"Brother, I'm going home!" The teenager, unable to find the answer from his brother, decided to return home.
"Changhe, install this program into our main server and make sure all the satellite machines are installed!" Just as the teenager was about to leave, the internet cafe owner returned, handing a CD to his brother.
"Is this the latest game?" the brother asked curiously.
"No, it's a communication software called 'oo'. For every computer we install it on, we earn 1 yuan. We have 120 computers, which means 120 yuan. This is free money, we have to take it!" The internet cafe owner said with a smile.
"oo, doesn't that sound a lot like QQ?" the brother chuckled.
"It's not similar, it's a knock-off of QQ. I don't know where this country bumpkin came from to create such software. He thinks he can capture the market by throwing money at it. He doesn't understand the internet at all. QQ's dominance is already established; it's impossible to defeat. Entering the market now is a waste of money with no other effect!" The owner was a smart man with a very broad vision.
"I understand. Then we'll just do it for show for now, install the program, and uninstall it in a few days after we get the money, to save our equipment's hard drives!" the brother said.
"No, who told you to uninstall it in a few days!" The owner glared at his brother.
"Then we..."
"You can get off work today, but it's not a holiday. You'll go back and spend a few days helping me write a program that will automatically run 'oo' on all computers when they boot up, so that all users will see 'oo' as soon as they turn on their computers and register as 'oo' members!" the owner continued to command.
"Boss, didn't you just say that this 'oo' is definitely a waste of money and no one will use it?" the brother asked, puzzled.
"Yes, and their wasted money is my profit?" the owner chuckled. "What do I care about QQ or 'oo'? As long as I can make money, that's all that matters. Why so many useless questions from you?"
"Yes, I'll get right on it!" the brother said immediately. He then left the internet cafe with his younger brother, one heading back to the dormitory and the other going home.
"Brother, is there really no way for this '00' to defeat QQ?" the teenager asked curiously on the way back.
"Let me ask you, if you were asked to give up your QQ number and switch to '00', would you be willing?" the brother asked.
"No!" The teenager shook his head vigorously.
"That's right. If this '00' can survive for three months, I'll consider it impressive!" The brother grinned and then went back to writing the '00' automatic login program.
Meanwhile, the teenager returned home and impatiently logged into what he thought was "QQ". However, this QQ started to automatically update, and the update was quite large. After more than ten minutes of waiting, he finally logged in successfully.
Upon logging in, he received a system message: "Hello, '00' Farm is newly launched. You can now plant your own paradise in '00' Farm!"
"oo Farm? What is this nonsense?" The teenager shook his head. He had no interest in farming, so he dismissed it and immediately looked for "Xia Ri De Xue". To his surprise, she was still online.
However, the teenager soon became dejected because no matter how he sent messages, she didn't reply, yet she was shown as online.
"Does she not want to chat with me anymore?" The teenager's heart began to ache. Fortunately, about ten minutes later, Xia Ri De Xue replied.
"Have you opened a farm?"
"No..." The teenager subconsciously typed, but the next second, he chose to delete it and retyped, "Yes!"
After replying, the teenager immediately looked for the farm on the UI. Fortunately, the button to open the '00' Farm was in the most prominent position on the UI. The teenager found it easily and clicked to enter.
Anyone who has played farm games knows that farms are usually Flash applications on a webpage. But this '00' farm was different. It didn't use a browser; instead, it opened a new program, essentially a game.
This was much more troublesome than using a browser. However, it was unavoidable because in 2001, although Flash already existed, browsers required a lot of system resources to launch, leading to extremely slow speeds and a terrible user experience. Moreover, most computers couldn't handle it.
Therefore, Huang He directly had the team develop a small game, which ran much smoother than web games.
As soon as the teenager entered the farm, he saw plots of land. However, these lands were all displayed as undeveloped, with crops planted on only three plots.
They were three golden apple trees, and there was a "Harvest" button next to them, indicating for the teenager to harvest.
Just as the teenager was about to harvest, Xia Ri De Xue's message arrived: "Have you harvested your golden apple trees yet?"
"No!" the teenager quickly replied, simultaneously abandoning the harvest.
"Great, can you let me steal three apples first, and then you harvest? Please?" Xia Ri De Xue pleaded. How could the teenager refuse? As soon as he replied with agreement, he saw a message in the '00' Farm inbox. Opening the mailbox, it read: "Your friend Xia Tian Xue has stolen three of your golden apples. Do you want to retaliate on her farm?"
The teenager naturally chose to enter, and the game page switched to another farm. This farm was similar to the teenager's, with the only difference being that Xia Tian Xue's farm had a cute dog, of an unidentifiable breed, but it looked like a relative of a wolf.
At the same time, the girl's land had six plots ready for planting, but he couldn't steal anything because her land was planted with six small seedlings, which would mature in 52 minutes and could be harvested.
"Damn it!" The teenager couldn't help but curse. He then returned to his own farmland and immediately harvested all his golden apples. In total, he got 27 golden apples. It seemed the teenager could have harvested thirty if they hadn't been stolen.
After harvesting the apples, the system prompted the teenager whether he wanted to sell the golden apples. Upon selecting "Confirm," the golden apples were sold at a price of 10,000 each, earning him 270,000 gold coins.
At the same time, the system once again suggested that the teenager develop the three plots. The teenager knew that system beginner guides were generally the optimal choice, so he didn't refuse and developed all of them.
Developing the first plot cost 10,000 gold coins, the second plot cost 50,000 gold coins, and the third plot cost 150,000 gold coins. In the blink of an eye, only 60,000 gold coins remained from the 270,000.
Developing the fourth plot required 500,000 gold coins.
Afterward, the system suggested that the teenager buy some plant seeds from the store and then plant them.
The teenager opened the store and found that at his current level of 3 (raised by harvesting golden apples), he could only buy cabbage, potatoes, lettuce, radishes, garlic, and peanuts – six different types of plants. Each plant had a different growth time. For peanuts, the most profitable, a plot of peanuts earned only 2,000 gold coins every six hours!
The teenager then opened the un-unlocked seeds. The most expensive at the moment were dragon fruit seeds, which required level 20. They matured in 48 hours and sold for only 20,000 gold coins each. Overall, they were still not as profitable as golden apple seeds.
The teenager finally understood how valuable the golden apples given earlier were. One golden apple was equivalent to thirty hours of peanuts.
In addition to the seed store, the store also had a pet store, a house store, a dressing store, a weather store, a friend store, and so on. When the teenager clicked on the pet store, he first saw Xia Tian Xue's dog.
"Pet: Husky: Can chase and bite thieves, reducing the total number of stolen plants by 1. Price: 100,000 gold coins."
"My goodness, this Xia Ri De Xue actually stole my golden apples to buy a dog!" The teenager felt like spitting blood.
However, thinking that his golden apples were stolen by his goddess, the teenager felt a little better.
Next, the teenager browsed through the stores one by one, and finally, when he reached the special store, he discovered that it sold golden apple seeds. Moreover, there were no level restrictions for golden apple seeds; they could be planted at any level.
However, the conditions for purchasing golden apple seeds were very special.
The panel in this store read: "Enter the account of the friend who invited you to open '0o' Farm, and both you and your friend will receive a golden apple seed. Each user can only fill in one friend's account. When your friend's farm level reaches level 10, you will receive 10 golden apple seeds at once."