“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 — with me, you’re this. With them, you’re this.”
Lü Cheng had started sending his résumé to Lisheng Capital before he had even left his current job, which meant he wasn’t happy where he was.
Xu Ye knew that if he wanted a man older than him, better educated than him and more experienced than him to come work for him, hard terms like salary alone weren’t going to move him.
So: taking the city is the lesser way; taking the heart is the greater.
Lü Cheng was in no hurry to answer. He changed the subject. “May I ask you a very presumptuous question?”
“Ask.”
“How much money do you have?”
It really was a very presumptuous question, but from where Lü Cheng stood it was one he had to ask.
If Xu Ye was only some young man with no idea how high the sky was, with no financial strength behind him, wanting to play at investing, then he could talk till the sky came down and Lü Cheng wouldn’t consider moving.
Xu Ye laughed. “Thirteen million.”
He added, “I know that isn’t a lot of money. But I already have two investments in hand. One of them is a studio called miHoYo. As of now their revenue this year has already passed eighty million, and I hold ten percent of them. You’re in investment — you’ll know what that means.”
“You invested in that one?!” Lü Cheng asked, excited.
“Mm.”
Lü Cheng shook his head. “Last year the head of that studio came to our company, but I wasn’t the one who dealt with him. A while back I came across news about the studio and was still sighing over the fact that we’d missed a project that good. And it turns out you invested in it.”
Xu Ye gave a slight smile. “So are you willing to come in with me now?”
From sitting down to now was less than ten minutes altogether, but Lü Cheng had felt an unmatched confidence coming off Xu Ye. At first he hadn’t known where it came from. Now he did.
A twenty-year-old university student with thirteen million in cash in hand and an investment full of potential — it would be strange if a man like that weren’t confident.
“So how far along are you now?”
“Just starting.”
“What do you mean, just starting?”
Xu Ye laughed. “If you’re willing to come in with me, then you’re the company’s employee number two.”
“And the company’s offices?”
“We can rent a floor in an office tower.”
Lü Cheng’s eyes went round. He had assumed Xu Ye already had a small team, and hadn’t expected it to still be nothing at all.
“Before the end of the month I’ll have the office rented and hire a few more people. When can you start?”
Lü Cheng began to think it over.
He picked up his coffee, took a small sip and set it down, then picked it up again almost at once and took another.
He wasn’t in Xu Ye’s position. Xu Ye hadn’t graduated and didn’t have to think about much else, but at his own age there were all kinds of pressures to face — buying an apartment, buying a car, getting married. Staying at a big company would be very stable. But the terms Xu Ye had offered were genuinely too tempting.
Lü Cheng thought about the treatment he had received at the company over the past year — being frozen out by his colleagues, held down by his superiors, and endless petty scheming — and in the end he gritted his teeth and agreed. “I’ll hand in my notice tomorrow and see when they’ll let me go.”
“Believe me. You won’t regret the decision you’ve made today.”
“I hope not.”
Having made the decision, Lü Cheng felt a great deal lighter, if anything. He smiled and let out a breath, pushed his glasses up with his index finger, and then something occurred to him. “Oh — that reminds me. I know a producer. He’s got an animated film about to be released and no money left for marketing and distribution, so he’s after crowdfunding. Do you have any interest in investing in a film?”
Xu Ye hadn’t expected Lü Cheng to get into work mode this fast.
He asked in passing, “What film?”
Lü Cheng answered without a moment’s thought. “Monkey King: Hero Is Back.”
The smile on Xu Ye’s face froze instantly. He pressed straight on. “What film did you say?”
“Monkey King: Hero Is Back. Not the kind children watch — it’s a homegrown Chinese animated film, made independently. I’ve seen the trailer and the quality should be reasonably good… I’m only mentioning it. Ordinary investment companies won’t look twice at a project like this, but I was thinking you’re working with limited funds at your end.”
“Invest!”
“What?”
“I said I want to invest.”
Lü Cheng went blank. “Don’t you… don’t you want to look into the project first?”
Xu Ye could only find an excuse. “I’ve already seen the trailer online. Doubt the man, don’t hire him. Hire the man, don’t doubt him. Since you know this producer, I’m handing the project over to you entirely. You have to get it for me, whatever it takes.”
Lü Cheng’s head was buzzing.
No, hang on.
I’ve already agreed, yes, but isn’t this making a game of it?
In all his years of working, this was the first time anyone had trusted him like this, and just then he didn’t know whether he ought to be moved or excited.
“Then I’ll get in touch with him tonight and get back to you tomorrow.”
“No problem.”
Xu Ye checked the time, stood, put out his right hand and smiled. “Here’s to a good partnership, then.”
“To a good partnership.” Lü Cheng stood and put his hand out.
Five minutes later.
Driving along the national highway, Xu Ye thought back over the conversation in the café, and every so often he would burst out laughing like an idiot.
If anyone had been beside him just then they would certainly have taken him for an idiot.
But only Xu Ye knew why he was this happy.
He had thought that poaching Lü Cheng would get his investment company onto a proper footing faster. What he hadn’t dreamed was that Lü Cheng would bring him a gift this large before he had even left his old company.
Monkey King: Hero Is Back.
This was a Chinese animated film that would take over nine hundred million yuan at the box office once it opened.
(End of Chapter 244)