Epiphanies of Rebirth Chapter 53 (Part 2)
Translated by Pure
Edited by Alkonost
Chapter 53.2 Lin Jingzhe was completely befuddled. "?????"
What a catastrophe!
Hu Shaofeng almost slipped and fell when he walked into Xiao Chi's office. He stared dumbfounded at his friend, who was attentively leafing through some paperwork. After a few seconds, he turned to look at Xiao Chi’s secretary who was sitting behind the assistant's desk.
The secretary met his gaze and shook her head, indicating that she was also in the dark.
Left with no other option, Hu Shaofeng walked further into the room, closing the door behind him. He stared at the top of Xiao Chi's head in horror, "What's the matter with that bunch of hair on your head?"
Xiao Chi raised his head at his words. It took him a moment to realize what Hu Shaofeng was referring to. He reached up and touched the top of his head, feeling the tightly bound hair that Lin Jingzhe had tied for him. He looked into Hu Shaofeng's surprised gaze and asked calmly, "What do you mean?"
Hu Shaofeng was a little afraid to recognize his childhood friend, who had suddenly changed his hairstyle.
Ever since their childhood, Xiao Chi's distinctive curly hair set him apart from other kids in their neighborhood. Honestly speaking, his type of loosely curled hair was actually quite good-looking. For Xiao Chi, who nevered dressed with the latest trends and didn't talk much since he was a child, Hu Shaofeng always felt that his curly hair brought out an exoticness that their peers lacked. However Xiao Chi himself had abhorred his hair since childhood.
Hu Shaofeng remembered a time when Xiao Chi kept shaving his head in an attempt to grow out straight hair. He was around eight years old back then, but that attempt was unsuccessful. On the contrary, when combined with his natural deposition, the photos taken of Xiao Chi during that time made it look as if he was a Buddhist monk who left home and returned to the ‘vulgar’ secular world to reunite with his family and friends.
Later, when he was in junior high school, Xiao Chi grew out his hair just a little bit. He had a buzzcut, almost the length of Lin Jingzhe’s hair when they first met, but his temperament was obviously not as soft as Lin Jingzhe's. However, his demeanor was quite different, his aura intimidating enough that even the teachers would hesitate to call upon students in class.
According to Hu Shaofeng’s memory, it was probably during Xiao Chi’s second year studying abroad that he changed his hairstyle again. When he returned to China during the Christmas holiday, Xiao Chi maintained a mid-length hair that was fixed meticulously by mousse.
Boy, did his handsomeness shine through! It surprised not just him but also his group of bumpkin friends in Yan City, who all came to pay their respects.
That hairstyle soon became the most yearned-for look of all the youths in the neighborhood. Hu Shaofeng remembered that at least half of his friends chose to grow out their hair the following year, but obviously not everyone suited this hairstyle. Hu Shaofeng tried it himself. When he looked in the mirror, he looked like a second-rate rap*st who had just been arrested.
He had thought that hairstyle would be his eternal Muse.
Until today. Hu Shaofeng looked at the soft curls by Xiao Chi's sharp eyebrows.
After a brief moment of astonishment, he put aside his prejudice, and made an unbiased judgment. He had to admit that comparing himself to Xiao Chi was a pointless exercise.
With long hair, he looked like a gloomy rap!st with kidney deficiency, but Xiao Chi looked surprisingly harmonious with that strange half-knot top!
Xiao Chi's facial features were inherently sharp and cold. His narrow eyes, thick eyebrows, thin lips, and defined jawline lent him an intimidating air. In fact, it was so intimidating that their so-called middle school teachers didn't dare to even breathe loudly when looking at him. But now, this sharp aura was softened by this clump of hair. Hu Shaofeng even felt that his dark gray attire also looked brighter than usual.
Reluctantly acknowledging the fact, he said, "I didn't expect you to look so dashing with your hair just tied up. Although it’s as good looking as your moussed hair, this hair-tying technique is not very good. Look at this bunch here, it's all curled up.”
Xiao Chi sneered. He thought back to when Lin Jingzhe had tied his hair. He was clever, obedient, and virtuous; those tender sentiments that turned into reality filled him with joy, he inwardly retorted: The heIl do you know?
Hu Shaofeng, oblivious to the mockery, took a while to divert his attention away from Xiao Chi's new hairstyle. He suddenly remembered, "By the way, Brother Xiao, how come I couldn’t find you when I went to your house last night? I didn’t dare to ask your family. Have you moved out?”
Xiao Chi nodded. "Yes. Why did you come looking for me?"
"It’s not too important, nevermind that," Hu Shaofeng waved his hand, obviously more curious about his own question. He leaned forward and almost sprawled on the table. "Where did you move to? Century Garden? Dongtai Community?"
These two real estate projects were the relatively more outstanding projects developed by Flux Realty so far. Before they opened it to public markets, as developers, they reserved a few houses for themselves, like the ones in the best locations or the ones that had the best views. Hu Shaofeng knew Xiao Chi owned houses in both areas. He had even hired the most qualified interior designer that the company has ever worked with.
Xiao Chi simply replied, "Dongtai Community."
"Oh~" Hu Shaofeng did not pry any further. Dongtai Community was still number one in terms of reputation in the real estate community of Yan City. It was not surprising that Xiao Chi moved from the compound to live there. Not many people his age enjoyed living with their elders. What's more, the temperament of every member in the Xiao family was still so rigid.
Hu Shaofeng couldn't help feeling some sympathy.
He asked, "Since you moved, where do I go when we need to talk? Just go to Dongtai Community?"
Xiao Chi stopped writing and thought for a while. He then nodded and replied, "Yes, just give me a call before you come."
******
Lin Jingzhe was still thinking about Xiao Chi's hair, when a call from Best Partner IT forced him back to business.
With seniors like Liang Pi, Wu Wangfei, and others from the club graduating and dedicating their energy and time to their work, their half-finished project was progressing rapidly. After testing their program in the past few months, they found and fixed some minor bugs. Once all the revisions were made, they picked a suitable launch day, which was today at 8:00 in the morning.
Liang Pi was a little excited but also a little apprehensive. "Mr. Lin, if you have a computer at hand, you can also enter the website address to have a look."
There happened to be one on Lin Jingzhe's desk. Although its resolution wasn't impressive and its bulkiness, slow processing speed, and limited functions were a testament to its old generation, it was still a valuable asset. He opened it and followed Liang Pi's dictation to enter their domain name, spelling out the words ‘Best Partner’, and pressed the Enter key. After the computer loaded slowly for a while, a very refreshing-looking interface popped up on the screen.
This interface may be a bit quaint and rustic compared to the advanced websites of Lin Jingzhe's future experiences. However, compared to the singular, but messy chat rooms that were popular today, it was already far ahead of its time. On the top of the interface, ‘Best Partner Search’ was written in a simple font and right below the Chinese characters was it’s easy to remember web address [1].
This suggestion was put forward by Lin Jingzhe after reviewing the first design draft. Liang Pi responded enthusiastically over the phone, "Mr. Lin, your idea is really good. During the trial period, it was this design that made many people remember the name of our website."
Lin Jingzhe hummed lightly. He moved the mouse, allowing the cursor to go down, hovered over the simple search bar, and clicked on it.
The input prompt immediately lit up.
Below the search bar, a series of dense but organized name suggestions appeared— Ocean Forum, Era BBS...
At that time, domestic websites were scarce, primarily limited to forums. Best Partner's homepage had compiled almost all known web addresses, categorizing them into different groups and brackets for easy navigation.
Lin Jingzhe clicked on ‘Ocean Forum’, and it was indeed a valid link. After a while, the interface jumped from the plain white ‘Best Partner Search’ to the light blue page of Ocean Forum.
"We currently don't have many websites, and most of them are listed on our homepage. In the future, every URL entered in our search bar will be automatically recorded and displayed once our system validates it as a legitimate link." Liang Pi explained.
Lin Jingzhe returned to the original search interface, and then typed the words ‘Ocean Forum’ in the search bar, and a few seconds after pressing Enter, a redirect link to the Ocean Forum jumped out of the search results.
It was very primitive. Compared with the future web pages that had become more and more beautiful with continuous development, Best Partner Search was like a baby just learning how to crawl.
Lin Jingzhe didn't intervene too much in this aspect. Everything he knew about the Internet was extracted from the superficial feelings of a laymen user. In fact, he knew nothing about this industry. But at present, the age of the Internet had just started, and there were almost no competitors. It was the best time for fledglings like Liang Pi to stumble and learn. Compared to intervening and making Best Partner accept and rely on his own suggestions from the initial stage, Lin Jingzhe was more inclined to let them suffer some hardships at this stage. Moreover there were no competitors. No one was eyeing Best Partner's every move, just waiting to catch mistakes they inadvertently reveal.
In such a lonely struggle, Liang Pi and the others will definitely be able to improve and hone themselves into a tenacious force. By 1992, when the domestic Internet would explode into popularity, they would already be seasoned veterans in the industry.
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Footnote:
[1] Just as a visual, think of any major web search browser. Google for example.
Their homepage would have their name in the center. And then below it would be www.google.com
Translated by pure, hosted on puretl.com / do not repost!