Chapter 75

Chapter 75: Xia Yuan’s New Friend

As winter approached, Mei Fang’s peaceful first year of junior high continued steadily.

His relationship with Yuan Yuan and You Xi remained very harmonious. During weekdays, he would go to school with Yuan Yuan, and after evening self-study sessions, they would walk home together with Lin You Xi. On weekends, Yuan Yuan and Lin You Xi often played games together, occasionally inviting Mei Fang along for some shopping and fun. However, more often than not, Yuan Yuan sought out Lin You Xi.

Mei Fang also viewed this period of his studies as a way to reminisce about his youth. Of course, in his spare time, he spent most of it learning the Go programming language.

Go is a server-oriented language, comparable to Java, and is widely used for saving and interfacing with server data. In Mei Fang’s world, it was a newly emerging programming language that appeared in the first half of 2008.

In short, if one wants to develop online games or record account data, which involves server operations, Go is practically a must-learn subject. For web development, having knowledge of Go is also necessary. For example, Bilibili’s early web interface was mainly built with Java, but later on, it centered around Go as the core framework.

Recently, he also observed the offline internet development in this world. Firstly, he paid attention to domestic secondary websites. Currently, ACFun had already been born last year, but it was still a niche community and often faced user complaints due to frequent server crashes. As for Bilibili, there was no news yet. Mei Fang could not find any information about its founding members in various forums.

Actually, Mei Fang had always wanted to create a platform.

Just like how iOS games are distributed through the App Store, Android games through Google Play (which is fragmented by various phone manufacturers domestically but represented internationally by Google Play), single-player PC games through Steam, and the well-known Penguin Empire.

If a platform can be established, it can build its upstream industry. Developers release their works through your game platform, gaining popularity and exposure from the platform’s traffic. After making money, they have to give a portion to the platform, typically a 70/30 split. This means one can essentially “work for themselves” and earn quickly.

Moreover, the capital chain of the upstream industry is relatively stable.

Because the platform of the upstream industry can receive user payments directly, it gets the money first and then distributes it to the downstream R&D teams according to the contract ratio.

This also means that if the industry hits a rough patch, such as the well-known 2022 gaming industry winter, the upstream distribution platforms can hold onto their funds temporarily. Whether the downstream teams will survive or collapse due to a broken capital chain depends entirely on the conscience of the upstream platforms.

Some might say, “There are contracts, isn’t that enough?”

For large game development companies, such Guanshi can drag things out, both sides can afford to wait, and big companies have their own底气.

But most of the downstream developers are small teams, each with only ten or so people, lacking professional legal teams, and can only hope that the platform will distribute profits on time for them to pay salaries. They may never get their money before these studios dissolve and go bankrupt.

Of course, Mei Fang initially thought he was too young, and by the time he had time to do something, all major portal platforms would already be established. With limited technical skills, there wasn’t much room for action. He just made games for the sake of chasing his dreams; at least Bitcoin could sustain him.

Now, he slightly changed his mind and decided to give it a try. Although the monetization ability of the upcoming Bilibili and mobile game market TABTAB was limited, it was really the only choice for someone his age.

Bilibili was certainly a money-burning portal website, but it naturally attracted significant capital investment. Additionally, it once had the opportunity to dominate China’s secondary game industry, but missed it, turning into a pure game operator.

Even though Bilibili is currently developing and accumulating experience in creating bullet-screen video websites, Mei Fang could enter early and position himself as a co-founder of certain authoritative platforms.

Of course, being the boss oneself is the most satisfying. Mei Fang also had Bitcoin funds backing him up, so he wasn’t afraid of burning money.

Apart from investigating the current state of the internet industry, Mei Fang also noticed other significant differences from his previous life, primarily in the music industry.

Although he wasn’t particularly skilled at singing, Mei Fang always maintained sufficient interest in pop music.

The Mandarin music industry’s top stars, including Allen, were exactly the same as in his memories; Allen’s classic album “Capricorn” was officially released in October this year.

However, Mei Fang also noticed some online singers who didn’t appear in this new timeline, among whom the most prominent was Xu Hao, who would later become one of the three giants of Penguin Music.

Mei Fang was a fervent fan of Xu Hao in his previous life. As a squirrel, he meticulously memorized the lyrics to every song by Xu Hao.

He remembered that Xu Hao’s early hit “Funeral of the Rose” should have debuted around 2006 and started to become popular around 2008, but there was no relevant information online now.

Regarding his first album “Self-Determined,” Mei Fang clearly remembered it was released on New Year’s Day in 2009, and it wasn’t far off. He would keep an eye on it later.

Of course, Mei Fang had no intention of becoming a singer; his interest in music was purely a hobby.

After all, he hadn’t received professional training, and his voice was average.

Furthermore, merely being able to sing doesn’t necessarily mean he could fully compose songs; the actual results would definitely be far from satisfactory.

He would temporarily document this matter, keeping it as a backup trump card.

Recently, the relationship between Lin You Xi and Yue Xinyi became much better. Mei Fang often saw them chatting together after class.

Yue Xinyi seemed like a static beauty to Mei Fang. She usually looked quiet and gentle, but whenever she talked about topics she was interested in, her expressions became exaggerated.

Of course, even in such off-the-wall conversations, You Xi maintained her usual composed demeanor, which greatly pleased Mei Fang.

It felt like “this side of me only shows to you,” which was a very beautiful experience.

Of course, whether it was Yuan Yuan or You Xi, now that they were in a new environment, they would meet new friends. There was no need to deliberately change anything; let it happen naturally.

Before Yuan Yuan introduced her new friend in Class 8 to Mei Fang, he had always held this view.

“Ah Fang, Ah Fang, I have something to tell you! Should we stay a bit longer tonight before going home?”

“Later? Are you thinking of going shopping… I’m fine with that.”

“Uh-huh! Could you also tell You Xi about it!”

Yuan Yuan paused, “Also, this…”

“Yuan Yuan, introduce me! Isn’t this your best childhood friend?”

Behind Yuan Yuan stood a pretty young girl.

From the appearance of a middle school student, her attire seemed relatively mature, with the most noticeable feature being her air bangs.

In 2008, Korean style was a very fashionable and avant-garde trend, not commonly seen in small towns.

“So, let me introduce you. This is my childhood friend Mei Fang. Ah Fang, this is my current deskmate in Class 8, Peng Xue.”

“Hello hello!”

Peng Xue waved and greeted Mei Fang confidently, “I know you! You used to be the top scorer in the entire school at Experimental Primary School! That’s amazing. Can I call you Ah Fang? Just call me Xiao Xue.”

“Uh…”

Seeing Mei Fang hesitate, Yuan Yuan nudged Peng Xue, “How can you start using nicknames right away? It’s weird.”

“Hahaha, are you jealous?”

“Mm-hmm…”

Yuan Yuan pouted and smiled faintly, not responding directly but instead smiling at Mei Fang, “Tonight, I want to buy a warm baby with Xiao Xue because the classroom is too cold. She recommended a place to me. Why don’t you and You Xi buy one too!”

“Sure, should I ask You Xi?”

“No need, no need… class is starting soon. Just tell her for me. That’s it! Wait for me at the door after evening self-study, our teacher likes to drag on.”

“Okay.”

…

Mei Fang was not unfamiliar with the name and person Peng Xue.

After all, she was也算是his old acquaintance from his previous life, his proper junior high school classmate.

(End of Chapter 75)