Lin Feng and Sun Xiao sat opposite a girl in the empty classroom.
They observed her carefully.
"I was just passing by," the girl said, fidgeting slightly in her seat. "And he looked at me with this... creepy smile."
The two exchanged a glance.
"Is this admissible?" Sun Xiao whispered to Lin Feng.
He shrugged. "Just write it down. The chairman will figure out what to do with it."
Sun Xiao nodded and began writing.
Lin Feng smiled politely at the girl.
"Is there anything else?"
"No," she said. "That is all."
"Thank you for your participation," he said. "Please ask the next person to come in."
She stood, gave a small bow, and left.
Lin Feng exhaled.
It was good that today had been designated as a free day to perform the investigation. But now he was stuck here doing this.
He glanced at the time and shook his head.
He straightened himself as the next person entered.
They continued like this until about half past noon, when the last person finally left.
Lin Feng got up and stretched his limbs.
Sun Xiao, who was packing up the documents, turned to look at him.
"Want to grab lunch together?" she asked.
"Sure," he agreed easily.
He walked over and split the stack of documents in two, taking the larger half for himself.
The two of them left the classroom together.
They made their way to the chairman's office and delivered the documents. The chairman thanked them for their hard work, and the two departed for lunch.
After the meal, Lin Feng had his usual coding lesson with Zhang Wei, then spent the rest of his time studying. When evening came, it was time for work, and he headed to his office.
He conducted his lesson and returned to campus, where he went to sleep.
...
The next day, early in the morning, he received news that both businesses had their seals completed.
He quickly went with Li Jun and Yu Shen to pick them up.
Afterward, he took the seals and had the others return to campus.
"I already have Fenghua Holdings set up," he explained. "As a major shareholder in both businesses, I can get them quickly approved."
They agreed and left him to it.
He met up with Manager Chen, who - just like before - quickly set up accounts for both businesses.
This allowed Lin Feng to return in time for their daily meeting.
...
The four of them gathered in the dorm room.
Chen Ming spoke first.
"I told those interested in working for us everything, just like you said." He paused, a hint of pride in his voice. "Surprisingly, there were quite a lot of them. I still chose the best ten, just like you instructed."
Lin Feng nodded.
"Don't let go of the others," he said. "Tell them they'll definitely be the first picks if there's another round of hiring."
Chen Ming smiled.
"Already done."
"Good."
Lin Feng reached into his backpack and pulled out a stack of contracts. He set them on the desk.
"These are the contracts I prepared," he said. "Go through them and have the part-timers sign them. Also, collect the documents listed there."
He then turned to Zhang Wei.
"Make a guide for the part-timers on how to use the delivery side of the app."
Zhang Wei nodded. "Already on it."
Lin Feng nodded approvingly.
"Now, after the contract forms are filled out, I'll go through them tomorrow and look into the people over the weekend. By Monday, they should be in action."
He looked around the room.
"All that's left now is promotion."
He turned to Chen Ming.
Chen Ming smiled confidently.
"Leave it to me."
…
Later that day.
Lin Feng and Yu Shen sat across from each other in his office.
Now that everything was official, it was finally time to discuss the details.
"So," Lin Feng began, "how exactly does this whole thing work?"
Yu Shen adjusted his glasses, his eyes lighting up the way they always did when this topic came up.
"Quantitative investing is built on one core principle - the market isn't random. Patterns exist. And if patterns exist, they can be found, analyzed, and exploited."
He leaned forward.
"It starts with data. Historical price movements, trading volumes, market sentiment indicators. You feed all of this into a model and train it to recognize patterns. The model learns what conditions typically precede a price increase or decrease."
He gestured with his hands as he spoke.
"Then comes backtesting - running the algorithm against historical data to see if it would have worked in the past. If it does, you refine it further. Feature engineering, risk management, position sizing. You keep optimizing until the model is as accurate as possible."
He sat back.
"The result is a system that can identify opportunities and execute trades faster and more efficiently than any human could. No emotions. No hesitation. Just pure logic."
Lin Feng nodded slowly.
"Sounds solid. But here's the thing - we don't have any reputation yet. No track record. No clients."
Yu Shen's expression dimmed slightly.
"So for now," Lin Feng continued, "we'll just start by investing for ourselves. Build up results first. Once we have something to show, expanding won't be a problem."
Yu Shen considered this for a moment, then nodded.
"That makes sense."
He paused.
"I have about 20,000 yuan in savings. Money I've made through my own small investments." He looked at Lin Feng. "I'll use that as my starting capital."
Lin Feng smiled.
"I'll match you. 20,000 yuan from my side as well."
Yu Shen's eyes widened slightly. "You're sure?"
"I'm sure."
With that, their starting pool was set at 40,000 yuan.
Yu Shen pulled out a notebook filled with charts and calculations.
"I've been thinking about how we should approach this," he said. "There are different investment methods we could use - each with their own risk profiles and return potentials."
Looking at the long term gains, we could honestly go either way. But I have my own thoughts on the matter.