in an entire class, or a group of old friends scattered all over the world, could communicate through this program.

Following A-Qiang's instructions, she searched for AoL and found a lot of information.

Zhao Yimeng was immediately somewhat disappointed again.

It was indeed a good project, but someone was already doing it, and doing it better, with a market value of hundreds of billions of dollars.

Seeing that the netizen called "HappyLittleFroggy" had already started talking to A-Qiang about buying out the product's rights, and A-Qiang was only quoting 50,000 Hong Kong dollars.

A mere fifty thousand dollars.

Zhao Yimeng felt there was an opportunity to improve it and promote it in Casino City, Hong Kong City, and Baodao.

With the successful example of AoL in front of her, it showed that this path could be taken.

Since becoming an adult, her parents had tried to let her get involved in the family business. When it came to business acumen, Zhao Yimeng was far more powerful than the previous Su Yehao by countless times.

She didn't know that "HappyLittleFroggy" was Su Yehao, and immediately typed and sent it out, writing—"50,000 and one, sell it to me."

In the three-story building.

Seeing this sentence, Su Yehao's face turned dark.

It was RealMan again.

She had been lurking just now, why did she come out to mess things up again?

Su Yehao was wondering if he had encountered a pig-butchering scam, raising the price for himself?

The more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed, but if this product was really original, not copying other people's code, but only drawing inspiration from the idea, he might be able to earn some pocket money.

So, Su Yehao typed: "Hey hey hey, first come, first served!"

RealMan immediately replied: "In business, the highest bidder wins."

At Casino City University, the nerdy guy and Little Fatty were so touched to see the two of them arguing and competing that they were about to cry.

However, HappyLittleFroggy sent another message, which read:

"Teaming up to raise the price and tease me? That's not interesting, is it? For this kind of product, I can spend a few thousand dollars and find someone to make it, and it'll be even better!"

A-Qiang felt a chill in his heart and hurriedly sat back in front of the computer, typing:

"Calm down, you're all classmates, no need to have conflicts, you can sit down and talk face-to-face! Anytime!"