Rather than giving Zhou Yuandai the impression that he was gambling on something, what Xu Tingsheng truly wanted Zhou Yuandai to believe was that he was mass transferring his assets.

𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

What Zhou Yuandai was truly sensitive about was not gain or loss in a single bid, such as when Xu Tingsheng had misdirected her into making a wrong choice between Apple and Symbian. At the end of the day, that had just been an experiment. Even if Zhou Yuandai bought the whole of Symbian and suffered a tragic defeat, she would still not be buried there.

An economic crisis.

Only this could make Zhou Yuandai fully participate. Her appetite was such that she would not merely avoid a crisis. She also wanted to profit the most amidst it.

At the end of 2006, Zhou Yuandai was calm despite Xu Tingsheng’s expectations, watching on neutrally. At several points where Xu Tingsheng thought she would look for him, she showed no signs of acting whatsoever.

She was the one at the gambling table who had the most chips but had yet to throw them out.

As for Xu Tingsheng, in the eyes of those in the know, he had already reached the point where he had to prepare to start selling mines in Binzhou.

At this point in time, the coal industry was such that digging coal was more or less equivalent to digging money. Even as Huang Yaming and the others felt pained, Xu Tingsheng was using this to show Zhou Yuandai his decisive, considerable sacrifice for the bigger picture.

This was actually a real test of their friendship and trust.

On 9th January 2007, Apple held the press conference for its first generation IPhone.

A new era had come.

Xu Tingsheng was very calm after watching the press conference. He was not delusional. There was simply no way for him to build Apple beforehand based only on his memory and description like the main characters of some novels. At least, he as a humanities student knew that prior to its exterior, this beautiful thing relied on systems and chips that were ahead of their time-there was no way he could describe these things.

Of course, this did not prevent him from having a chance to obtain more in the upcoming era of smartphones.

Similarly having watched the conference, Zhou Yuandai realised that Xu Tingsheng might likely have been trying to outwit her before, like an ant digging a pit and trying to off an elephant.

In truth, however, that had ended with Zhou Yuandai breaking technique with force. While acquiring Symbian’s shares, she had also obtained quite a few of Apple’s shares...the loss was actually far less than the future gain.

Therefore, she actually only needed to know when the turning points in history were, not missing out the chance and being left behind. Her great power was sufficient to ensure that she crushed all Xu Tingsheng’s witty schemes.

What did that mean?

It was akin to she and Xu Tingsheng sitting at a gambling table. Xu Tingsheng was the one who knew the results of the gamble. He bet a hundred million on the banker, and Zhou Yuandai did the same. Xu Tingsheng continued, and Zhou Yuandai continued...

Then, when the fourth card was opened, Zhou Yuandai still had chips piled out before her like a mountain. She could wait for Xu Tingsheng to leak his actual intentions.

What if Xu Tingsheng wanted to drag them both down together? Intentionally waging his all on the losing side? Sorry, his chips were insufficient. Zhou Yuandai still had chips piled out before her like a mountain even if he lost everything.

So, when they had both already exposed their cards to some degree, there was actually only one thing that Zhou Yuandai truly needed to guard against, which was for Xu Tingsheng to freely grow. She could not let the day come when the amount of chips Xu Tingsheng had equalled, even exceeded hers. That alone could not be allowed to happen.

In order to ensure this, she could not leave that gambling table where Xu Tingsheng was at.

“Very foolish.”

That day, Xu Tingsheng received a text from Zhou Yuandai. This probably also meant that Zhou Yuandai was officially entering the scene. In actual fact, Xu Tingsheng’s ‘all in’ this time already fully determined that she had to join as well.

......

On the same day, more of the texts Xu Tingsheng received expressed astonishment or praise.

That very day, Apple, Cen Xiyu, officially released her second personal album. Because both were Apple, some joked that today was Apple Day.

The fans were paying attention to it with the mindset of finally having more new songs to listen to. In the end, though, they got old gossip.

Xu Tingsheng openly appeared in this album, singing <> with Apple. He used not the identity of a member of Rebirth but his personal identity...

What identity? That of Apple’s senior high classmate and friend.

Past gossip about the two was sieved out and discussed again. Still, be it gossip media or the gossiping netizens, they were clearly not as enthusiastic about it as in the past.

WIth the two of them singing together so openly this time, one was instead stumped as to how they should gossip.

Xiang Ning did not mind too. She had known about this long ago.

So, this ultimately resulted in the album having great sales and Apple’s position rising again as Xu Tingsheng gained popularity as well. As compared to a businessman and entrepreneur legend...an entrepreneur legend singing a song and doing so quite well too could clearly better obtain widespread attention and enthusiasm.

People saw a different Xu Tingsheng.

Just like this, the number of Xu Tingsheng’s followers on Weibo skyrocketed as he finally became an ultra VIP there too.

Someone left a comment, asking if he would release a personal album. Xu Tingsheng replied: The games released by Xingchen are so fun. Then, he received a few dozen pages of head shaking and eye rolling as all was understood-indeed, it was still for the sake of promotion. Advertising! Really, it was all-pervasive.

Like this, fewer people thought that he might have an intimate relationship with Apple which surpassed that of friends. It might even have lowered, viewed as a friendship with too many commercial interests attached.

Amidst all that, Apple held an album-signing and meet session in Yanzhou a few days later. Her fans there were incomparably excited. Yanzhou itself was not a sufficiently big city and Apple’s high estimation of it left them feeling very blissful.

In truth, though, Apple had an ulterior motive in doing so.

More important to her was coming to see her goddaughter, Niannian, and to participate in the celebration for Fu Cheng’s move. She had nothing on in the day anyway, hence that session.

Many people reunited for a long time in a while.

Apple was carrying Niannian the entire night. As everyone walked along the path to view the Xiang family’s flat at Ning Garden, she carried Niannian and went too. She even met Mr and Mrs Xiang there.

Mr and Mrs Xiang did not live here. It was just that as they were planning to move in as well, they had come over for a look.

They knew of Apple not just because she was very famous and had been on the New Year’s Gala before, but also because they too had heard about the rumours between this singer and their future son-in-law, Xu Tingsheng.

It could not be said that they were vigilant or dissatisfied with Apple. It was just that as they met, it just felt strange somewhat.

After Apple had left with Niannian in her arms, Mrs Xiang looked at Xu Tingsheng who was standing nearby. Having evening self-study that night, Xiang Ning had not come. Niannian, meanwhile, was calling Xu Tingsheng and Apple godfather and godmother respectively. A woman like Mrs Xiang would surely be somewhat sensitive to this.

“I just don’t feel comfortable listening to it,” Mrs Xiang murmured.

“Forget it. This shouldn’t be Tingsheng’s intention too. If we say too much, it’ll instead be bad for the child,” Mr Xiang persuaded her in a low tone, indicating not to let Xu Tingsheng hear it.

“I’m afraid of Little Ning losing out! She’s still so little and so innocent too. If anything really happens, won’t she be kept in the dark?”

“That won’t happen. I trust Tingsheng.”

Mr Xiang convinced Mrs Xiang to calm down with much difficulty. Just a short while later, Apple rushed in hastily with tears in her eyes, clutching her phone.

“Grandma, grandma wants to speak to you,” She directly found Xu Tingsheng and passed him the phone.

“What is it?” Xu Tingsheng asked as he received the phone.

“I don’t know what happened to Grandma. All of a sudden, she...my Mum says that Grandma won’t last much longer,” Being on close terms with her grandmother, Apple broke down somewhat as she buried her head in Xu Tingsheng’s shoulder, weeping non-stop.

“I don’t know why she suddenly wants to talk to you...can you?”

Xu Tingsheng nodded. How could he possibly refuse at a time like this? Though, he actually wasn’t clear on why Apple’s grandmother had thought of him at a time like this.

In his first year of university, he had once gone to meet Apple’s grandmother together with her. At the time, Apple’s grandmother who was blind and already not very lucid too had virtually spent the entire day saying the same thing to him, having simply repeated it many times.

Indeed, it was still this sentence that resounded over the phone, “Good child, be good to lassie. You must be good to lassie.”

So, the person Apple’s Grandma was most concerned about was really her. This was why she had thought of Xu Tingsheng, remembering that person whom Apple had once brought before her. He had cooked for her and helped to support her with Apple, one on each side.

“Good child, be good to lassie. You must be good to lassie,” Her grandmother’s consciousness was already very blurry as she only repeated it time and time again.

Under such circumstances, Xu Tingsheng had to respond to the old woman’s dying wish.

“Yes, yes...rest assured, Grandma. I will definitely be good to lassie,” He answered.