Xu Ye grabbed a two-meat-one-veg lunch from the cafeteria window, sat down, and immediately got a message from Li Tongwen.

Li Tongwen: Xu Ye, there’s a senior here about the job posting.

Xu Ye: Have her take a seat for a bit. I’ll be there as soon as I finish eating.

Li Tongwen: Okay.

Xu Ye picked up his pace. Five minutes later the plate was clean, and he was jogging back to the shop.

Coming up to the door, he spotted a girl inside with a dark red bag over one shoulder. From the back, she looked good — around 160 centimeters, heels on, white blouse paired with a midi skirt, giving off a composed, put-together impression.

“Senior, our boss is back.”

The girl turned at Li Tongwen’s voice. First look: not striking exactly, but the kind of face that held up the longer you looked at it. By Xu Ye’s internal rubric, overall maybe an 8.2.

“Hi.”

Xu Ye stepped forward and extended a hand.

She was surprised. She’d had no idea the owner would be this young. Seniors had their own world — by fourth year, you were deep in exam prep, postgraduate applications, certifications, and thesis writing, which meant you fell out of the campus social loop. She hadn’t known this fruit shop belonged to a freshman.

She came back from her brief daze and reached out. “Hi.”

“I’m Xu Ye. I run this shop.”

“I’m Xu Wanying.”

Xu Ye pulled up a chair for her and sat down nearby. He looked her over and got straight to it. “You’re a senior?”

“Yes.”

“Classes pretty light?”

“Not too bad. Nothing in the afternoons or on weekends. I want to find a part-time job while I prep for grad school — so I’m not asking my family for living expenses.”

Xu Ye thought for a moment. “Hours would be twelve-thirty in the afternoon to nine at night. Monthly pay is twenty-five hundred yuan. Does that work for you?”

A thousand more than Li Tongwen — but reasonably so. Li Tongwen had afternoon classes and couldn’t be in the shop the way a senior with a clear schedule could.

Xu Wanying didn’t hesitate. “That works. When do I start?”

“Now.”

“Now?”

“Now. Li Tongwen, walk her through the cash register.”

“Sure~”

She’d only stopped by because she’d spotted the hiring notice on the glass door, thought she’d try her luck — she hadn’t expected it to be this easy. The register wasn’t complicated, and she had the hang of it after watching for a couple of minutes.

Xu Ye introduced the others. “That’s Li Tongwen — you two will probably be in the shop together a lot. That’s Zhang Xinzhou, my business partner. And that’s Yang Fei. The four of us are all dorm mates.”

“So you’re all freshmen?”

“Yeah. Finance School. You?”

Xu Wanying smiled. “Law School.”

Xu Ye’s ears perked up. “You study law? Could you help me with a legal question?”

“Go ahead.”

“Say, hypothetically — and I mean hypothetically — I lose my ID and a female college student picks it up. We agree to meet at a hotel for her to return it. As a thank-you, I transfer her two hundred yuan. Is that illegal?”

Xu Wanying hadn’t quite processed it yet, but she caught Zhang Xinzhou visibly fighting back a laugh beside her and understood. She smiled. “I specialize in economic law. That one’s out of my area.”

“All right, different scenario — say this roommate of mine ends up marrying a sixty-year-old wealthy widow. If she passes away, can he legally demand that her forty-year-old son support him financially?”

Yang Fei shoved Xu Ye sideways. “Get lost, what kind of person do you think I am?”

“Hahaha~”

Xu Wanying couldn’t hold back either — the laugh escaped before she could stop it. The atmosphere in the shop made her feel instantly at ease.

…

There was a required major lecture that afternoon.

As class president, Xu Ye couldn’t afford to skip it.

Compulsory public courses like Mao Zedong Thought Overview, [TL: 毛概 — short for 毛泽东思想和中国特色社会主义理论体系概论, a required political theory course at all Chinese universities] though — those he’d skip whenever he could get away with it.

College, to Xu Ye, was a launching pad, nothing more. He wasn’t there to accumulate knowledge — he was there to accumulate money. If that meant walking into finals unprepared for some courses, so be it. Worst case, he couldn’t graduate, and if it really came to that, he’d just drop out. Become a multi-millionaire someday and the school would probably add him to the Distinguished Alumni list anyway.

That was just how the world worked. Power and wealth bought you the bigger voice.

“Xu Ye, can I ask you something?”

“Go ahead.”

“Would you ever look for a stable job after graduation?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Stable means doing the same thing every day on repeat. That kind of life is too dull.”

“What if the pay was great?” Yang Fei said. “Like, nine-to-five, weekends off?”

“Wealth is built through strategy, not labor. [TL: a paraphrase of a classical Chinese aphorism — 富在术数，不在劳身 — roughly meaning that financial success comes from intelligence and method, not from the effort of your hands] Working for someone else will never match working for yourself. And honestly, if the fruit shop is already making this kind of money, do you think I’ll be earning less four years from now?”

Zhang Xinzhou nodded along. “Still comes down to what someone’s looking for in life.”

Xu Ye launched into full lecture mode. “Think about the character for ‘rich’ — 富. [TL: what follows is a playful folk etymology, the kind that’s popular in Chinese internet culture — not linguistically accurate, but entertaining as a piece of rhetorical wordplay] There’s a roof radical at the top, then the character for one, then a mouth, then a field. The ‘one’ represents wisdom and knowledge. The ‘mouth’ represents eloquence. The ‘field’ represents wealth. Put it together: a person who uses wisdom, knowledge, and the power of speech to generate wealth — that’s a rich person.”

“And the character for ‘poor’ — 穷. A roof at the top, then eight, then strength. The roof represents a fixed institution. Eight represents eight hours. Strength represents hard labor. Put it together: a person who works hard for eight hours a day at a fixed institution — that’s a poor person.”

“That’s actually kind of brilliant.”

Zhang Xinzhou blinked, then laughed. “How do you have a fully developed philosophy for everything?”

The four of them got back to the shop after class just as the afternoon rush was picking up. Xu Ye left Li Tongwen and Yang Fei to hold things down, then headed out with Zhang Xinzhou and came back with two secondhand electric scooters. [TL: 电动车 — battery-powered scooters ubiquitous around Chinese campuses, used for short trips, errands, and now: fruit delivery] Total cost: around sixteen hundred yuan. Off-brand, both of them, but they charged up fine and were more than enough for campus deliveries.

A little past six.

Xu Ye was out front with the megaphone, calling out to passersby, watching the sun dip lower over the rooftops.

He stifled a yawn, slouched back in his chair, and was more or less on the verge of dozing off.

Right as his eyes were starting to close, a pair of fair, long legs entered his field of vision.

He blinked and looked up — then grinned.

“Senior Jiang Wei. What brings you here?”

(End of Chapter)