Chapter 36: Feedback

When Di Ye arrived at the Chenghuang Temple, it was just past 8:30, and he discovered that Xu Chaobo and Huang Zongshan had both arrived and were standing at the entrance of the video rental shop smoking and chatting; it looked like they had already gotten to know each other.

When Huang Zongshan saw Huang Ya, his attitude was more respectful than last night; he first called out "Sister," and only then greeted Di Ye.

Seeing this, Di Ye felt this guy was still a talent worth molding, so he gave a few perfunctory words about being careful on the road, then brought Xu Chaobo to the Jinbei Van, gave him a slip of paper, and said, "Manager Xu, this is Ma Huateng's contact information. There are some local specialties in the car; please help me deliver them to him. Also, I entrusted him to buy some books; please bring them back when you return."

"No problem, I will definitely deliver them."

"Then many thanks."

Di Ye once again employed the Indirect Subsidy Method, giving Xu Chaobo 1,000 yuan as a hardship fee, then said in a conversational tone, "Manager Xu, is everyone in your family doing well?"

"They are all doing quite well."

Di Ye was born in May 1996, and during the 1995 Spring Festival, he wasn't even a fertilized egg, so he had always held a conflicted psychology toward his parents from his past life; he wanted to reach out but was afraid to, so he had to use his uncle, Xu Chaobo, as an intermediary to probe around, and upon learning that his family members were all healthy and had no issues, he finally set his mind at ease.

By around 9 o'clock, Bi Wanxi arrived at the video rental shop with two companions, yawning, and Di Ye took out a printed Hollywood Classic Movie Catalog and told him to buy discs according to the catalog.

Ever since he was crushed on the day they organized the discs, Bi Wanxi had admired Di Ye to the point of prostration; his eyes lit up as he looked at the catalog, and he even changed how he addressed him, praising, "Brother Di Ye, you are truly awesome, to remember even English movies so clearly."

Di Ye didn't think this was anything remarkable, ignored his flattery, and instructed, "This time when you go to Pengcheng, buy some entertainment magazines and movie posters published in Hong Kong and bring them back; celebrity photos are fine too. Don't worry about the era, as long as it's related to movies, I want it."

"What are we buying these things for?"

"Find a printing factory to reprint them, then take them to video halls that have a Golden Membership Card for promotion; otherwise, why would people pay membership fees every month?"

"Understood."

After a while, Fan Dazhi also arrived. After sending off Bi Wanxi and the others, he, Di Ye, and Huang Ya held a meeting in the video rental shop to discuss the details of issuing the Super VIP Membership Card.

"I chatted with a few friends yesterday, and they are all very interested in this activity of topping up 2,500 to get a video disc player. The key problem now is that after removing those existing orders, we only have a stock of 100-plus video disc players left, which isn't enough."

"We can cooperate with Computer City and buy them at a price of 1,500 per video disc player."

"Video disc players are in short supply now and sell easily for 2,000 each. If we only offer 1,500, will they agree?"

"Those at Computer City are all scattered soldiers with limited strength, and they don't know how many Decompression Cards we have on hand. Uncle Fan can talk to them one by one and defeat them individually, saying that if they don't sell now, once the free video disc player promotion is launched, they won't even be able to sell them for 1,000 each."

Fan Dazhi felt this was a good method and decided to give it a try. Before leaving, he said with great ambition, "Xiao Ye, if many people apply for the VIP membership and we can pool together over a million, how about we invest in setting up a formal factory to produce VCD Players?"

Di Ye and Huang Ya looked at each other, then Di Ye said carefully, "After school starts on the sixteenth of the first lunar month, I will go find a professor in the electronics department and ask if we can design the circuit diagram. As long as the circuit diagram is solved, setting up a factory shouldn't be a problem."

"Fine, go ask as soon as school starts."

After Fan Dazhi left, Huang Ya was a bit worried and said, "Uncle Fan's ambition is too big. You just proposed the VIP membership plan yesterday, and today he's already thinking about how to misappropriate the funds."

Di Ye smiled slightly and reminded her, "I thought about misappropriating the funds even earlier than he did."

"That's different. You proposed the VIP membership plan specifically to misappropriate the funds; he only thought of misappropriating funds because he was stimulated by the high profits of VCD Players."

"I am premeditated misappropriation, he is impulsive misappropriation; is there any difference?"

"You have certainty, he doesn't."

Di Ye laughed out loud, reached out to brush the stray hair on Huang Ya's forehead, and said, "You are really biased."

Huang Ya glared at him with a stern face and said, "Don't be handsy here; it will affect my business."

Di Ye read the attitude of taking work seriously in her eyes, so he apologized sincerely, "I was wrong, I will be careful in the future."

"It's almost 10 o'clock, don't dawdle here, go home and accompany your father to pay New Year's calls."

Huang Ya urged Di Ye a few times, then used a disc to cover half her face, her eyes filled with moving charm, and whispered, "Since you are so sensible, I'll let you add two more stamps tonight."

"Three."

"Fine, hurry up and go."

Di Yongchang and Zhang Xiuzhi moved to Yuncheng during the Third Front Construction in the 1960s; they had little contact with their hometown and no relatives locally, so they only needed to pay New Year's calls to some colleagues and friends, which was very relaxed and similar to visiting neighbors.

When Di Ye returned home, he found Di Yongchang was using the landline in his bedroom to pay New Year's calls, so he teased, "Dad, you are being too perfunctory; be careful of people stabbing you in the back."

Di Yongchang used to take Di Ye everywhere to pay New Year's calls every year to show off that he had a good son studying at a key university, but this year he was in a hurry to modify CD Players to make money and had no heart to show off, saying, "They are all old friends; we've been exchanging wine for so many years, it's meaningless. Once I finish those 300-plus orders, I'll book two private rooms at Fenghua Building and treat them to a good meal."

"That's not bad either."

After Di Ye returned from Pengcheng, he had Di Yan help install a landline at home, then went to Computer City to assemble two Compatible Computers and set up a Cfido station at home, naming it "Cloud Station."

Cfido is a primitive BBS system where one can set up sections with different themes. Di Ye was lazy and only set up three: Open Source Community, Information Exchange, and Entertainment Life. It was very crude and very deserted; since it opened on January 28, only a dozen people had logged in, among whom Ma Huateng was the most frequent, posting a few jokes in the Entertainment Life section to spam.

After Di Yongchang finished his New Year's calls on the phone, Di Ye turned on the Modem with a speed of only 14.4kbps and spent several hours logging into several major domestic Cfido stations in turn to check the feedback on his open source articles, but the result left him very disappointed.

Perhaps because the concepts were too advanced, those articles received few replies and were mostly mocking, considering them daydreams. Almost no one discussed the content of the articles seriously, and the few discussions that did exist were similar to Zhang Zhidong's, only highly praising the "C/C++ Concise Programming Specification."

The "C/C++ Concise Programming Specification" was drawn from the development experience of Google and Huawei and was naturally a good thing, but compared to the grand theme of open source, it was merely a small detail and not very important.

This situation was like Di Ye preparing a full Manchu-Han Feast, only for the guests to be interested in a plate of boiled peanuts, leaving him unable to laugh or cry, yet helpless.

What made Di Ye even more helpless was that Xu Chenye had returned to his hometown for the Spring Festival these past few days and was not in Pengcheng, so he couldn't receive information on the internet, which meant he currently had no idea what the reaction to those articles was overseas.

"Should I just go to Pengcheng and live for a while?"

Di Ye was a nostalgic person and originally felt that living in Yuncheng was quite good, but now he didn't think so anymore, because the internet in 1995 was still in a primitive state and every day was important; he needed to stake his claim as soon as possible, seize resources, and lay a solid foundation for future development.

"There are still 6 courses to take next semester, plus the graduation project and graduation thesis, and the postgraduate entrance exam results will be announced around the end of February..."

Di Ye checked the calendar and carefully studied the schedule, finally making up his mind, and muttered to himself, "After finishing this Treasury Bond deal, I'll go to Pengcheng to register a company and start my career."