After the event, He Tong didn't stay with his team but went to a thank you event organized by the sponsors with Mi Lu.
After the thank you event, the two of them returned to Mi Lu's place in Beijing.
Yao Shanshan was also in a bad mood because of Guo Yu bringing up the wrong topic. Even with her favorite barbecue on the table, she couldn't swallow a bite.
Consequently, the dinner ended in a gloomy mood, and Zhou Xueyin, Kang Siyin, and another teammate took Yao Shanshan by taxi back to their place in Zhongguancun.
Once home, Yao Shanshan locked herself in the attic, saying she wanted to be alone for a while.
The other three exchanged glances, and thought it was okay, as whatever they said now, Yao Shanshan probably wouldn't listen; they could only wait for her to calm down before trying to talk to her again.
But Little Walnut, not understanding what was happening, was anxious because its beloved owner had come home but was ignoring it; it meowed wanting to go up to the attic.
"Shanbao... Little Walnut wants to come see you...maybe?" Zhou Xueyin knocked on the attic door.
Yao Shanshan, silent, cracked the door just enough for Little Walnut to slip through.
Before Zhou Xueyin could say anything else, Yao Shanshan slammed the door shut.
"Fine, having Little Walnut with her is good enough. Sometimes animals understand more than humans!" Zhou Xueyin shrugged, "I'm going to make instant noodles... I didn't get to eat anything just now, and came back with you guys, I'm starving... Do you want some too?"
"You go ahead, we ate quite well," the other teammate and Kang Siyin patted their stomachs, indicating they were satisfied.
Then Zhou Xueyin turned and went to the kitchen to cook instant noodles while the other teammate went to the bathroom to shower, and Kang Siyin went to perform her routine task of backing up forum data.
Ever since the last major power outage at Ying Haiwei, Kang Siyin had gotten into the habit of backing up the latest forum database every night. She didn't really trust Ying Haiwei to operate smoothly for long.
Sure enough, after opening the data backup software, she couldn't connect to the virtual host no matter what.
At first, she thought it might be because it was peak internet usage time, but when she opened QQ, she saw a bunch of messages sent by her senior:
"Xiaoyin, my buddy told me, Ying Haiwei is planning to totally take the money and run today!"
"Xiaoyin? Where are you? Did Yinyin apply for a refund? Get back to me!"
"Ying Haiwei's official website is completely down! I found out after trying to access it, they've directly deleted the homepage from the server..."
"Now a lot of people can't use the spaces they've purchased, and I see your forum is the same, it can't be opened..."
There were many more alarming messages like these, and Kang Siyin didn't have the heart to continue reading.
Even though she had earlier reminded Zhou Xueyin to remember to get a refund, she had been too trusting of the recent reassuring announcements, and likely hadn't initiated a refund yet.
Seeing her happily carrying a bowl of noodles out of the kitchen, it didn't feel right to tell her about Ying Haiwei bailing just then.
"KK, any new users on the forum?" Even though she knew it was unlikely anyone would register, Zhou Xueyin still asked.
"Ah... um... well..." Kang Siyin looked at her helplessly, "That, Yinyin. I have two pieces of news, one good, one bad, which do you want to hear first?"
"It's bad... ah, no, wait until I'm done eating. I don't want to lose my appetite for instant noodles after hearing the bad news." She was really hungry, and even if the forum was gone, it would have to wait until she had filled her stomach.
"...okay then..." Kang Siyin originally wanted to say that her decision was wise, but the words stuck in her throat, and she couldn't spit out a word.
She didn't know who she had offended today. First, Yao Shanshan had a public breakup, followed by everyone's week-long efforts on the forum turning into nothing.
Luckily, she had the foresight to back up the data every day, otherwise, the loss could have exceeded 5000 yuan.
"Burp..." Zhou Xueyin ate a pot of instant noodles at top speed, and the moment she finished the soup, she let out an inelegant burp, "Hehe... okay, now tell me, what's the bad news?"
"You need to prepare for the worst!" Kang Siyin was still hesitating, unsure if Zhou Xueyin could handle the truth, "Or maybe you want to hear the good news first?"
"No, just tell me... It isn't that Ying Haiwei really ran away, is it?" Sometimes her casual comments really hit the mark.
"Uh... yes!" Kang Siyin was surprised at how accurately Zhou Xueyin had guessed and nodded with difficulty.
"Hehe... no way! They really took the money and ran?!" Zhou Xueyin's previously dismissive expression instantly turned into disbelief, "Hey, didn't they just announce a while ago that they were a legitimate company? How could they have run away just a week later?"
"I don't believe it..." Zhou Xueyin couldn't believe what Kang Siyin was telling her.
She opened her computer and repeatedly refreshed the forum page, but it continuously showed 404. When she opened Ying Haiwei's page, it displayed 503, 502... various errors kept repeating.
The 400 telephone number had also become disconnected.
The fax number, too, was disconnected.
The QQ customer service hotline number had also completely disappeared from her friends list. Upon searching again, it showed that the user could not be found.
Zhou Xueyin tried all possible methods to contact Ying Haiwei's headquarters, but all results turned out to be nonexistent.
"Damn it, WBD! What a trashy company! Taking the money and running off!" Zhou Xueyin cursed angrily in the room.
Kang Siyin sat beside her, at a loss. Although she was very familiar with Zhou Xueyin's fiery temper, the incident that happened today wasn't something that could be solved by losing her temper.
At that moment, Kang Siyin couldn't find the right words to comfort the raging Zhou Xueyin.
"My 5000 yuan... My forum data... Ah!!! What a terrible company! All talk, no action!" Zhou Xueyin continued to curse.
"Um... Yinyin... I have backup data for the forum up until yesterday. It might be considered a stroke of luck in this misfortune, right?" Kang Siyin said cautiously.
"Really? You really backed it up? Oh, KK, you should've said so earlier. I thought the data I worked so hard to collect for a week had also disappeared with the forum..." Upon hearing Kang Siyin's words, tears suddenly streamed down Zhou Xueyin's face.
It seemed that she probably wasn't going to rage anymore.
"Right, then, what about our domain name? Can it be salvaged?" Zhou Xueyin wiped her tears and looked pitifully at Kang Siyin.
"Of course, we can. The domain seller and the operator aren't the same. Just redirect the domain to another operator, and it'll be fine." Kang Siyin said, pretending to be relaxed.
Although the fact that Ying Haiwei had run off was a big blow to her too, as the key person maintaining the forum, she couldn't afford to blow up like Zhou Xueyin at the slightest thing. Otherwise, the company might not have even scaled up before she ended up in the ICU.