Chapter 134 Company-wide Holiday Trip: Mr. Lu's Versailles Routine

Chu Xuan's chin nearly hit the wool carpet. His hands trembled. He shoved the ball of crumpled tissue, soaked in cold sweat, deep into his floral shirt pocket.

"St-stop work?" Chu Xuan's voice cracked completely, sounding like a drake whose neck had been stepped on.

"Mr. Lu! Our production line has a throughput of tens of thousands of units a day right now!" He slapped his thigh in anxiety. "If we stop, the daily losses in dollars could pile up into a mountain!"

Lu Jingming leaned back against his office chair. He reached his right hand into the pocket of his worn-out jeans and pulled out that one-dollar green plastic lighter. His thumb pressed against the metal grinding wheel, but he didn't ignite it, just twirled it back and forth between his fingers. The plastic casing made a faint clacking sound.

"Money can never be fully earned. The lab still needs to grind for a while on the base materials for the holographic projection."

Lu Jingming tugged at the collar of his faded black T-shirt. "For the past half year, the company has been like a machine with its springs wound too tight."

He scanned outside the window. "The engineers down there are on the verge of a nervous breakdown. If we keep squeezing them, someone's going to die."

He turned his head, his gaze falling on Shen Qingqiu. "General Manager Shen, use some of the moldy dollars in our accounts to pave the way."

Lu Jingming's voice was nonchalant. "Go book the best private island in the Maldives. Charter a flight for the whole company to take a long vacation."

Shen Qingqiu stood by the glass coffee table. The collar of her white shirt was buttoned impeccably. She pushed up the gold-rimmed glasses on the bridge of her nose. A cold light, characteristic of an actuary, flashed behind the lenses. "Understood."

Shen Qingqiu's high heels made dull tapping sounds on the carpet. "I'll have the outreach department book the flights tonight."

Three days later. On the other side of the ocean, in the Maldives. The azure seawater lapped against the fine white sandy beach. The sunlight was blindingly harsh.

Over a thousand employees of Xinghai Technology were completely let loose. Cheers mixed with the sound of the waves.

Under a giant parasol at the edge of the beach, Xia Weiliang was still wearing that yellowed, dirty white lab coat. She looked completely out of place among the crowd in bikinis and beach shorts.

She was barefoot. Her toes were digging firmly into the fine, hot white sand. Her bird's nest of hair was messy, blown by the sea breeze to look even more like a chicken coop.

"What kind of crappy place is this? The UV rays are strong enough to burn through a retina." Xia Weiliang rolled her eyes dramatically. She fished a ham sausage out of her lab coat pocket. She tore open the plastic casing with her teeth and took a "crunchy" bite.

In the waves not far away, Chu Xuan was running wildly, wearing a pair of bright red floral beach shorts. Greasy sweat on his forehead mixed with the salty seawater as it streamed down. He was still clutching that crumpled ball of tissue he refused to throw away.

He used the ruined tissue to desperately wipe the water droplets off his face. "Little Weiliang! You're still wearing that outfit even when you're out having fun!" Chu Xuan panted heavily, his chest heaving violently. "Come into the water and splash around! The water temperature is amazing!"

"Get lost." Xia Weiliang swallowed the ham sausage and shrank back in disgust. "Seawater conducts electricity, it's filthy. Don't get near me."

A few dozen meters away from the parasol, a simple charcoal grill was set up. Lu Jingming was standing next to the grill. He was still wearing that faded black T-shirt. He had a pair of worn-out oversized shorts on his lower half, and he was shuffling in a pair of ten-dollar plastic flip-flops.

He held a cattail leaf fan in his hand and fanned the charcoal a couple of times casually. The charcoal wasn't hot enough and was emitting a choking blue smoke. Lu Jingming smacked his lips. He threw the fan onto the sand with his right hand. He pulled out that green plastic lighter. His thumb pressed against the grinding wheel. "Click." A ghostly blue flame shot up.

He brought the lighter directly to the kindling. The flame instantly engulfed the charcoal, and it flared up with a "whoosh." The few oysters placed on the wire mesh immediately made a "sizzling" sound. Plump, juicy liquid overflowed along the shells.

Lu Jingming stared at the bubbling oysters. The corner of his mouth curled into a cold sneer, one of his sharp canines flashing white.

Just on the outskirts of this peaceful beach, in the coconut grove a few hundred meters away, several sneaky shadows were lying prone. Several blond-haired, blue-eyed foreigners were sticking their butts up while lying in the sand hollows. They had North America technology media press passes hanging in front of their chests. They were holding expensive SLR cameras with telephoto lenses in their hands. The lenses were fixed firmly on Lu Jingming's direction.

"Click, click." The dense sound of shutters was masked by the sound of the waves. A white reporter with a beard wiped the sand and hot sweat off his face. "Got it! That Chinese lunatic is grilling seafood!"

A mocking sneer rolled out of his throat. His eyes revealed a sour malice. "Xinghai's system just dominated the globe, and they ran off for a company-wide vacation?"

The bearded reporter gritted his back teeth. "These nouveau riche have no idea what Silicon Valley spirit is!"

The tall, thin reporter beside him quickly pulled out his laptop. He connected it to a portable satellite network transmitter. "Post it to Twitter immediately! I've already thought of the headline!"

His ten fingers tapped frantically on the keyboard. The typing sound carried an impatient eagerness. "Xinghai Technology's Talents Dried Up: The Debauchery of Eastern Nouveau Riche."

The accompanying photo was a high-definition close-up of Lu Jingming shuffling in flip-flops, lighting charcoal with a one-dollar lighter. The article was full of mockery. Between the lines, it was all about stirring up trouble. It claimed Xinghai Technology had its fighting spirit corroded by trillions of dollars and started resting on its laurels as soon as it made money. It asserted that the perfect time for the US technology alliance to counterattack had arrived.

Less than half an hour after the tweet was posted, the international internet exploded again. Those Wall Street short-selling institutions that had been fleeced all jumped in to retweet it. You could smell their sour grapes from across the Pacific Ocean.

On the beach in the Maldives, Lu Jingming finished grilling the oysters and strode over to a large beach chair. He plopped down, and the chair let out a "creak."

He fished a can of iced cola out of the ice bucket next to him. Condensation flowed down the aluminum can, dampening the back of his hand. The ice-cold sensation dispelled the sultry heat of the island.

Lu Jingming held his phone in one hand. His thumb swiped casually across the screen. The page was stopped on that trending Twitter topic the foreigner had just posted. He looked at the English comments below clamoring that "Xinghai is finished," without even lifting an eyelid. A disdainful snort rolled out of his throat.

Lu Jingming hooked his index finger into the can's pull-tab. With a crisp "crack," white bubbles surged out. He tilted his neck back and took a big gulp of the iced cola. The carbonated bubbles churned violently in his stomach, stinging his throat. He let out a sweet-smelling burp.

"These foreign devils get itchy if they don't get scolded." Lu Jingming squeezed a few dents into the half-empty can. He turned his head and stared at Chu Xuan, who was still wiping sweat with a tissue nearby. A fierce light that made one's spine chill flickered in the depths of his eyes. "Chu Xuan, pack your bags and go back to the country." Lu Jingming sneered. "We're going to make some unprofitable little toys."