He walked back to his car with the sushi bag in his hand. He looked at the time. It was 12:30. He calculated quickly in his head. The release is at 1:00 pm. There's still plenty of time. He drove back leisurely. His thoughts drifted back to the past. Who is that? Despite all of his effort, he couldn't remember. Why is my memory between the ages of 3 and 6 of my past life so foggy? There must be a reason I forgot. Could it be trauma-related? He frowned. He remembered the famous words from Sherlock Holmes. When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. I can't find any other reason for my memory to be so 'foggy', so that must mean it must be trauma-related. Could the woman be related to the trauma? Then what am I remembering about her now? My first thought was that she was very beautiful, which means it was the most defining trait the young me remembered. He sighed and shook his head. He refocused on the road. He didn't want to get into an accident simply because he was too focused on something else. He decided to think about the matter later, when he's free.

  He arrived at the headquarters around 12:45 pm. He sat down in front of Eve and handed the bag to her.

  "Thanks," she said.

  "No problem," he said as he leaned back on the chair, looking at her unpack the meal.

  "So, what's the problem?"

  "Huh?"

  "You looked distracted."

  "Hmm... just nervous about the launch."

  She shook her head, "Don't be. We've done everything we can."

  "So, do you not worry?" he raised an eyebrow.

  "Of course, I worry. But I'm distracting myself with things not to worry as much."

  He nodded, "I don't have much to do today." He sighed, "And I'm just a little tired, I guess."

  She placed down her chopsticks and walked over to him. She leaned over from behind her chair and hugged him, "Then why did you get up early?"

  "I didn't want you to be stressed alone today. So I decided to wake up a little early to make you less stressed."

  "You know what's funny? We weren't as nervous or stressed with the OS release, remember that?"

  He laughed a little, "Yeah. I think for me, it's because this one involves people's money, I guess. With the OS, no matter what problems arise, I can fix them quickly, and we won't suffer any permanent damage. But with this, if money were lost, we would be in a lot more problems."

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  "I didn't think about that. That's probably true. But William, you gotta learn you can't control everything. You need to learn to let go sometimes."

  He sighed, "I don't agree with that. If I don't maintain control, how would I trust anyone?"

  "Do you trust me?"

  He nodded without hesitation, "Of course. You're the person I trust the most. Why do you think you're the COO?"

  "Then, why can't you learn to do that with others?"

  He looked confused, "Elementary, my dear Eve. I know you. I don't know the others."

  She bonked him, "I'm not Watson, you dork. And you're not Sherlock either."

  "You're right. I'm better." He said, jokingly.

  "Look at the ego on this guy." She kissed him on the head. Then, she whispered, "Thank you for trusting me, Will. It means a lot."

  He smiled and kissed her back, "Well, of course, I trust you. I grew up with you." He sighed, "We've been so busy, we haven't sparred lately. And we haven't spent much time with Sarah either. Do you wanna take tomorrow off?"

  She felt a jolt go down her spine, "I was waiting for you to say that, Will. I wanna see how much you've approved."

  William grinned, "You're in for a big surprise, my lady. I'll beat you up."

  She smiled back, "How vulgar." She glanced at the clock. It was 1:05 now. "Oops. I guess we missed the launch. Shall we see if there's any transactions yet?"

  "Certainly." He got up and walked over to the door and opened it for her, "Ladies first."

  "Why, thank you. You're such a gentleman today, Will."

  "For me to be a gentleman, there needs to be a lady."

  She wanted to smack him, but restrained herself, "Fuck you, Will. I'm killing you when we get back."

  "You can try."

  They argued more as they walked over to check the result of the release. Eve had lost almost all the nervousness she felt for the release after talking with William. As for William, he wasn't too worried about the popularity. He knew it would succeed. What he was worried about was if he made any mistakes. This was created in just 3 months, which meant he couldn't polish it too much. Still, even though there was no issue during the beta test and when he was personally triple checking, he was still worried.

  He calmed himself by taking a deep breath. Everything will be fine. If everything is not fine, I'll make it fine. His confidence returned.

  They checked how many users there were. There were already 100 merchants, which was to be expected as they were pre-registered. As for the users, it was a modest 800. The first transaction had already happened. Somebody bought a comic book from one of the merchants. It was a $2.50 sale, and since a credit card was used, they took 2% + $0.1 from the merchant. After the interchange costs, the profit would be... $0.012, just over one cent. They would have to rely on serious volume if the sales were this small. Thankfully, a somewhat larger transaction just occurred.

  Somebody bought a book bundle from Amazon for $60, meaning they got a commission of $1.30, and after the interchange cost, they were left with $0.30. Which might not look like a lot, but with the number of transactions going up, the few cents of profit would pile up, scaling up the profit to a few dollars, to hundreds to thousands of dollars every day. And maybe, in the future, the revenue could grow to be in the millions.

  He sighed in relief. It worked. And the users were still growing. Just now, registered users had grown to 1000, in just a minute since they started checking, and there had been 7 more transactions, netting them a few more cents.

  He was glad that he didn't really make his company public, as if he did, he would have shareholders, and they wouldn't be satisfied with the meager profit they were getting from this. But he didn't need the extra capital as he was lucky enough that his 'family' gave him a few million as a living expense. He shook his thoughts away and continued observing the progress. He grinned. He was seeing his vision coming to life. And this was only the beginning.