Restart life

Chapter 122-0119 [The Company's New Employees]

Chen Guiliang and Wu Meng had already eaten dinner, and only casually picked at their food.

Xie Yang wolfed down his food for a while, then felt a little embarrassed, as if he had fled a famine and come to seek refuge with relatives.

To save money, this guy bought a hard-seat ticket from Hangzhou to Beijing and only ate a few packets of instant noodles along the way.

"I'm almost full." Xie Yang slowed down his chewing.

Chen Guiliang said, "How could I laugh at you? I learned this skill in the cafeteria during the second semester of my senior year. I usually swallow it without chewing it either."

Xie Yang knew that Chen Guiliang was giving him face, and suddenly he felt like crying. He didn't know why things had turned out this way.

"If I could live my life again, I would definitely study hard in my senior year of high school," Xie Yang said with emotion.

Chen Guiliang said, "Actually, it's not too late to start learning now."

He knew how formidable Xie Yang was.

In another timeline, Xie Yang suffered a shock during his freshman year of college. He worked as a tutor to earn extra money while burying himself in his studies. In the end, he was admitted to a pretty prestigious graduate school.

Wu Meng also said, "Yes, you can also audit classes at Peking University. Chen Daxia and his Yuanpei Class received the entire university's course schedule as soon as the semester started. If you want to audit any classes, you can ask Chen Daxia to help you find out which classrooms are available."

"Won't we be kicked out?" Xie Yang asked.

Wu Meng laughed and said, "There are so many students at Peking University, who can recognize you? If you don't tell me, no one will know what's going on with you."

Xie Yang said, "Then I'll try it later."

The three chatted for a while about their funny high school days, and then Chen Guiliang went to pay for the meal.

Wu Meng went directly back to school through the south gate, while Chen Guiliang led Xie Yang westward, bypassing the southwest corner of the campus to Changchun New Garden.

Pointing to the dormitory building, Chen Guiliang introduced, "This is the dormitory area that Peking University just completed this year. Buildings 1 and 2 are all occupied by master's and doctoral students."

"Buildings 3 and 4 are for young teachers, visiting scholars, and entrepreneurs in the science park. In principle, ordinary employees are not allowed to live there. But there are quite a few empty rooms now, so you can stay there temporarily. I estimate you will have to move out when the fall semester starts next year, and then you will have to find another place to live."

“Our company is near the East Gate, and Changchun New Garden dormitory is near the West Gate. When you go to and from get off work, you can either cross the Peking University campus or go around from the north or south.”

It was still snowing lightly.

Xie Yang walked around and looked around, never expecting that one day he would be living in a Peking University dormitory.

Chen Guiliang led him to the management center of Changchun New Garden, registered him in the name of the company, and paid for mattresses, quilts and other supplies.

Then he took Xie Yang to Building 4, knocked on a room door and introduced them: "These are Ding Qiang and Cai Yifei, our colleagues at the company. This is my friend Xie Yang, your new roommate, who will also be joining the company."

Ding Qiang and Cai Yifei, one with a junior college degree and the other with a bachelor's degree, are both full-time programmers.

"Hello."

"Hello, please come in."

Chen Guiliang strolled around the dormitory and complained, "Damn, the conditions here are really good, much better than my lousy dorm. I even want to move here!"

Ding Qiang stood there, not daring to respond.

Cai Yifei has a more outgoing personality and even dares to joke with the boss: "Then let's move over here."

“It’s too far,” Chen Guiliang shook his head. “It’s inconvenient for going to work and school.”

This was just a casual remark, of course. It's only 300 meters from the west gate of Peking University, which is hardly far.

Chen Guiliang sat for a while longer before saying goodbye, "You guys get to know each other better. I have to hurry back to my dorm, or I'll get a beating for coming home late."

The three men saw him out.

Ding Qiang silently helped Xie Yang make the bed.

Cai Yifei offered Xie Yang a cigarette and asked, "What position do you hold in the company?"

"I don't know," Xie Yang said. "I might have to do odd jobs first and learn something from everyone. I want to learn programming."

Cai Yifei took out a lighter and lit it for him: "Have you ever studied programming before?"

Xie Yang replied, "I've been self-studying for a few months, with guidance from an expert. I'm just starting out with Java and C."

Ding Qiang, who had been making the bed, encouraged me, "It's okay. I'm also learning from the experts. We can improve together in the future."

"Thank you." Xie Yang felt that Ding Qiang was a pretty good person.

Cai Yifei began to inquire: "Are you from the same hometown as General Manager Chen?"

Xie Yang wasn't used to the title "General Manager Chen" and subconsciously asked, "You mean Chen Guiliang?"

“Yes.” Cai Yifei nodded.

Xie Yang said, "I was his high school classmate."

"I heard that President Chen was very talented in high school?" Cai Yifei asked curiously.

Xie Yang said with a smile, "He's incredibly awesome. Let me tell you... well, he's just very hardworking and diligent."

Xie Yang quickly took back what he had only said halfway through.

He felt he shouldn't talk about Chen Guiliang's past with his colleagues.

At crucial moments, Xie Yang always keeps his mouth shut; he has yet to tell anyone that Chen Guiliang made private clothes.

This guy is actually better suited for administration. But he insists on learning programming simply because he thinks being able to program is cool and has a promising future.

The next day.

Ding Qiang and Cai Yifei each rode a bicycle out the door.

Xie Yang sat on the back of Ding Qiang. But it was Cai Yifei who made the introductions along the way: "You can buy a second-hand bicycle outside the south gate of Peking University. You can buy one there too. Eat at the canteen in the Science Park Building. It's more expensive than the canteen on the Peking University campus, but cheaper than the restaurants outside."

“Then I’ll go buy one this weekend,” Xie Yang said.

Cai Yifei laughed and said, "I'll take you there. I know where it's the cheapest. When the company isn't busy, you can ride around on your bike and maybe even run into a beautiful girl on the Peking University campus."

Arrived at the building's cafeteria.

Cai Yifei bought a bowl of beef noodles and added an egg.

Ding Qiang only had two steamed buns and some porridge.

Cai Yifei couldn't help but ask, "Are you really able to take it all, living so frugally every day?"

Ding Qiang said, "I've always eaten like this since I was a child."

Cai Yifei said to Xie Yang, "It's a good thing you moved into the dorm, otherwise I would never have anyone to talk to. Our Brother Ding is such a quiet person, he can't even crack a joke, he's been keeping me so quiet all this time."

Xie Yang said, "Find a girlfriend."

Cai Yifei sighed as he peeled an egg: "We just broke up. If it weren't for her, I wouldn't have stayed in Beijing. We worked at the same company, and she dared to cheat on me right under my nose. And it was my boss, no less!"

"That's really impressive," Xie Yang commented.

Cai Yifei gave a bitter laugh and said self-deprecatingly, "I beat up my boss and got detained for a few days. After I got out, I was out of work. I just bought a job posting in a newspaper and followed the address to get into Boss Chen's company. It was fate, you know."

Immediately afterwards, Cai Yifei went on to say that his former boss was an idiot.

Ding Qiang listened silently, while Xie Yang occasionally chimed in with a few words.

Before we finished our meal, two more female colleagues arrived. They were customer service staff (also doing odd jobs) hired by Chen Guiliang.

As final exams drew closer, all the Peking University students who had worked part-time at the company quit.

"This is Zhu Xia and Gong Xiaozhen..." Cai Yifei helped introduce them.

Gong Xiaozhen is quite pretty, Xie Yang couldn't help but toss his hair.

Compared to his senior year of high school, Xie Yang is now more handsome—he has fewer pimples.

Gong Xiaozhen, however, focused her attention on Cai Yifei.

Because Cai Yifei is a graduate of a second-tier university, he is handsome, earns a higher salary, and has a brighter future.

Unfortunately, my feelings are unrequited.

Cai Yifei even found the two girls eating too slowly and was too lazy to wait for them any longer, so he took Xie Yang upstairs to the company.

“Both companies belong to President Chen,” Cai Yifei explained. “They’re practically one company; the employees are all from the same company. When one is too busy, they ask the other to come and lend a hand. The head manager is Ao Yanchen, President Chen’s senior colleague, and she manages both companies.”

Looking at the two companies, each occupying 50 square meters, Xie Yang was extremely shocked—this was much more intuitive than websites and games.

My former roommate has improved like this in just six months, while his progress was only in learning some programming knowledge.

Cai Yifei then led Xie Yang to meet other colleagues, while Ding Qiang went directly to his workstation.

Ao Yanzhen arrived late in the morning; she had attended a professional class before coming.

Ao Yanchen called Xie Yang outside: "You'll be interning at the company for now. Your internship salary is 1200. Don't tell your other colleagues the exact amount. During your internship, your job duties will be flexible. Learn whatever interests you. Of course, if the company needs help anywhere, we'll ask you to help out."

"I understand, thank you, Supervisor Ao..." Xie Yang said, feeling rather embarrassed.

With his current education and abilities, he couldn't possibly earn an internship salary of 1200. He's only helping out because of his old classmate.

Xie Yang's first job was to promote the game "Three Kingdoms Kill" on forums and online communities... He felt like he was back to the time when he was promoting private servers with Chen Guiliang.

Around noon, Chen Guiliang finally showed up.

Li Xunhuan also arrived, looked around the two offices and said, "This place is quite nice, a rather large office."

Chen Guiliang laughed and said, "The rent is cheap, let's set up the scaffolding first."

"How many users does your online Three Kingdoms Kill game have?" Li Xunhuan asked.

Chen Guiliang said, "We have registered more than 7000 accounts, mainly students from major universities in Beijing, attracted by ads on campus networks. Last weekend, the peak number of concurrent users was more than 2300."

"That's not much," Li Xunhuan said.

Chen Guiliang explained, "Ad slots on 17173 are too expensive, so I didn't spend the money on advertising. But I've already been promoting it on forums and Tieba. When I update 'Those Things of the Ming Dynasty' on my blog and forums, I include the official website of Three Kingdoms Kill at the end of each chapter. The user growth rate has been pretty good these past two days, especially on the board game Tieba. Although there aren't many people there, the entire Tieba has come. Judging from the current growth rate, Three Kingdoms Kill users will definitely exceed 15,000 by the end of the month."

"I still think it's too much trouble," Li Xunhuan shook his head.

Chen Guiliang wanted him to be the agent for the physical card game "Three Kingdoms Kill".

This thing is a publication, and should naturally be handled by a publishing company. In another timeline, the publishing company is the one that distributes the physical Three Kingdoms Kill cards.

However, Li Xunhuan found it troublesome, feeling that the Three Kingdoms Kill game wasn't famous enough and would require a lot of effort to promote.

Chen Guiliang said, "If President Lu doesn't like it, then so be it. I'll look for other publishers. How's the 'Those Things About the Ming Dynasty' project going?"

“We’re just waiting for your manuscript. Hurry up and get the word count up,” Li Xunhuan said. “I took the media reports and online data to various book distributors, and they all think this book has a bright future.”

Li Xunhuan has many other marketing tactics.

He has reached an agreement with Dangdang.com that Dangdang.com will be the exclusive pre-seller of "Those Things of the Ming Dynasty", and Dangdang.com is willing to provide ample promotional support.

To gain the support of Xinhua Bookstore, he also increased the supply discount and persuaded them to set up a "bestseller section." This would allow consumers to see "Those Things About the Ming Dynasty" as soon as they entered the Xinhua Bookstore.

With Chen Guiliang receiving a high royalty share and Xinhua Bookstore receiving a high supply discount, how could Li Xunhuan still make a profit?
If sales increase, you can make a profit.

If sales don't pick up, we'll go bankrupt!
(End of this chapter)