Building a Computer

Early the next morning.

Sunlight filtered through the old screen window, casting mottled shadows on the concrete floor.

The crisp clatter of pots and pans came from the kitchen, accompanied by Zhang Guifang's hurried footsteps.

"Chen Jun! Chen Jun! Where is my work badge?"

"On the shoe cabinet! You left it there when you came back last night!"

Chen Jun was sitting at the dining table eating congee. Hearing the yell, his neck instinctively shrank back.

Chen Zhi strolled out of his bedroom with a deep-fried dough stick dangling from his mouth, his eyelids half-drooping as if he hadn't fully woken up.

"Morning, Mom."

He pulled out a chair and sat down.

Zhang Guifang rushed over from the living room in a flurry, clutching her work badge in one hand while stuffing a steamed bun into her mouth with the other.

"What's so good about the morning! Look at the time and you're still sleeping! Look at Wanwan next door, she's been up memorizing vocabulary for ages!"

She swallowed the bun and slapped Chen Zhi on the back in passing.

"Hurry up and do your homework after eating! Stop playing on the computer all day! What's so fun about that broken thing anyway!"

The slap sent Chen Zhi leaning forward, and he took the opportunity to slurp some mung bean congee from his bowl.

"Got it."

"Alright, I'm leaving. We have a morning meeting at the bank today."

Zhang Guifang grabbed her purse and changed into her high heels.

Bang!

The security door slammed shut.

The air in the room seemed to instantly start flowing again.

Chen Jun let out a long breath and straightened his previously hunched back.

He put down his chopsticks and looked with a complex expression at his son, who was slowly peeling a hard-boiled egg across from him.

"Son, does that card of yours... really have a hundred thousand in it?"

Old Chen kept his voice very low, as if afraid the walls had ears.

Chen Zhi stuffed the peeled egg into his mouth and mumbled indistinctly,

"Didn't I show you yesterday?"

Chen Jun rubbed his hands together and wiped his palms on his pant legs.

"Are we... really not going to tell your mom about this?"

"Tell her?"

Chen Zhi swallowed the egg and pulled a tissue to wipe his hands.

"If we tell her, this money will instantly turn into a fixed deposit 'saved for when I get a wife.' Do you believe that?"

Chen Jun opened his mouth, but finally nodded in defeat.

He believed it completely.

That was Comrade Zhang Guifang's standard operating procedure.

"Then... what about buying the computer?"

Chen Jun still felt a bit guilty.

"Just say it's a bonus from your work, plus your secret stash, as a reward for me."

Chen Zhi stood up and cleared the dishes into the kitchen.

"You never spend money normally anyway. If you saved up a few thousand for a secret stash, Mom might scold you a bit, but she won't dig too deep. As long as you say it's for my studies, she'll nag for two days at most."

Chen Jun stood frozen in place.

This kid, he even schemed against his own father?

But this was indeed the safest plan at the moment.

"Alright... fine."

Chen Jun gritted his teeth as if making a major decision.

"Let's go! To the electronics market!"

...

The stairwell was filled with the stale smell of dust.

As soon as the father and son stepped out of the building, a wave of heat hit their faces.

"Chen Zhi!"

A crisp shout came from the side.

A white figure rushed over like a little cannonball.

Lin Wanwan was wearing a white dress, her hair tied in a high ponytail, holding a freshly opened ice pop in her hand.

Sunlight spilled across her face, making the fine peach fuzz clearly visible.

Chen Zhi dodged to the side.

Lin Wanwan missed her target but wasn't annoyed. She smiled playfully and leaned in close to Chen Zhi.

"Where are you going? Hello, Uncle Chen!"

She greeted Chen Jun obediently.

"Ah, Wanwan. Chen Zhi and I are heading to the electronics market to buy him a new computer."

Chen Jun replied with a chuckle.

Lin Wanwan's eyes instantly lit up.

"Buying a computer? I want to go too!"

She turned to look at Chen Zhi, her ponytail swinging in an arc through the air.

"Chen Zhi, take me with you! I'm going to throw up from memorizing vocabulary at home!"

Chen Zhi glanced at her.

"No, it's too hot."

"I have an ice pop! I'll share half with you!"

Lin Wanwan held out the unbroken ice pop to Chen Zhi, looking pained to part with it.

Chen Zhi didn't take it.

"I want the half with the top."

Lin Wanwan froze for a moment, then her small face scrunched up. After agonizing over it, she steeled herself and snapped it in half.

Snap.

The ice pop broke into two pieces.

She handed the half with the plastic top to Chen Zhi, her cheeks puffed out like a pufferfish.

"Here! Miser Chen!"

Chen Zhi took the ice pop, stuck it in his mouth, and mumbled,

"Let's go."

Watching this from the side, Chen Jun shook his head helplessly.

These two kids had been like this since they were little.

...

Jiangcheng City, Ruida Electronics Market.

This was the "technology mecca" that every city had in that era.

Crowded aisles, cardboard boxes all over the floor, and glass counters plastered with signs for "Custom Builds," "Repairs," and "Accessories" everywhere.

The air was a mix of the burnt smell of circuit boards, cheap cigarettes, and body odor.

"Boss! Looking to build a computer? Come in and take a look! The latest specs!"

"Student PCs! Special discounts on student PCs!"

As soon as they entered, enthusiastic cries of touts rose and fell around them.

Chen Jun clearly rarely visited this kind of place. Flustered by the commotion, he tightly guarded his wallet in his pocket.

Lin Wanwan, on the other hand, was full of excitement, looking around with immense curiosity.

Chen Zhi expertly navigated through the crowd, heading straight for a larger storefront on the third floor.

It was a shop he had frequented in his past life. Although the boss was cunning, as long as you knew your stuff, his inventory was comprehensive.

"Yo, what are you folks looking for?"

A middle-aged, greasy-faced fat man wearing a blue vest came over to greet them.

He looked the three of them up and down.

An honest-looking middle-aged man and two kids who looked like students.

Standard fat sheep waiting to be slaughtered.

The fat man's smile grew even more radiant, his fleshy cheeks squishing together.

"Buying a computer for the kid, right? For studying?"

Chen Jun nodded.

"Yes, mainly for looking up information and practicing typing."

The fat man slapped his thigh.

"Then you've come to the right place! We just got a batch of brand-name PCs, quad-core processors, dedicated graphics with massive memory! They run Word and Excel lightning fast! We're having a promotion right now, only 3,999!"

Saying that, he pointed to a display unit on the counter.

The computer case was covered in colorful stickers, making it look quite intimidating.

Chen Jun leaned in to take a look, feeling a bit tempted.

"Are these specs... enough?"

"More than enough! This is a quad-core! The graphics card even has 2G of massive memory! Let alone looking up info, even playing modern 3D games is no problem at all!"

The fat man's spit flew as he started frantically spouting technical jargon.

"A 500G hard drive, think of how many books you can store! The monitor is an ultra-thin LED, it doesn't hurt the eyes!"

Chen Jun was completely bamboozled and turned to look at Chen Zhi.

"Son, what do you think of this one?"

Lin Wanwan also leaned in to join the fun. Even though she didn't understand the specs, she thought the sports car stickers on the case were pretty cool.

Chen Zhi spat the plastic ice pop tube from his mouth into a trash can.

He walked up to the counter and tapped his fingers on the keyboard twice.

"The motherboard is an H81, right?"

The fat man froze for a second, his smile stiffening slightly.

"Uh... the young student knows his stuff. The H81 has high cost-performance, it's stable..."

"The RAM is some off-brand DDR3 1333?"

Chen Zhi ignored him and continued asking.

Sweat started to bead on the fat man's forehead.

"Well... how can you call it off-brand? They're all OEM parts from major factories..."

"And the graphics card? Is it a GT 610 Mad Cow edition? Or a flashed GT 630?"

Chen Zhi looked up, staring calmly at the fat man.

"The so-called quad-core is an old Athlon, right? And the power supply is probably only 200W, falsely labeled as 400W?"

The smile completely vanished from the fat man's face.

He never expected this kid, who looked like he wasn't even weaned yet, to be an expert.

And every single point he made hit right where it hurt.

This setup was a classic scam: a cheap motherboard paired with a trashy graphics card boasting high VRAM, specifically designed to fool parents who only looked at VRAM size and core count.

Although Chen Jun didn't understand the jargon, he could tell something was wrong just by looking at the shop owner's face.

"Son, is this computer... no good?"

Chen Zhi shook his head.

"It's a pile of electronic garbage. The graphics card is worse than integrated graphics."

He pulled a neatly folded slip of paper from his pocket and slapped it onto the counter.

"Get me the parts on this list."

The fat man picked up the paper, glanced at it, and his pupils immediately shrank.

CPU: i5-4590

Motherboard: ASUS B85-PRO GAMER

Graphics Card: GTX 760 2G

RAM: Kingston HyperX 8G DDR3 1600

Storage: 128G SSD + 1TB HDD

Power Supply: Antec VP450P

How the hell was this a student PC?

In 2014, these specs made for a solid mid-to-high-end gaming rig! Especially that solid-state drive; at this time, SSDs were just starting to catch on in the gaming community. Ordinary people had no idea how fast they were.

"This..."

The fat man wiped the sweat from his forehead and let out a dry laugh.

"Little brother, this setup isn't cheap... For the whole rig, plus a monitor, you're looking at over six thousand minimum..."

Hearing the price, Chen Jun's calves cramped up a bit.

"S-six thousand? That expensive?"

His monthly salary was only a little over two thousand.

"Dad, this is called getting it right the first time."

Chen Zhi turned around, calmly sweet-talking his old man.

"Think about it. If we buy that three or four thousand garbage, it'll be too laggy to use in less than a year, and we'll have to replace it. This computer has a solid-state drive, it boots up in just 10 seconds, and I can use it until I graduate from college without needing an upgrade. Averaged out, it's only a little over a thousand a year. Isn't that a great deal?"

Chen Jun frowned, doing the math in his head.

It seemed... to make a bit of sense?

But over six thousand was still too much...

Seeing his dad's hesitation, Chen Zhi leaned in close to his ear and whispered:

"Dad, I have the money."

Chen Jun patted the bank card in his pocket, feeling a bit more reassured.

At least it wasn't coming out of his secret stash.

"Alright! We'll build it according to this list!"

Chen Jun waved his hand grandly, looking like a big spender throwing money around.

Seeing a big deal land right in his lap, the fat man instantly changed his tune.

"You got it! Just wait a moment! I'll have someone fetch the parts from the warehouse right now! I guarantee they're all brand new in the box!"

...

An hour later.

Chen Zhi carried the PC tower, Chen Jun carried the monitor, and Lin Wanwan held the keyboard and mouse as the three of them walked out of the electronics mall.

The sun was still scorching hot.

But Chen Jun's steps were much lighter.

Even though his heart skipped a beat when he swiped the card earlier, seeing the satisfied look on his son's face made him feel it was worth it.

"Brother Chen Zhi, can this computer really play that... that crisis game you mentioned?"

Lin Wanwan followed behind, asking curiously.

"Crysis."

Chen Zhi corrected her.

"It can play anything."

"Can it play QQ Dance?"

"..."

Chen Zhi stopped walking and looked back at her.

"What a waste of good hardware."

"What do you mean!"

Lin Wanwan pouted in dissatisfaction.

"I want to play QQ Dance! And PopKart too!"

Back home.

Taking advantage of the fact that Zhang Guifang wasn't off work yet, Chen Zhi swiftly assembled the computer.

He turned it on.

The low hum of the cooling fans sounded out.

The screen lit up, and the familiar Windows 7 startup screen came into view.

Chen Zhi expertly installed the drivers and essential software.

Chen Jun watched from the side, finding it more and more amazing.

"Son, when did you learn how to build computers?"

"I learned it in computer class at school."

Chen Zhi lied casually.

Chen Jun didn't suspect a thing, merely marveling at how advanced school education was nowadays.

"Alright, Dad, you go rest. I'm going to test the system."

Chen Jun nodded, stepped out of the room, and closed the door behind him.

Chen Zhi was left alone in the room.