Chapter 62: Choices

The Computer Science Department at Yun University is quite small, with only 3 classes of 32 students each. Among them, only Di Ye and Shi Yucheng are locals from Yuncheng; the others come from all over the country and are relatively isolated from news, knowing nothing of the stir Di Ye caused during the winter break. Therefore, on the second day of the semester, when he strolled into the dormitory, his roommates' attitudes were no different from last semester.

"Di Ye, hurry up and start a round of Fight the Landlord; let me show you the strength I've cultivated through hard work over the Spring Festival."

"Su Zhaonian, Di Ye is the founding patriarch of Fight the Landlord. You actually dare to provoke him? Do you know now what it means to bring about your own destruction?"

"Zhu Zichun, stop with the sarcastic remarks and hurry over to save the game..."

Di Ye played a few rounds of cards in the dormitory, bonding with his classmates while asking about their post-graduation plans. He discovered that the vast majority had already signed employment contracts and set their internship schedules, with only a few students with poor grades still waiting for school assignments.

Domestic universities only fully abolished the assignment policy in 1996, but by 1995, self-directed job hunting was already very popular, especially for students in hot, high-demand majors like computer science. When Di Ye heard that Zhu Zichun hadn't signed an employment contract yet, he was somewhat surprised and asked, "Your grades are good; there should be many companies fighting to hire you. Why wait for the school to assign you one?"

"I'm not waiting for an assignment; I want to find a job I actually like. Working at a state-owned enterprise or a public institution is too boring; there's no point to it."

"What kind of work do you like?"

"Making games. I already found a place during the winter break. After graduation, I'm going to a software company in Beijing to develop computer games."

Di Ye was quite impressed by Zhu Zichun's wise choice and reminded him, "The domestic computer game market is currently a blank slate; you need to be prepared to eat dirt for a long time."

"You mean suffer, right?"

"No, I mean literally eat dirt—Guanyin clay. If you want to make games, you won't even have instant noodles to eat for the next few years; you'll only be able to eat Guanyin clay every day."

Everyone burst into laughter. Zhu Zichun laughed too and said, "I only applied for the computer science major because I wanted to make electronic games. I have to at least give it a try. If it really doesn't work out, I'll switch to something else."

A classmate standing nearby watching them play cards asked curiously, "I've never seen a game company come to the school to recruit. How did you find this job?"

"I went to the editorial department of *GAME Concentration Camp* during the winter break. Their editor-in-chief said the magazine's investors were planning to open a software company specifically to make electronic games, and he recommended me."

"*GAME Concentration Camp*? I bought an issue before; it's pretty good."

"I've bought it too. If it's being run by that magazine, it should have some substance."

Di Ye didn't know much about 90s game magazines. Seeing that several classmates liked it, he gave up his seat at the card table and went to find an old issue from November 1994 to flip through. He discovered the magazine's real name was *Electronic Game Software*, and it was only about 60 pages long. Most of the content consisted of simple introductions to Nintendo, Sega, and arcade games—very crude by the standards of later generations.

However, given the bleak electronic game environment in the country during the 90s, this magazine was already doing quite well and was very sincere. The November issue even featured a special report titled *Fighting Game Craze*, which introduced and summarized the top 10 fighting games of 1994.

Di Ye had many ideas about electronic games, but he didn't intend to mess with them right now. While flipping through the magazine, he asked, "Zhu Zichun, you just said the magazine's investors are planning to open a software company—that means it hasn't opened yet, right?"

"Not yet, but it's coming soon. They asked me to go over for an internship next month."

Su Zhaonian, who lived in the bunk above Zhu Zichun and was his closest friend, warned him upon hearing this, "Be careful not to get scammed."

"I won't be scammed. I've met with the General Manager of the investors. They got 1 million in investment from the Pacific Technology Venture Fund in the US, the Beijing Science and Technology Commission invested 1 million, and they invested 2 million themselves. That's enough money to make one or two games."

Seeing Zhu Zichun's confident expression, Di Ye couldn't help but rub his forehead.

The toy browser he had written previously imitated Netscape's Navigator 0.9, and Navigator 0.9 originated from Mosaic.

Mosaic was the world's first highly successful browser, and like HTTPd, it came from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) in the US, developed by Mark Andreessen and Eric Bina. The source code was only 9,000 lines; writing it alone was no problem.

But if one were to add new technologies that would only exist in the future—like CSS, Javascript, and DOM—into a browser, the code volume would skyrocket. One person typing on a keyboard would break their hands—IE's code volume was already over a million lines by around 2000, and the code volume for Firefox and Chrome has been measured in the "tens of millions of lines" since 2010.

That was why, when Di Ye proposed conditions to the Dean yesterday, he said he wanted to go to Pengcheng to develop the browser, but not alone. He wanted to pay out of his own pocket to hire a few classmates to form a team. This way, he could delegate unimportant projects to improve R&D efficiency while also cultivating his own core team in preparation for founding a company later.

Zhu Zichun had strong learning abilities. He only listened carefully in class, never studied on his own after class, and didn't review much before exams, yet he could always score 70 or 80. Plus, he had a gentle personality and was focused in his work, making him an ideal assistant.

But now that he had his own career plan, Di Ye couldn't force him, so he turned his target to Su Zhaonian. Although this guy's learning ability was average, he had an outgoing personality and good social skills, which could help share a lot of the organizational work.

Just as Di Ye was about to ask about Su Zhaonian's internship plans, he caught a glimpse of a flashy guy carrying a Notebook Computer walking past the dormitory door. He tossed the magazine aside, chased after him, and said, "Hey! Shi Yucheng, we agreed to study audio software together during the winter break. Why didn't you come find me even once?"

After a winter break of recuperation, Shi Yucheng seemed to have gained a little weight and wasn't as thin as before, but he was as arrogant as ever. He held his head high and said, "Why should I come find you? If anyone is looking, it should be you looking for me."

"Do you want to taste the feeling of being choked again?"

Shi Yucheng instantly broke his composure and defended himself, "I sent you 3 BB Pager messages during the winter break, but you never replied once! And I didn't know which building you lived in, so how was I supposed to find you?"

Di Ye found the BB Pager too troublesome to use; ever since he got a Big Brother, he had taken out its battery and left it at home to gather dust. Hearing this, he apologized and asked, "What were you busy with during the winter break?"

"I wrote some Accounting Software for my dad's factory."

"Heh, impressive! I'm also planning to write some Accounting Software recently. Tell me about it..."

Di Ye and Shi Yucheng chatted in the hallway for a while and found that his winter break life had been very fulfilling. Not only did he write software, but he also hired a tutor to practice spoken English in preparation for his internship at the IBM headquarters.

"Have you set the specific time for your internship?"

"It's set. We leave from Pujiang on March 8th and return from New York on the 28th."

Although this guy had a terrible personality and was a failure as a person, he loved programming and was a qualified code monkey to be exploited. Di Ye set a trap: "I'm also planning to go to the US in March. Maybe we'll be on the same flight."

Shi Yucheng was very surprised and said, "The internship list has already been submitted to the IBM headquarters, and we've already started processing visas. It can't be changed. How are you going to the US?"

Di Ye used the information Liu Shaosong gave him last night as a shield, saying, "It has nothing to do with IBM. Cisco is planning to sponsor me to study at Stanford University. I plan to go there in March to check out the school environment and visit Silicon Valley while I'm at it."

Upon hearing this, a deep sense of jealousy immediately appeared in Shi Yucheng's eyes. He asked, "Why would Cisco sponsor you to study at Stanford?"

"Because I wrote a world-class browser program during the winter break. You probably haven't seen a browser before; let me explain it to you..."

"Isn't it just a program for browsing web pages? What's there to brag about! I used one in Hong Kong last summer; there's nothing special about it."

At this moment, Su Zhaonian ran out of the dormitory, holding up a Big Brother and saying, "Di Ye, Teacher Liu is looking for you."

Di Ye answered the phone in front of Shi Yucheng, intentionally or unintentionally repeating Liu Shaosong's rhetoric. Shi Yucheng listened in brazenly, only to be baffled by high-end terms like "Open Source," "Computer Journal," "world-class level," and "filling a domestic gap." After the call ended, he asked, "What did Teacher Liu want with you?"

"Teacher Liu wants me to go to the computer lab this afternoon to demonstrate my graduation project and the browser's source code to the University President in person. Are you interested? If you are, you can come and see. I happen to be missing a supporting character to set off my glorious image."

"Get lost!"