11:27 a.m.
Lin Yizhou stared at the registration page on his computer screen, constantly hitting refresh with his left hand while holding his phone in his right, urging people for updates in a five-hundred-member AI chat group.
"Has anyone gotten in yet?"
"I'm not getting the verification text."
"I'm stuck setting my nickname."
"I've registered. Holy shit, why are there so many people ahead of me?"
"That's not a queue. That's your registered user number."
"...That's still pretty scary."
Messages flew through the group. Lin Yizhou glanced at them, then continued filling out his information.
Source Code Technology's launch event had ended just after eleven. Glutinous Rice Ball Chat wouldn't officially open until noon, but account registration had started early.
Phone number.
Verification code. Set password.
Link device.
Lin Yizhou clicked through the steps until a registration success message finally popped up.
"Welcome to Glutinous Rice Ball Chat."
"You are registered user number 4,286,147."
Lin Yizhou froze, counted the digits with his eyes, blinked, then counted them again, pointing at the screen.
Ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, ten thousands, hundred thousands, millions-
4.28 million.
The launch event had ended barely twenty minutes ago.
No wonder someone in the group had called it scary. More than four million registrations in under an hour really was frightening.
As a veteran programmer, Lin Yizhou's first reaction was-Are the servers going to hold up?
He took a screenshot and tossed it into the group. "I'm number four million something. Don't you guys ahead of me have jobs?"
Someone immediately replied.
"It's Friday today, and tomorrow's May Day."
"Wouldn't that mean even more overtime?"
"Work is when we have time to grab a spot. On weekends, we're busy looking after the kids."
A sound, well-supported argument. Lin Yizhou, who had no children and whose girlfriend was