Chapter 234 - 95: Winter Sweet Potato Meeting

Chapter 234: Chapter 95: Winter Sweet Potato Meeting

"Let’s wash up and eat first. We can talk business after we’re done." Yang Yiyi grabbed four pairs of chopsticks and noticed the newspaper-wrapped package in Yu Xian’s hands:

"What’s that?"

"Roasted sweet potatoes. I bought them on the way." Yu Xian found a towel and wrapped the sweet potatoes in it to keep them from getting cold too quickly.

Perhaps because everyone had something on their mind, they ate quickly, polishing off their plates in a flash.

Yu Xian took the bowls and chopsticks to the kitchen to rinse them, while Shi Zuozhou placed the four remaining roasted sweet potatoes on the table, one in front of each person. The sweet potatoes weren’t as scalding as when they were fresh from the oven, but they were still warm to hold.

Shi Zuozhou peeled the skin and took a large bite.

"Didn’t you just eat one?" Yang Yiyi said, pointing to the corner of his mouth.

"That was for the road. This is for after the meal. It’s different," Shi Zuozhou said matter-of-factly, then shouted:

"I hereby declare the first Sweet Potato Meeting... commenced!"

Yu Xian poured four glasses of warm water and placed them on the table:

"Old Shi, why don’t you share your idea from earlier with everyone."

Shi Zuozhou nodded, pulled the sketch paper full of circles he had drawn in the server room that afternoon from his pocket, and spread it out in the center of the coffee table.

Pointing at the drawing, he explained the "centralized game lobby" and "downtime for updates" concepts he had discussed with Yu Xian in the classroom, laying it all out for Yang Yiyi and Wen Xiao.

Wen Xiao leaned back in her chair, holding the roasted sweet potato with both hands and nibbling on it, nodding from time to time.

Senior Sister Yiyi, however, was staring at the sketch paper, a flash of surprise and admiration in her eyes.

Shi Zuozhou’s explanation was even more fluid than before, likely because he had already run through it in his head several times. When he finished, he leaned back in his chair and looked at the two women.

"This architectural design is very clever," Wen Xiao approved, resting her chin on her hand.

"It’s like a kind of sub-channel distribution. In software engineering, this would be considered an exceptionally brilliant architectural refactor."

"Having a public lobby as a buffer, which also lets players team up, is a really great idea!" Yang Yiyi agreed.

Hearing the two women’s praise, Shi Zuozhou rubbed his nose, looking a little smug.

"Heh heh, all in a day’s work. All in a day’s work."

Yu Xian hadn’t interrupted, only speaking up at the right moment after Shi Zuozhou had finished:

"I’m also on board with the lobby plan. However, when Old Shi and I were talking this afternoon, we discovered a new problem."

He went over the scenario they had walked through that afternoon again.

Because the multiplayer connection takes priority over the blueprint script, for players who join later, the connection audio’s only function becomes to ’hijack the spindle wave to a specified frequency’.

The content of the Dream Net space a player enters depends on the script already deployed on that frequency. This means the script can be secretly replaced, and the old audio file in the user’s possession has no way of telling what content is currently on the Dream Net at that frequency.

"Therefore, the ’code audit’ solution Wen Xiao previously proposed is rendered completely useless under this mechanism."

Shi Zuozhou crumpled the sweet potato skin into a ball and said in a muffled voice:

"This is the problem. I’ve been thinking about it all the way here. I’ve got nothing."

"If we don’t solve this, not only is there a risk of criminal activity, but the entire trust system for the connection audio files could be easily destroyed by malicious developers," Yang Yiyi added, her brow furrowed.

The group fell silent, each of them lowering their head in thought.

"Um..."

Wen Xiao suddenly spoke up in a small voice. She stared at the water glass on the table, seemingly unconfident about what she was about to say:

"I thought of a solution... although, it might just be a temporary fix, not a real cure."

"What is it?" The other three all turned to look at her at once.

"During our discussion this afternoon, Senior Sister mentioned that the spindle wave frequency range is between 12Hz and 15Hz, and it can only be integers, right?" Wen Xiao asked, looking up at Yang Yiyi.

"Yes, that’s right. That’s the limit of our current precision," Yang Yiyi nodded, waiting for her to continue.

"That means, right now, there are only a total of four frequencies that can be used as channels for the Dream Net," Wen Xiao said, taking a deep breath.

"Since there are only four frequencies available to create rooms... why don’t we just... occupy all four of them?"

"Occupy all of them?" Shi Zuozhou asked, stunned for a moment.

"That’s right," Wen Xiao nodded.

"As long as our people are always inside, acting as the ’initial host zero’ for these four frequencies, the Dream Net’s blueprint script will always be our secure version. Those malicious developers, even if they want to create their own ’poisoned’ rooms, won’t be able to get a free frequency. Because as soon as they connect, they’ll be forcibly pulled into the Dream Net that we control."

The air was silent for two seconds.

Shi Zuozhou stared blankly at Wen Xiao, then turned to look at Yu Xian.

Suddenly, he gave her two thumbs up, a conflicted look of exasperation and amusement on his face.

"Xiaoxiao, you and Old Yu... you two are truly the resident geniuses of our team!"

"Huh?" Wen Xiao blinked, looking confused.

"This morning, to solve the ’wipe and reset’ problem, Old Yu came up with an idea. He suggested we make a duty roster and take sleeping pills to sleep in three shifts, just to manually keep the server running," Shi Zuozhou sighed, pointing at Wen Xiao.

"And now tonight, you come up with ’occupy all the spots’. The way you two think... you’re really cut from the same cloth."

Hearing this, Yang Yiyi couldn’t help but laugh, but then she sighed.

"These are all just desperate measures we’re forced to take."

"D-don’t laugh... I’m serious!" Wen Xiao said in a small voice.