Preparation

He bought a ticket for the latest return train and a small stool!

Chen Hao spent a little money to get on the train early, found the connection between carriages, directly put down his small stool, sat on it, and occupied advantageous terrain in advance.

As the train started, Chen Hao's heart finally settled.

Careful sailing ensures ten thousand years of safety; thankfully, domestic safety is still guaranteed.

Unlike abroad, where you not only risk your kidneys but can lose your life if you're not careful. Even five-star hotels aren't safe, and the police can't help.

He hugged his backpack, which contained his first pot of gold.

Thinking he still had to endure a day and a night on the train, his one-meter-eight frame was curled up in a crowded corner between carriages, surrounded by the smell of smoke.

Chen Hao mocked himself, "Am I the reborn person who's doing the worst?"

"No, I still need to have lofty ideals, like..."

"When I have money later, if it's not a sleeper berth, I'm not taking it!"

Since he had nothing else to do, Chen Hao took out a book from his bag, thick enough to kill someone, titled "Delphi Programming: From Beginner to Jail."

He had already read half of it on the way here, so this time he could finish the rest.

Chen Hao quickly skimmed through the first third of the book, which covered basic concepts, and went straight to the fundamental syntax and APIs. After all, he had a solid foundation in C language. It was like Zhang Wuji, who had mastered the Nine Yang Divine Skill; learning other programming languages was a matter of applying his knowledge, achieving twice the result with half the effort, and learning anything quickly.

The reason he was learning this was because the code for developing Legend of Mir was written in Delphi.

For a time, Chen Hao was immersed in the ocean of code, oblivious to the noisy surroundings and unpleasant smells.

Time flew by...

One day later

Chen Hao returned to the dormitory in a daze, like a lanky zombie, exuding a mixed stench that startled his roommates, who thought he had escaped from Myanmar.

He put his bag in the locker and locked it, then proceeded with a meal and a shower. Finally, he felt half-alive again.

Chen Hao lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling with open eyes.

His roommates downstairs were still fighting in the game world. If he hadn't transmigrated, he would probably have been one of them.

Unfortunately, they had less and less in common.

This was Chen Hao's last thought before falling asleep.

The next day, at the crack of dawn, Sleeping in or playing games now gave Chen Hao a deep sense of guilt, similar to how he felt after graduating college in his previous life, unable to find a job, and instead indulging in the game world to escape reality.

"You've been given a second chance at life, and you're using it to sleep in? Anyone would have a guilty conscience."

Chen Hao got up early, ran two laps around the sports field, returned to the dormitory, grabbed his bag, and left.

He took a taxi to the Ice City Netcom company, looked around a nearby residential area, rented a two-bedroom, one-living room apartment for six months.

The apartment was about 80 square meters, with north-south ventilation, costing 400 yuan per month. It was a bit expensive, but it was clean, tidy, spacious, and bright.

South was for Telecom, North was for Netcom.

At this time, the internet access method was still traditional dial-up, which was slow and unstable.

ADSL broadband internet had not yet been fully covered in Ice City, with only a few nearby residential areas operating as pilot programs.

Then Chen Hao went to the business hall to apply for ADSL internet service, choosing the highest bandwidth package of 1M.

In the afternoon, an installation technician arrived and finished the job in a few minutes. Chen Hao used the speed test tool on his laptop to check the internet speed. If dial-up internet was like riding a green-skinned train, then ADSL was like flying on a plane.

Although by Chen Hao's standards, it was still incredibly slow – downloading a movie would take several hours, and he might have already become a "sage" by self-sufficiency before the download finished.

But at least the internet speed could now hover around 100kb/s, nearly ten times faster than dial-up.

Now, the only missing hardware was a server, which was easy to handle.

Chen Hao took out his phone and made a call. After a while, no one answered.

"Damn, where is he?"

"Forget it, I'll call again later. Let's play Legend of Mir first."

Chen Hao took out his laptop and the hard drive containing the Legend of Mir private server, placed them on the table, and fell into a daze.

He forgot that his laptop didn't have a port for an external hard drive. He slapped his head, "Small case."

A programmer who doesn't know how to repair computers or reinstall operating systems isn't a qualified IT worker.

Soon, he bought a pile of tools from a nearby hardware and computer store.

He directly removed the back cover of the laptop, connected the external hard drive with a data cable, then turned it on and made a setting in the BIOS.

Restarted, and it was done.

He copied the Legend of Mir private server source code from the new hard drive to his laptop.

Then he removed the hard drive and restored the laptop to its original state.

He ran Legend of Mir; the familiar screen, the familiar music.

"No problem." Chen Hao then downloaded various programming software he would need from the internet.

Suddenly, the phone rang.

"Hello, bro!"

"I was just in the server room, they don't allow phones. You made it to Ice City?"

"Yeah, I'm near your company. I rented an apartment."

"Tonight at 7 PM… damn stupid bosses, still having a meeting after work… 8:30 then, same old place. I'll treat you to a welcome dinner~ So, what's up?"

"Earlier, I remember you saying you had an old server lying around."

"Yeah, I have two. I messed one up, but the other one still works. You want it~"

"Mhm, I want to set up a private server."

"Private server? What's that? We can talk about it later~ I'll bring the server over tonight."

"Okay, see you then, bro, bye~"

"Bye!"

Chen Hao and his cousin, who he just spoke to on the phone, were both only children.

His father's generation had three siblings: Chen Xingguo was the second oldest, with an elder sister and a younger brother.

Lin Lang was Chen Hao's maternal cousin, five years older than Chen Hao.

So, ever since they were little, Chen Hao and Xu Pengkun followed Lin Lang around like ducklings, chasing birds, dogs, climbing mountains, and wading through rivers – they played everything.

Lin Lang was also their gaming mentor, guiding them from the Super Famicom all the way to internet cafes.

It wasn't until Lin Lang went to Ice City for university that their trio temporarily disbanded, becoming a duo.

Part of the reason Chen Hao chose to attend university in Ice City was because his cousin was already there.

After graduating, Lin Lang worked at Inspur for two years. Thanks to his solid technical skills, he then transferred to the Harbin branch of IBM, where he is now primarily responsible for the after-sales maintenance of servers in the Netcom computer room.

Because the computer room had only recently been built, there were many issues. He had to work overtime during the Lunar New Year, so he didn't come home this year.

Software engineers have long hours and high pressure, but hardware engineers are no different. The IT industry pays more than most, but people often only see the rewards, not the struggles. They're trading their lives for it.

Isn't there a saying that you can tell an IT person's technical skill by how much hair they have left? A bald boss in a tank top and shorts, wearing flip-flops, is probably a hidden master, while those wearing plaid shirts and jeans, with ID badges hanging around their necks, are just entry-level disciples of the sect.

Past thirty, the choices of passing the civil service exam or getting a stable job in a state-owned enterprise become the ultimate goals for most IT professionals.

Currently, the hardware and network aspects were handled; only the software remained, which was his forte.

Chen Hao opened the Legend of Mir code using his IDE (Integrated Development Environment) and began to study it.

Nothing is achieved overnight.

To modify the existing code and architecture, you first have to understand it before you can start modifying it, and finally debugging it.

The process cannot be wrong, and neither can the logic or syntax. This requires immense patience and meticulousness; otherwise, the program won't even run if you miss a single letter.

Society might lie to you, and lovers might lie to you, but mathematics won't, because if it's wrong, it's wrong! Programming: it's the same for me!

This reminded Chen Hao of when he first started learning to program. A very simple code snippet kept throwing errors and wouldn't run. He finally discovered it was because he had typed a lowercase 'l' instead of an uppercase 'I'. They look similar, don't they? But one is an uppercase 'i' and the other is a lowercase 'l'.

It's like identical twins – they look the same in appearance and build, but once you get them in bed, you'll find out…

An hour later, Chen Hao, dizzy and exhausted, let out a frustrated roar.

"Damn it, do those Koreans not write comments when they code?"