Chapter 3: Unfriendly Talks (Part )
Excellent Era Club, conference room.

The management and core players of Jia Shi sat at one end, and the research team of Tenghai Company sat at the other end.

Both the host and the guests had a great time. The two sides had a cordial and friendly conversation, fully exchanged views, enhanced mutual understanding, and reached a basic consensus on Tenghai Company's sponsorship and investment in Jia Shi Club.

Tao Xuan was extremely happy at this moment. Compared to Excellent Era, which barely escaped from the ranks of "small and micro enterprises" last year, Tenghai, with a market value of hundreds of billions of US dollars, was undoubtedly an extremely powerful force.

As long as you accomplish this job, you won’t have to worry about the rest of your life!
To this end, Tao Xuan and the management of Excellent Era have been making preparations and taking care of things these days, putting in a lot of effort to maximise Excellent Era's prospects.

The entire Jia Shi has been busy these days, with everyone working as a soldier. Even the match against 301 that is scheduled to take place tomorrow has been downgraded in priority.

He also personally accompanied the emperor throughout the process, serving him in every possible way, almost treating himself as a eunuch.

The results of his hard work are gratifying.

At least until now, Tenghai's inspection team has a very good impression of the Excellent Era Club and is quite willing to cooperate in sponsorship. The situation is very good.

The only thing that made Tao Xuan a little unhappy was that in Teng Hai’s summary report on Jia Shi, “Ye Qiu” was mentioned almost every two sentences!
What is going on? Excellent Era belongs to him, Tao Xuan, not Ye Qiu!
Of course, I can only think about this in my mind.

At this point, the meeting was coming to an end and most of the issues that needed to be discussed had been discussed, with the final step of signing the contract remaining.

Manager Cui Li, who had just dealt with Ye Qiu's affairs, also took Sun Xiang, Liu Hao, Su Mucheng and other core players of Excellent Era to their seats, waiting for the celebration ceremony after signing the contract.

"Manager Zhang, since the relevant terms have been almost negotiated, why don't we... sign the contract?" Tao Xuan's smile was flattering.

At the other end of the conference table, Zhang Yuanfang smiled and nodded. Just as he was about to speak, his cell phone suddenly started buzzing.

Zhang Yuanfang's lips curled up into a barely perceptible smile, but on the surface he pretended to take out his phone and looked at it, then he said to Tao Xuan apologetically:

"Excuse me, Mr. Tao, it's Mr. Pei's call."

"Oh oh oh! It's okay, it's okay. President Pei's instructions are important! You go ahead and do yours!" Of course Tao Xuan couldn't have any objection, nor did he dare to have any objection.

"It's okay. It should be a question about our sponsorship plan." Zhang Yuan answered the call with a smile and turned on the speakerphone intentionally or unintentionally.

Then, Pei Yunteng's loud voice echoed throughout the Jia Shi conference room.

"Lao Zhang, we've been tricked! Let's retreat!"

Zhang Yuanfang couldn't help but raise the corner of his mouth, but he pretended to be completely unaware of the situation and spoke in confusion:
"Boss Pei, what happened? What do you mean by 'we were tricked'?"

"Don't mention it!" Pei Yunteng's voice sounded distressed. "The actual situation of Excellent Era is a far cry from what we imagined. It doesn't look like a wealthy family at all."

"Their management is even more anthropomorphic!"

Silence, deathly silence.

No one expected that Pei Yunteng would openly insult everyone in Jia Shi as soon as he opened his mouth.

The ingratiating smile on Tao Xuan's face gradually froze, and his complexion turned slightly pale.

But it wasn't out of anger at being insulted, but rather a fear that something terrible was going to happen.

When did Jia Shi... offend this giant Buddha?

On the other side, Zhang Yuanfang continued to play dumb and actually spoke up for the people of Excellent Era: "Boss Pei, this is wrong of you. How can you attack our partners like this?"

"How can this be considered an attack..." Pei Yunteng muttered.

"I can't explain it right now, so let's start the video. I also want to interview those weird people about their mental journey."

After hanging up the phone, Zhang Yuanfang stood up and operated the projector in the conference room while smiling apologetically at Tao Xuan: "I'm sorry, President Tao, our President Pei is not in a good mood today. There may be some misunderstanding. I'll explain it to you later."

"It's okay, it's okay." Tao Xuan smiled apologetically, suppressing his inner uneasiness.

As the video was connected, Pei Yunteng's figure appeared on the screen.

At this moment, he seemed to have found a cafe or something, and was sitting in a booth, brushing off the snow all over his body, still with a nonchalant expression on his face.

Ye Xiu, at this moment, sat opposite him with a slightly awkward look.

"Boss, can you tell me what's going on now?" Zhang Yuanfang asked with a smile.

"Here!" Pei Yunteng pointed at Ye Qiu opposite him.

"Ye Qiu, do you know who it is?"

"Of course!" Zhang Yuanfang answered fluently.

"The only player in the history of the Glory Professional League to win three consecutive championships and three consecutive MVP awards. He is the absolute number one player in Chinese e-sports, the absolute core of Excellent Era and the top face of the league."

The absolute core, the absolute core again!
Even though this was not the time for Tao Xuan to be emotional, when he heard Zhang Yuanfang's definition of Ye Qiu, Tao Xuan still felt a little angry.

Ye Qiu, Ye Qiu, Ye Qiu, these people only know how to talk about Ye Qiu!

It was as if Excellent Era would not be able to survive without Ye Qiu!
The boss of Excellent Era is me, Tao Xuan, not him!

Pei Yunteng naturally couldn't hear Tao Xuan's inner thoughts. He spoke slowly in a tone of contempt mixed with sympathy:
"Ye Qiu was kicked out by Excellent Era."

"Kicked?" Zhang Yuanfang's smile froze at the right moment, and he asked tentatively, "Could it be... that he committed a crime?"

As expected, we come from the same company and our thinking patterns are exactly the same.

"It would be fine if he really did something wrong. At most, we can suppress public opinion." Pei Yunteng sighed, "But the bad thing is that Ye Qiu didn't do anything."

"Ye Qiu did not do anything that violated ethics, laws, or club rules. He was judged as worthless and kicked out simply because he was unwilling to accept personal business orders."

As soon as these words came out, the whole place was in an uproar.

The management of Jia Shi had the smallest reaction. In their opinion, this was the most "correct" business logic.

The players had different reactions. Sun Xiang was indifferent, as if Ye Qiu's departure had nothing to do with him; Liu Hao pretended to be well-behaved, but he couldn't suppress the joy in his eyes.

As for Su Mucheng, if it weren't for her excellent professionalism and attitude, she would probably have a sneer on her face by now.

But what made Tao Xuan most uneasy was the attitude of everyone in Tenghai.

After hearing Pei Yunteng's words, they all took a deep breath, then turned their heads at the same time and stared at Tao Xuan with a strange look.

Tao Xuan had seen that kind of look before. He had gone to see a circus performance before. When the gorilla responsible for warming up the audience made a fool of itself on the stage, the audience looked at the gorilla in that way.

The atmosphere fell into a strange silence for a while, until -

"Bang!" Tao Xuan could no longer restrain himself, he slammed the table and stood up.

"Boss Pei, can you listen to me for a few words?"

(End of this chapter)