Chapter 51

Wen Shige's home is in Fujian. A few members of the studio, whose homes are in the south, found it difficult to buy train tickets and, eager to make money, kept the studio running without a break throughout the Spring Festival.

The harvest was significant. Generally speaking, the Spring Festival is the time when Chinese people have the most disposable income, especially young people and children who play games.

On the fourth day of the New Year, Wen Shige called Bian Xuedao and told him that in the first month of 2003, the studio's three business areas had all seen a significant increase. The most profitable was no longer the cheats but the three different versions of the "Legend" private server that Bian Xuedao had suggested they build.

Before the Spring Festival, Bian Xuedao came up with an idea, and Wen Shige found people to carry it out. They hacked over a dozen similar private servers. Of course, to avoid retaliation, they also hacked their own private servers, but they were back up and running in just two days.

As a result, the number of online players on their private servers surged in the week before the Spring Festival.

Bian Xuedao advised Wen Shige to add some money-making tricks commonly used in domestic online games a few years later. Several game designs made players who wanted to exchange money for time and have a good time feel extremely satisfied. Soon, a few big spenders in the private servers each spent over 50,000 RMB, and many smaller players spent over 300 RMB.

When Bian Xuedao returned to Songjiang on the ninth day of the first lunar month, the studio's bank account had already reached 1.2 million RMB.

Bian Xuedao only wanted 500,000 RMB, and the additional 100,000 RMB that belonged to him, he asked Wen Shige to reward the studio members under various pretenses, so everyone could have a comfortable Lantern Festival. Wen Shige didn't care how he distributed the money to the employees, but he knew that as a hands-off boss, he couldn't take as much as Wen Shige, who treated the studio like his home.

Li Yu went to celebrate the New Year elsewhere and didn't return, so Bian Xuedao, without a car, hailed a taxi with 500,000 RMB in hand.

To avoid arousing suspicion and envy, he didn't tell the driver to go to the nearest Industrial and Commercial Bank but to Dongsen University.

He got out of the car at the Industrial and Commercial Bank near the university. As soon as he entered the bank, he encountered the woman who had served him in the VIP area before. This time, Bian Xuedao noticed her name tag, which read "Guan Shunan."

Guan Shunan was very adept at her job. Seeing Bian Xuedao, she smiled sweetly and asked, "Sir, what business are you here for?"

Bian Xuedao nodded and said, "To deposit money."

Guan Shunan's gaze fell on the bag in Bian Xuedao's hand. Seeing Bian Xuedao almost imperceptibly nod, she led him into the VIP area.

After depositing the money and seeing the receipt showing a balance of 1.05 million RMB, Bian Xuedao felt for the first time that he was a wealthy person.

Standing beside him, watching Bian Xuedao take out stacks of money from an unassuming bag, totaling 500,000 RMB, Guan Shunan didn't let him leave easily as she had before. Instead, she insisted that Bian Xuedao upgrade to a VIP customer.

Joking! If a customer with a fixed deposit of 1 million RMB slipped through her fingers, the branch manager would definitely be furious.

Bian Xuedao knew that no matter which bank he transferred his money to, he would have to go through this process. Besides, the VIP area was indeed more convenient. Since he still had over two years before graduation, and this was the nearest off-campus branch to the university, he would inevitably need to deposit and withdraw money here. So he agreed.

Guan Shunan was very pleased. With Bian Xuedao, she had signed up three VIP customers at the start of the year. By the end of the year, she would definitely meet the branch manager's VIP customer marketing targets and earn more bonuses than last year.

Guan Shunan escorted Bian Xuedao to the door. A few people in the regular area, who were waiting in line for their turn, glared at him as he came out of the VIP area.

On February 12th, Bian Xuedao was cooking at home when someone knocked on the door.

"Who is it?" Bian Xuedao called out from the kitchen.

"Kesai, here to visit!" Li Yu's voice came from outside the door.

Bian Xuedao was so angry that he almost dropped the spatula.

Before the Spring Festival, Bian Xuedao had told Li Yu, "Professor Shen's daughter is pregnant, and the old couple went to Beijing to celebrate the New Year with her. They might not be back until summer."

After the New Year, Bian Xuedao changed all the locks and gave Li Yu a set of keys to save him from shouting "Kesai" outside the door.

Seeing Bian Xuedao cooking in the kitchen, Li Yu took off his coat, grabbed a chair, and sat by the table, chatting with Bian Xuedao.

Bian Xuedao asked Li Yu, "Why don't you go see Li Xun? Why are you here?"

Li Yu said, "Li Xun can't come back until the 16th; her family won't let her leave. Why didn't you go see your dream girl?" Li Yu always referred to Xu Shangxiu as Bian Xuedao's dream girl.

Bian Xuedao said, "I need to take a break. Chasing a girl is hard work."

Li Yu said, "Have you two ever been close? If you keep this cold treatment, be careful she forgets you."

Li Yu stayed at Bian Xuedao's place until the start of the semester, eating and drinking with him every day. When he got bored, he would rent discs from the video store outside the campus.

This kid somehow rented a few discs of the 1986 version of "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio." So often, when Bian Xuedao was half-asleep in the middle of the night, the opening theme of the 1986 "Strange Stories" would play in the living room, waking him up several times. After that, Bian Xuedao told Li Yu, "If you watch horror movies at night again, I'll take back the key."

Li Yu then started watching horror movies during the day, laughing to himself. Whenever Bian Xuedao was home, he would grab him and ask, "What does this female ghost look like without makeup? Is she pretty? Not pretty? How does she compare to yesterday's?"

Finally, the semester started!

Bian Xuedao had spent Valentine's Day and the Lantern Festival alone and really didn't want to continue living in the Red Mansion. So he moved back to 717 with Li Yu for a while.

By the second semester of their sophomore year, everyone's personalities and interests in the dorm were fully revealed. Group activities became less frequent, and individual or small group activities increased.

This semester, the most impressive was Tong Chao, who brought a complete set of the Four Great Classical Novels from home and started reading them one by one, stacking them high at his bedside.

Zhou Ling had gone back to her hometown and hadn't returned yet. Yu Jin found staying at home boring and had stayed in the dorm for a few days.

Yu Jin picked up "Journey to the West" from Tong Chao's bed, flipped through it, and said, "After Sun Wukong immobilizes the Seven Fairy Maidens, he goes to eat peaches. He's just a monkey."

Li Yu laughed uncontrollably, slapping the bed and saying, "Bro, now you know how to use a sanitary napkin?"

Yu Jin, who was most afraid of his dormmates mentioning this, said, "Go away, go play with your Li Xun!"

Chen Jian returned from the counselor with a message. Many students in the class had complained that the current class president was not doing his job, and the class lacked cohesion. They had asked the counselor to re-elect the class president. The counselor had chosen three candidates, including the current class president, for a vote the next evening.

One of the three candidates was Chen Jian.

Everyone agreed that this was a good thing and started discussing how to campaign for votes.

Chen Jian said it wasn't necessary.

When he read out the names of the three candidates, Bian Xuedao understood. One of them was just a placeholder.

In the evening, the current class president, Zheng Qiang, came to 717 to talk to everyone and then called Chen Jian out to the corridor. A while later, Chen Jian returned and told everyone that Zheng Qiang supported him for class president and that he didn't need to worry about the vote.

Bian Xuedao thought: Zheng Qiang is quite shrewd. How did he lose the position of class president? Is there something else going on?

It was soon proven that Bian Xuedao's guess was correct. Zheng Qiang had already completed all the credits for his junior year in the first semester of his sophomore year and was now working on the credits for his senior year. His plan was to graduate at least one year early and then go abroad for further studies.

Such a person wouldn't care about the title of class president. Bian Xuedao felt that his mindset was somewhat similar to Zheng Qiang's, but their directions were completely different.

In the International Trade 1 class, each of the three male dorms had a candidate. Zheng Qiang supported Chen Jian, and the other candidate, encouraged by his dormmates, suddenly became very active.

Bian Xuedao, who had been in the university for almost two years, originally had no impression of the other candidate, Bai He, but this incident left a deep impression.

Not long after Zheng Qiang left, Bai He, who rarely entered 717, came to chat. However, his tone was a bit off, like a leader visiting and consoling a struggling household during the Spring Festival.

Bai He didn't take Chen Jian to the corridor or balcony for a private talk. Instead, he proposed in 717 that Chen Jian give up the position of class president to him. He said he wanted to secure a spot for a master's program after graduation, and Chen Jian could be a "shadow president," with the class still under Chen Jian's control.

Ai Feng asked Bai He, "Didn't you fail a course last semester? How can you get a master's spot?"

Bai He smiled shyly and said, "It's just because I failed a course by accident. I want to use the position of class president to boost my impression points."

After Bai He left, 717 burst into laughter.

Yu Jin said, "Did you see that? The way he talked, 'failed a course by accident.' We never knew we had such a talent in our class. Does he think he's a swan egg in a chicken farm?"

The next day at the class meeting, Chen Jian was elected class president with an overwhelming majority. Bai He and a few other boys from his dorm left before Chen Jian finished his acceptance speech.

The counselor