funbook-pk Chapter 13 Brother Moth
Chapter 13 Brother Moth
Lin Shen turned on his computer and logged into the system.
He had already received the document package from Chen Mo in his email. He unzipped it and began reading.
The first document is "Introduction to the Light Project". The document is concise, only three pages long, but it contains a lot of information: the project goal is to create a "pure mobile communication tool", and the core concept is "simple, fast, and data-saving".
The current beta version is 0.6, which already implements text messages, image messages, and voice messages (basic version). Stability and performance are currently being optimized. Competitive analysis: Xiaomi's development software, Kik, WhatsApp, and Mobile QQ.
The second document is the "Technical Architecture Overview." The client uses native development (Android Java, iOS Objective-C), the backend uses C++, the database is MySQL, and the cache is Memcached. The messaging protocol is a custom binary protocol based on TCP long connections. Current technical challenges include: optimizing voice message encoding and decoding, message synchronization under weak network conditions, and ensuring message consistency across multiple devices.
The third document is the "Development Process Guidelines." It covers code standards, submission guidelines, code review process, and testing requirements. The requirements are strict, but the logic is clear.
After reading these documents, Lin Shen's mind flashed back to 2010, the eve of the explosive growth of mobile internet. Mobile QQ was the dominant communication tool of the era, microblogs were the loudest noise, and Xiaomi's MiTalk would be WeChat's strongest early competitor…
"Even though there's an open window right next to it, it insists on crashing into this sparkling clean glass. Isn't that like some people who, even when there's a path available, choose the most difficult one?"
A deliberately lowered, deliberately deep voice rang in Lin Shen's ears, interrupting his thoughts.
He frowned slightly and turned his head to look. A chubby young man was standing next to his workstation. Although his eyes were deliberately looking out the window, the expression on his face was eager, clearly saying, "Come and talk to me!"
Seeing Lin Shen looking over, the chubby boy tried his best to maintain that "philosophical" expression, but the gossip fire in his eyes could no longer be hidden.
Who is this person?
Lin Shen subconsciously grumbled to himself, then fixed his gaze back on his screen, looking like he didn't want to pay any attention.
Seeing that he didn't react, the chubby boy got a little anxious, moved closer, and gently nudged the partition with his elbow, asking again as if to remind him:
"Why do you think it insisted on crashing into that spot?"
That unwavering determination...
Lin Shen's memories were instantly connected.
Two weeks ago, in the Tencent interview waiting room, there was that boy who was so nervous that he was almost sweating from gripping "Introduction to Algorithms" so tightly that his lips turned white.
"I remember now." Lin Shen nodded, his gaze still fixed on the screen. "Brother Moth."
"What? Brother Moth! My name is Lu Chuan!" As if receiving some kind of secret code, Lu Chuan suddenly perked up, plopping down in the empty swivel chair next to him, which creaked under the weight. "From Guanghua Computer Science, graduating this year. Looks like we're in the same boat, both assigned to this supposedly 'uncertain' Light project group as interns."
His tone carried a mix of excitement at "finding his people" and trepidation about the unknown project.
Lin Shen just smiled, typed a few commands on the keyboard, and started pulling the code library: "Then you'd better watch your step, don't be like a moth drawn to a flame."
"I see the road perfectly well!" Lu Chuan leaned forward, almost pressing his face against the partition, his voice even lower, his gossip spirit burning brightly. "I've been lurking on the internal forum for days and found out! This Light project has a direct sibling team in Guangzhou called 'WeMail.' I heard that Zhang Xiaolong is personally leading the team there, and they're doing something similar. Our side... tsk, sounds like a backup plan."
He paused, observing Lin Shen's reaction. Seeing that Lin Shen seemed to still be listening, he continued, "However, it's said that this is Tencent's internal 'horse race' mechanism. Whoever comes out on top first will get the resources. And, I heard..." He mysteriously held up one finger, "The higher-ups have given a clear time window—99 days. After 99 days, the two projects will have to give a key report to the group to decide who will get the major resources in the future. It's already day 56, and Light is currently iterated to 0.6, with a target of 1.0."
WeChat... 99 days... 56 days...
Lin Shen's fingers paused almost imperceptibly for 0.1 seconds as he typed on the keyboard.
coming!
A familiar, almost instinctive sense of excitement, like a subtle electric current, instantly surged through his spine.
Having spent seven years at Tencent in his previous life, he was used to finding rhythm and breakthroughs amidst high pressure, countdowns, and internal competition. He never imagined that his first official job after his rebirth would throw him directly into the heart of such a blatant "horse race" gamble. Not a routine development task, but a crucial report that would determine his fate in 43 days.
Chen Mo, Zhou Botao... He had a deep impression of these people in his previous life; they were the backbone of the technology after the rise of WeChat.
So, is the "Light" project, which seems to be at a disadvantage, ultimately destined not to perish, but to be integrated into the victors in some form, or... to be part of the victors themselves? Perhaps "micro-email" and "Light" are two sides of the same coin, different paths of internal exploration?
Regardless of the truth, one thing is certain: this environment is characterized by immense pressure, direct competition, and extremely high value concentration.
The system's [Environment Coefficient: 3.5] in the lower right corner of the field of view clearly tells him this.
Three days?
A barely perceptible sharpness and anticipation flashed deep within Lin Shen's otherwise somewhat indifferent eyes.
Lu Chuan didn't notice the subtle change in Lin Shen's eyes. His attention was drawn to the corner, and he pointed with his chin: "See that? Wang Hao from the backstage team, the one in the red T-shirt. I heard he's been working for three days straight, just to adjust some damn voice encoding parameter."
Although Zhang Xiaolong is in charge of two project teams at the same time, he is very strict about the quality of both teams, especially the audio quality. If we can't keep up, it might be...” He made a throat-slitting gesture and pointed to several boxes of instant noodles piled up in the corner, “That's our 'rations'. The pressure is immense.”
Lin Shen followed his gaze and saw Wang Hao scratching his messy hair, staring intently at the dense waveforms and parameters on the screen with a look of deep anguish. This scene vaguely overlapped with fragments of memories he had of his former outsourcing company tackling technical challenges.
By the way, when was the voice function launched again...?
It seems to be WeChat 2.0, so there's no rush for the voice function.
"And the most amazing thing is..." Lu Chuan licked his lips, preparing to continue sharing the "insider secrets" he had unearthed, when a slightly capable female voice interrupted him.
"Lu Chuan, stop slacking off here."
Li Ting, the long-haired product manager, walked over with two cards in her hand, a half-smile on her face. "I just went to HR to get your and Lin Shen's employee badges. Here, your intern card, keep it safe. Also, send me the first draft of the user feedback I asked you to prepare before lunch."
"Ah! Okay, Sister Li, thank you, Sister Li." Lu Chuan quickly took the light blue intern card, scratching his head a little embarrassedly. Li Ting was his mentor in the project team and was also responsible for assigning him work: "The feedback draft will be ready soon, very soon!"
Li Ting nodded and handed another card to Lin Shen: "Lin Shen, this is for you. Teacher Chen specifically asked me to give you instructions."
Lin Shen accepted the card and thanked him. The card itself was slightly different in texture; it was a deep blue, and the words "Junior Software Development Engineer" were clearly printed on it.
Lu Chuan glanced at the card in Lin Shen's hand again, his eyes widening instantly.
Different colors!
He glanced at Lin Shen's card, then at the light blue card in his own hand, as if his CPU couldn't process this sudden "program bug" all at once.
"Wait...wait!" He pointed at Lin Shen's card, his voice rising slightly, "Sister Li, this color...isn't right? Lin Shen...isn't he an intern?"
Li Ting glanced at Lin Shen and said to Lu Chuan, "That's right, Lin Shen's position as a junior engineer was specially approved. Your ranks and authority are indeed somewhat different. Alright, get back to work." With that, she turned and returned to her workstation.
Lu Chuan stared, mouth agape, unable to close for a long time. He suddenly turned his head and stared at Lin Shen, his gaze as if he were looking at a final boss disguised as a slime. "You...you're not an intern?"
He recalled his earlier heartfelt sympathy and internal power struggle, even mentioning the sensitive "99 days," and his face flushed crimson to his ears. A surge of resentment, a feeling of being overwhelmed and "deceived," welled up inside him. "Why...why didn't you say so sooner?!"
Lin Shen hung the dark blue name tag around his neck, looked at Lu Chuan, and his face still held that calm that drove Lu Chuan a little crazy. "You didn't ask," he said matter-of-factly, then added as if thinking for a moment, "Besides, Brother Moth..."
"Don't call me Brother Moth!"
"...Lu Chuan." Lin Shen readily agreed, his gaze sweeping over the conspicuous "99" on the whiteboard before returning to Lu Chuan's somewhat embarrassed face. This kid, though boisterous, was indeed well-informed, a good "information hub." "Have you considered that there might be a third possibility?"
"What's going on?" Lu Chuan hadn't fully recovered from his embarrassment and asked irritably.
"It wasn't like a moth flying into a window, nor did it mean we found an open window." Lin Shen's finger unconsciously drew a winding line in the air, eventually pointing to the complex architectural diagrams and countdown numbers on the whiteboard. His tone carried a faint excitement that left Lu Chuan bewildered.
"Instead, you yourself can be that pane of glass. Others see the light and think it's a way out, only to find that it's temporarily blocked when they bump into it. But you know that you are not a window to a dead end; you are just a piece of glass that needs to be remelted. The real path is something you have to forge yourself, to forge it into a new, brighter window."
Lu Chuan was stunned. The words sounded like a deliberately cryptic riddle, but combined with the "99-day" countdown and the "junior engineer" badge, it seemed to conceal something he hadn't fully grasped. "Glass that needs to be remelted"? Was it implying he was well-informed but hadn't yet translated that information into ability? Or was it suggesting the Light project itself needed a transformation?
He sat back down at his workstation, suppressing a mix of embarrassment, resentment, and curiosity, muttering to himself, "What a show of mystery... It's just a special approval, isn't it? Just you wait and see, in three months, I, the intern, might not be any worse than you, the 'junior engineer'!"
Lin Shen smiled noncommittally, said nothing more, and focused his attention back on the screen. His hands rested on the keyboard, his ten fingers moving steadily and rapidly as he began setting up the local development environment, importing the project, and opening the core code directory... His series of operations were fluid and seamless, and his familiarity with the internal development tools and code structure was nothing like that of a newcomer on his first day at the company.
Lu Chuan, holding his breath, also turned on his computer, preparing to organize the feedback draft Li Ting wanted, but his eyes kept glancing at Lin Shen out of the corner of his eye. The more he looked, the more alarmed he became: without consulting any beginner's guide or searching for basic configurations on the internal Wiki, Lin Shen went straight to the core message transmission module's code directory, skillfully opened the terminal, entered commands to retrieve logs, and the debugger started at an astonishing speed... Even Chen Mo walked over and stood behind Lin Shen for a few minutes, only nodding and leaving without saying anything.
That kind of "certainty" that is beyond his age and almost instinctive made Lu Chuan's slight resentment gradually replaced by a stronger curiosity that is mixed with frustration and longing.
Who exactly is this guy? What did he mean by "burning glass"?
Time slipped away amidst the clatter of keyboards and the occasional chatter.
As noon approached, the atmosphere in the office relaxed a bit.
"Lin Shen," Chen Mo's voice rang out again. He stood next to Lin Shen's workstation, holding a water cup. "Shall we go to the cafeteria together for lunch? We can also chat about what you looked at this morning."
"Okay." Lin Shen neatly saved the code and closed some unnecessary windows.
The canteen wasn't large, but it offered a wide variety of dishes at reasonable prices. Lin Shen swiped his work card and got two meat dishes, one vegetable dish, and a soup for a total of 8 yuan. In Shenzhen in 2010, this was extremely good value for money.
During lunch, Chen Mo introduced the team: "Although our team is small, the atmosphere is great. Zhang Xiaolong comes once a week to listen to reports and give guidance. Zhou Botao is in charge of daily management, but he is very technically skilled and will write code himself when needed. Product manager Li Ting came from QQ Email and is very sensitive to user experience."
He paused for a moment: "You're the first junior engineer in our team to receive special approval. We've interviewed several recent graduates before, but none of them were given special approval. Zhou Botao spoke highly of you, saying you 'have a product sense'—you can think beyond the technical aspects to consider user experience, which is a very important quality for developing communication tools. Don't let him down."
"I will try my best," Lin Shen said earnestly.
"Don't be too nervous," Chen Mo smiled. "Just do it your way. I'll give you a request this afternoon; give it a try."
"What are your needs?"
"Optimize message list loading. Currently, when you open the message list, if there are hundreds of historical messages, scrolling will lag. Take a look at the code, analyze where the bottleneck is, and propose optimization solutions. Don't rush to modify the code; write an analysis document first and give it to me tomorrow afternoon."
This is a typical performance optimization problem, of moderate difficulty, yet capable of allowing newcomers to gain a deep understanding of the code architecture. Lin Shen immediately agreed: "Okay, I understand."
Chen Mo added, "Also, just listen to what Lu Chuan told you this morning, don't take it too seriously. The horse racing mechanism does exist, and the pressure is indeed high, but for us, the most important thing is to make a good product. If you make a good product, there will naturally be a way out."
Lin Shen nodded.
He could sense the composure and confidence in Chen Mo's words.