69novels Chapter 16 Clarity
Chapter 16 Clarity
The crowd silently rose to their feet. Li Ting packed up her laptop and documents with noticeable force, the papers rustling. She didn't glance at Lin Shen once before leaving the conference room. Several engineers also filed out, talking in hushed tones.
Chen Mo walked over to Lin Shen, raised his hand and pressed on his shoulder, the pressure neither too light nor too heavy. "Your views are sharp," he said softly, his face expressionless. "You're also well-prepared. Next time... be mindful of the occasion and your manner of expression." His words sounded both affirmative and admonitory, leaving a lingering, unspoken meaning.
Lin Shen nodded and was the last to leave the conference room.
Outside the door, in the open office area, the sunlight was just right, and the sound of keyboards clattered in and out; everything seemed normal. But Lin Shen could sense some gazes drifting over from behind the workstation partitions, carrying curiosity, inquiry, and perhaps something else entirely.
He had just sat down at his workstation and hadn't even had time to turn on his computer when a figure rushed over, brimming with barely suppressed excitement and curiosity.
"Brother Shen!"
"Who are you calling?" Lin Shen deliberately looked behind where no one was.
"You, Shen-ge!" Lu Chuan practically lay on the partition, his eyes shining as if he'd discovered a new continent. His voice was extremely low, yet burning with gossip, "I heard... I heard you were 'clashing' with Teacher Li in there? About that 'read' status? You even said that thing has some kind of... 'social pressure'? That it can cause 'digital kidnapping'?"
Lin Shen raised an eyebrow in surprise.
This kid has an exceptionally good network of information.
The meeting had just ended, the door had closed and then opened again, and he had already grasped seven or eight tenths of the specific arguments? This sensitivity of his "gossip antenna" seems to be some kind of talent.
"Where did you hear that from?" Lin Shen asked instead of answering, and casually opened the IDE.
"Oh, don't worry about that, I have my ways." Lu Chuan waved his hand, looking inscrutable, and leaned closer, almost whispering, "Is it true? You really think 'read' is bad? But lots of people are clamoring for it... and..."
He glanced towards Li Ting's workstation, his voice lower, "I heard that Manager Li is under a lot of pressure. The progress on 'WeChat' in Guangzhou seems pretty fast, and Zhang Xiaolong is keeping a close eye on it. It seems...it seems they're also having intense internal discussions about similar functionalities. Manager Li probably doesn't want to fall behind, right?"
Micromail...
Lin Shen's eyes flickered slightly.
Sure enough, the internal pressure of competition is an invisible whip lashing at everyone's back. Li Ting's persistence, besides user data, probably also stems in part from this anxiety of not wanting to fall behind.
"Wanting something and whether it's suitable to do it now are two different things," Lin Shen said calmly, pulling up the "supermarket design" sketch he had drawn earlier. "Besides, if we know there might be long-term side effects and follow suit just because we're afraid of falling behind, what we end up with might just be a 'copy' instead of a 'Light' with its own soul."
Lu Chuan seemed to understand but not quite, but the words "counterfeit" and "soul" stirred something within him.
He looked at Lin Shen's calm profile, then recalled the information he had gleaned from a senior colleague who had come out for some "fresh air"—"Newcomers are formidable... Li Ting was outmaneuvered this time. What that newcomer said sounded unconventional at first, but upon closer inspection, it's quite interesting...", "President Zhou didn't make a decision on the spot, which means he listened...", "The technical implementation costs are indeed high; Chen Mo is also having a headache..."
As the fragmented information was pieced together, the drama of "a newcomer taking on the product manager" in Lu Chuan's mind became more complete, and the ending did not seem to be one-sided.
This realization transformed his initial resentment and simple curiosity—a mixture of "why did he get special permission?"—into something indescribable...admiration.
It's not that I admire his courage to criticize others, but rather that he was able to put forward such a self-contained, even somewhat "philosophical," set of views in such a high-pressure, core setting, and it seems that he really shook the seemingly solid consensus.
"Brother Shen," Lu Chuan's voice was much more serious, with a hint of seeking advice, "So, do you think things will go as you said three days from now?"
"It's not about doing it 'as I say'," Lin Shen corrected him, his gaze never leaving the screen. "It's about everyone working together to choose the path that's most beneficial for the long-term development of Light. My responsibility is to clearly present the potential risks and alternative possibilities we see on the table as clearly as possible."
Lu Chuan nodded thoughtfully. He looked at the complex flowcharts and English terms on Lin Shen's screen, then at the slightly somber atmosphere at Li Ting's workstation not far away, and at the glaring "99" on the public whiteboard.
Although the number seemed to have been temporarily forgotten and not updated because the team was focused on the controversy and solutions, everyone knew that there were only forty-odd days left until the "big test" that would ultimately decide Light's fate.
He suddenly realized that this guy, who was sitting calmly in front of the computer but whose mind was on "the soul of the product" and "social pressure," was closely connected to the tense, concrete, countdown-filled world he was in, yet seemed to be separated by a dimension that he had not yet fully understood.
"Then... is there anything I can help with?" Lu Chuan asked as if possessed, his tone devoid of its previous playfulness.
Lin Shen paused in his typing, glancing at him sideways. Lu Chuan's face showed curiosity, eagerness, and a hint of seriousness at wanting to participate in this "big event."
"Yes." Lin Shen nodded. "The 'supermarket design drawings' need someone to help organize some technical solutions research from competitors, and also to run a few basic performance comparison test cases. However, the content might be rather trivial and tedious." He paused for a moment, then added, "Also, your mentor is Li Ting, so you need to make sure her work isn't affected."
Lu Chuan paused for a moment, then scratched his head: "Um... I understand! Wait for me, Brother Shen!"
He turned and strode quickly towards Li Ting's workstation. Lin Shen watched his retreating figure and continued with her work. A few minutes later, Lu Chuan returned, his expression much more relaxed, and his posture seemed straighter.
"No problem, Brother Shen!" Lu Chuan said confidently. "I told Sister Li that you need manpower for some basic research and testing, and she agreed! She also told me... to do a good job." When he said the last three words, a subtle light flashed in his eyes. Obviously, Li Ting's original words may have been more than that, but the meaning was clear: she tacitly approved, and it may even have had a certain observational meaning.
"It won't be boring! Leave those things to me!" Lu Chuan patted his chest, his promise sounding more confident this time.
Lin Shen looked at him and his opinion of Lu Chuan rose even higher. This kid was not only well-informed, but also had strong communication and resource-grabbing abilities. Although he was a bit of a double agent, communication was the most important thing in team matters. He himself lacked that kind of emotional intelligence.
"Okay, I'll send you the materials and test cases later." After saying that, Lin Shen immersed himself back into his world of code.
Lu Chuan returned to his workstation with satisfaction, feeling proud to have been somewhat involved in the "core battlefield."
For the next three days, an invisible, tense tension seemed to permeate the air around the Light project team.
Li Ting's work area became a small eye of the storm. She and her product assistant worked almost non-stop to re-examine user feedback, trying to dig deeper into the real motivations behind the "read" requirement. At the same time, they also began to draft survey questionnaires for the "lightweight alternatives" mentioned by Lin Shen.
Her expression was never quite right. When she bumped into Lin Shen in the corridor or tea room, she would quickly look away, as if deliberately ignoring him. However, her professionalism and dedication to her work were not diminished, and she was also very open-minded about Lu Chuan's "secondment," which made Lin Shen respect her even more.
Chen Mo and Zhou Botao spent even more time locked in the small conference room. Technical assessments, resource reassessments, scheduling pressures, and that unresolved decision concerning the product's character weighed heavily on the decision-makers' minds. Occasionally, Chen Mo could be seen holding a coffee, standing silently by the window for long periods.
Lin Shen, on the other hand, completely immersed himself in the detailed design of "Path B - Modern Supermarket". Chen Mo kept his promise and allocated resources for him: he borrowed a person named Cheng Xiangdong from Zhang Wei's client development team, who had in-depth research on UI performance. Together with Lu Chuan, the three of them officially formed a temporary task force.
The three of them drew, discussed, argued, and then erased and started over on the whiteboard next to Lin Shen's workstation.
"Here, the loading timing of the skeleton screen and the animation of replacing real data must be smooth, without any flickering or jerking, otherwise the experience will be worse." Cheng Xiangdong pointed to a complex timing diagram on the whiteboard, his tone serious.
"Cache strategies must be tiered and have intelligent degradation mechanisms. Chat logs and thumbnails from recently active sessions can be kept resident in a portion of memory, but memory warning lines and recycling strategies must be in place." Lu Chuan shared his experience gleaned from veteran employees, as well as his research on competitor solutions.
"The most crucial aspect is that our asynchronous pipeline design absolutely cannot have any bottlenecks." Lin Shen circled several key nodes with a red marker. "Data preparation, view assembly, and rendering to the screen—the three stages must mesh together like precision gears. If any link is slow or stuck, there must be a pre-set degradation or parallel solution to ensure that the responsiveness of user operations is always the top priority."
They no longer use the analogy of "convenience stores, supermarkets, and warehouses," but the core idea of layered evolution and experience-driven approaches permeates every technical decision. Lin Shen even took an evening to work with Lu Chuan to write the most immediate and lowest-risk asynchronous optimization points in "Path A" into committable code patches, which passed a quick review and were merged into the development branch.
The next day, after the beta version was updated, a few comments appeared sporadically in several active seed user feedback groups, such as "It seems to scroll a little smoother?" Although it was only "a little," this faint positive signal, like a small spark in the dark night, excited the three members of the task force, especially Lu Chuan.
"It's working! Brother Shen, our 'convenience store unblocking' method is really effective!" Lu Chuan grinned as he stared at the feedback screenshot.
"This is just the beginning, proving that our general direction is correct." Lin Shen's face relaxed slightly, but he quickly became serious again. "The real battle is the design and construction of the 'supermarket'."
The three days flew by in intensive discussions, drawing, writing documents, and running prototypes. Lin Shen squeezed every minute out of his schedule. Even after returning to his rented apartment after get off work, he used the "Bullet Time - Beginner" technique to accelerate his thinking and refine several key technical details.
Some "slacking off coins" were used up, but they were exchanged for a more solid design, which surprised Cheng Xiangdong. This newcomer's thinking was frighteningly clear, and the technical questions he raised always hit the nail on the head. The team's discussions never went on overnight, and the efficiency was astonishing.
During this period, Lu Chuan's "gossip antenna" remained highly efficient. He would occasionally bring in some "insider information":
"I heard that Sister Li's survey has been sent out, and the reaction is a bit mixed; it's not all one-sided that people are marking it as 'read'..."
"Senior Wang Hao seems to be going crazy over that voice encoding parameter, but he says he's making some progress..."
"Hey, did you guys know? I heard that at 'WeChat' in Guangzhou, there seem to be two opposing opinions on the 'read' status, and they're arguing quite fiercely... Zhang Xiaolong hasn't made a decision yet."
"And also, it seems that President Zhou has spoken with Teacher Chen privately several times..."
These fragmented pieces of information pieced together a vague picture of the battle within the project team and even on a larger scale. Lin Shen listened silently, neither agreeing nor disagreeing, but his grasp of the situation became clearer.
On the afternoon of the third day, the second version planning finalization meeting was held.
The same glass conference room, the same group of people, but the atmosphere was completely different from three days ago. The initial certainty and eagerness had diminished, replaced by a more cautious and deliberate composure.
Zhou Botao didn't waste any words and looked directly at Li Ting: "Product side, reassessment conclusions?"
Li Ting took a deep breath and opened the new projection file. The content on the screen invigorated everyone.
It is no longer a single "read" feature proposal, but rather a clear left and right column comparison.
Left sidebar: "Message read status synchronization (full version)". Advantages include: satisfying some users' need for a strong sense of certainty; common in the market; competitors (including potential competitors) may follow suit. Risks and concerns (new and reinforced): 1. Complex technical implementation, consuming many resources; 2. May create continuous social pressure on the recipient (excerpts from in-depth user interviews are attached; some users have indeed expressed such concerns); 3. Easily establishes a "real-time response" product tone, potentially discouraging users who prefer relaxed asynchronous communication; 4. May have an inherent conflict with Light's current emphasis on a "lightweight" core experience.
Right sidebar: "Lightweight Deterministic/Status Feedback Solutions (Exploration Directions)". Includes: 1. Enhanced "Delivery Receipt" (more eye-catching design, configurable); 2. Smart inference prompts that "the recipient may have received/seen" (based on lightweight signals such as application foreground status and message type); 3. "Quick Status Marking" user experiment solution (such as "[Busy, will reply later]", "[Read and acknowledged]", etc., triggered by the recipient).
"After a comprehensive reassessment," Li Ting's voice was more composed than three days ago, but it also revealed a clear calmness based on new evidence. "The 'read' function has both value and risks, and the potential social pressure it brings has been partially verified in in-depth research. At this stage, its technological cost is also too high."
She paused, her gaze sweeping across the room, finally lingering on Lin Shen for half a second before quickly looking away: "I suggest that version 0.7 should not push for a complete, mandatory 'read' status synchronization feature."
A soft gasp filled the conference room; the shift in this conclusion was quite significant.
Li Ting continued: "However, users' basic need for certainty regarding whether information is known still exists and is reasonable. Therefore, we suggest a compromise: implement 'enhanced delivery receipts' as a basic guarantee, which has low technical costs; at the same time, launch a small-scale user experiment with 'quick status marking' to explore a more user-friendly and flexible status feedback method, and verify it as a possible differentiating experience point for Light."
This is a clear compromise and a rational step forward. It basically adopts the core concerns raised by Lin Shen (postponing the full read receipt and avoiding pressure), while retaining the product side's response to the need for "certainty" (strengthening delivery receipts and exploring new methods).
Zhou Botao nodded slightly and looked at Chen Mo: "Technical assessment?"
Chen Mo's laptop screen was lit, displaying a clear comparison chart: "Based on a detailed breakdown over the past three days: the 'Ultimate Core Experience' special solution is basically complete, covering message list smoothness optimization (expected improvement of 30%-50%), voice encoding efficiency improvement (target of reducing bandwidth usage by 30%), and weak network connection optimization (improving message delivery rate by more than 15%). The technical path is clear, the resource requirements are well-defined, and these are the deliverable and perceptible core value points of version 0.7."
He switched to a different slide: "Implementing the 'enhanced delivery receipt' has a very low technical cost, almost negligible. The 'quick status marking' experiment requires a small amount of cooperation between the front-end and back-end, with a moderate workload. If we abandon the full 'read' function, the R&D resources originally planned for it can be fully concentrated on the experience optimization project, and there will be spare capacity to start the technical research and architecture design of the basic group chat function, laying the groundwork for subsequent versions."
The situation is now crystal clear.