B-Boss!

Robert Ryan was thrown.

Steven was high-strung, true, but it wasn't polite to bring up a tomb to a sick man's face.

Steven Matthew, the man at the heart of Apple's founding and its legend.

Everyone on Wall Street knew he had pancreatic cancer.

He was a man most Americans respected.

The company he'd built was counted among Silicon Valley's most American creative manufacturers.

And the iPhun was changing the paradigm of the cell phone.

The internet and all kinds of functions had truly fused, all packed into a device called a phone.

Even now it kept evolving under the name smartphone.

Robert had used one himself and was still amazed and impressed by the innovation.

His investment firm's reports had forecast limitless growth ahead.

The boss's investment guidelines, too, called for buying the stock steadily.

And now, face to face, the boss had come on far too strong.

The boss had taken the same attitude with Jeff, Ford's finance director.

Pa-ba-bat.

Robert could almost see sparks flying in every direction between Steven and the boss.

"Hmm..."

Robert let out a groan.

He felt like a buffalo bleeding in the middle of a lions' fight.

The two men looked at each other.

"Heh heh, kha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha."

Suddenly Steven burst into wild laughter.

A full-throated, mad laugh that burst from deep in his chest.

"???" Robert was thrown all over again by Steven's baffling behavior.

"I envy you."

The boss, too, said something no one could make sense of.

He'd opened by calling Apple's new headquarters a tomb, and now he sincerely said he envied the man.

"I like you, friend~."

Steven grinned.

"Likewise."

The boss answered with a smile.

What on earth is going on? Shouldn't they be trading punches right now?

Steven could have called security to throw them out, and no one could have said a word.

But here was Steven, telling the boss—who'd said he envied him—that he liked him.

Neither of them seemed to be in his right mind.

"Sit. I've got some pu'er I went to great lengths to get. Made from the first leaves…