📅 January 15th
It was the big day.
The long-anticipated 12307 online ticketing platform officially launched, allowing Chinese users to:
Search train schedules
Check fares and availability
Book tickets
Track delays—all online
This was the first time China's national railway ticketing system had gone fully digital. And the people were thrilled.
For countless migrant workers, students, and professionals far from home, this was more than just a website.
It was freedom from lines.
Freedom from stress.
A chance to go home for the Spring Festival without chaos.
Social media exploded with praise:
"Finally! No more standing in freezing lines at the station!"
"I can finally buy tickets on my phone like a normal human being."
"Government did something right this time!"
Even the official from the Railway Administration made a rare public statement:
"We wanted this to go live before the holiday rush so families across Daxia could go home more easily."
9:00 AM – The website went live.
It only took ten seconds to lag.
Thirty seconds later: "Network Error."
Within a minute: "Too many users. Please try again later."
Nationwide, the complaints rolled in like a tsunami.
"What kind of trash site is this?"
"I refreshed ten times but still can't get in!"
"I submitted my order, and it failed after five minutes!"
"Why was I charged twice for one ticket?"
"Forget it. Back to lining up. Bring a tent—it's freezing."
📍 Yanjing Railway Bureau
Inside the director's office, chaos erupted.
"Director Cui! Bad news!"
"What's going on?"
"The website's down—completely crashed!"
Director Cui's expression froze.
"It's only been live for five minutes. Already?!"
"There are too many users! Hundreds of millions have flooded in!"
"Our servers can't handle it."
"Can we add more servers?"
"We're trying!"
A moment later, the secretary ran back in.
"Director, someone is here. Says they can help fix the website."
"Who?"
"A young man. He didn't give credentials, but he's confident."
A few minutes later, three people walked in:
Lu Haifeng, President of China Star
Huang Zhonghua, Head of Cloud Development
Li Jun, Senior Technical Architect
"Director Cui, thank you for seeing us," Haifeng greeted.
"President Lu of China Star Technology," the secretary added.
"They say they can solve the crash."
"What's your proposal?" Cui asked directly.
Haifeng didn't beat around the bush.
"Director Cui, do you know about cloud computing?"
"A little."
"We can migrate 12307 onto China Star Cloud. We'll host the entire platform—for free."
Cui's eyes narrowed.
"Free? What's the catch?"
"No catch," Haifeng said sincerely.
"No data will be collected. We want to help make the system accessible.
If you'd like, we can even build a custom ticketing system for you—free of charge."
Cui stared for a long moment.
Then nodded.
"On behalf of the people of Daxia, thank you, President Lu."
📍 Yanjing Railway IT Department – 3rd Floor
Li Jun and Huang Zhonghua moved quickly.
Huang pulled up the China Star Cloud Portal, logged in, and opened the data interface.
"Here. Upload your source code and data here."
Cui gave the green light. His developers jumped in and began copying everything over.
The site was uploaded to China Star's cloud infrastructure in less than an hour.
"Try it now," Huang said.
A dev pressed enter.
The homepage loaded instantly.
Then, the ticket inquiry page.
Then, the payment portal.
"It's working! It's working!"
"Smooth! Not a single lag!"
"I can search, pay—everything! Flawless!"
Cui sat down at the terminal. Hands trembling slightly, he tried it himself.
And… it worked. Perfectly.
He turned to Haifeng.
"Unbelievable. The same platform—just on your cloud—and it runs like this?"
"Technology should serve the people," Haifeng replied.
And with that, China Star Cloud officially went live—at a national level.
Millions of users now rely on it. No one even realized the switch had happened.
But behind the scenes?
A new tech empire was quietly rising.