YA Ch20: Slacking Off

Lu Yu rubbed his reddened ear, happily following Ming Yan to the meeting.

Ming Yan frowned and asked him, “Have you finished today’s task?”

Lu Yu put on one earphone, “I can listen and attend the meeting at the same time, multitasking won’t delay anything.” Of course, he hadn’t finished his task, but he wanted to sit with Ming Yan and see how his wife conducted a meeting.

This was also part of his previous checklist for pursuing his senior—sitting in class with him and passing notes during the lecture.

The conference room was already full, and their seats were indeed next to each other.

The people from the live content group were confirming the script to be used for the meeting. When they saw Lu Yu come in, they were all stunned. The content director, as if seeing a lifeline, grabbed onto Lu Yu and wouldn’t let go, “President Lu, we have eighty-one questions about the plot that need your answers.”

While speaking, the director took out the prepared questions, “The questions are quite tricky, and we can’t understand them just by reading the book. We need to confirm them with you.”

These were mainly for the live broadcast host. Lu Yu and Ming Yan would be hosting the live stream indoors, while an external host would be arranged to maintain order and randomly answer audience questions.

Everyone else also looked over.

Lu Yu calmly took the main seat and nodded steadily, “Go ahead.” On the surface, he was calm, but inside, he was sweating bullets. He wasn’t that familiar with the book!

The content director reverently held the script, “First, did Hua Wenyuan ever love his wife?”

Lu Yu let out a sigh of relief. Fortunately, he had read 800,000 words of “Shooting the Heavenly Wolf,” so he could answer early questions well. And for this question, he could be certain even without reading the later content. After all, he only writes stories without romantic pairings and can’t write heterosexual romance at all.

“He never loved her,” Lu Yu said firmly.

The young man responsible for taking notes couldn’t help but ask, “Not even a little?”

Lu Yu sneered, “Your newlywed wife cries when she sees you, won’t let you get close or enter the house, then cheats on you and runs off with someone else, making you the laughingstock of all your colleagues. Would you have any feelings for her?”

The young man responded, “…I’d kill that pair of dogs!”

Lu Yu patted the young man’s shoulder, “No need for that, let’s be magnanimous.”

The director, restraining the overly excited employee, quickly asked the next question, “Second, why did Hua Wenyuan accept the three pearls from the border people?”

What kind of question is that?

Lu Yu was confused, as he hadn’t reached that part of the story yet. He glared at the director. How could this person deviate from the script and ask an off-topic question for the second one?

Suddenly, Lu Dongdong’s voice came through the earphone: “This is about Hua Wenyuan leading his troops to chase the Tatars to the north, where they encountered a pearl-diving tribe oppressed by the Tatars. The tribe offered the three largest pearls to Hua Wenyuan, indicating that they could act as his informants and turn against the Tatars when necessary. Hua Wenyuan’s rule was not to disturb civilians or seize their money and food, but he accepted the tribe’s offering without hesitation.”

Lu Yu immediately understood. While listening to Lu Dongdong’s summary, he stroked his chin as if recalling the plot, then quickly answered, “Accepting the pearls signifies accepting their allegiance. Not accepting would only make the tribe more fearful.”

The content team suddenly realized and quickly took notes.

As they prepared to ask the third question, Ming Yan tapped the table with one finger, stopping them: “Just send these questions to President Lu’s email. Asking eighty-one questions in the meeting wastes everyone’s time.”

“Alright, alright, we just rarely see President Lu and got too excited.” The content team quickly made amends, and the director secretly wiped his sweat and returned to his seat.

Lu Yu was finally saved and secretly wiped his own sweat.

Ming Yan signaled Xiao Jiang to start. Secretary Xiao Jiang stood in front of the big screen and began to host the meeting: “This meeting is primarily to discuss preparations for the live broadcast. First, we need to determine the length of the broadcast.” After speaking, he gestured for the operations department to speak.

The operations director displayed a PowerPoint: “The content of one chapter can be interpreted in about 10 minutes. If we broadcast for 8 hours a day, we can interpret 48 chapters, and we can extend by twenty minutes to cover 50 chapters. The whole story has a total of 1,200 chapters, so it will take 24 days.”

Ming Yan frowned as he listened, “We still need post-broadcast adjustments. Try to compress the time. Is broadcasting 10 hours a day feasible?”

Before the operations team could respond, a man with thick, bottom-of-the-bottle glasses sitting in another corner suddenly spoke up, “Ten hours will tire the audience.”

Then, the man directly switched the PowerPoint to display a very complex data analysis chart. Ignoring the darkened face of the operations director, he began his presentation: “Although most people, except for enthusiasts, won’t watch the entire eight hours, broadcasting more than eight hours will create the impression that this is excessively long and unnecessary. Based on the ups and downs of the plot, platform traffic, cultural events, anniversaries, and daily weather, I’ve created this schedule. I hope everyone follows it.”

Operations team: “…”

Xiao Jiang: “Engineer Lin, it’s not your turn to speak yet.”

The man with bottom-of-the-bottle glasses, called Engineer Lin, replied, “I’m speaking now to avoid ineffective discussions. You’ll end up following my plan anyway.”

Operations Director: “Engineer Lin, please switch back to my PPT.”

Engineer Lin: “Can’t you switch it back yourself?”

Lu Yu looked at the schedule. It wasn’t the 50 chapters per day as mentioned by the operations team but varied in length. Some days required fast-forwarding through 100 chapters of war content, while others only covered 10 chapters of important plot points. He nodded and whispered to Ming Yan beside him, “This guy’s a talent. What’s his name?”

Ming Yan had to lean in and whisper in his ear, “Lin Aoshu, data engineer, everyone calls him Engineer Lin.”

The warm breath on his ear made Lu Yu’s heart race. He couldn’t help but lean closer to Ming Yan, hoping to “accidentally” touch those soft lips.

Then, he got a hard pinch on his lower back from Ming Yan, which made him stiffen up immediately. He bit his back teeth to maintain his boss-like expression, smiling as he listened to Ming Yan finish his words.

“This is the analyst you found from who knows where. He’s very capable, but his EQ is too low. I heard he worked on Wall Street and was ostracized by all his colleagues.”

Looking at the operations director’s face, dark as the bottom of a pot, it was clear why this guy was ostracized.

Yang Chen quickly spoke up to prevent the employees from fighting in the meeting room: “Don’t worry about the post-broadcast adjustments. I’ll be doing those while you broadcast, and the modifications will be done as the plot progresses. The preliminary work has already been completed, and the basic data has been injected. Now we’re just waiting for Hua Wenyuan’s consciousness to awaken.”

“Hahaha, consciousness awakening.” This nerdy comment lightened the mood in the meeting room.

Ming Yan pursed his lips and glared at Lao Yang, signaling him to stop talking nonsense. Only the three of them knew that the AI data source they had cultivated indeed had independent consciousness.

This was currently not accepted by the scientific community and must not be leaked.

Lao Yang gave an embarrassed smile and quickly let Xiao Jiang proceed to the next step.

After the operations department discussed the live broadcast process, Yang Chen’s bald subordinates began reporting various data tuning issues.

Lao Yang’s subordinates, one balder than the next, were all full of energy, as if they had injected three tons of adrenaline.

While listening to the book, Lu Yu thought he needed to remind Lao Yang and his team to balance work and rest. If word got out that their company was more exhausting than big corporations, where would he find justice?

Ming Yan, not understanding the data, doodled a row of bald little men on his paper.

Lu Yu could understand some of it, but he didn’t want to listen either. He turned to look at his wife, and his fingers itched with affection. He raised his hand and snatched the paper away.

Ming Yan was startled and tried to get it back, but Lu Yu grabbed his hand.

“Next time, don’t doodle when slacking off, doodle me, I’m a ‘yu’ (fish).” Lu Yu shamelessly said, adding a caption to the drawing: “Bald is invincible.”

Ming Yan’s ears turned red, and he wanted to snatch the paper back.

Yang Chen, sitting nearby, stood up his folder, pretending to read the materials, and quickly took away the note the two were fighting over: “Are you two passing notes in class? Come to my office after class.”

“Thud!” Ming Yan punched Lu Yu.

This time, Lao Yang caught them. If the employees saw him drawing little bald heads, his image would be ruined.

Lu Yu grimaced in pain, “Don’t worry, I’ll get the drawing back later.”

After the meeting ended, Lu Yu dashed to Lao Yang’s office to discuss the modification plan with him.

Yang Chen looked at the new plan Lu Yu had written and exclaimed, “No wonder you’re willing to live stream again; this plan is a hundred times better than the previous one. No wonder you cursed the content team’s previous submissions. Compared to this, they were like a pile of crap.”

Lu Yu raised an eyebrow, “Really? Did I curse them? No wonder the content team was trembling like mice today.”

“Wow, don’t you realize it? You curse people harshly! The content team has it the worst. Do you know why they insisted on asking questions during the meeting? Because you curse less during meetings. If they go to your office to ask, whether they come out alive is uncertain.” Yang Chen looked sympathetic.

Lu Yu was very surprised, unable to imagine himself losing his temper that much. He didn’t expect to be so irritable.

As they were talking, the content director knocked and entered. Seeing Lu Yu, he felt a bit guilty: “President Lu is here too.”

Lao Yang waved, “Perfect timing. Here’s the new plan from President Lu. Please adjust accordingly as soon as possible.”

The content director nodded repeatedly.

Yang Chen sighed with relief, “Do you know how anxious I’ve been these days? I was afraid you’d get sick and refuse to live stream, wasting all the money invested.”

Lu Yu mumbled in response, his eyes darting towards the small piece of paper in Lao Yang’s pocket.

“Let’s have a drink tonight,” Lao Yang put his arm around Lu Yu’s shoulder, then looked at the content director, “Xiao Zhang, you come too, and bring the other directors. My treat.”

Lu Yu pouted, “I’m not going. I need to go home and accompany my wife after work. Ming Yan gets scared sleeping alone in the dark.”

Lao Yang: “???”

Taking advantage of Yang Chen’s bewilderment, Lu Yu quickly snatched the bald cartoon from his pocket: “Forget it, you wouldn’t understand anyway.”

With that, he waved his hand and left gracefully.

Lao Yang: “Damn it! I’ll kill this dog couple!”

Witnessing a high-level dispute, the content director quickly held back the about-to-fight Yang Chen, “It’s not that serious. Let’s be magnanimous.”