Chapter Forty: The Seed of Capital Has Already Been Planted

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A steak cost 740 yuan, which meant 1,480 yuan for two. It was hardly surprising that He Jing had reacted that way. After all, they were still students, members of the economically dependent class with no source of income.

Zhang Yang did not answer her directly. Instead, he teased, “You refuse when I invite you to the cafeteria, but complain that it’s too expensive when I bring you to an upscale restaurant. You’re awfully contradictory.”

“I’m contradictory? Ha!”

He Jing gave a cold laugh and continued to criticize him. “How much can you make ghostwriting for Lai Weijie? What I meant was that you should choose something in between. You could have taken me to KFC or McDonald’s. Even a roadside barbecue stall would have been fine. There was no need to put on airs and come to the Peace Hotel.”

“You’re both materialistic and rational. Anyway, we’re already here, so let’s eat first.”

Zhang Yang smiled.

“Let’s split the bill later.” He Jing did not want to take advantage of him. She might have been somewhat materialistic, but what twenty-two-year-old woman on the verge of graduating from university was entirely free of material concerns?

Girls of eighteen or nineteen did not care about money because they belonged to the economically dependent class. Most of them were still in school.

What did “the economically dependent class” mean?

Put simply, it referred to people who did not need to work because someone else supported them.

Precisely because their parents gave them money, most girls in this age group chose partners primarily based on appearance and did not pay much attention to material circumstances.

Once they entered society, realized the importance of money, and witnessed its uglier side, their standards for choosing a partner would change again.

“Then we’ll split the bill,” Zhang Yang said, going along with her without mentioning that Tao Yu’ang was actually paying for the meal.

…

Before long, exquisite dishes began arriving at the table.

The Peace Hotel—or any upscale restaurant, for that matter—shared one characteristic: the plates had to be enormous. The more empty space there was around the food, the more refined and luxurious it appeared.

“Please enjoy the hot dishes while they’re still warm. Otherwise, their flavor may suffer. If you need anything else, please feel free to summon me at any time,” the private-room manager said with a smile.

“Go ahead and attend to your other duties. If we need anything, we’ll press the service button,” Zhang Yang said with a slight nod.

After the manager left, Zhang Yang picked up his knife and fork, sliced into the A4-grade Wagyu steak, and placed a small piece in his mouth.

Although A4 grade could not compare with A5, it possessed the same defining qualities of Wagyu beef: it melted in the mouth and was tender and juicy.

Zhang Yang savored it carefully. The rich aroma of Wagyu fat brought back memories of his former self, once a formidable force on Wall Street.

Unlike Zhang Yang, who was enjoying himself, He Jing felt her heart bleed. Every bite made her hear the sound of coins hitting the floor inside her head.

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“Fifty yuan.”

“This bite cost seventy.”

“There goes another hundred…”

Although the steak was undeniably expensive, He Jing had to admit that Wagyu beef really was rich in fat. It was much like eating beef brisket fat—one bite filled the mouth with lingering fragrance.

Zhang Yang reminisced about the past.

He Jing’s heart bled.

The two of them reached a strange sort of understanding.

Only after they had eaten nearly all the beef brisket and wild mushroom fried rice did Zhang Yang pick up a napkin and wipe his mouth.

“How was the food?” he asked.

“It was delicious, but not worth the price.”

He Jing gave a fair assessment.

Zhang Yang glanced at the view outside the window and smiled faintly. “In Shanghai, where every inch of land is worth its weight in gold, a premium is unavoidable. Besides, the Peace Hotel has its own unique cultural and historical value.”

Many restaurants that traded on the reputation of being venerable old establishments did not actually offer anything outstanding in terms of flavor. The reason they could charge such high prices came down to one thing: they were selling their own history and culture.

Whenever tourists from elsewhere saw a century-old establishment, many of them would want to go inside and take a look.

“I understand all that. So the reason you invited me to the Peace Hotel tonight is that you have something important to tell me, right?”

He Jing looked at Zhang Yang’s face, her heartbeat quickening slightly, as though she were anticipating something.

“Yes.” Zhang Yang nodded, finally remembering the real reason for the meeting. “I have a part-time position for a financial analyst. Four research reports a month, paying fifteen thousand yuan. Would you like to give it a try?”

Among the people Zhang Yang knew, few were capable of handling the job. He Jing was one of them, and Xu Zhirou was another. But the latter was a wealthy woman from the Jiangsu-Zhejiang-Shanghai region and had no shortage of money.

Zhang Yang had specifically investigated He Jing’s family background as well. Both her parents were teachers, and her family’s financial circumstances were slightly better than his own.

“That’s it?”

He Jing felt like punching him.

He had invited her to the Peace Hotel—a notorious money trap—for such a trivial matter. She had every reason to suspect that Zhang Yang was deliberately tormenting her as though she were a Japanese tourist.

“What else?” Zhang Yang asked in return. At the same time, a teasing smile appeared on his face. “What did you want me to say?”

Watching the curve of his lips, He Jing’s heart began to race. Her thoughts descended into chaos. She turned her head away, not daring to meet his eyes.

“Twenty thousand yuan. Not a penny less.”

“Then twenty thousand it is.” Zhang Yang did not bargain. He urgently needed an assistant to share his workload.

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His actual trading capital had now reached 140,000 yuan. Adding Tao Yu’ang’s 40,000 yuan and Lai Weijie’s remaining 40,000 yuan, that would make 220,000 yuan in total.

With 220,000 yuan under his management, even a modest profit would amount to several thousand yuan.

Put simply, Zhang Yang needed to focus on trading and building his own media presence. As for gathering data for market research reports and conducting forward-looking analysis, he could leave that to He Jing and carry out the final review himself.

Financial analysis teams at many institutions often consisted of a dozen or even twenty people. Some were responsible for collecting data, some for analyzing it, some for organizing it, and others for using the data to offer a general assessment of the market’s direction.

In short, producing a market research report was an extremely labor-intensive task. Zhang Yang did not demand perfection. As long as the data was accurate, it would be enough; he could make the remaining minor adjustments himself.

“Oh, right. There’s one more thing.” Zhang Yang remembered something else and looked at He Jing. “Do you know any students majoring in internet technology? I’d like to ask how much it would cost to build a financial website.”

“You’re planning to set up a financial website too?”

He Jing was somewhat surprised.

She suddenly realized that Zhang Yang did not merely want to become a speculative trader. This man’s ambition seemed bottomless.

“I just want to ask around.”

Zhang Yang smiled calmly.

As someone who had been reborn, he possessed an information advantage that others could never match.

There were still six months to go. On October 30, 2009, Apple would reach an agreement with China Unicom to launch the China Unicom version of the iPhone 3G, making it the first Apple smartphone to be sold in mainland China.

Then, in 2010, the release of the iPhone 4 would completely transform the traditional keypad-phone market and usher in the smartphone era.

The impact smartphones would have on online shopping and livestreaming could be set aside for the moment. In the stock market alone, would investors twenty years earlier have imagined that future newcomers would be able to trade shares with just a few taps on their phones?

Once the age of the internet arrived, whoever controlled traffic would control money.

“I’ll ask around when I get back.”

He Jing did not press him further. In her eyes, even if Zhang Yang wanted to build a financial website—or even a matchmaking website—he surely had his reasons.

After all, he was the monster who had achieved four consecutive limit-up days and had nearly overtaken her for first place.

Perhaps the world’s top investment giants—BlackRock, SoftBank, Sequoia Capital, State Street, and the rest—could never have imagined that a seed of Chinese domestic capital, destined one day to leave them overwhelmed, helpless, and in agony, had already been planted.

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