Chapter 101: The Fish God
While Russo was working toward his undisputed victory, Little Fish was also helping out in front of a computer screen.
It was nine o’clock at night.
Russo still had not come home.
He was probably still training.
Little Fish opened the browser with practiced ease, typed in the address, and brought up the country’s most famous and most heavily visited online forum, Tidal Gate.
She entered the sports section and began editing the post she had made earlier, adding Russo’s latest sprint results:
Indoor 60 meters: 6.54 seconds, national record holder
Indoor 200 meters: 20.80 seconds, national record holder
Indoor 400 meters: 49.05 seconds, third place at the Chengdu stop of the Indoor Track and Field Invitational
Outdoor 100 meters: 10.30 seconds, training result, equal to the national best
Outdoor 200 meters: 20.42 seconds, training result, national record holder
Outdoor 400 meters: none
The post was titled Sprint King: The Growth Chronicle of Hexagonal All-Rounder Russo.
It had gone up half a month earlier, and she edited it from time to time.
The sports section of Tidal Gate was, at the moment, the hottest among the major mainstream forums in the country.
At the end of 2004, the Internet had already spread widely across the nation, but for most people going online was still something fairly novel. Those who could surf the web at this moment were mostly reasonably educated.
The sports channel of Tidal Gate was currently the most professional and influential online community for discussion of competitive sports.
After Little Fish edited the post, it was immediately highlighted in red and pushed all the way to the top of the forum page, standing out sharply amid a sea of discussions about professional basketball and the World Cup.
Soon someone replied, “What is there to watch about domestic sprinting? Give it ten years and it still won’t produce a world champion. Trash.”
Internet trolls never changed, their mouths foul as ever.
But there were also knowledgeable people, and when they saw the results described in the post, they could not help but exclaim, “When did such an impressive sprinter appear in this country?”
And those familiar with the post and the one who had made it joined the fun as well. “Has the Fish God crossed sections again to promote your idol?”
“My idol has a new result, so I’m sharing it with everyone,” Little Fish replied.
Her response drew even more replies.
Someone asked, “Who is the Fish God? Who is the Fish God?”
“The Fish God is a god,” someone answered. “The moderator of the neighboring computer section, and the newest one at that.”
The person who had asked went over to the computer section of Tidal Gate to take a look, and sure enough, the name Original I Am Fish was shining gold in the moderator’s seat.
Anyone who could serve as a moderator in Tidal Gate’s computer section was a true expert. Hardware, software, programming—though not necessarily miraculous, they had to possess at least one real specialty. Any computer-related question before such experts was no question at all.
“No wonder the sports section moderator highlights it in red as soon as a post goes up,” someone remarked. “The Fish God has face.”
Little Fish ignored those remarks. What caught her attention was a reply that read:
“Are these figures authentic? Where did the training data come from? Especially the 100 meters, isn’t that already faster than Pan Kai’s national best? I’m an editor at New Wave and want to turn this into a news item. I’ve followed Russo for a long time and believe he will become the leading figure in domestic sprinting.”
“The figures are genuine, but the source is inconvenient to disclose,” Little Fish replied. New Wave was one of the country’s largest and most influential portal sites.
“I believe the Fish God,” the person answered. “I’ll take the data. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” Little Fish replied.
For some time, Little Fish had devoted herself to spreading Russo’s results and reputation across the Internet. Although the attention he received was still limited, and the resulting news coverage was sparse, sprinting, as that online troll had said, was a rather obscure sport in the country.
If Russo were playing basketball in the United States, or football in England, with the dazzling results he had already achieved among his domestic peers, his name would long ago have dominated every forum.
But Little Fish believed that as Russo continued to achieve better and better results, his name would sooner or later spread across the entire network. An obscure sport could be heated up with sufficiently fierce performances, and the slow work of warming it up began with every night after school, when Little Fish sat down to work.
Click.
The door opened.
Russo was home.
Little Fish immediately shut down the computer, jumped off the chair, and ran into the living room to greet him. Without caring that he was drenched in sweat, she clung to him like an octopus.
“It’s already ten. Why aren’t you asleep?” Russo asked, patting her head.
“I was waiting for my brother~” Little Fish said. She let go, took his slippers from the shoe rack, and asked, “Have you eaten? Do you want something to eat? I cooked pig knuckle soup tonight.”
“I told you not to mess with the stove... well, forget it, I didn’t have time to cook for you either.” After changing into the slippers, Russo sat on the sofa and stretched out comfortably, while Little Fish was already bringing over a bowl of pig knuckle soup.
Since moving house, Little Fish had stopped pretending. She had come clean: she went to school and came home by herself, cooked for herself, and could do everything on her own. Though she was a little girl who would not even finish elementary school until next year, once she tied on an apron and stood on a little stool to stir-fry dishes, she always gave the impression that she could be married off next year.
Recently, Little Fish especially liked making Russo chicken-foot and pig-knuckle soup, saying that like nourishes like, and it could help him run faster. Russo was not superstitious, but being a little more believing would not hurt. What if it actually worked?
Russo drank the soup while Little Fish sat on her little stool, elbows on the coffee table, chin in her hands, watching him.
“What are you looking at?” Russo asked.
“You, of course. There’s too little time each day when I can see my brother,” Little Fish said.
“Sorry. I don’t have time to keep you company,” Russo said, feeling rather apologetic. After moving into the new home, it seemed Little Fish had even less company.
“It’s okay. My brother’s dream is our shared dream. What we said in July is already halfway coming true. Just thinking about it feels like a dream~” Little Fish said with a grin.
Yes.
Russo was reminded by Little Fish and remembered that in July of this year, on a sweltering summer day, the siblings had walked through the streets of Prosperity City, looking at how magnificent the world was while the two of them had nothing at all. They had decided to change their lives through sprinting.
And now, they had already made a little progress.
“Yes. We’ll have even more,” Russo promised. “More than anyone can imagine.”
“I believe you, Brother. But Brother, you also have to believe that even if you never amount to anything, I can still make you happy, as long as you wait until I grow a little more,” Little Fish said.
“Mhm, I believe you. So what have you been studying lately?” Russo asked.
“I’m studying an algorithm. Right now, network resources in the country are still very tight, and the resources everyone needs are concentrated on servers. I’ve developed an algorithm and a mechanism that can let the downloading client function as a server, enabling resource sharing and improving download speeds. I call it peer-to-peer technology...”
When Little Fish first started speaking, Russo was still nodding along. By the time she had gone on a bit longer, she could already hear the faint sound of sleep coming from his nose and mouth.
Well then...
Little Fish fetched a blanket from the room and draped it over Russo.
Sleep well.