After a crazy week, the first version of the program was actually completed single-handedly by Grace Bennett, totaling 42,367 lines of code. It ran perfectly on the first try, and after being packaged and encrypted, it was stored on the hard drive of Grace Bennett's old, battered laptop.

Finishing the program was only the first step; a domain name and servers were still needed.

Getting a domain name wasn't a problem—as long as it wasn't a popular one, it could be acquired cheaply. The real issue was that servers were extremely expensive.

Grace Bennett needed at least four servers: one for the website display, one for data scraping, one for the "water army" work—registering dummy accounts to post advertorials on major forums and Weibo—and finally, he needed a high-performance server to filter the scraped data.

Cloud servers were a good solution. At present, Wangsu, Alibaba, and Huawei's cloud services were all quite good, enough to rival top international providers.

After some calculations, Grace Bennett determined he needed 6,000 yuan in startup funds, of which 5,600 yuan would be used to rent servers. And that 5,600 yuan would only cover one month of server rental; come May, regardless of whether Grace Bennett's website was profitable, he would need to pay another 5,600 yuan.

Grace Bennett's monthly living expenses were 2,000 yuan, and at the start of each semester, his family would give him a lump sum of about 8,000 yuan.

Now, with April approaching, Grace Bennett had less than 5,000 yuan left in his Alipay account. Besides renting servers, he still had to cover his living expenses—clearly, this wasn't enough.

"Boss, I'm a bit strapped for cash lately. Can you lend me some money?" Grace Bennett seized an opportunity and shamelessly asked Ryan Carter.

The wind-like man from Inner Mongolia glanced at Grace Bennett. "How much do you need?"

"Not much, two or three thousand should be enough."

"Alright, three thousand then. I'll send it to you on WeChat. Let me know if you need more."

Grace Bennett was stunned. This was the first time since starting college that he'd borrowed money from someone, and he hadn't expected Ryan Carter to agree so readily.

"You're just lending it to me like that? Aren't you going to ask what I need it for, or when I'll pay you back?"

"We Inner Mongolians don't go in for all that fake politeness. As long as we're on good terms, I'll lend you anything except my wife," Ryan Carter said heartily.

Grace Bennett curled his lip. "Even if you lent me Julia Cooper, I'd have to be brave enough to take her! Man, she can drink a pound and a half of liquor. At the last party, your girlfriend single-handedly knocked out the three of us. My stomach is still churning."

Julia Cooper was Ryan Carter's girlfriend, also from Inner Mongolia, tall and sturdy—a perfect match for him.

Julia Cooper attended the neighboring Shanghai International Studies University, known as SISU, a place famous for its beautiful women, with a male-to-female ratio of one to nine.

According to Julia Cooper, at her school, the odds of running into a guy were lower than running into a wild panda. The only two criteria for a boyfriend were: first, male; second, alive.

As it happened, Ryan Carter was both male and alive, so she snagged him.

Ryan Carter burst out laughing at Grace Bennett's words. He wasn't the least bit bothered by his girlfriend's drinking prowess—in fact, he was quite proud of it.

"In Inner Mongolia, girls drinking is no big deal. Julia Cooper not only holds her liquor, she's even better at riding horses," Ryan Carter said. "May is Julia Cooper's birthday. When the time comes, the four of us, plus the four beauties from Julia Cooper's dorm, will have a proper drinking session."

Chapter 004: Eye of the Sky

April 1st, April Fool's Day.

After three days of intensive testing, Eye of the Sky was finally officially launched.

Grace Bennett shared the good news with his 406 dorm mates.

"Impressive, Third Bro," Edward Harris blinked in surprise. "You're just a freshman and already starting a business?"

"This website isn't mine, it's my friend's. I'm just helping out a bit, giving some advice and such. If you don't believe me, ask William Clark." Grace Bennett hurriedly brought up that mysterious friend as a shield.

William Clark was an honest guy. He nodded. "Yeah, I know about this. The other day, Third Bro and I discussed some issues about Douyin. I just didn't expect your friend's team to be so strong. In less than half a month, they've realized all your ideas."

"His team must be pretty big, right? After all, the technology behind this website is based on big data search and AI classification—without a team of hundreds, there's no way it could be done so fast."

Grace Bennett thought to himself, "If only I really had hundreds of people helping me, I wouldn't be working myself to death. Everything you see now, I did single-handedly while you guys were sleeping or in class. I've almost worn out my keyboard."

That's what Grace Bennett thought, but what he said was, "I guess it's alright. I've never been to his company, but from what he says, he's got a few really capable people on his team."

While Grace Bennett and William Clark were deep in technical discussion, Edward Harris couldn't wait any longer and whipped out his phone.

The Eye of the Sky website was very user-friendly. If you spotted a girl or guy you liked, you could just scan their QR code with your phone and instantly follow them.

"Heh, this girl is pretty cute. I'll follow her."

"This one isn't bad either."