Chapter 109: Buying a Computer at Computer City

He looks delicate and tender, not like someone who often fishes.

That's right, he's only fished a few times, don't worry, he's absolutely amazing—we fished most of yesterday and caught twenty fish, even a mouse grouper. Zhao Zhiming exaggeratedly described it all, basically making Ye Cheng sound like a god, to the point Ye Cheng himself could barely listen.

Chairman Jiang obviously has no patience either—you came here to tell mythological stories, right?

He waved his hand and said, "If you want to join the association, just join; we have preliminaries for the competition, so just sign up directly."

Obviously, he doesn't really believe what Zhao Zhiming said.

Zhao Zhiming protested, "No, someone at this level shouldn't need preliminaries—this is final‑material."

"It's fine, Zhao Ge, preliminaries are just preliminaries—same thing." Ye Cheng interjected.

They're just giving face; we shouldn't push it too far.

"Sure, anyway with your skill you'll definitely make the finals—first place gets fifty thousand."

"You're here for the fifty thousand, huh?" Chairman Jiang said lightly.

"Mm." Ye Cheng nodded slightly.

Chairman Jiang showed a faint smile, "That's not easy—our association has many old fishermen, fishing gods, whose faces are tanned black from fishing."

"A dark face doesn't mean you can fish; my pale face is just natural good looks, can't help it." Ye Cheng joked.

"Good, good, well said, hahaha, natural beauty." Zhao Zhiming burst out laughing—this guy absolutely has a low laugh threshold.

"Chairman, let me tell you, Ye Cheng's speech is interesting—you should listen more, like calling you an old fogey, a lecher, etc.; those descriptions suit you perfectly."

When Chairman Jiang heard the three words "old lecher," his face darkened, his teapot almost slipped from his hand, and he shouted at Zhao Zhiming, face red and neck thick, all his refinement gone,

"Old Zhao, if you break my purple‑clay teapot, I won't let it rest!"

"Fine, fine, no more arguing—tomorrow I'll take Ye Cheng to the preliminaries."

"Tomorrow? That fast?" Ye Cheng exclaimed softly.

"Ah, preliminaries tomorrow, finals the day after—there aren't many people, you think we have a lot, right, Chairman?" Finally, Zhao Zhiming couldn't resist teasing Chairman Jiang a bit more.

"Get lost!"

All he got in return was Chairman Jiang's white eye.

After leaving Chairman Jiang's side, Zhao Zhiming gave a rough introduction: Jiang Weiyang is in the tea business, so he's constantly brewing tea.

Then, for this fishing competition, the association emphasizes participation, so anyone can join the preliminaries—just pay the fifty‑dollar organization fee, and lunch is provided.

As for the location, it's at Donghai Shi Four Liang Mountain—a vast, unmanaged beach that's a gathering spot for wild‑fishing enthusiasts.

This preliminaries is shore fishing; for the finals they might pick a few boats to go out to sea.

After speaking with Chairman Jiang, the competition registration is done—Ye Cheng just needs to be at Four Liang Mountain by 8 a. m. tomorrow.

After parting with Zhao Zhiming, Ye Cheng hauled Xiao Hu into a taxi to the Telecom Building and got a landline installed.

Because Baiyun Village isn't in the city, installation costs a thousand dollars, and dial‑up internet runs 1.5 to 2 yuan per hour.

Hearing the price, Xiao Hu clicked his tongue repeatedly: "Brother, is this internet absolutely necessary?"

"You don't get it—this is the trend; from now on the world belongs to the internet."

"This trend is just a bit pricey." Xiao Hu felt a twinge; this morning he'd sold 4,400, Ye Cheng gave him 1,400, and he'd kept 3,000 for himself.

This alone ate a thousand of his three thousand—he felt spending was far harder than earning.

Afterward, Ye Cheng bought two drinks from a roadside stall, looked at Xiao Hu's pained face, and said, "See, you're feeling the pinch now."

"Yeah, brother, over a thousand's gone—how could you not feel it?"

"Mm, makes sense. From now on, when you come to my place to go online, I'll charge you three yuan an hour—I'll still break even."

"..."

After finishing the landline at the telecom office, the other essential for going online is—a computer.

In 2002, computers were the realm of DIY builds!

It was the DIY heaven!

Figuring out how to assemble a cheap computer that meets one's needs was the biggest pursuit of IT enthusiasts back then.

Ye Cheng remembered that he used to be a little IT whiz—relatives would come to him for PC specs, ask for a configuration, then take that list to the computer market to buy.

The Computer City, that all‑in‑one hub, stayed hot for another ten years—until e‑commerce and capital moved in, finally pushing DIY PCs aside.

Donghai Shi has a huge Computer City, three stories tall; Xiao Hu had never been to a place like this before, dazzled by the myriad of components he couldn't even identify.

"Brother, do you know how to spec it? People say the waters in there run deep."

"How deep could it be—deeper than the sea?"

Ye Cheng casually walked into a store that looked a bit bigger; a thirty‑something guy came over, sized them up, and involuntarily smiled—these two clearly weren't city folk, easy to fool.

"Hey there, young lads, buying a computer?"

"Yeah, want to spec a PC—give me a quote."

"You've come to the right place—we've got every brand, the newest Intel Pentium 4, perfect for CS." The brother enthusiastically launched into his pitch, reaching for a form to write Ye Cheng's spec sheet.

"I'll write it; you just give the price." Ye Cheng snatched the form, leaving the brother looking bewildered.

Such a familiar form—CPU, hard drive, memory, "má de"—he'd written hundreds of these back in the day.

"Brother, you can do this?" Xiao Hu eyed Ye Cheng skeptically—he'd never seen Ye Cheng do this before.

"What's there not to know? I've filled out hundreds of these."

The brother's expression hardened; after a close look at Ye Cheng, he confirmed Ye Cheng wasn't a fellow trader—just a poser.

Ye Cheng took the form and wrote back, "Well, this—how much does it cost?"

The brother glanced at the form twice, then pointed at the graphics‑card column and asked,

"Young man, what graphics card is this '6200'?"

Seeing the brother's sincere gaze, Ye Cheng realized—uh, that card hasn't even come out yet.

"How about a '440' graphics card?" Ye Cheng ventured.

"That one I have." Asked so professionally, big brother was a bit afraid to speak recklessly.

"Then that's fine, let's go with this: Seagate 1.7, Gigabyte's 845D, memory Samsung 512, hard drive Western Digital 80G, graphics card Gainward 440, power supply Antec 300W, monitor Samsung 17-inch, keyboard and mouse use the ones you gave."

Ye Cheng revised the list a bit and pushed it to big brother. Big brother looked it over, "Damn, all the brands are written out—how am I supposed to modify it, how to use no-name brands."