Qin Zhiwei opened the chat.
He typed out a message and sent it: “I’m done for the night. You asleep yet?”
Shen Xinyi replied quickly. “Not yet.”
Qin Zhiwei: “Sorry, today was really hectic.”
Shen Xinyi: “It’s fine.”
Qin Zhiwei: “The… uh, apple. Did you eat it?”
Shen Xinyi: “Not yet.”
Qin Zhiwei: “Did you see the note inside?”
He typed and deleted the message several times before finding the nerve to send it.
The moment it was out, time seemed to slow to a crawl.
He stared at his phone. His chest thumped, as though his heart were about to launch itself out of his ribcage.
Meanwhile.
Buried under her quilt, Shen Xinyi read the message and, cheeks warm, typed back: “I saw it.”
Then, remembering what Zhang Ruowei had said that afternoon, she added another line: “But I’m not ready yet. We’ve only known each other a little while.”
Qin Zhiwei froze, then quickly screenshotted the exchange and forwarded it to Xu Ye.
“Bro. How do I reply?”
With great power came great responsibility. Xu Ye was in the middle of placating Chen Qingqing and had to coach Qin Zhiwei on his replies at the same time.
Very shortly, per Xu Ye’s instruction, Qin Zhiwei sent this:
Qin Zhiwei: “It’s okay. When I say I like you, it isn’t that I need you to be with me. It’s that when you hit a low point in your life someday, I want you to remember not to lose heart — that at least once, someone was drawn to you for exactly who you are. Someone was, and someone still will be.”
Shen Xinyi paused. “Who said this?”
Qin Zhiwei panicked instantly. He assumed she had already guessed the line was Xu Ye’s, that Xu Ye had fed it to him.
He confessed immediately. “Xu Ye said it. But what I want to say is exactly what he wrote, I swear.”
Shen Xinyi: “Bullshit — that’s Haruki Murakami!” [TL: Widely circulated online as a Murakami quote, though its actual provenance in his work is not established. The line is a Chinese-internet aphorism attributed to him without a verified source.]
Qin Zhiwei stared at the message. His head went white with static.
Qin Zhiwei: “I’m sorry.”
Qin Zhiwei: “I didn’t know.”
Qin Zhiwei: “But what I meant is exactly what that says. Really. You have to believe me.”
Shen Xinyi: “I’m tired.”
Shen Xinyi: “Going to sleep.”
Shen Xinyi: “Good night.”
Deflated, Qin Zhiwei could only reply with a good night of his own.
Then he fired off a series of messages to Xu Ye, in an entirely different tone from earlier.
Qin Zhiwei: “Xu Ye, you son of a bitch.”
Qin Zhiwei: “Why didn’t you tell me that line was Haruki Murakami.”
Qin Zhiwei: “I don’t have a shred of dignity left.”
Qin Zhiwei: “I have been screwed.”
Qin Zhiwei: “Don’t you dare play dead. Answer.”
Xu Ye: “Relax.”
Xu Ye: “What did she say?”
Qin Zhiwei: “[chat_screenshot.jpg]”
Xu Ye: “It’s fine. She’s probably laughing under her quilt right now.”
Qin Zhiwei: “What’s she laughing at?”
Xu Ye: “You, dumbass.”
Xu Ye had it exactly right.
At that very moment, Shen Xinyi was suppressing a laugh, editing Qin Zhiwei’s contact name in her phone.
She deleted two of the three characters in his name — 秦志伟 — leaving only the surname 秦, then added two characters after it: 傻子.
Which meant Qin Zhiwei, in her WeChat, had just become 秦傻子. [TL: 傻子 = “idiot” or “dummy.” “Qin the Idiot” is the effect.]
If Xu Ye ever found out, he’d absolutely tell him: Zhiwei, the day Shen Xinyi drops the 秦 and leaves only 傻子, you two are set for life.
The next day was Christmas.
By comparison to Christmas Eve, it was a lot quieter.
Over lunch in the cafeteria, Xu Ye messaged Jiang Wei and asked her to run the full ledger — figure out exactly what the day’s net profit had come to across the company and the shop. He’d base the bonus for each person on the number.
There was no way he could handle this alone. He’d been home the previous weekend too — if not for Zhang Xinzhou, Jiang Wei, and the rest running with the whole thing, yesterday wouldn’t have gone anything like as smoothly. Bonuses had to happen.
So on Friday at five-thirty in the afternoon, Xu Ye dropped a message in the company chat: “Company dinner tonight. Everyone meet at Shiweitian Restaurant by the south gate before seven. I’ve reserved the table on the second floor — just give my name at the counter.”
For Xu Wanying, Li Tongwen, and Yang Fei, he’d swing by the shop to pick them up since he was going that way anyway.
At the dorm.
Xu Ye and Zhang Xinzhou were sorting through the red packets.
The previous day’s vending-machine take had come in at just over one hundred and ten thousand net; the shop had cleared just over thirty thousand. Together, around a hundred and fifty. Xu Ye had decided to allocate fifty thousand of that for bonuses. He could have done it via bank transfer easily enough, but he thought cash would land harder — so that afternoon he’d sent Jiang Wei and Ruan Xiaolu to the bank to pull the money out.
The company’s core team was six: himself, Zhang Xinzhou, Yang Fei, Jiang Wei, Ruan Xiaolu, Xia Minghui.
The shop had two front-of-house plus two restockers, four total.
Then seven campus agents and their restockers — twenty-one people. Plus a handful of casual part-timers, but they’d already been paid, so they were out of scope. Some of the agents were too far away to make it in tonight, so Jiang Wei would just transfer them their share.
That added up to thirty-one people. As the boss, Xu Ye wasn’t going to hand himself a bonus, which left thirty — averaging out to just over ¥1,600 each. But he wasn’t going to split it evenly — some people had contributed a lot more than others.
After discussion between the three shareholders — himself, Zhang Xinzhou, and Jiang Wei — they settled on three tiers: ¥2,500 top, ¥1,500 middle, ¥500 bottom, with the leftover going into a red packet drop in the group chat.
At six-thirty, Xu Ye stashed the red packets in his shoulder bag. He and Zhang Xinzhou stopped by the shop first to meet Li Tongwen and the others. By the time the five of them reached the restaurant, almost everyone was already there.
Once the food was up, Xu Ye stood, raised his glass — with a soft drink — and said, “Everyone. Just a couple of words first.”
The private room went quiet. Everyone turned to him.
Xu Ye kept it direct. “This past Wednesday, our company’s Christmas Eve campaign went incredibly well. Over seventeen thousand people bought a Peace Apple gift box from one of our vending machines, and that turned into serious revenue. But none of that would have happened without everyone in this room. So as the person responsible for the company, before anything else — thank you. Thank you all.”
He paused, then went on. “Before the dinner starts, I have a red packet for every one of you. Call it the bonus for this campaign.”
Between smiles and small talk, he handed a red packet to each of them. The mood in the room lifted quickly.
Once everyone was clinking glasses and pouring drinks, Xu Ye quietly took out his phone under the table and sent Chen Qingqing two red packets in a row.
¥5.20
¥13.14
Chen Qingqing replied almost immediately: “Why are you suddenly sending me red packets?”
Xu Ye: “Because your man is rich now.”
(End of Chapter 168)