That evening, after seeing Jiang Wei back to her dormitory, Jiang Ping called his brother.
Jiang Chao saw the name on the screen and figured a call this late had to be about his daughter. He picked up immediately.
“Hello?”
“Hey, big brother. I just met up with Xiao Wei.”
“What did she want?” Jiang Chao asked quickly.
“Same thing I mentioned to you before — she and two classmates started a vending machine business, and they’re looking to expand. I’ve already told her yes.”
“Is it solid?”
“Seems fine. The machines have been pretty well received around campus.”
Jiang Chao let out a quiet sigh. “Three hundred thousand yuan — that’s not a small sum.”
“Three hundred thousand?” Jiang Ping sounded puzzled. “Xiao Wei told me she only put in a hundred thousand.”
Jiang Chao frowned. “Just a hundred thousand?”
“Right.”
“That other hundred thousand went somewhere else then.” A beat of silence. “Listen — what’s this business partner of hers called? I’d like to meet him.”
“Xu Ye. First-year, finance department. Sharp kid — smart about business. Opened a fruit shop on campus barely a month into the semester, doing well by all accounts, and now he’s gone and registered a trading company on top of it. Family’s probably in business too. If you want to find him, stakeout the fruit shop — it’s on the food street. I’ll send you a photo.”
“Good. I’ll keep that in mind.”
…
Over at Qingqing Fruit Shop.
Xu Ye was running the numbers, his fingers flying across the calculator so quickly the voice readout could barely keep up. Once he’d added up the day’s sales across all thirty-plus vending machines on campus, he landed on a figure that made everyone sit up.
“7,612 yuan!”
“That much already?”
“Average of about 250 per machine. Take out venue fees, electricity, labor, and product costs — single day profit is around 3,000 yuan.”
Jiang Wei, sitting beside him, looked like she might vibrate out of her seat. “I’ve got a twenty-five percent stake — so I made 750 today alone?!”
Xu Ye smiled. “You could put it that way.”
“That’s incredible — 750 a day, 22,500 a month, 270,000 a year — by the time I finish university I could put down a deposit on an apartment at this rate.”
“You can’t calculate it quite like that. Your uncle’s already said yes to Songjiang campus this week, right? Our main campus has about twenty thousand students, and that one’s roughly the same size — so starting next week, you’re looking at something closer to 1,500 a day. Then every new campus we move into adds another 750 on top of that.”
Jiang Wei looked like she was genuinely about to jump out of her chair. Every single day now felt like something to look forward to.
“I’ll head back, then — see you guys at lunch tomorrow, keep it up.” She breezed out in high spirits.
Xu Ye smiled after her and went back to the fruit shop’s accounts.
The shop was also generating a healthy daily income for him — figures he was transferring into his brokerage account almost every evening without fail. The bull market had started moving now, with limit-up sessions [TL: 涨停, the 10% daily gain cap on Chinese A-share stocks — when a stock hits this ceiling, it’s said to go “limit-up,” a sign of high demand and speculative momentum] running consecutive days, and Xu Ye had no intention of missing any of it.
Once the accounts were squared away, he waited for Yang Fei to get back from a delivery run, and the group started heading back to the dorm for the night.
“Hold on — almost forgot.” Just as Zhang Xinzhou was locking the shop door, he pulled it back open and jogged over to the register, retrieving a stack of business cards which he handed to Xu Ye.
Clean and minimal in design. A grey-white LOGO, with the most eye-catching element being a single gilt-lettered line in the center: Founder, Shanghai Xinye Trading Co., Ltd.: Xu Ye. Below that, a phone number and email address. Bottom-left corner, a WeChat QR code. On the reverse, a line that read like a personal motto: Supreme goodness is like water; great virtue carries all things. [TL: Two classical Chinese proverbs combined — the first from the Tao Te Ching (上善若水), meaning true excellence, like water, nourishes without contention; the second (厚德载物) from the I Ching, meaning a person of deep virtue can bear great responsibility — a common pairing on Chinese business cards to signal character and ambition.]
“You’re going to Zhiwei’s school tomorrow, aren’t you — the cards should come in handy.”
“Not bad. These came out well.”
“Should we buy some gifts to bring along? Like last time?”
Xu Ye shook his head. “No need. I grabbed three packs of my dad’s Furongwang cigarettes [TL: 芙蓉王, a premium Chinese cigarette brand from Hunan — popular as a mid-to-high-end gift in professional and social contexts, particularly with older men] on the way out when I left home, they’ve been sitting in my suitcase the whole time. I’ll just bring those.”
He turned to Yang Fei. “Tomorrow afternoon’s Ideological and Political Studies class [TL: 思修, short for 思想道德修养与法律基础 — a required political theory course for all Chinese university freshmen] — remember to answer attendance for me.”
“That class, I don’t even want to go myself.”
“It’s a big lecture hall. Answer roll call, then sleep.”
Li Tongwen cut in: “Xu Ye, I can do attendance for you if you want?”
“You always sit in the first few rows. How are you going to call out for me?”
“Uh…”
…
Back at the dorm, the four of them took turns in the bathroom.
Xu Ye always went first — partly because he was already eager to get on the phone with Chen Qingqing.
He pulled his mosquito net closed, propped his pillow upright against the headboard, and sent Chen Qingqing a video call request.
She picked up.
Half her face appeared on the screen.
“You look kind of sleepy,” Xu Ye said.
“A little.”
“Then go to bed early — your mom specifically told me about this.”
“Why do you always listen to whatever my mom says?”
“I can’t exactly afford not to.”
“Then let me ask you something. Me or my mom — who do you listen to? Pick one.”
“You.”
“Obviously you.”
She pressed her lips together, murmured a quiet “that’s more like it.”
After that, they slipped into the easy rhythm of catching each other up on the day — small things, incidental things. The more you got to know someone, the less you needed to fill every silence with new topics.
A brief lull fell between them.
Then Xu Ye broke it deliberately. “Do you like dogs?”
“I like cats.”
“What about Zhu Ziqing’s essays?” [TL: 朱自清, a beloved early 20th-century Chinese prose writer whose works like Back View and Moonlight Over the Lotus Pond are staples of the middle-school curriculum — familiar to essentially every Chinese student]
“Read them in primary school. I wouldn’t say I liked them.”
“What’s your take on Van Gogh’s Starry Night?”
“I don’t have one.”
“And what’s your interpretation of the Mona Lisa’s smile?”
“What are you even trying to say?!”
“Let me see your legs.”
“Hahahahaha.”
Chen Qingqing hadn’t put in her earphones tonight, and she’d assumed her three roommates were all busy with their own things and couldn’t hear Xu Ye’s voice — but the moment he said it, all three of them burst out laughing at once.
She yanked her blanket up over everything below her eyes, staring at Xu Ye on the screen with pure, concentrated menace. After a long pause, she got out: “Not a chance. Get lost.”
Zhang Ruowei, delighted to fan the flames, hollered across the room, “Xu Ye! Send me a video call, I’ll show you!”
Jiang Yu piled on immediately. “Me too!”
Shen Xinyi wasn’t about to be left out. “Same!”
Xu Ye knew perfectly well they were kidding — but he grinned like an idiot anyway.
Chen Qingqing watched his expression and slowly lowered the phone beneath the blanket, then said, in the smallest possible voice, the most threatening possible thing: “If you even try to look, you’re dead.”
“Alright, alright, got it.”
“Go to sleep!”
“So suddenly?”
“What else do you want?”
“Put the phone against your face.”
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
She did as she was told.
Xu Ye angled his phone toward the microphone, raised his arm, and planted a loud, deliberate kiss on it — sending a very clear mua~ straight through the speaker.
Chen Qingqing’s eyes went wide, her face flooding red.
(End of Chapter 109)