Chapter 45: A Real Dimensional Reduction Attack

In the 2040s, as Gu Cheng would later experience, historians made the following assessment: In the century since the invention of the computer, the first sixty years saw humanity striving to enhance computers’ problem-solving abilities, following the Alan Turing model; the next forty years were devoted to developing computers’ capacity for active perception and problem discovery, in the spirit of Geoffrey Hinton.

During those first six decades, it was always the programmer who posed the questions. They would input sets of rules for solving problems, and the computer would execute them flawlessly. Yet, a computer would never actively “perceive” the outside world—it was merely a cold keyboard at the input end, sometimes joined by a mouse, trackball, or touchscreen.

In the following forty years, computers learned deep learning, acquired a sense of “self-perception,” made their own judgments, and refined their processes step by step until they sensed human satisfaction with their performance.

Returning to the year 2000, Gu Cheng felt that his own brain was as if it had regressed forty years, no different from the primitive computers he now used. Any problem that he managed to notice could be solved with ease, thanks to his knowledge forty years ahead of the times. Solutions came to him with lightning speed, as effortlessly as a masterstroke, simultaneously imaginative and airtight.

But he lacked eyes and ears, touch and smell; he possessed a brain, but could not detect or perceive problems. When it came to raising questions, he still needed reminders and assistance from those around him, to point out hidden dangers he faced.

It was only when Liu Shuqin told him, “There are still many people who want to play online games, but can’t find a newsstand to buy game cards,” that he realized such an issue even existed. How could he possibly have discovered it, when he didn’t even know what the countryside of this era looked like?

Having reasoned all this out, he encouraged Liu Shuqin:

“Sister Liu, your question today was excellent, and I’m very pleased. Later, help me draft a notice—I think the company needs to hold a weekly ‘brainstorming’ session. Not to find solutions, but to identify the problems currently facing us. As for the solutions, leave those to me.”

The importance of problem discovery is no less than that of problem-solving. Since Gu Cheng was now weak at discovery, he would delegate to others the task of brainstorming.

“Alright, President Gu. Then, by your words… do you already have a solution for the ‘lack of game card sales channels for our future mainstream Legend users’ that I just raised?”

“Of course I do. As long as you can identify the problem, I can solve it—solutions have never been my bottleneck.” Gu Cheng spoke with confidence. “Bring over my cousin and the product lead—let’s discuss countermeasures.”

Though Liu Shuqin found it difficult to believe, she still chose to trust Gu Cheng. She withdrew, then returned with Pan Jieying and Cherry.

Gu Cheng invited everyone to sit and personally brewed four cups of black tea. While pouring, he described the issue Liu Shuqin had discovered.

Pan Jieying and Cherry both saw the severity at once, their brows furrowing.

Pan Jieying said worriedly, “This is a tough problem. In cities below tier three, the online game market is so small that a single newsstand covers only a few thousand people. Even if upper-level magazine distributors force inventory on them, the newsstand owners are unwilling to stock up and tie up funds, since game card sales are so few.

This already happened with ‘Stone Age’—a turn-based online game perfect for regions with slow internet. The ‘Stone Age’ operators spent a lot of effort on distribution in lower-tier cities, even bribing nearly all major magazine wholesalers, but channel penetration remained poor, and all sorts of obstacles arose in small towns.”

And online game companies could never negotiate game card supply deals one by one with every newsstand.

Cherry, who had been in China for over a month and picked up some Chinese, was surprised by Pan Jieying’s account: “What? In China, doesn’t everyone buy game cards on E-BAY? These virtual products are perfect for e-commerce—you don’t even need logistics.”

Pan Jieying had to explain: “There’s no E-BAY here.”

“And no Taobao yet,” Gu Cheng added silently in his mind.

But since he’d now identified the problem, it was nothing to fret about. Gu Cheng remembered reading a post in his past life that mentioned some “pioneering attempts at e-commerce in the early days.” Even if he hadn’t, with his understanding of Taobao and Cherry’s mention of E-BAY, he knew exactly what to do.

So, with confidence, he instructed his cousin: “I have a solution. We’ll proceed in two steps. First, we should launch a pre-sale for game cards to assess how deep our channel penetration issues run, so we can catch and fix problems early.”

Pan Jieying was puzzled: “Pre-sale? You mean start selling cards now? But our closed beta has a month left, then a month and a half of open beta. The game won’t officially charge until New Year’s Day. Who would buy cards two and a half months early?”

Gu Cheng responded, brimming with assurance: “We can offer pre-sale perks—say, anyone who prepays in November gets double value on their first top-up when the game goes live. This not only helps us recoup some funds but also tests the health of our market, letting us identify which regions are healthy and which are ‘locust’ provinces.

And ‘locusts’ aren’t just stingy players—it could be poor channel penetration, making it hard for players to buy cards. By spotting these problems early, we can target them for solutions. The resulting data will be more valuable than any months-long market survey.”

Pan Jieying tilted her head, considering: “So once we know the scale and distribution of the problem, how will you solve it?”

Gu Cheng smiled faintly: “I’m planning to launch a ‘Net Café Owner Proxy Recharge System,’ bypassing newsstands and bookstores to partner directly with internet café owners in major cities. If we can collaborate with large internet café chains, all the better—they’ll be our priority targets.

Then, once the development workload eases, the R&D team will allocate staff to build this ‘Net Café Owner Proxy Recharge’ e-commerce payment platform. I’ll also hire more programmers as needed. We must have a beta platform ready for open beta and a full upgrade by the time we start charging.”

“An electronic payment system? That’s way ahead of its time,” Cherry exclaimed in surprise.

As for Pan Jieying, she was entirely at a loss and couldn’t comment at all.

Cherry realized her interruption was a bit impolite and apologized before continuing: “With China’s current internet environment, an e-payment system is impossible. Even in the US, PAYPAL took immense investment to build.

And the recent internet bubble burst because of the Grey Pigeon malware and its botnet, which destroyed the credibility of ‘average daily IP’—a key investment metric. Now the market is flooded with hackers controlling massive Grey Pigeon botnets. Without robust security systems, antivirus, and firewalls, any e-payment venture would be a sitting duck for account theft—one attack could bring down the company!”

Cherry could speak on this with authority because of her experience with anti-account-theft in game companies and her friendship with hacker Wen Huiying. She knew just how treacherous these waters were, and that with Gu Cheng’s current resources and technical base, he simply couldn’t survive such a mess. It would be a case of trying to rob and ending up the victim.

But Gu Cheng remained unafraid, though he appreciated Cherry’s loyalty:

“Cherry, you needn’t worry. My ‘Net Café Owner Proxy Recharge System’ won’t be an open platform like PAYPAL. I’ll use the simplest, most direct method to solve the immediate issue of account theft: we’ll launch a client that binds accounts to both IP and MAC address.

Each net café owner can only log into their account from a single admin computer. Even if a hacker gets the credentials, they can’t log in from another machine. This is similar to the firewall strategies big companies use for internal ERP systems. For the first year, the system will only be open to café owners nationwide, not to the general public, so all accounts are issued by us.”

After hearing Gu Cheng’s plan, Cherry was no longer so alarmed; on reflection, it did seem feasible. But she quickly noticed a new issue:

“Wouldn’t this mean that for the thousands of net café owners nationwide who want to join, your staff would need to visit each in person, sign agreements, and install the client on-site?”

“Not every café will need a visit. Once our game grows and the snowball starts rolling, café owners will come to us. But you’re right about one thing—we’ll need an offline field team.”

Gu Cheng’s last words were almost a whisper, as if muttering to himself. As he spoke, he opened a desk drawer and pulled out a business card from his holder.

Alibaba. Jack Ma.

Since Legend Entertainment couldn’t yet afford a dedicated field team, he’d just borrow one. In this e-commerce winter, companies didn’t need so many professional field staff, so he’d simply have them shift their focus a little.

What difference is there between canvassing office buildings and canvassing net cafés?

“This payment system, I plan to call it ‘Alipay’ in the future.”