Chapter 59 Old Master Qiao is furious; the press conference can't go on.

Glass shards crunched under his leather shoes, making a teeth-grinding sound.

In the circular conference room on the top floor of Apple headquarters, the air pressure was low enough to be suffocating.

Steve pulled at his already sparse hair with both hands, his chest heaving violently like a broken bellows.

A large patch on the back of his signature black turtleneck sweater was already soaked through.

Having just finished watching the Xinghai Technology press conference on the screen, this recognized godfather of Silicon Valley tech felt his spirit completely shattered.

"This is the fine mess you've made!"

Steve spun around violently and kicked the trash can beside him.

The stainless steel bin hit the wall with a deafening thud.

He strode over to Foster, the head of the hardware department, and grabbed him by his suit tie.

Spittle sprayed all over his face.

"I approved hundreds of millions of dollars in R&D funding for you, and you built me a defective piece of junk with a wide chin?"

Foster shrank his neck in fear, his hands waving frantically in the air, his voice trembling as he tried to defend himself.

"Boss, our laboratory hasn't even successfully run the data for that Full-screen Display COF packaging process yet."

He swallowed hard, cold sweat dripping from the tip of his nose.

"The Chinese must have used some crooked means to force it together. According to standard industrial logic, that's impossible to mass-produce!"

"Bullshit! They've already brought out the real device and unlocked it in public!"

Steve shoved him away with such force that Foster staggered and fell directly into a swivel chair.

Steve, his eyes bloodshot, turned abruptly to glare at Scott, the head of the software department.

The murderous look in his eyes suggested he wanted to devour him alive.

"And you! Didn't you say that Slide-to-unlock was the most perfect interaction logic you've ever written in your life?"

He gritted his teeth, pointing at the blacked-out screen on the wall, his fingers trembling.

"And now? Lu Jingming holds the global exclusive patent, and he's just slapped us across the face in front of the entire world's media!"

Scott wiped the greasy sweat from his forehead, on the verge of tears.

"You really can't blame us. We spent three whole months on the underlying animation transitions. Who could have known they would go and register the patent with the PCT in advance?"

He made a bitter face, his voice tinged with grievance.

"Why don't we just bite the bullet and pay Xinghai Technology the patent licensing fees?"

As soon as he said this, the air in the conference room froze.

"Pay patent fees?"

Steve looked as if he'd just heard an unforgivable obscenity, his eyes instantly bloodshot.

He grabbed a fountain pen from the table and hurled it at Scott's forehead.

"Is your brain filled with seawater from the Pacific?"

Steve roared until his voice cracked.

"Apple paying patent fees to a Chinese assembly plant? Tomorrow's Wall Street morning papers will write that Apple is just a bunch of copycat pigs!"

He slammed the table, making the coffee cups on it jump.

"Issue a notice! Contact the PR department immediately and say I've had a sudden medical emergency, and the press conference is postponed indefinitely!"

Steve gritted his teeth and issued the order.

"Wipe the systems of all those millions of machines in the warehouse! The hardware department will work overnight to modify the design blueprints. If that chin on the casing isn't cut off, nobody leaves this building!"

The executives looked at each other, none daring to make a sound.

"No, the press conference absolutely cannot be postponed."

A cold, firm voice came from the end of the long table, interrupting Steve's madness.

Cook stood up, clutching a financial report stamped with a red seal.

He adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses, a flash of cold, calculating rationality passing behind the lenses.

Walking over to Steve, Cook slapped the report down on the table.

"Steve, I know you're a perfectionist. But right now, we don't have the luxury of talking about perfection."

Cook pointed to the dizzying string of numbers on the report, his voice devoid of emotion.

"Millions of units are already boxed and filling up transit warehouses all over the world."

He met Steve's murderous gaze without yielding an inch.

"The final payments to the foundries are due the day after tomorrow. That's over a billion dollars."

"If we announce a delay now, this inventory will be dead weight. Apple's cash flow can only hold out for two weeks at most."

Steve's breath hitched as he stared intently at the report.

"Then go to the banks! Go get financing from those bloodsuckers on Wall Street! Regardless, this half-baked product cannot be taken out to embarrass us!"

"Wall Street is waiting to see us make a fool of ourselves."

Cook sneered, pulled out his phone, and tossed it onto the table. On the screen was a financial news alert that had just popped up.

"The dozen or so short-selling firms led by Soros have already locked and loaded."

Cook sighed, his tone filled with deep helplessness.

"Xinghai Technology showed their hand today. Capital all over the world is watching our press conference this weekend."

"If you dare to issue a single announcement about a delay, Apple's stock price will crash tomorrow. By then, even the board will vote to kick you out."

Steve froze.

Like a puppet whose strings had been cut, he slumped dejectedly into the only leather chair that hadn't been overturned.

He buried his hands in his hair in agony, his knuckles turning white.

Product and capital.

These two mountains had bent the spine of this arrogant Silicon Valley godfather.

He closed his eyes, his mind filled with Lu Jingming's young, mocking face.

And that flawless, true Full-screen Display.

An unprecedented sense of defeat gnawed at his heart like a poisonous snake.

The conference room was so quiet that only the hum of the central air conditioning could be heard.

Five full minutes passed.

Steve snapped his eyes open, the madness in them replaced by a flash of resolve.

He looked at the software lead, Scott, his voice as hoarse as if he had swallowed a mouthful of sand.

"Three days."

Steve held up three fingers, his tone icy.

"I'm giving you three days to delete every bit of Slide-to-unlock code from all the pre-installed systems."

Scott gasped, his face turning green.

"Delete it? Then how will users unlock the device? Change it back to buttons and a passcode?"

"Use the most primitive tap input! I don't care how you do it!"

Steve roared, slamming the table, his eye twitching violently.

"As long as you don't cross Xinghai's patent red line, even if the experience is like a pile of dog shit, you have to stuff it into the system!"

Scott was on the verge of tears.

Deleting core underlying code at the last minute and force-fitting a patch in its place...

This would cause serious logic conflicts in the otherwise silky-smooth system.

"Boss, if we change it like that, there will be at least a second of lag and dropped frames when unlocking."

He wiped his sweat, trying to plead his case.

"This is our first-generation smartphone. If the first impression is laggy, our reputation will be completely ruined."

"If you don't change it, we'll be in court paying fines right now!"

Steve glanced at him coldly, his eyes like those of someone looking at a dead man.

"Get to work. If one line of code is missing, I'll have you feeding the sharks in the ocean."

For the next three days.

The software building at Apple headquarters was lit up all night.

Hundreds of engineers guzzled espresso, their eyes bloodshot as they frantically patched bugs on their keyboards.

They forcibly hacked a silky-smooth interaction system into a half-crippled mess with laggy afterimages.

Time flew by.

San Francisco, Moscone Center.

Outside the venue, the crowd was surging, with hundreds of global media outlets waiting at the entrance with their cameras.

But the atmosphere was inexplicably strange.

What everyone was whispering about wasn't the upcoming new Apple device at all.

It was Xinghai Technology's jaw-dropping, dimension-reduction strike from three days ago.

"I heard Apple urgently modified the system; they don't even dare to put out trial units today."

"Full-screen Display is already out; who's still going to look at their old antique with that wide chin?"

The reporters' teasing voices carried clearly through the backstage wooden partition.

The air pressure in the backstage lounge dropped to freezing.

Steve sat in front of the makeup mirror, his face as pale as a corpse.

He clutched his left chest tightly, a layer of cold sweat breaking out on his forehead.

His breathing was short, as if he might pass out at any moment.

"Steve, it's time. The host is already warming up the crowd."

Cook walked in wearing a sharp suit, holding a first-generation iPhone that had just been patched.

The back of the device still had the aluminum and plastic design, looking bulky and cheap.

Steve glanced at the phone and closed his eyes in agony.

He bent over suddenly and broke into a fit of violent coughing.

"I can't do it. My heart condition is acting up."

Steve waved his hand, his voice so weak it was barely audible.

"I don't have the face to show this half-baked product with laggy afterimages to the whole world."

He looked up, his bloodshot eyes staring fixedly at Cook.

"Cook, you go give this presentation."

Cook froze, his hand shaking so hard he nearly dropped the priceless prototype.

He looked at Steve, who was clearly planning to play the coward, and cursed under his breath.

This wasn't just asking him to hold a press conference.

This was clearly pushing him to the guillotine to take the fall for the entire Apple company.

"Steve, this is your life's work."

Cook took a deep breath, attempting one last stand.

"The Wall Street media is waiting for you. If I go on stage instead, the stock price will plummet at the opening."

"If you don't go, are you waiting for them to rush backstage and watch us make fools of ourselves!"

Steve suddenly exploded, grabbing a foundation compact from the table and smashing it at Cook's feet.

He pointed at the door leading to the stage, roaring hysterically.

"Take that machine and get up there! Tell them this is the future of Apple!"

Steve collapsed into the chair, exhausted, and closed his eyes in pain.

"Even if it's a joke, you have to finish this performance for me."

Cook gritted his teeth, a flash of gloom passing behind his gold-rimmed glasses.

He looked down at the slightly bulky phone in his hand.

He tapped the screen with his thumb, and the display visibly stuttered for half a second before lighting up.

A deafening countdown echoed from the stage.

The reporters' camera flashes were already leaking through the door crack, like blinding swords.

Cook took a deep breath and slid the phone into his suit pocket.

He straightened his tie, turned to look at Steve, who was huddled in his chair, and spoke in a cold tone.

"Fine. I'll take the fall for you."

Cook gripped the door handle and sneered.

"But Steve, when those people on Wall Street start settling the score..."

"I hope your heart is stronger than our stuttering system."