Chapter 144 Netizens Panic: President Lu Feels It's Meaningless and Wants to Retire

"Lest I scare everyone to death."

The words were spoken lightly.

Chu Xuan swallowed dryly.

His throat felt painfully constricted, as if he had swallowed a handful of coarse sandpaper.

He gripped the wad of tissue in his hand, which was already soaked through with cold sweat.

His legs were shaking uncontrollably inside his dress pants.

Was that even human language?

Outside, there were two hundred global media outlets and tens of millions of netizens.

All just to watch you cover your mouth and yawn for five seconds?

Lu Jingming leaned back on the leather sofa in the lounge.

His faded black T-shirt was slightly wrinkled.

He reached his right hand into the pocket of his worn-out jeans and fished out that one-dollar green plastic lighter.

His thumb pressed down on the metal flint wheel.

"Click."

A crisp mechanical sound rang out.

A deep blue flame shot up, dancing restlessly in the air-conditioned room.

It illuminated the sharp, white canine tooth on one side of Lu Jingming's face.

He stared at the flame, his eyes filled with the listlessness of someone watching a monkey show.

This one yawn from Lu Jingming had sent the global internet up in smoke.

In less than half an hour, the traffic curves for the servers of American giants Twitter and YouTube had shot up into a vertical red line.

Countless tech bloggers, like hyenas smelling blood, frantically took screenshots of Lu Jingming covering his mouth to yawn.

In California, at the Apple headquarters, Cook sat in his large executive chair.

He stared intensely at the screen where the absurd, looping yawn was playing.

Cook panted heavily, his chest heaving violently.

The nerves that had been taut for half a month suddenly relaxed.

The shirt on his back was already soaked through with cold sweat.

"No new hardware? Just a lousy patch with rounded corners?"

Cook swallowed.

The bloodshot veins in his eyes slowly faded.

He grabbed the plastic water cup on the table and took a huge gulp.

"The Chinese are out of tricks. Their technological moat has bottomed out!"

A sinister sneer tugged at the corners of Cook's mouth.

"Tell the PR department to go all out! Push the press releases about Xinghai having exhausted its talent to the entire web!"

For a time, foreign tech media acted as if they'd been injected with adrenaline.

Black PR pieces flooded the internet.

"The Collapse of the Eastern Tech Myth: Xinghai Encounters an Epic Innovation Bottleneck."

"From Changing the World to Yawning, It Only Took Lu Jingming a Month."

Short-selling institutions on Wall Street were restless.

The traders in the hall began frantically typing on their keyboards, preparing to tentatively place short orders.

The domestic public opinion field was even more exaggerated.

The top ten trending topics on Weibo were completely dominated by this one yawn.

#Is God Lu Depressed#

#Xinghai Technology Encounters Innovation Bottleneck#

#Lu Jingming Slack-off at Press Conference#

In the comment section below, netizens were panicking.

Keyboards clattered loudly.

"Holy crap! Look at Boss Lu's dark circles and that look of having no desires! He's definitely depressed!"

"Do you understand the loneliness of the peak? He's knocked out all the foreign companies; he's looking around with his sword, feeling lost!"

"Don't! God Lu, don't retire! I just bought a Xinghai bracelet, don't run away!"

In the official backend of Xinghai Technology, countless long letters of plea poured into the customer service inbox like snowflakes.

The server was spinning, unable to keep up.

In Donghai City, outside the main gate of the Xinghai Technology Park, the autumn wind blew fallen leaves.

The security booth had no air conditioning, and the door was open for ventilation.

Old Zhou, wrapped in an old military coat, huddled on a folding stool.

He held the evening paper that had just been delivered.

The front-page headline featured a high-definition photo of Lu Jingming yawning.

Old Zhou's eyelids twitched wildly.

He picked up the chipped enamel tea mug beside him, wanting to drink some hot water to calm his nerves.

His hands were shaking like a sieve.

"Clatter."

His upper set of dentures slid right out of his mouth.

They landed precisely into the steaming tea mug.

Old Zhou didn't even bother to fish them out.

He spoke with a lisp.

He hurriedly pulled the old phone from his pocket and, trembling, dialed Chu Xuan's number.

"Hello? P-President Chu!"

Old Zhou shouted at the top of his lungs.

"I read in the paper that Boss Lu is finished? That he's packing up to go back to his hometown?"

On the other end of the line, Chu Xuan was squatting in the corner of the top-floor office.

He had just stuffed a dry tissue into the pocket of his red-bottomed, black-checkered floral shirt.

Hearing this, Chu Xuan nearly spat out a mouthful of blood.

"Old Zhou, what are you yelling about! Who said Boss Lu is finished?"

Chu Xuan lowered his voice.

"He just polished off three big bowls of braised pork in the cafeteria! He could kill a cow with one punch!"

"Then why is everyone on the internet saying the company is going bankrupt?"

Old Zhou slapped his thighs in anxiety, making a loud sound.

"I just saved up some money and wanted to buy a small property in Donghai; the company can't fold now!"

"Fold my ass! Just watch the gate!"

Chu Xuan hung up the phone directly.

He stood up, listening to the white noise of the air cooler blowing in the office.

His legs were still trembling slightly.

Accompanied by the "clack-clack" sound of high heels on the wool carpet, Shen Qingqiu pushed open the solid wood door and walked in.

The collar of her white shirt was buttoned impeccably.

She held a freshly printed public opinion monitoring report in her hand.

"Lu Jingming."

Shen Qingqiu pushed up the gold-rimmed glasses on the bridge of her nose.

A cold, piercing light, typical of an actuary, flashed behind the lenses.

"This one yawn of yours has sent the company's PR department to the brink of mass suicide."

She slammed the report onto the glass coffee table, making a crisp clattering sound.

"Now the whole world thinks you've exhausted your talent."

Shen Qingqiu's voice was cold.

"Those vultures on Wall Street have already prepared a short-selling pool of five billion US dollars. They intend to test the waters."

Lu Jingming sat in the leather executive chair, his legs crossed and resting on the edge of the dark desk.

He released his thumb.

With a crisp "snap," the plastic lid closed.

The deep blue flame of the lighter was instantly extinguished.

"The imagination of these netizens is much stronger than those coding guys in California."

Lu Jingming leaned back in the chair.

A mocking sneer rolled out from his throat.

"They want to test my bottom line with five billion US dollars?"

He tapped his knuckles on the desk twice, making a "tap-tap" sound.

"This pool of water is too shallow. It's not enough to bury them."

Chu Xuan swallowed dryly.

"Boss Lu, we should at least issue a statement to debunk the rumors."

He dug a tissue out of his pocket to wipe away his oily sweat.

"If this continues to ferment, the suppliers will be coming to block our door with invoices."

Before his voice had even faded, "Bang!"

The heavy solid wood door was slammed open by someone's shoulder.

The door hit the sound-absorbing pad on the wall so hard it bounced back half a foot.

Xia Weiliang rushed in, barefoot.

The hem of her yellowing, dirty white lab coat was covered in a layer of black ash.

Her bird's nest hair was messy.

She held a lump of black stuff in her hands.

The lollipop stick in her mouth had been chewed flat.

Xia Weiliang rushed to the coffee table in a few steps and suddenly released her hands.

"Clang!"

The lump of black material slammed directly onto the glass coffee table, making a dull thud.

It made the glass on the table jump.

Xia Weiliang stepped barefoot onto the wool carpet, panting heavily, her eyes bloodshot.

"Stop pretending to be profound!"

Xia Weiliang spat out the lollipop stick.

She pointed at the ugly black lump on the coffee table.

"Look at this piece of industrial waste the superconductivity lab came up with!"