Xu Ye had only just sat down.
Jiang Wei asked him straight out, “Say it. What did you call me out here for?”
Xu Ye hadn’t intended to circle around it anyway. He laughed. “I’m not having you run the trading company anymore.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Jiang Wei’s expression changed on the spot. She thought Xu Ye was firing her.
She had been doing perfectly well at the company, and she was a shareholder in it herself, so of course she wasn’t happy about it.
“Don’t get worked up. Hear me out first.”
Xu Ye poked a finger through the film covering the bowls and chopsticks, and while he rinsed them with hot water he said, “I’m putting an investment company together. I want the three of you on the team.”
Before any of them could speak, he went on. “The vending machines are already about as far as they can expand. If you stay at the school you’ll get stability and not one bit of improvement in your own abilities. The investment company I’m setting up has registered capital of ten million. If you join this team, both your pay and your future prospects will be better than they are now.”
Zhang Xinzhou picked the thread up quickly. “Let me state my position first. I’m obviously going with Xu Ye. This guy became a multi-millionaire off playing the stock market. Starting a business alongside him can’t possibly do me any harm.”
Li Tongwen was about to speak and stopped himself; hearing Jiang Wei speak up first, he swallowed the words back down.
Jiang Wei asked, “Then what happens to the trading company?”
“Simple. Find somebody reliable at the school to take over your work.”
“When did you make that much money?”
Xu Ye said with a laugh, “Just luck.”
Xu Ye put it that simply, but Zhang Xinzhou, Li Tongwen and Jiang Wei all knew that was only modesty talking.
Ten million. An ordinary person wouldn’t earn that much in a whole lifetime.
If they hadn’t already seen Xu Ye’s eye for business and his methods over the past year, they wouldn’t have believed he could make that much money in so short a time.
“Where’s the office?”
“Over at Jinqiao Wanchuang Center. Under twenty minutes on an electric scooter. I’ve already rented the office — two hundred square meters, up to sixty people working there at once.”
Xu Ye laughed. “If you’re all agreed, then I’ve got jobs to hand out right now.”
Jiang Wei pursed her lips. “Go on, then. What rotten job are you giving us this time?”
“The office is rented, but there’s nothing in it at all. I need you to get all the equipment in place for me — only this time there’s no need to economize the way we did last time. We buy the good stuff.”
“Zhang Xinzhou, registering a company takes a lot of paperwork. You take care of that.”
“Right.”
“Li Tongwen, are you staying in Shanghai over the summer?”
Li Tongwen had told his family long ago that he wasn’t going home for the summer, and he nodded quickly.
Xu Ye laughed. “Then once finals are over you start at the company. If you can’t stay in the dorms, I’ll rent you a place when the time comes.”
“Sure~”
Once Xu Ye had handed out the jobs, the owner started bringing the dishes to the table one after another.
The four of them ate and talked, and halfway through the meal Jiang Wei frowned, pointed at the plate of stir-fried kidney and asked, “What is this?”
“Kidney.”
Zhang Xinzhou caught up late as well. “Kidney?”
Xu Ye clapped him on the shoulder and laughed. “I told the boss earlier that you’d been a little run down lately, so I ordered this one specially for you.”
“Xu Ye, screw you.”
Zhang Xinzhou was bristling with indignation. “You’ve eaten most of that plate yourself. And you’ve got the nerve to say you ordered it for me?”
…
Once dinner was dealt with, Xu Ye took the three of them over to Jinqiao Wanchuang Center first.
Jiang Wei hadn’t been inside long before she started picking out an office for herself. Li Tongwen did a circuit of the place and was then dragged downstairs by Zhang Xinzhou, who said he wanted a look around the business park to see what the facilities were like.
Xu Ye took the chance to transfer Jiang Wei her money — three hundred thousand in total.
The moment Jiang Wei saw the message alert she asked, “Why is it this much?”
“I made money in the market, so here’s a dividend for you. Well? Two hundred thousand sitting with me for the better part of a year and it’s turned into three hundred thousand. Good deal, isn’t it?”
A hundred thousand in interest on top, and of course Jiang Wei was pleased. She laughed. “Not bad. Anyway, three hundred thousand is pocket change to you these days.”
“You’re renovating the house over the summer. Will you still have time to come in and work?”
“I’m obviously just going to get a decorating company. What do I know about renovation?”
Xu Ye nodded and handed her the office keys. “Then I’ll give you the keys. It’ll be hard work for you these next few days.”
“Forget it. Paying me more would mean a lot more than that.”
The two of them roughed out the layout of the office. The existing arrangement would stay largely as it was: coming in through the main door, the open-plan work area on the left, and on the right a run of connected management offices. The innermost one would obviously be Xu Ye’s, then the meeting room, then the finance room and the offices for the other department heads.
Apart from Xu Ye’s, none of the offices were large — put in a filing cabinet, a desk and chairs and a small sofa and there was no room left to move.
At half past seven Xu Ye drove them back to school. He dropped Jiang Wei at her dorm first, then drove himself to the foot of the men’s dorm building.
Zhang Xinzhou and Li Tongwen opened the doors and got out promptly. Seeing that Xu Ye hadn’t gotten out of the car after a good while, Zhang Xinzhou came over to the window and asked, “What are you doing?”
“Damn it!” Xu Ye burst out swearing. “Are lamb kidneys this potent?”
Zhang Xinzhou stuck his head in and took a look at Xu Ye’s crotch, then immediately started laughing with the purest enjoyment. “Hahahaha, you dumbass. Other people start on oysters and kidneys for the kidney tonic after they get married. You’ve only just come of age — what the hell do you need a tonic for?”
“Get out of your old man’s face.”
Xu Ye started the car up again. Zhang Xinzhou was blank-faced. “What are you doing?”
“I’m not coming back to the dorm tonight.”
Li Tongwen was standing at the dorm entrance and hadn’t heard any of it. Seeing Xu Ye drive off, he asked, puzzled, “Zhang Xinzhou, where’s Xu Ye going?”
Zhang Xinzhou clapped Li Tongwen on the shoulder and said, loaded with meaning, “Off to do bad things.”
Li Tongwen saw the wicked grin on Zhang Xinzhou’s face and seemed to work out where Xu Ye was going. He shut his mouth in a hurry and didn’t press any further.
…
Forty-five minutes later.
Xu Ye pulled up at the foot of the women’s dorm building at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music.
When Chen Qingqing got Xu Ye’s call she assumed he was messing with her — it wasn’t Friday, after all. It was only when she saw his car from the balcony that she came hurrying down from the second floor.
“Why have you come over this late?”
“Get in and I’ll tell you.”
Chen Qingqing had barely sat down and hadn’t got her seatbelt fastened before Xu Ye hit the gas and headed off campus.
Chen Qingqing: “Where are we going?”
Xu Ye: “To a hotel. I checked the almanac on my way out today, and the almanac says today is auspicious for kissing.” [TL: the 黄历 is a traditional almanac that lists, for each day, the activities it is auspicious or inauspicious to undertake — moving house, marrying, travelling. “Auspicious for kissing” is not one of them.]
(End of Chapter 246)