Chapter 498: Uncharted life

Xu Tingsheng did not rush to ask about the next day’s open beta immediately after returning to Xingchen.

Instead, he followed He Yutan to his office and said, “Get your assistant over for a second, Bro He. I need her help with something.”

Feeling rather bemused, He Yutan asked, “Why do you need my assistant’s help? What is it?”

“You wouldn’t understand. Just call her over first.”

He Yutan called the internal line and his assistant arrived. She was a beauty in her late twenties. That said, this beauty was on the tall, robust side as the contours of her muscles could be seen. In her professional garb, she felt a bit like a female secretary from one of those Western movies.

Xu Tingsheng glanced at He Yutan, thinking to himself: Quite the unique taste.

Regardless of any intentions they might have, the higher-ups of most companies would have to make sure to choose an assistant or secretary that was comfortable to look at for them. Thus, the secretary or assistant of a boss generally also depicted their ‘tastes’ to a certain extent.

Somebody had taught him this when he had been in the construction line in his previous life. When trying to secure projects, he would inevitably have to invite and entertain people. There was much knowledge that could be had on this.

Fortunately, Xu Tingsheng would not have to learn about that stuff in this life.

“Your esteemed surname is?” Xu Tingsheng smiled and asked.

“Esteemed it’s not. It’s Niu. Hello, Boss Xu,” The assistant replied.

Xu Tingsheng nodded and took his sports backpack off from his back.

His style of wearing a high-end suit along with a backpack had once earned him who knew how many rebukes by Lu Zhixin. Still, quite unexpectedly, it had actually influenced quite a few programmers who had originally preferred Silicon Valley-style with pullover and jeans.

Most of them might lack fashion sense as much as Xu Tingsheng did and were hence able to admire it.

And so, they had muddleheadedly ended up following Xu Tingsheng’s unique style.

Wearing a suit or woolen sweater with a single cool colour accompanied by a sports backpack.

A fashion magazine had once mocked this strange style of dressing and concluded: If you see someone dressed like this in Yanzhou, it’s someone from Hucheng Tongcheng. If it’s Shenghai, it’s someone from Xingchen Technologies.”

The two internet enterprises under Xu Tingsheng had thereby gained such an iconic feature.

After the magazine article was published, the male employees of the two companies had expressed that the chances of them getting hit on by random girls outside had risen from zero to some, and then to many…

In truth, it was not that women appreciated this kind of style all that much. Rather than that, they knew that men who dressed like this, be they from Hucheng or Xingchen, almost definitely had high incomes, options and prospects without exception…

These were the two newly risen internet enterprises that were most in the limelight right now.

The ‘perpetrator’ pulled out a stack of papers from his bag. “So, Assistant Niu, I’ll need you to help me fill up this form and write a report. After that, get Bro He to write an evaluation before stamping it.”

“Huh?” He Yutan was bewildered, “What is this, that even needs me to write an...evaluation?”

He took and flipped through the documents Xu Tingsheng was holding.

“Internship report?” He Yutan asked a bit exasperatedly.

“Yeah, you haven’t noticed, right? I’m graduating soon,” Xu Tingsheng said, “Our university allocates our second semester of year three as our first internship. I didn’t go...why do you otherwise think I’d be so free?”

He Yutan looked at him and exclaimed, “But you’re a teaching student!”

“That doesn’t matter, right? Some of my classmates also don’t intend to teach, and not all of them do their internships in schools. Teaching teams actually bury quite a few talents. Many people who were pretty talented in their youth enter and are eventually stifled to death by it because of its repetitiveness, becoming unable to keep up with the times. I won’t be joining.”

Xu Tingsheng thought: I already had that experience once before. When I came out, I was severely disjointed from society.

Things were just that tragic sometimes. Those who taught kids to grow up and face society were actually generally enclosed and static themselves, disjointed from society and unable to keep up with the times.

“It’s the same for public servants too, actually. They generally don’t learn to be flexible, and those with other talents or abilities mostly end up getting nowhere,” Assistant Niu suddenly added rather emotionally.

“Makes sense. Were you a public servant before?” Xu Tingsheng asked.

“Assistant Niu resigned from the district government’s office,” He Yutan explained on her behalf.

“It’s not easy to do that nowadays. You’re very brave,” Xu Tingsheng looked at Assistant Niu and said, “In that case, you should be very proficient with this sort of documents. Help me handle them, and help Bro He to draft his evaluation while you’re at it. Thank you.”

Assistant Niu nodded. She took the report on the table and exited the office.

“It’s good that you aren’t intending to teach,” He Yutan said quite emotionally, “With how unreliable you are, Old Hu and I are worried that you may really leave on a whim after graduating and not come back to properly run Xingchen.”

“I don’t intend to come back,” Xu Tingsheng said matter-of-factly.

“Huh?”

“With you and Bro Hu at the helm, make a managerial squad. Xingchen is and will still be led by the two of you in the future. I decided on this long ago,” Xu Tingsheng said.

“...What will you be doing then?”

“I still haven’t decided yet.”

He Yutan was already speechless at this point.

Actually, it was true that Xu Tingsheng had not decided on what he would be doing in the future. He only vaguely had the notion that he should experience more things as much as possible, making this life which had been granted to him by the heavens more colourful and fruitful.

Firstly, his career would be more fruitful.

Next came fun. He didn’t know windsurfing, skiing, rock climbing, diving...maybe flying a plane would be too much to expect, but he didn’t even know how to sail a yacht...just what was this?

In his previous life, he had not had the time, the money or the attention to spare. Could it be that a successful life now could only mean wine parties, luxurious mansions, Forbes rankings? Xu Tingsheng did not want that.

In this life, he had already had at least two close brushes with death. Then there was 2015 which continually weighed on his mind as he did not know if he could successfully pass it…

If everything really suddenly came to an end one day, Xu Tingsheng did not want to look back on it and find that all he had done was earnt a lot of money.

And then there was...how he longed to be a father.

Such a desire had actually been intensifying since his two close brushes with death and since Niannian had appeared. He even saw it in his dreams sometimes.

The mindset of a man in his thirties was ultimately different from one in his twenties or younger. His yearning for a family would only be higher.

As he was thinking about this.

“Right, when you came over this time, many people asked why Little Lady Boss isn’t here, and will she be here?” He Yutan suddenly said.

“Huh?” You people really want to see her?” Xu Tingsheng asked.

“Of course! She’s much more popular and looked forward to in Xingchen than you are. Rather than you, going around messing aboutveryday, our employees feel that it’s Little Lady Boss who’s family with our Xingchen...Agglomerating(Ning congregates) the stars,” He Yutan said.

“How is it? I’ll send a car to pick her up?” He asked.

Xu Tingsheng thought about it and replied, “Let’s do it this way then. For the first two days of the open beta, if the highest number of users simultaneously online surpasses a hundred thousand, we’ll treat it like making up for last year’s annual gathering and hold a celebration. I’ll get her to come too.”

“We’ll hold you to that,” He Yutan said as he got up and went outside.

Xingchen Technologies was actually composed of only a hundred plus people right now. While Xingchen Games was financially independent, the two were actually in the same work area as many of their employees overlapped, taking care of both sides.

“I have some news to announce,” He Yutan stood at the door of his office with arms akimbo, declaring loudly, “Boss Xu has said…”

He repeated Xu Tingsheng’s words.

‘Annual gathering.’ This entailed prizes, cash and maybe even more.

‘Little Lady Boss.’ Akin to their family member, seen in conference videos a few times before, was she finally going to come now?

As everyone’s spirits rose, He Yutan yelled in a very incendiary manner, “A hundred thousand online, is it achievable?”

“Yes!”

“Can we do it?”

“Yes!”

“Time is of the essence, people. We’ve got to do all the preparatory work to the best of our abilities, with the utmost care. Also, if you come up with any ideas, hurry up and propose them...scatter, off to work now.”

Looking at that bustling scene outside the door, Xu Tingsheng felt rather desolate and ‘wretchedly abandoned by this world’.

“Why are you guys so calm when seeing me?!”