On the first day of Tianya's revival, netizens mourned their youth amidst frequent glitches and crashes.

On June 1, 2026, Tianya Community officially launched the new domain name tianya.net and restored data access in phases.

By this day, three full years had passed since it was forced to shut down on April 1, 2023, due to arrears in IDC fees.

Many old users waited in front of their screens early, trying to retrieve their youth. However, many people found that the web page couldn't be opened.

Tianya's customer service responded, "The new website has just restarted. Currently, the number of log - ins has increased sharply, and there is a bit of lag. Please try several times." - Even the comeback itself came with a clumsy and familiar "Tianya - style" congestion.

According to the news released by Tianya Community's WeChat official account on May 31, starting from 0:00 on June 1, the platform will first restore the browsing function of some top - quality posts. The overall data migration is still waiting for the relevant approval process, and it is expected that all data will be restored by June. This also means that those old posts and floors full of memories are being gradually retrieved from the silent database.

In 1999, Xing Ming founded Tianya in Hainan. It was the era of dial - up Internet, but Tianya became an online home for global Chinese at an astonishing speed. "Ghost Blows Out the Light" was serialized in "Lotus Pond Ghost Stories", "Those Things in the Ming Dynasty" started in "Discussing History over Wine", and Sister Furong became well - known across the entire network from here. At its peak, Tianya had up to 130 million registered users - it was the common "online neighborhood committee" for the first - generation Internet users. Someone described that Tianya at that time was the "ICU" of the Internet: every hot event was dissected and fermented here, and no one could understand China at that time without going through Tianya.

However, with the rise of Weibo and WeChat, Tianya's cumbersome model was gradually defeated in the wave of mobile Internet. On April 1, 2023, due to arrears in telecommunications IDC fees, the server was completely shut down. In the following three years, the restart team continued to carry out self - rescue. In February this year, with the support of the new Tianya Joint Working Group, a plan to restore access before June 1 was established, and the special funds and professional teams required for data migration and platform optimization were implemented.

Tianya's long - term service suspension sparked a wave of nostalgia across the entire network. This huge emotional value made the founder, Xing Ming, decide to take a bold bet on "turning memories into cash". He tried to appear in live - streams himself to tell the stories behind the famous posts. In order to activate the over 100 million silent old users, Tianya launched a paid membership system - for example, the "Founding Members" priced at 1,999 yuan (limited to 9,999 copies) and the "Premium Members" priced at 99 yuan. The pre - sale started as early as February this year, and the income was used for data recovery and restart.

This time, nostalgia seems to have found a more direct outlet. Although the official has not disclosed the specific sales volume on the first day, according to people close to Tianya, the number of paid users on the restart day far exceeded the embarrassing situation in 2023 when the "Seven - day and Seven - night Restart of Tianya" live - stream only raised 200,000 yuan.

Now, when you open Tianya, the interface is almost the same as it was more than a decade ago. Some of the original serial posts of "Ghost Blows Out the Light" and "Those Things in the Ming Dynasty" have really been restored, and many netizens came here to "dig into the past and check in". But the excitement was short - lived. In many deserted sections, when a post asking "Is there anyone here?" is posted, the replies may come several hours later.

The reactions of netizens are clearly divided. Some people excitedly took screenshots on social media and said, "My embarrassing teenage history is still here!" More people, after struggling to retrieve their passwords and log in, were left in a daze. A highly - liked comment read, "The person who used to stay up late chatting with me on Tianya, I rarely even chat with them on WeChat now."

This is the biggest paradox. Xing Ming once told the media that the goal is to achieve an annual profit of one billion yuan within three years and re - attempt to go public. But the reality is that users are willing to spend dozens or hundreds of yuan to pay homage to their youth, but they may not be willing to stay in this lifeless old site for daily chatting. Nostalgia is a consumable for one - time consumption, and it won't wait for you when it's expired.

Tianya's facade has indeed been repaired, and some old users have indeed peeked in - even though the server got stuck on the first day. But can this "nostalgia tax" support a capital story with a one - billion - yuan profit, or is it just another more magnificent moment of resurgence before decline?