Over the weekend, the temperature dropped even lower.
It was the Minor Snow solar term.
"Ring-ring-ring..."
An urgent alarm rang out early in the morning.
Xie Yang covered his head with the blanket and cursed, "Which idiot set an alarm?"
"Your grandpa!"
Chen Guiliang rolled over and got up. He was going shopping today, and Bian Guanyue was helping him pick out clothes.
Yang Hao got up too. He was the most hardworking person in Dorm 302, yet his test scores were about the same as Xie Yang's.
"What time is it?" Liu Zhihong asked groggily.
Chen Guiliang said, "Seven thirty."
As soon as he said that, everyone started cursing. Even Yang Hao lay back down.
It was a day off. Of course they had to sleep in.
Liu Zhihong complained, "Chen the Hero, what the hell are you doing setting an alarm on the weekend?"
"Magic cape? I'm Harry Potter now?" Chen Guiliang put on his pants and jumped out of bed.
Xu Haibo asked, "Where are you going so early?"
Chen Guiliang said smugly, "I made plans to go shopping with a girl."
"Damn!"
Several people in the dorm suddenly sat upright.
Xu Haibo asked, "Are you going on a date with Bian Guanyue or Tao Xue?"
"Classified."
Chen Guiliang walked over to the full-length mirror and examined himself. The more he looked, the more handsome he seemed.
He had weighed himself at the pharmacy yesterday and was already up to 120.4 jin. His cheeks no longer looked sunken.
Li Yulin offered, "You can borrow the windbreaker by my bed today. I've only worn it once since buying it."
"No need. Thanks," Chen Guiliang said.
"Why are you being polite with me?" Li Yulin patiently advised him. "I have experience dating girls. You don't need to dress in anything fancy, but you can't look too shabby either. Don't embarrass the girl while walking down the street. Those jackets of yours are damn old and worn-out. They don't match Bian Guanyue at all."
Xu Haibo reminded him, "Chen the Hero, you should get a haircut too."
The other guys in Dorm 302 also began chiming in one after another, offering advice for Chen Guiliang's first date.
Chen Guiliang felt rather touched. This kind of brotherhood between roommates was free of any impurity.
Xie Yang thought, What do you guys know? Chen the Hero is running a private server. He's about to become rich!
Chen Guiliang strolled out of the school gates. While waiting for the bus, Tao Chenggang called him.
"Are you up?" Tao Chenggang asked.
"I just woke up," Chen Guiliang said.
Tao Chenggang said, "I went to Hibiscus City yesterday and asked a friend to help me hire a well-known lawyer. I invited him to dinner last night, and while we ate and talked, I got a clear picture of the situation."
"Running a private server won't land us in prison, right?" Chen Guiliang did not think it would, but he was not entirely sure.
Tao Chenggang said cheerfully:
"Haha, no."
"That lawyer said that the current regulations involving the internet and electronic products include online management measures, meaning they can confiscate illegal gains and impose fines. There's also the Copyright Law revised two years ago, but copyright and authorship rights are different. The authorship rights to Legend belong to the Korean developer, while Shanda only has the agency and operating rights for Legend in mainland China."
"For agents and operators of online electronic products, there are currently no laws clearly defining their responsibilities and rights. The law in this area is extremely vague. It is unclear whether Shanda can even file a lawsuit. The only thing certain is that the Korean developer can sue us for infringement."
"But Shanda and the Korean side fell out long ago. Their reconciliation is only superficial, and the Korean side will not even provide Shanda with later versions. If we open Legend private servers, the Korean side will probably be happy to see Shanda suffer."
"If Shanda could send people to prison, it would have taken legal action long ago. Why would it need to angrily resort to hackers?"
Legislation for a new thing followed a gradual process:
In 2001, authorship rights for internet electronic products were established. In 2005, the responsibilities of operators and agents were standardized. In 2006, the rights of operators and agents were determined.
As of now, even Shanda's responsibilities as Legend's agent and operator had yet to be regulated!
Let alone protecting its rights.
At most, it could persuade the relevant authorities to conduct a special cleanup campaign and slightly purify the market environment.
As for Shanda using hackers to attack private servers, that went back to the end of 2002.
Back then, there were not many private servers. Any private server that publicly exposed its IP address was attacked by Shanda's hackers.
Later, as the localization of server files improved and more new tools were developed, especially the M2 modification tool, private servers became something any random nobody could set up. Their numbers suddenly exploded.
New private servers popped up every day. The hackers simply could not keep up, so Shanda had no choice but to give up.
Chen Guiliang was somewhat worried. "We've made this too big. Shanda has probably already noticed us. What if their hackers attack us before we recover our costs?"
Tao Chenggang stopped smiling at once. "If we really get attacked by hackers, we can only count ourselves unlucky."
"Big companies don't react that quickly. Recovering our costs shouldn't be difficult," Chen Guiliang reassured Tao Chenggang, while also reassuring himself.
The two fell silent over the phone.
Neither of them had expected a promotional advertorial to go viral.
Sometimes, too much was as bad as too little.
Or perhaps they had outsmarted themselves.
Chen Guiliang did not hang up until the bus arrived, then boarded and headed to their meeting place.
He would deal with whatever came later when it came. He would adapt to the situation.
Chen Guiliang would not spend all day drowning in worry and fear.
The county town was not large, and the old district was packed together into a cramped mess. A new district had been developed in the past two years, but it had only one main road.
Housing in the new developments cost around 800 per square meter, with even the most expensive places staying under 1,000.
After riding for several stops, Chen Guiliang got off in the new district and looked around for Bian Guanyue.
Bian Guanyue sat on a roadside bench, listening to Stefanie Sun and Jay Chou on her MP3 player.
When she had lived in Hibiscus City, she had occasionally gone shopping with friends.
But they had always been girls.
This was her first time with a boy.
"Chen Guiliang, over here!"
When she saw a familiar figure get off the bus, Bian Guanyue quickly stood and waved prettily at him.
Chen Guiliang sauntered over and asked, "Have you eaten breakfast?"
"I have," Bian Guanyue said.
Chen Guiliang nodded. "Perfect. Let's have breakfast together."
Bian Guanyue: "..."
He was naturally joking. Chen Guiliang ran to a breakfast shop by the roadside and casually bought some soy milk and steamed buns.
"I'm not familiar with the new district, so I don't know where they sell clothes," Bian Guanyue said.
"Then we'll look as we walk," Chen Guiliang said.
The two walked side by side, looking utterly mismatched.
The girl was beautiful as a flower, and everything she wore was expensive.
The boy made no effort to dress up. He probably had not cut his hair in two months, while his clothes, pants, and shoes all looked terribly shabby. Worse, he ate as he walked, wolfing down his food without caring about his image at all.
"What price range of clothes are you planning to buy?" Bian Guanyue asked tentatively.
"As long as they fit, I'm fine with anything," Chen Guiliang said.
"If they're too expensive, there's no rush to pay back the money I lent you," Bian Guanyue said.
"Sure. Then I'll get myself a whole outfit of designer brands," Chen Guiliang joked.
Seeing that he was not ashamed of being poor, Bian Guanyue stopped treading so carefully and teased with a smile, "You really aren't holding back."
Chen Guiliang immediately pressed his advantage. "Who are we to each other? I'm Qin Shi Huang, and you're the future Qin Dynasty Empress. No matter how much of your money I spend, it's just startup capital."
"Stop taking advantage of me. I'm not going to be an empress," Bian Guanyue said. She was no fool.
The two chatted nonsense here and there, and before long they had covered over half the commercial street in the new district.
There were no clothing brand stores suitable for young people...
Even brands like Yishion and Metersbonwe would not open specialty stores there for another three or four years.
When Metersbonwe opened a store in the county town, it even triggered a buying frenzy among young people.
This lousy county town was far too backward!
"Let's go with this one." Chen Guiliang pointed at a Double Star specialty store.
It was ridiculous. This so-called specialty store was fake, merely hanging up a Double Star sign.
Only around a quarter of the store sold Double Star clothes and shoes. The rest was filled with all kinds of unbranded men's and women's clothing. Chen Guiliang even spotted Nike.
"Are you two looking for clothes or shoes?"
The female clerk was especially enthusiastic. She also eyed them curiously, imagining a storyline about a poor boy courting a rich girl.
Chen Guiliang's skin was incredibly thick. He said to Bian Guanyue, "Now it's your time to show off. I'm not very good at picking clothes."
Bian Guanyue carefully examined Chen Guiliang, thinking about how to dress him.
"You seem to have gained some weight," Bian Guanyue said.
"It's still not enough. I've only reached 120 jin. At my height, 130 or 140 jin would be normal," Chen Guiliang said.
Once Chen Guiliang returned to a standard weight, he really would be a handsome guy.
Bian Guanyue soon brought over three jackets—a stand-collar jacket, a hoodie, and a casual jacket—and held them against Chen Guiliang one after another.
The female clerk also helped and promoted the products from the side. "Your boyfriend has a great figure. He looks handsome in anything. This stand-collar jacket would look best with a pair of casual pants..."
"He's not my boyfriend," Bian Guanyue corrected.
Chen Guiliang said solemnly, "We have a pure relationship as male and female classmates."
The female clerk smiled at them with an expression that said, "I understand."
Bian Guanyue quickly put together two sets of clothes and pants. She was quite proud of her work. "How about buying both sets?"
"I'll listen to you," Chen Guiliang said.
Bian Guanyue went to pick out two pairs of sneakers as well.
"Can I pay by card?"
"Yes, please come this way."
The female clerk rapidly punched numbers into a calculator. "Two jackets, two pairs of pants, and two pairs of sneakers come to 1,356 yuan. I'll round it down for you. 1,350 yuan will do."
"If you're rounding it down, make it a nice round number. Exactly 1,000 yuan," Chen Guiliang haggled casually.
For this kind of counterfeit specialty store, who knew where its goods came from? Even bargaining it down to 800 yuan would not have been outrageous.
"Handsome guy, we don't bargain here," the clerk said.
"You're already calling me handsome. Shouldn't handsome guys get a little discount?" Chen Guiliang said with a smile.
"We really don't bargain in this store," the clerk said.
Bian Guanyue stood nearby, feeling somewhat awkward. She was thin-skinned and felt a little embarrassed.
Yet after only a few more words from Chen Guiliang, the clerk actually agreed to round it down to 1,000 yuan.
Chen Guiliang carried the clothes and shoes to the fitting room. As he passed Bian Guanyue, he said, "Pay first. I'll put on my battle gear."
He had money in his card now, yet he still let Bian Guanyue pay.
A man's word was worth a thousand gold pieces. He had said he would borrow money to buy clothes, so how could he go back on his word?
Before long, Chen Guiliang emerged in a new outfit. Bian Guanyue looked him over carefully. "You're still missing something."
"His hairstyle," the female clerk said.
"Right, his hairstyle." Bian Guanyue asked, "How long has it been since you got a haircut?"
"I don't know," Chen Guiliang said.
When he was studying, he saved money wherever he could, including on haircuts. He would get a crew cut and let it grow naturally until he had no choice but to cut it again.
Bian Guanyue took him to a nearby salon and told the hairstylist, "Cut it shorter. Make it look sunnier."
The hairstylist immediately gave him a buzz cut.
After it was done, Chen Guiliang stood there while Bian Guanyue's eyes lit up.
She had to admit that Chen Guiliang, after gaining weight and filling out, changing into new clothes, and getting a new hairstyle, really was a little handsome.
--
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