Chapter 43: Surpassing Boundaries

In his previous life, Huang He had once been curious about what the core server base of Tengda looked like. He’d heard that Tengda had moved most of its servers to Guizhou, hollowing out an entire mountain range to house them. Huang He never had the chance to witness this spectacle himself, but now he could see the server station of Jiangnan Networks. In truth, it was merely a room of about a hundred square meters.

Yet, the most striking feature of this room was not the server units, but the six air conditioners mounted in every direction. All six were working relentlessly, bringing the room’s temperature down to around twenty degrees Celsius. Anyone entering, unless well-clad, would shiver from the cold.

Who, then, enjoyed such supreme service? The answer was not people, but three enormous black metal cabinets.

These were the servers for OO.

One should not underestimate these cabinets. Each was an imported server unit, costing a million yuan apiece—three units, three million yuan. Of Huang He’s five-million-yuan investment, more than half had been poured into these servers.

Such extravagance left Chen Shoufu feeling almost guilty. The best server he’d ever used before was his own modified computer, costing a mere six thousand yuan.

The server group before him was simply lavish.

“Chairman, isn’t this a bit excessive? I estimate we won’t even use half the computing power of a single unit in our first year!” Chen Shoufu said, reluctant.

His words held some exaggeration. According to Chen’s calculations, by the end of 2001, they would struggle even to utilize a tenth of the server’s capacity and traffic.

This revealed just how little faith Chen Shoufu had in defeating Tengda and QQ.

“How many users can a single server group handle online simultaneously?” Huang He asked.

“If it’s simultaneous users, about five hundred thousand,” Chen replied.

“How many such server groups does Tengda have?” Huang He queried.

“I’m not sure. But based on Tengda’s published figures this year—they’ve reached ten million registered users and two million online at once—I’d guess they have at least four of these units to support two million simultaneous users. But that would be sluggish. To achieve their current smooth performance, they’d need at least six units,” Chen analyzed.

“Excellent. Our goal for this year is to have all three server groups running at full capacity, twenty-four hours a day!” Huang He gazed at the servers, his eyes gleaming green. Chen Shoufu was stunned.

If all three units were at full capacity, that meant at least 1.2 million simultaneous users—half of Tengda’s current user base.

Heavens! In this era where Tengda reigned supreme, was Boss Huang truly not dreaming?

“Don’t be so discouraged!” Huang He glanced at Chen Shoufu and saw the lack of confidence on his face, then encouraged him, “Tengda is far from perfect. We have plenty of ways to surpass it. Our first step is to perfect the product itself. Before we launch OO across the web, let me try out the beta version.”

“Yes, Chairman!” Chen Shoufu immediately led Huang He to a computer. Its desktop was minimalist—just a few system and work icons. Most prominent was the OO icon.

According to the OO website, the icon was OO’s mascot—a lovable panda, depicted sitting with a large black-and-white round face, two small white feet, and a paw holding a microphone. It was meant to symbolize a panda who was energetic, communicative, and skilled in interacting with people.

The description was accurate, but at first glance, anyone would mistake it for the QQ icon—they looked almost identical!

Of course, this wasn’t the case. The similarity arose because monitors at that time were low-quality, lacking pixel density and sharpness, so it was easy to misinterpret. If you used a 1080p monitor (if you could afford one, or even find one), or pressed your eyes close to the screen, you’d see it was not a penguin at all, but indeed a panda holding a microphone.

“Nice icon!” Huang He nodded in satisfaction. “Give all the artists a raise—one hundred yuan each!”

“Thank you, Chairman!” The ten artists in the team responded with joy. Out of thirty members, all were gathered around Huang He, listening to his every word.

Next, Huang He launched the program, which brought up the login screen, prompting for an account and password.

This interface resembled QQ's, with blue and white tones. Yet, the colors had a luminous, glass-like quality—a refined sense of modernity. In contrast, QQ’s palette was simply blue and white, lacking any such sophistication.

Some might object, saying it’s vague—how can you tell what a “refined” login interface looks like? It’s simple: open your mobile QQ and check the login screen’s color scheme from 2021. OO’s interface now mirrors that look.

Huang He and Chen Shoufu had spent an entire evening selecting the color effects for this interface. While screens of that era could not match the richness of 2021 displays, the design philosophy and approximate effect could be replicated.

Simply put, it looked high-class.

During meetings, Huang He made it clear: while they would copy QQ, it couldn’t be wholesale plagiarism—that would land them in jail. They could mimic QQ’s UI layout and operational experience, as those weren’t protected by intellectual property law.

But in terms of color and art, they must not merely imitate—they had to go beyond QQ, creating a sense of unprecedented sophistication. This was where OO would differentiate itself. At first glance, everyone should feel OO was superior to QQ.

QQ should appear rustic, while OO was refined.

“We may copy, but we also surpass. This is ‘copy and transcend’!” Huang He declared in a memorable phrase at the meeting’s conclusion.

All Jiangnan staff remembered these words, yet curiously, the quote was never seen posted in the company, a testament to Huang He’s modesty.

His directives were fully implemented, which was why, in a thirty-person team, ten were artists. Tengda’s QQ development team had a hundred people, but only three were artists. QQ, when first created, didn’t value art until it began developing games.

“No, there’s a problem here!” Huang He scrutinized the login interface, and after a moment’s thought, his expression grew serious.

“Ah, Chairman, what’s wrong?” Chen Shoufu was startled; he’d followed Huang He’s instructions to copy QQ’s approach exactly.

“The login is too slow!” Huang He shook his head. “Old Chen, why should we require OO ID and password? We could skip all that nonsense—just click and log in directly!”