Technology Bigshot

Chapter 33: Negative News

Translator: Atlas Studios

Editor: Atlas Studios

“Know what?” Ren Hong cast his gaze into the distance and spoke slowly. “Look at the endless stream of vehicles on the road. I feel like the highway is too crowded with all the vehicles traveling on the same plane. Whenever I look at such a crowded road, I think to myself, if there were two, three, four, or even more planes, the traffic in big cities wouldn’t seem so crowded, wouldn’t it?”

Gao Yue gazed at Ren Hong with a surprise. The latter was still looking away and seemed to be thinking freely.

“I believe you!” Gao Yue followed his line of sight, looking into the distance. After a moment, she spoke.

Both of them quietly admired the beautiful night scene. She gradually and gently leaned her head on his shoulder. They lovingly whispered and giggled from time to time.

After officially establishing a relationship, their feelings for each other gradually warmed up over time. The company also seemed to learn about their relationship. At first, Gao Yue was a little uncomfortable. She blushed from time to time and was too embarrassed to meet her subordinates. But as time went on, she gradually adjusted to her relationship as Ren Hong’s girlfriend.

The company’s official website announced the joint construction of the company’s headquarters by five major domestic and foreign architects, and the address of the company’s headquarters was established. XlouS would be located in Wanning, Hainan.

At the same time, the official website also announced that the cost of the construction would be increased from the original 5 billion USD to 10.5 billion USD.

XlouS also released a new set of high-resolution images of the company’s headquarters, which featured several major architects, the world-renowned architect, Cullen, and Ren Hong around a round table, looking at the five buildings that would make up the company’s headquarters. In one of the images, Ren Hong was looking at the ‘S’ shaped model of the building as if looking at its internal structure.

The information announced on the company’s official website was quickly reproduced by the media. After the model and data of XlouS’s headquarters were released, the internet once again buzzed.

[I’m shocked. X-l-o-u-S-! Three of the five skyscrapers are 563.7 meters and two are 428 meters!]

[What would it look like to have a cluster of five buildings made up of the alphabet of XlouS?]

[Ren Hong! Why do you need to build a headquarters with five skyscrapers? What in the world are you doing!]

[This is called being willfully rich!]

[Iron Man, Tony Stark, also put his big name on his building, while Ren Hong placed his big name onto a cluster of buildings. Which one of you can even be more awesome and narcissistic than them?]

Not only was there a lot of online buzz, but the big names in the tech world also couldn’t figure out why he needed five buildings for a company headquarters? The amount of space would be enough for tens of thousands of people to live. Did he even have that many people in his company? For those who weren’t aware, they would think that XlouS was going to enter the real estate industry.

After the news spread, there was a lot of skepticism about it, with almost everyone agreeing that XlouS was making a very ill-advised move. Wall Street market analysts responded with a valuation of XlouS based on the company’s latest decision, which they believed was a terrible decision: spending 10.5 billion USD with little return. Moreover, the location of five buildings was so unbelievable that it was almost certain that at least four buildings would be vacant in the future. Their value fell from 150 billion USD to 115 billion USD.

“This news comes on the heels of the company’s recent widespread skepticism and pessimism about us building five buildings—check out this newspaper!” Gao Yue came to Ren Hong’s office and said out loud. “The impulsive resolution of a young man! At 19 years old, owning a company valued at hundreds of billions of dollars, it is clear that the young founder has been overwhelmed by what he has achieved so far. XlouS, a new company that is expanding at an alarming rate, has begun to experience the same kind of rapid growth that will leave its roots in disaster…”

Ren Hong spoke. “That’s the way things are. Hah, to think they almost held us up to heaven yesterday. They have to rely on this to survive, so just let them be. The company is mine. I don’t need to care about their opinion to do what I want. Those people don’t know about my great dream. Rest assured, they will praise us when the time comes. You know how impressive our new products will be in the future.”

“Well then, since the boss doesn’t care, I shouldn’t care either,” Gao Yue said with an indifferent expression.

The outside world was pessimistic about the future of XlouS. Almost everyone thought that the company’s construction of the headquarters was an unwise and even foolish move. Some even thought that the founder of XlouS, namely Ren Hong, had become arrogant by what he achieved, and that the muddleheaded decisions of those in power would have disastrous consequences for a company.

XlouS ran smoothly every day regardless of how badly the outside world criticized. The company hadn’t issued any statement. After all, it wasn’t a listed company. Ren Hong also didn’t need to respond to the outside world’s questions or clarify themselves. He should also start building a new team for the company’s new product development, and apply to use Tianhe-2 in the next few years.

After a few days of drama from the media and some so-called celebrities realizing that XlouS didn’t respond, they stopped paying attention to XlouS and turned to other topics.

After four months, XlouS, which gradually faded out of sight, finally made a move.

The company’s official website released an announcement—Real-time Online Translator Version 2.0 is now available!

For more than five months now, users who installed Real-time Online Translator finally received an update alert for this software.

Pan Ce was a hardcore fan of American dramas, such as Arrow, The Walking Dead, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Under the Dome, etc., but he was annoyed that most of the HD American dramas were basically without subtitles. Even though a few of the videos had subtitles contributed by subtitlers, they were basically 480p quality, or even an outrageous 320p quality. Not only that, but he also had to put up with the subtitlers’ nonsense, the kind where the credits suddenly mentioned that the subtitles were all made up! Simply atrocious!

The blurry quality almost made him want to smash his keyboard. He was able to find some HD resources, but none of them had subtitles. The bitter Pan Ce had no choice but to watch movies in 480p or even 320p quality because his inability to understand English was the biggest hardship!

Likewise, Pan Ce often watched videos on YouTube and loved to watch European and American variety shows. But he didn’t understand them and the translation system on YouTube was so bad that he couldn’t do anything about them. The helpless Pan Ce could only watch some funny videos or wait for a kind subtitler.

Today, he turned on his phone and saw a red alert in the application store. The red mark in the top right corner meant that a software update was available. He clicked in and saw an update alert for Real-time Online Translator. This was one of his favorite applications. Although there was a fee for it, that didn’t stop him from loving it. Since the installation of this application, and as a hard-pressed party who didn’t understand English, he could finally delve into foreign websites. He didn’t need to wait for the official translation of the patch notes from Blizzard. With Real-time Online Translator, he could always learn about the latest news early and since the installation of this application, he often chatted with foreigners. He never had this kind of experience, which was very interesting to him!