Reborn: I'll Never Fail My Childhood Sweetheart Again-Chapter 204 - 96: The Female Moderator of the Caiyuan BBS

You might decide to visit Anhui Province someday, right? You'll need a tour guide there too, won't you?

Besides, as a fair and impartial player, you must treat every girl equally; you have to balance everything out.

So, Zelin fired off both barrels: "Senior Sister Tao Min, let me guess, you must be from northern Anhui!"

With just one sentence, he piqued Tao Min's curiosity: "Oh, junior, how did you know?"

"Because girls from northern Anhui eat a lot of noodles and are generally taller. Senior Sister Tao must be at least 173 cm tall, with such a good figure, so you must be from northern Anhui, no doubt!"

Actually, Su Zelin wasn't entirely sure, he was just making a random guess.

But complimenting a girl's figure, even indirectly, would make them happy no matter what.

If he guessed wrong, he'd immediately add: "I didn't expect you to be from southern Anhui and still so tall. Then you'd surely stand out in southern Anhui?"

Which girl doesn't want to be unique and stand out from the crowd?

So no matter what, Zelin always had a fallback plan.

"Junior, you even know about northern and southern Anhui, and how northern Anhui likes noodles and taller people?"

Tao Min was quite surprised.

It's hard enough to know about other cities in the same province, let alone different provinces.

"Haha, just heard a little bit."

Su Zelin smiled slightly: "And Senior Sister, your cheerful and bold personality is also a trait of northern Anhui girls. Anhui Province has faced frequent wars and disasters throughout history, but this has also bred women who are gentle yet strong, charming yet robust, hardworking, and excellent homemakers. Historically, many have been great assistants to their husbands, like Empress Ma, the primary wife of Emperor Taizu of the Ming Dynasty. According to historical records, her hometown was Suzhou in northern Anhui!"

"Yes, yes, Empress Ma is said to have been born in Suzhou!"

Tao Min was very animated. Being the first wife of Emperor Taizu is something many people from northern Anhui are proud of, but she didn't expect Su Zelin to know about it too.

Su Zelin found a way to praise Anhui women, especially those from northern Anhui, making Tao Min swell with joy: "Junior, how can you say you've only heard a little about Anhui? Many people from Anhui might not even know that Empress Ma was from Suzhou!"

"I just like reading various books in my spare time; I happened to come across some anecdotes about Empress Ma."

Zelin subtly showed off a bit.

"No wonder you're so knowledgeable; turns out you devour all kinds of books!"

Tao Min said admiringly.

Seeing her roommate garnering so much attention from the handsome junior, Li Yanru quickly jumped in.

"Junior, do you like watching movies in your free time?"

"Yes, I love watching foreign blockbusters, like 'Battle of the Beasts'!"

"Wow, is that a sci-fi monster film? Actually, I quite like those too. How about we watch one together sometime?"

"Sure!"

Seeing the two roommates chatting so animatedly with Su Zelin.

Pan Yun and Liu Yanbin exchanged looks, feeling rather speechless.

We were worried they'd feel like third wheels, but turns out we are the third wheels!

…

From the conversation, it was revealed that Li Yanru was a moderator on the Finance Institute's BBS.

BBS stands for Bulletin Board System, which translates to "electronic bulletin board."

Later on, it became synonymous with forums, like those widely known ones in later years, which are all part of BBS.

The year 2000 was an era when BBS was very popular, especially the university BBS, which was a major hub for internet socializing in the country.

Take Qinghua's "Shuimu Tsinghua" for instance, as the most famous university BBS in Xia Country and the first BBS on the national education network, it's very well-known.

The name is derived from the Eastern Jin Dynasty's Xie Hun's 'Roaming the Western Pool': 'The gentle breeze stirs the dense forests, clouds gather ceaselessly, birds gather as the sun sets, clear and serene water and trees of Tsinghua,' reflecting poetic and deep meaning.

Apart from Shuimu Tsinghua, there were also famous ones like Peking University's early "Yitahtutu" and later "Beida Weiming."

Fudan's "Sun Moon Glory," Zhejiang University's "Misty Clouds Between Waters," Xia Country Science and Technology University's "Vast Nebula," Shenghai Jiao Tong University's "Remember the Source," and many others like "Little Lily," "Sun Yat-sen Space-time," "White Clouds and Yellow Cranes," "Luojia Mountain Waters," "South China Kapok" (doing a little archaeology, let's see if anyone recognizes these, won't mention schools for the last few, see who can identify them).

These campus BBS each had their unique styles and campus cultures.

Moreover, importantly, the BBS at that time received huge amounts of traffic, especially within university networks; barely any student using a computer would not be aware of it.

Until 2002-2003, BBS reached its peak, but unfortunately, from 2006 onwards, for various reasons, campus BBS started declining rapidly, with many even shutting down in later years, leaving only countless wonderful memories and sentiments.

Fortunately, BBS was currently in a thriving period, which was a pleasant surprise for Su Zelin during this meal.

He could imagine that knowing Li Yanru, the moderator of the Finance Institute's BBS, would greatly help his store's business.

Many people still didn't understand how to advertise using the internet.

Within the campus, over ninety percent of shops were run by the family members of institute leaders, and the owners were either uncles or aunts. In the year 2000, most people in this group didn't know how to use computers, let alone play on the BBS or advertise there.

Even his father, a progressive person, hadn't learned to surf the net yet, not to mention other middle-aged people.

But Zelin wouldn't miss such a good tool.

Su Zelin understood the power of the internet and traffic very well, more so as this traffic largely came from the Finance Institute, which was the highest quality target group!

In fact, he had registered several accounts on the Finance Institute's BBS early on and was very active, ensuring he posted some threads every day to maintain presence.