Chapter 103: Brother-in-Law Fainted from Anger

"Brother-in-law, is this your company? It's so big!" A young woman, around twenty-two years old, was peering around the Tenda office building, letting out an exclamation of wonder from time to time.

"It's alright, it's just these three floors here," Pony Ma said with modest humility.

"Hehe, I believe you'll definitely be able to build an entire skyscraper for your offices in the future, brother-in-law!" the young woman said loudly, causing a look of deep affection to wash over Pony Ma's face.

Pony Ma had only recently married. Interestingly, as a Cantonese man, he had married a wife from Heilongjiang—the two most extreme ends of China, north and south. As for how they met, credit goes to QQ. That’s right; Pony Ma’s wife was someone he had met while posing as customer service on QQ. Later, they agreed to meet in the capital, and their romance blossomed into marriage. It’s quite possible that Pony Ma and his wife were the first couple in the country to marry after meeting through an online romance on QQ. Pony Ma certainly had a unique talent; after all, not everyone has the ability to marry through an online relationship, especially when the other party is a famous musical talent.

[Note: Pony Ma is extremely protective of his family privacy, and almost no relevant information can be found online. Therefore, no one knows how reliable this story is; it is simply the most widely circulated version, and its accuracy is not guaranteed.]

The person currently making such a ruckus in the company was his sister-in-law. She was a college senior, and since it was time for her internship, her sister had arranged for her to intern at Tenda. After all, it was a family company, and her sister felt more at ease. Pony Ma was naturally very good to his sister-in-law and personally took her on a tour. However, deep down, he couldn't help but compare her to Huang He’s sister-in-law. He was disappointed to find that although his sister-in-law was very beautiful and also a musical talent—proficient in the guzheng and reportedly at the level of a national-level troupe—she still fell a bit short compared to Huang He’s sister-in-law. At the very least, Huang He’s sister-in-law could stir up trouble with OO, while his own sister-in-law couldn't sell leather shoes!

For some reason, ever since returning from Hangzhou, Pony Ma had developed a habit of comparing himself to Huang He. It had become second nature to him.

"How could I have such a boring thought!" Pony Ma tapped his head and told his sister-in-law to look around on her own. He headed to the technical department, where he found Zhang Zhidong, whose eyes were so bloodshot they looked like Ultraman’s.

"Zhidong, how is our trump card coming along?" Pony Ma asked, patting Zhang Zhidong on the shoulder.

"It’ll be ready to launch in three days!" Zhang Zhidong said with a yawn. After nearly two months of research, adjustments, and testing, Zhang Zhidong had finally finished the project. This was the QQ leveling system that would allow QQ to dominate the industry in the future.

"Thank you for your hard work, Zhidong!" Pony Ma said with gratitude. He had seen how hard Zhang Zhidong had worked over these two months. He had barely gone home during this time, practically living in the office, sleeping in the breakroom only when exhausted before diving right back into work.

"How did you end up structuring the system?" Pony Ma asked.

"Our leveling system is currently set to 30 levels. Staying logged in for 10 minutes grants 1 experience point. Level 0 to 1 requires 1 point, 1 to 2 requires 10, 3 requires 100, 4 requires 500, and 5 requires 1,000. Reaching level 30 requires 146,880 experience points, which is equivalent to 1,020 days, or nearly three years!"

"Considering a person can't stay logged into QQ 24/7, a cap of level 30 should be enough to keep most people busy for four or five years."

"As a reward for leveling up, each user's avatar will automatically display the corresponding icon. Every level adds a star; three stars automatically convert into a moon, and three moons automatically convert into a sun. When a user reaches level 32, they will have two suns."

"And what will three suns convert into?" Pony Ma asked with curiosity.

"I haven't thought that far ahead. Three suns require level 48, which will take at least seven years. I figured we could just add more suns by then," Zhang Zhidong replied.

"No!" Pony Ma shook his head vigorously. "If you don't allow three suns to upgrade, users will be very upset. They will definitely be full of expectations for the levels beyond three suns!"

"How about this? You can design a crown to serve as the rank after the suns!" Pony Ma suggested.

"A crown? Shouldn't the rank after suns be a galaxy or something similar?" Zhang Zhidong asked.

"A galaxy is too abstract and hard to display; a crown is much more prominent!" Pony Ma said. "A crown represents an emperor—it will certainly be recognized by many, and they will surely love it!"

"Alright!" Zhang Zhidong nodded. He didn't really care about the icons as long as Pony Ma was happy. He continued, "We have also designed special features corresponding to different QQ levels."

"For instance, reaching level 1 allows you to upload a custom avatar. Level 3 unlocks QQ voice chat—this helps prevent many 'dummy' accounts from consuming server resources. Level 10 grants the permission to retract messages, level 20 unlocks image sharing in chats, and level 30 unlocks the 'invisible' status, allowing users to stay logged in without being disturbed!" Zhang Zhidong’s eyes shone as he spoke; these were features he had meticulously designed for the future of QQ.

To Zhang Zhidong’s utter shock, Pony Ma frowned at the list. "Why do we need so many features? These are unnecessary. The QQ levels should simply display the rank—no special features of any kind!"

"Why?" Zhang Zhidong asked, feeling a bit anxious.

"Unnecessary means unnecessary!" Pony Ma said stubbornly. [Note: I also don't know why QQ levels remained purely cosmetic with no additional perks, so I can't explain Pony Ma's reasoning—you'll have to figure that out for yourselves!]

"Understood!" Although Zhang Zhidong was very reluctant, he couldn't argue with his superior and had to bite the bullet and discard his hard work.

"Keep up the good work!" Just as Pony Ma was about to offer a few words of comfort to Zhang Zhidong, his secretary rushed in, looking frantic, and handed him a document.

Pony Ma took one look, and his eyes nearly popped out of his head. He pointed a finger at Zhang Zhidong and shouted, "Traitor! There is a traitor among us!!"

"Ah!" With a sudden cry of agony, Pony Ma collapsed to the ground, having fainted from pure rage!