Half a minute after sending the company's financial report for this month to the boss, Erin Felton on the other side of the ocean received a reply: online meeting.
She looked up at the standard clocks of East 1st District, East 8th District, and West 8th District hanging on the opposite side of the desk, and confirmed the local time where Li Shu was, it was 12:30 in the middle of the night.
The subordinates have long been accustomed to Li Shu's work rhythm, and it didn't take long for them to efficiently gather in front of the video.
Li Shu's video started very early, and no one was sitting in front of the camera. He didn't come over with a water glass until all the senior executives arrived.
Irene had already sent the financial report to the executives, and everyone looked at the report silently, waiting for Li Shu to speak.
"I'm not satisfied." Li Shu said.
Irene stopped typing, glanced at Li Shu, and her heart sank.
Li Shu is one of the youngest and most promising entrepreneurs in the San Francisco Bay Area.
He was born in an ordinary middle-class Chinese family. He was the first child in the family. His father was a mechanical engineer, his mother was a housewife, and his grandfather was a military officer. Spread out a huge kinship line.
Similar to the stories of most Silicon Valley geniuses, Li Shu had a lonely childhood with a strong desire for knowledge and excessive self-awareness. He liked to hide his head in the basement of his home and study. He had no friends and hardly communicated with others. It wasn't until I entered college, joined a fraternity, and had like-minded people that I naturally had a small but stable social circle.
At the age of nineteen, due to statistical flaws in video sites, his roommate’s account was mistakenly deleted. Li Shu used his two-year Putnam bonus to rent a server, bought a new computer, and founded Eps with his roommate. The first version of the program was written in the corner of the dormitory common room.
Half a year later, they won the favor of the first venture capitalist. In the past ten years, the company has had huge scandals and saved the day. It has been on the brink of bankruptcy and has come back to life. It has also turned against investors, confronted courts, and dominated the news headlines in the Bay Area for several weeks.
The biggest label attached to Li Shu by the media is monster.
Li Shu runs a streaming media and environmental protection company. He is good at using public opinion to create momentum, but he hates the camera very much, and he almost never appears in public.
He has two adjoining glass towers in the South Bay, and spends most of his time in Silicon Valley working in a weird half-glass, half-concrete building built on a hollow from the 45th to 47th floors of the main building.
Those with ulterior motives compared this building with the picture of the bell tower of Notre Dame de Paris, and guessed that Li Shu must be like the ugly weirdo in the bell tower, so he huddled in a corner and refused to show up.
But anyone who has a little knowledge of Li Shu and his company knows that such remarks are not completely true. Li Shu's appearance has nothing to do with being ugly, and there is something to be said for being weird.
Irene joined the company five years ago as Li Shu's secretary, handling various affairs for Li Shu. She is the person who has been in contact with Li Shu the longest in the whole company, and she still cannot predict Li Shu's decision correctly, and feels frightened from time to time.
Fortunately, since three years ago, Li Shu has been more like an ordinary person. He began to commute between San Francisco and S City frequently, and after receiving a message or call from someone, he stopped working for ten minutes without warning.
Sometimes Irene even fantasizes that as long as the relationship lasts long enough, Li Shu will one day be turned into a normal boss.
— But tonight, in terms of experience, Irene felt that Li Shu was in a bad mood.
Li Shu was still wearing pajamas at home, and the people who should have been by his side were not there.
He took off his glasses and put them aside, unhurriedly checked the financial report items with the executives, asked about the progress, and when the executives spoke, he looked down at the screen with his lips tightly pursed.
In the middle of the meeting, Li Shu suddenly interrupted for half a minute, muted the video and answered a call.
After hanging up the phone, Li Shu continued the meeting without distraction or excitement, and continued to correct the mistakes of his subordinates.
Ten minutes later, something weird happened.
When Irene bowed her head to type, she suddenly heard a strange sound, like the outgoing call waiting notification sound of the public mobile phone.
She raised her head in doubt and found that the expressions of the executives in the video conference were different, so she subconsciously glanced at the chief financial officer sitting on her left, and the financial officer also looked at her and made a "boss" mouth.
The head of the data team who was speaking also slowed down, and looked at Li Shu with a little hesitation.
After Li Shu noticed, he clasped the table with his index finger, picked up the phone, turned down the volume of the phone's external speaker, and signaled to the supervisor: "Continue."
The outgoing call was automatically disconnected because no one answered it for a long time. The atmosphere of the meeting was relaxed for about five seconds. Li Shu picked up his phone again and played it again.
No matter what, Li Shu was sure that his mood must be calmer than Shen Yiyou's. Shen Yiyou was very angry and did something impulsive, he would regret it.
Li Shu listened to the executive's brief analysis on the screen, and focused on recalling the call just now.
The background sound of the phone is very noisy, like a mixed entertainment venue.
Li Shu was thinking about the meaning of the call, whether it was Shen Yiyou who was really drunk, the other party didn't know they had broken up, so he called, or Shen Yiyou had regretted it, and wanted to get back together with him under the influence of drunkenness.
The screen of the electronic clock placed on the desk suddenly lit up, showing the time at one o'clock in the morning.
Li Shu clasped his hands, while correcting several errors in his subordinate's data understanding, he began to think, if Shen Yiyou regretted it, he could give Shen Yiyou a little room to regret it, after all, love is not a job, so you can be more casual.
So he picked up the mobile phone placed by the desk and pressed the callback.
His earphones were lost somewhere, and his subordinates were still talking, so after dialing out the call, he turned on the loudspeaker and put the phone on the desk.
No one answered the first call, Li Shu guessed that Shen Yiyou was still angry because he hung up the phone just now, so he patiently made the second call.
Shen Yiyou still didn't answer.
Li Shu still didn't have much mood swings, he wasn't Shen Yiyou, he wasn't so emotional, and wouldn't be annoyed because Shen Yiyou didn't answer the phone.
While communicating with his subordinates, he redialed more than twenty times.
For some reason, the atmosphere of the entire video conference became very subtle. The voices of the executives fluctuated. Li Shu didn't pay attention to these details. He only knew that Shen Yiyou didn't answer his calls.
After the video meeting, Li Shu edited a message and sent it to Shen Yiyou: "Be more mature."
After thinking about it, he sent another message: "Answer the phone."
Li Shu had very little need for sleep and didn't feel sleepy at two o'clock in the morning. He stared at his phone and waited for fifteen minutes, but there was no response.
Maybe he fell asleep, Li Shu thought, Shen Yiyou likes to turn his phone to silent and even turn off the vibration when he sleeps. If Li Shu's subordinates did this, Li Shu would have fired him long ago, but Shen Yiyou is not Li Shu's subordinate, and Li Shu never had any real solution to Shen Yiyou.
Twenty minutes later, Li Shu picked up the phone and called again. Unexpectedly, this time, the call was picked up.
"You still here-"
"Hello, sir," a male voice that Li Shu had never heard came from the other end of the call, "I am not the owner of the phone. The owner left the phone in our store. Is he your friend?"
Li Shu hesitated for only two seconds before saying "yes". He heard himself say, "He fell asleep after drinking too much. Where is your store? I'll come and get it."
The other party reported the name and address of the store to Li Shu, and Li Shu called out his driver and assistant in S city and gave them ten minutes to go downstairs to the apartment.
Li Shu took the time to go downstairs, and the doorman of the apartment opened the door for him.
The rain outside stopped for a while, and then it was raining again. The icy rain blew onto his pants and shoes. He took a step back, and saw his distribution car in S City turning up the ramp and slowly stopping in front of him. The driver got out of the car and opened the door respectfully for him.
Li Shu himself can't drive, and he also objected to Shen Yiyou's driving. He was involved in a car accident in his childhood and almost died, so he believed that professional things should be done by professional people, so he hired the best driver to drive the car, and took the ride with Shen Yiyou.
After leaving the apartment, the rain eased a little.
The club where Shen Yiyou left his phone was not far from Li Shu's apartment, and he arrived in a short time. The club staff talked with Li Shu on the phone, and stood at the crossroads with an umbrella waiting for them.
Li Shu got out of the car and walked over with his assistant.
The clerk was wearing a black suit, glanced at the car Li Shu was sitting in, smiled professionally at Li Shu, said that the cleaner had just found the phone from the crack of the sofa, and politely cared about the owner's situation.
Li Shu didn't answer, took the phone and glanced at the assistant.
The assistant immediately took out the wallet, gave the clerk a tip, and went back to the car with Li Shu.
Shen Yiyou's cell phone was heavy, Li Shu held it quietly for a while, the screen turned on, indicating that there was a missed call that needed to be called back.
Although they broke up, Shen Yiyou's phone screensaver has not had time to change, it is still a photo of a painting that Li Shu gave him.
The car was driving smoothly, and the inside of the car was very dark. When approaching the residence, Li Shu unlocked Shen Yiyou's cell phone, and deleted the calls and text messages he had dialed.
There is no other meaning, but I just don't want Shen Yiyou to mistakenly think that Li Shu wants to ask for peace.
Back in the apartment, it was already three o'clock in the morning, many lights on the river were extinguished, and the rain stopped again.
Li Shu stood by the French window and watched for a while, then turned up the air conditioner a little.
He looked around in the living room, but found no trace of Shen Yiyou, then went to the bedroom and bathroom to look around, Shen Yiyou took nothing left, it seemed that no one except Li Shu had lived in the room.
Li Shu still couldn't figure out why Shen Yiyou asked his friend to call him, so he turned off the light and lay down on the bed.
Li Shu is the kind of person who pays attention to order and habits. In the bedroom of the hotel apartment in S City, Shen Yiyou has to lie on Li Shu's left side, and Li Shu has to hold Shen Yiyou in his arms and put his arms around Shen Yiyou's waist to fall asleep.
But at least Shen Yiyou will not come back tonight.
Li Shu hugged the quilt lightly, wanting to smell a little of Shen Yiyou.
But Shen Yiyou didn't stay here for a few nights, the smell had gone away long ago, Li Shu didn't smell anything, and in the end he took the next best thing, grabbed Shen Yiyou's phone and fell asleep.