Only After I Was Reborn Did I Realize That I Had Childhood Sweethearts

As the winter approached, Mei Fang’s peaceful life continued steadily.

His relationship with Xia Yuan and Lin Youxi remained harmonious. He would go to school together with Xia Yuan, and after class, Mei Fang would walk home with Lin Youxi and Xia Yuan. On weekends, Xia Yuan and Lin Youxi often played games together, and occasionally they would invite Mei Fang to go shopping or play together. However, most of the time, Xia Yuan would hang out with Lin Youxi.

Mei Fang also saw this period of time as a nostalgic youth experience, and of course, he spent most of his free time studying Golang.

Golang is a language focused on servers, comparable to Java, and is mainly used for storing and connecting server data. In Mei Fang’s current world, it was a newly emerging programming language that appeared in the first half of 2008.

Simply put, if one wants to develop online games or handle server-related tasks such as account data management, learning Golang is essential. Even for web development, having some knowledge of Golang is advantageous. For example, Bilibili’s web platform initially used Java but later switched to a Golang-based framework.

Recently, Mei Fang also observed the development of the internet in this world. First and foremost, he paid attention to the domestic ACG website^[1]. AcFun^[2] was already established last year, but it is still a niche community and is often criticized by users for frequent server crashes. As for Bilibili, there is currently no news, and Mei Fang couldn’t find any information about the founder and CEO on major forums.

In fact, Mei Fang had always wanted to create his own platform.

Just like how iOS games are associated with the App Store, Android games with Google Play (although the Android market in China is divided among various smartphone manufacturers, but Google Play is the most used internationally), most PC games are on Steam and the well-known Penguin Empire(Tencent).

Once a platform is established, developers can release their works on your game platform, gain popularity and exposure through the platform’s traffic, and share a portion of their earnings with the platform. Typically, the revenue split is 70-30, which is like earning money while lying down. This way, you can make money quickly.

Because platforms can directly receive user payments in real-time, they can first receive the money earned and then distribute it to the development teams.

This also means that if the industry is in a downturn, such as the well-known game industry slump in 2022, these distribution platforms can hold onto the money first to ease their situation. As for whether the game developers will suffer from a broken funding chain and face difficulties, it all depends on the conscience of the platform.

Some might argue, “But there’s a contract, isn’t it enforceable?” For large game development companies, they can certainly engage in such legal disputes, both parties can afford the legal costs, and big companies have their own confidence.

But most game developers are small teams that are easily taken advantage of. They only have about ten people in a company and don’t even have professional legal support. They can only beg the platform to release profits on time so they can pay their employees. It’s possible that these studios won’t even have a chance to receive this money before they disintegrate and go bankrupt.

Of course, Mei Fang initially thought that he was too young and didn’t have time to deal with these issues. By the time he had the opportunity, the major platforms had already been established. His technical skills were limited, and he didn’t have much room to maneuver. He’s only making games to pursue his dreams, and he could at least support himself with Bitcoin.

But now he has slightly changed his mind. At the very least, he wants to try Bilibili, which has not yet been launched, and TAPTAP^[3] in the mobile game market, although their monetization capabilities are limited, Mei Fang doesn’t have many other choices at his age.

Bilibili is, of course, an expensive portal website to make, but it naturally attracts major capital investments. In addition, it once had a great opportunity to dominate the domestic ACG industry, but it didn’t seize the chance. Its self-developed products were completely unsuccessful, and it became a pure game operator on its gaming side.

Even if Bilibili is already under development, Mei Fang can still enter the market early and become a co-founder of potential dominant platforms.

Of course, being his own boss is the most enjoyable. Mei Fang has Bitcoin to back him up in the future, so he isn’t afraid to invest money.

In addition to investigating the current situation in the internet industry, Mei Fang also discovered other significant differences in other industries, mainly in music.

Although he is not particularly good at singing, Mei Fang has always paid enough attention to popular music.

Jay Chou, the king of the Chinese pop music in this world is not much different from Mei Fang’s memories. Jay Chou’s most iconic album, “Capricorn”^[4], was officially released in October of this year.

But at the same time, Mei Fang also noticed that some internet singers did not appear in this reborn world. Among them, the most prominent ones were Xu Song^[5], Silence Wang^[6], and Xu Liang^[7], who were supposed to become the three giants of Tencent Music in the future.

In his previous life, Mei Fang was a huge fan of Xu Song. As a member of Xu Song’s fandom, called Squirrel fandom, he diligently memorized the lyrics of every song by Xu Song.

He remembers that Xu Song’s early hit song “The Funeral of Rose”^[8] should have been released around 2006 and started to become popular around 2008, but there was no relevant information online now.

As for his first album “Personalization”^[9], Mei Fang clearly remembers that it was released on New Year’s Day in 2009 in his previous life, and it’s not too long from the current date. He can observe it again.

Of course, Mei Fang has no intention of becoming a singer. His interest in music is just a hobby.

After all, he hasn’t received professional training, and his voice is only average.

Moreover, merely being able to sing without being able to fully compose music means that the actual results would undoubtedly just be mediocre at best.

But Mei Fang still saved this matter as a backup “cheat”, ready to be used if needed.

Recently, Lin Youxi and Yue Xinyi’s relationship has become much better. Mei Fang often sees them chatting together after class.

In Mei Fang’s eyes, Yue Xinyi is a reserved beautiful girl. She usually appears calm and demure, but her expression becomes exaggerated when she talks about topics she is interested in.

Of course, Lin Youxi, even in such lighthearted conversations, continued to maintain a serious and cold demeanor, which Mei Fang found quite impressive.

It feels like “this side of mine will only be shown to you,” which is a very pleasant experience.

Of course, whether it’s Yuan Yuan or Youxi, now that they have entered a new environment, they will naturally make new friends. There is no need to deliberately change anything, just let it happen naturally.

Mei Fang had maintained this view before Xia Yuan introduced him to her new friend she met in Class 8.

“Ah Fang, Ah Fang, let me tell you something! How about we stay out a bit later tonight?”

“Stay out later? Are you thinking of going to the mall or something? I’m fine with that.”

“Yeah! Then let Youxi know too!” Xia Yuan paused, “And also…”

“Yuan Yuan, introduce me, is this your childhood friend?”

Behind Xia Yuan appeared a good-looking young girl.

For a middle school student, her style seemed relatively mature, and the most notable feature was her air bangs.

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

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

“Hello, hello!”

Peng Xue waved and greeted Mei Fang in a straightforward manner, “I know you. You used to always rank first in the whole school at Experimental Elementary School! That’s amazing. Um… should I call you Ah Fang too? You can call me Xiaoxue.”

“Uh…”

Seeing Mei Fang’s hesitant expression, Xia Yuan quickly nudged Peng Xue and said, “It’s strange to use a nickname right from the start.”

“Hahaha, are you jealous?”

“Hmm…”

Xia Yuan smiled slightly, not directly responding, she then smiled at Mei Fang and said, “Tonight, I want to buy a hand warmer with Xiaoxue. The classroom is too cold. She recommended a store. You and Youxi should come too!”

“Okay, should I call Youxi out now?”

“No need… It’s almost time for class. Just let her know. That’s it! Wait for me at the door after the evening self-study. Our teacher loves to drag on.”

“Okay.”

…

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

After all, she can also be considered as Mei Fang’s acquaintance from his previous life, one of his middle school classmates.

Translator's Notes:

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