Chapter One Hundred: A Tie-Break in Twelve Hours

After closing that somewhat humorous advertisement, Xiao Yu immediately saw the post pinned by the admins. The title was “Tie-Break in One Week”. The content showed the latest number of votes, which would be updated every few hours.

Xiao Yu chose the “original poster’s thread only” option and directly scrolled to the voting results updated at eight in the morning.

SI’s total votes were at nine million, whereas YL had a total of twelve million votes.

The numbers on this poll count were indeed shocking. In his previous life, Xiao Yu once thought that his computer was having problems to be showing such numbers. He later realized that voting chances could be easily obtained several ways in the game. In addition to that, the target audience base for this game was very broad, which was way the final numbers would end up extremely shocking.

Just looking at the current results, YL was in the lead for now. However, the odds were not that strong. Three million votes could easily be caught up to in a few hours. Which meant that this might turn into an evenly-matched war.

Was it? Not really.

The voting would be held over the course of an entire week. In his previous life, the final votes were counted in the billions. The current few million votes were just the tip of the iceberg.

Plus, the most crucial point was that these counts were compiled at eight in the morning. At that time, most people were either asleep or heading to school or work. Those few million votes were from the hardcore fans, who were still gaming in the middle of the night, as well as SI and YL’s private interference.

Xiao Yu was not particularly clear about YL’s situation. But if he had given it any thought, as a newly established company in S City, it would be difficult for YL to do anything too drastic.

Whereas for SI, Xiao Yu drew from the memories of his past life and clearly remembered that under their chairman’s instructions, SI had found several studios that specialized in rigging votes. They must have waited for the game to update and started generating votes as soon as they logged in. They did all that just to display their initial show of strength to YL.

Under such circumstances, YL’s total votes were in the lead.

As mentioned, a few million votes were nothing. That was because most of the players were not online yet. The factor that decided the fate of both companies were the actual players of the game who had not unleashed their potential yet. For every digit place the vote count increased, the gap between both companies would level out, to the point where no matter how many vote rigging studios they found, it would no long matter.

The original poster had mentioned that there would be a new vote count at noon. Xiao Yu was not bothered about it. He closed the thread and searched for other content. Very quickly, he saw a post that did product analysis.

From the ID of the post, Xiao Yu knew that the author was from the magazine Spreading Fire, which contributed to the monthly recommended jewelry accessories column. This person was a supporter of SI, which was why under most circumstances, he thought highly of SI’s products. But unfortunately for this time, as a professional designer, he could no longer support SI unconditionally.

“… It’s a pity that such unfeasible designs could not bring out all of SI’s strength. But I cannot deny that, just by comparing design aspects, SI is in a disadvantageous position. And the person who made this impossible mission into a reality was without a doubt, Mr. Mystery, who remains a mystery to this date.”

Xiao Yu gave that person’s post a ‘thumbs up’.

The term ‘unfeasible design’ had the same meaning as the other posts when they said that both companies’ designs were similar.

Before the drawings were finalized, Yan Jin once promised Xiao Yu that he would let him be in-charge of all the designs. Whereas for SI, they separated all five sets of designs and distributed them to different designers. On the method of strategy, SI had won over YL for sure.

To let a single designer be in-charge of all the designs would make the entire set of products look more unified. But it was not a smart choice because all the designs were voted on individually in the game. This meant that the options that the players were voting for were not SI and YL but forty different character rings.

With such a voting method, it was highly possible that a single piece or a pair would win by a landslide over all the other designs. Hence, there was no need to unify an entire set of designs on a similar design style. So long as a pair or two were outstanding, they had high chances of winning the battle. However, letting different designers get involved could prevent the possibility of different parties having similar designs because they were based on the same character traits.

Yet SI could not avoid that in the end. Xiao Yu clearly remembered all of the designs made by the mystery designer in his previous life, and these designs were all improved versions of SI’s designs.

What made it hateful was that among the five pairs of rings from the mystery designer, there were three pairs which had “extremely” obviously copied SI’s design. Moreover, the other two pairs did not look similar and successfully fooled everyone and escaped the whirlpool of plagiarism.

Yes, those three pairs belonged to Xiao Yu’s work.

From how Xiao Yu saw it, his work had been plagiarised. It was obviously plagiarised. Yet for some reason, no one in the department supported of him.

In his previous life time, on the second day after this war began, it was the last straw for Xiao Yu. He had planned to speak to his chairman about being plagiarised, but he was stopped by Lin Zhou.

The reason he gave was because those rings were originally assigned to him. It was against the rules to let Xiao Yu help him. They must keep their silence, otherwise both of them would get into trouble.

Furthermore, Lin Zhou even declared that he did not agree that the mystery designer had plagiarised Xiao Yu’s work. Xiao Yu was just overthinking.

To this moment, Xiao Yu could still remember how unwilling and wronged he felt back then.

It was rare to encounter people who provided help in someone’s hour of need. It was more common to face people who hit a person who was down. The continuous losses in that past six months had made those people who were watching his defeat become even more savage in their actions. Soon, Xiao Yu sunk into a passive situation where he had no one to complain to.

What saddened him the most was no doubt when the senior he trusted was unwilling to believe him.

That winter in his memories was a cold and harsh one.

However, at this moment, the Xiao Yu who was holding his warm tea cup, wrapped in his little pink blanket while browsing the forum, was feeling a little too hot.

It was noon when both companies’ voting results had reached thirty million to seventy million. SI could no longer catch up to even half of YL’s vote count.

To Xiao Yu, this supposed tie-break in one week could already come to an end.

Coincidentally, Xiao Yu was not the only person (hamster) who thought so.

At five minutes past twelve, Yan Jin arrived home.

“Squeakk?” Why did you come back? Have you forgotten anything?

The moment Yan Jin entered the house, he noticed Xiao Yu, who had wrapped himself like a glutinous ball.

“Why didn’t you switch on the air-conditioning system?”

“Squeakkk.” It shouldn’t be switched on all the time. It needs to be switched off once in awhile for the air to adjust.

Xiao Yu proudly raised his little head.

Of course I’m aware of these little details.

Yan Jin turned around and saw the tightly shut windows. Then, he silently walked over to the coffee table and switched on the air-conditioning system with its remote controller.

“Squeak.” Turned it lower then.

The central air-conditioning system in the villa started running, and warm air soon swept through every corner of the room.

Yan Jin even went to open two windows in the living room, then sat on the sofa and started using his cell phone.

Xiao Yu toss away his little blanket and wobbled his way over to the coffee table to pull on Yan Jin’s pants.

“Hold on a second.” Yan Jin was using his cell phone with one hand and the other hand stretched out a hooked index finger.

Xiao Yu straightened Yan Jin’s finger and took it into his mouth to nibble on it.

The slight sensation from the tip of his finger left Yan Jin with no choice but to turn his gaze away from his cell phone. He then saw Xiao Yu with his mouth opened, revealing those tiny white incisors.

“Rascal.” Yan Jin withdrew his finger and tapped on Xiao Yu’s head.

“Squeak.” You ignored me first.

“What’s the matter?”

“Squeakk.” I already asked once!

Xiao Yu was a hamster with principles. He would never repeat the words he had said before.

Luckily, Yan Jin had an outstanding memory. He thought about it and immediately remembered.

— “Squeakk?” Why did you come back? Have you forgotten anything?

Chairman Yan, who had maxed his hamster seduction technique, replied emotionally: “I didn’t forget anything. I missed you, so I came back.”

Just as expected, after hearing Yan Jin’s words, Xiao Yu blushed and forgot his initial frustration of being ignored. He limply laid on Yan Jin’s palm and was obediently raised up.

“Squeakk.” Then when are you heading back?

“I’m not heading back. Due to the overtime from the past few days, I have one week of vacation now.” Yan Jin said.

One week of… vacation?

Xiao Yu’s first reaction was “What was going to happen to the deal?” But he quickly understood the entire process of development and understood the meaning behind Yan Jin’s words.

Which was to say, to Yan Jin, the outcome of the battle had been decided.

A tie-break in twelve hours.

Logically speaking, Xiao Yu felt that Yan Jin’s attitude was a little too irresponsible. In his previous life, SI was giving their all for that entire week. They spent all they could to advertise their merchandise, making video clips and not giving up hope even in the last few hours.

However, Xiao Yu, who already knew the results beforehand, also felt that this kind of Yan Jin was simply too handsome.

Full of confidence, yet unconceited. To lose with grace and win with pride. It was that kind of carefree and ease that Xiao Yu looked forward to.

To have a chairman like Yan Jin, he believed that the entire YL must be surrounded in such a carefree atmosphere as well.

At that split second, Xiao Yu really, really envied the people who could work for YL.

Under Yan Jin’s leadership, an enterprise like YL must be very friendly towards their employees.

……

Inside YL’s meeting room.

“Yesterday, Chairman Yan suddenly realized that he still has unused sick leave from last year. Therefore, I will be holding the meeting for this round. Any subsequent meetings will be held by me. If nobody has any objections…”

Secretary Fang pushed her spectacles up, making it hard for those below the stage to see as they started their anguished wailing.

“Fuck.” The usually talkative Shao Yue actually used one word to summarise his current feelings.

“All business matters will still be decided by the chairman remotely. If there’s anything unclear…” Secretary Fang paused: “It will all be settled by Director Shao.”

“What the fuck. Is there justice? I’m not doing it. I quit. I approve my own resignation letter. Farewell, asshole company.”

Secretary Fang laughed coldly. It was obvious that she had predicted such things would happen: “Chairman Yan did mention that if you have any opinions, you may wish to repay your hundred and eighty million dollars debt in Country M.”

Shao Yue: “… I’m just making a little joke.”