"Hello. I'm Xu Ye."

There was a photograph of Lü Cheng on the résumé, and Xu Ye had recognized him at a glance.

Lü Cheng was taken aback, but he greeted Xu Ye politely anyway.

The two of them went into the café, ordered two americanos, and picked a quiet spot to sit down.

Xu Ye didn't circle around. He came straight out with it. "I've seen the expected salary on your résumé. You're looking for 20k a month, is that right?"

"Mm."

Lü Cheng asked, curious, "You look a lot younger than me. I'd like to know — how old are you this year…?"

Xu Ye: "Oh, I'm still at university. Twenty by the old count." [TL: 虚岁 counts a person as one year old at birth and adds a year at each New Year, so it runs one to two years ahead of the Western count. Xu Ye turned nineteen in April.]

"Uh—"

Lü Cheng had seen that Xu Ye was young, but he hadn't expected this young. Hearing that, he froze outright.

Xu Ye laughed. "But everything I said to you on the phone just now is true. I'm in the middle of putting a team together."

"Investment as an industry takes a certain amount of experience and capital. You're this young…"

Lü Cheng hadn't finished before Xu Ye cut in. "I know what you mean. Set against a big company like Lisheng Capital, I certainly don't have much to offer. But there's one advantage here that a company like that can't give you."

Lü Cheng waited for the rest.

"Even if you got through the interviews at Lisheng Capital, you'd only be small fry there. A big company like that is packed with talent, and your chances of getting ahead would be next to none. But come to me, and I'll make you head of the company's investment department. Apart from me, nobody would have any authority over you."

Xu Ye suddenly laughed. He stuck out his thumb and pointed it up, then pointed it down, saying as he did it, "Which is to say —…