# Chapter 9: If You Don't Want to Make Money, Don't Get in Others' Way (4.7k)
Yu Xing was somewhat surprised by his junior's intense reaction.
He tilted his head slightly, looking at Zhong Zhiling, who was exceptionally furious under the lamplight, and asked, puzzled, "How am I not a person again? Sit down first and talk."
"You forcing me is one thing, but what did you go find Lü Haiying for!" Zhong Zhiling glared at Yu Xing. "What does this have to do with her!?"
Yu Xing spread his hands. "The company needs people, she needs a job. Isn't that a perfect match?"
Zhong Zhiling's eyes were about to split with rage. "She has a job! Her family found her a job!!"
Yu Xing didn't retract his outstretched hand and put it more precisely: "The company needs people. She needs a job that keeps her in Jinling."
Zhong Zhiling let out a rough breath. "She needs some fly-by-night job like yours? You've done enough damage to me as it is—why the hell are you going after her too!"
"I haven't damaged you." Yu Xing corrected him, then added with dissatisfaction, "Zhong Zhiling, you're now the company's second-in-command. You can't look at your company that way."
Looking at the man before him with that earnest expression, Zhong Zhiling found it absurd and laughable. "What second-in-command, the damn company only has two people!"
"Three." Yu Xing extended a hand, gesturing for his junior to sit down and talk things through slowly. "If you don't want the job, your girlfriend can be the second-in-command."
Zhong Zhiling glared furiously. "You—"
Yu Xing patted the grass. "Besides, I haven't done anything to your girlfriend. If you want to talk, sit down and talk."
Zhong Zhiling was about to raise his voice again when he suddenly caught the glances coming from not far away. He crouched down, grabbed Yu Xing by the collar, and asked, rage unabated, "You called her. You told her to come to the company. Why don't you call my dad and mom then!"
Yu Xing said calmly, "I don't have their numbers."
Zhong Zhiling laughed in anger. He pulled out his phone and threw it onto the grass. "Go ahead, call, call now! Bring my whole family over to work on this junk for you!"
Yu Xing shook off his junior's grip, picked up the phone from the ground, scrolled through the contacts, and dialed the number labeled "Dad."
—Beep. Beep. Beep...
Zhong Zhiling snatched the phone away and hung up. Shit, he'd underestimated him!!!
He clutched the phone tightly and growled, "Lü Haiying is innocent!"
Yu Xing stopped his gesture of spreading his hands halfway, finding it amusing. "You're making me out to be some murderer, or like I'm running a pyramid scheme, detaining people and not letting them leave. People are free to come and go here—including you."
"Why did you go to her! What are you trying to do!" Zhong Zhiling was on the verge of breaking down. The innocent shouldn't be dragged into this!
Yu Xing let out a genuine sigh. "Zhong Zhiling, if by now you still don't believe in our project, there's really no point in you staying. I'm not trying to do anything. I have a job opening, and she's willing to come. It's that simple."
"She had a better job offer—she's only coming because of me!" Zhong Zhiling said hatefully. "You toy with me, scheme against me, use me as a guinea pig—fine! But why drag her into it!"
From that night until now, ever since he'd started complaining and arguing with Yu Xing, his ordinary life had seemed to be suddenly caught in a whirlpool, one he was utterly powerless to resist as his senior led him along step by step by the nose!
Provoked into signing a contract, told his investments had collapsed, taken to get back together with his ex, swept up into entrepreneurship, told to take a leave from school...
And now even his girlfriend was being brought into this!
Zhong Zhiling was breaking down. He was truly breaking down!
"It's not dragging her into it—I genuinely think this opportunity is good." Yu Xing kept his patience. "Everyone works together, and all the problems that need solving can be solved together. What are you afraid of?"
Zhong Zhiling stared hard at the senior before him and said bluntly, "I'm afraid she'll get a record!"
Yu Xing: "..."
He plucked a blade of grass from the ground and nodded. "Fine, then tell her to work with you on it. Working with you on Little Pill doesn't come with a record."
"I'm not doing it. I'm not doing anything anymore!" Zhong Zhiling said agitatedly. "I'm going back now to wait for death. Just leave me to my fate!"
Yu Xing frowned. A doctor's benevolent heart—even if it sounded like angry words, he really didn't want to watch this unlucky soul go down that road again.
Of course, he did still need people on his end too.
"Zhong Zhiling, isn't there something wrong with your logic? If you think our project is no good, that it won't produce anything, then sure, you can go find your own way out." Yu Xing reasoned with him. "But if you think it can work, you could do it together. So why are you trying to stop Lü Haiying from joining?"
Zhong Zhiling said, enunciating each word, "Because you have bad intentions! Because you're too calculating!"
Yu Xing looked at his junior in confusion.
"Let me ask you—why did you make me the company's legal representative!" Zhong Zhiling said coldly.
Yu Xing looked at his junior and shot back, "What's wrong with being the legal representative?"
"Even my professors have asked me about it!" Zhong Zhiling's barely controlled emotions flared up again. "Tell me, you made me take the position just so you could evade legal responsibility, didn't you!?"
"If it's not illegal, there's nothing to evade. Not breaking the law is all that matters." Yu Xing weighed his words. "Besides, what do you think you can actually do in the company right now?"
Zhong Zhiling: "I..."
"No money, and in debt. No ability—you studied medicine before. No resources—your family isn't local." Yu Xing said sincerely, "Isn't it just you as a person that I value? If you're not even willing to shoulder a bit of risk now, then what can be done?"
"Besides, everything that should be hedged against, we'll hedge against. You were standing right there when I talked with Ying-jie before."
"At worst, we'd get shut down."
"What's the worst that can happen from you being the company's legal representative?"
Yu Xing spoke with conviction.
Zhong Zhiling said decisively, "Then you do it!"
Yu Xing was silent for a few seconds. "Get lost."
Zhong Zhiling immediately stood up to leave, but upon hearing the man's next words, crouched back down.
Yu Xing said, "I'll make Lü Haiying the legal representative."
"Shit, nothing good ever comes from anyone surnamed Yu! Let me make this clear—I won't do it, and she won't either. Whoever wants it can have it!" Zhong Zhiling grabbed Yu Xing's collar a second time and said with absolute finality, "I'm going to tell her right now—I'm breaking up with her. I'm done playing. I'm done. I'll fend for myself. I'll haul bricks. I'll get a job!"
He released his grip, stood up, and said in a lowered voice, "I've had enough! I'll pay back every damn cent bit by bit! I'm not playing anymore! I'm not playing anymore, okay? Xing-ge!!"
Yu Xing said calmly, "Whatever you're after, you can haul bricks and work a job with me too."
Zhong Zhiling clapped his hands. "Done. No more. Let's split up and go our separate ways!"
"Then your problem can't be solved." Yu Xing asked with regret, "She goes back to her city, meets a fickle man, she's unhappy and miserable—then what?"
Zhong Zhiling looked coldly at the devilish senior sitting on the grass and spat out a few words, "None of your damn business?"
"None of your business either, I suppose. You're breaking up anyway. You told me before that you don't produce dopamine anymore." Yu Xing tilted his head up slightly.
Zhong Zhiling had no intention of continuing the conversation. He turned to leave this whirlpool and choose another direction, however unclear.
"Hey, live on. Don't die." Yu Xing called after his junior's departing back.
A cold sneer appeared on Zhong Zhiling's face. Fake sentiment. Crocodile tears!
"My offer will still be kept open for Lü Haiying. Whether she comes is her own decision." Yu Xing raised his voice slightly—just enough for his junior, who had walked a few steps away, to hear.
Zhong Zhiling immediately turned around. "In your dreams!"
"If you don't want to make money, don't get in the way of others making money!" Yu Xing said with certainty. "You think she's doing it all for you? She's coming because she believes in my project."
Zhong Zhiling looked at the devilish senior, at the calm on his face, and felt that beneath that calm lay an inexplicable kind of madness.
"You think you're that attractive? You think she can't live without you? You think she's so blinded by love that the moment she heard she could work by your side, she agreed on the spot?" Yu Xing fired off three questions in a row, then revealed the answer. "It's because she thinks the project has good prospects. It's because she thinks it's worth a try. Lü Haiying is far stronger than you."
Zhong Zhiling looked at Yu Xing in shock and suspicion. "Impossible! You only made one phone call—what could you possibly say!"
"As of now, our company has received 21 orders, 20 of which came from Liu Wanying, from Bain Consulting's employees." Yu Xing narrated flatly. "What do you think of Liu Wanying's abilities? Do you think my discussions with her were just made up?"
Zhong Zhiling fell silent. He had witnessed the discussions between his senior and his shigu. A consultant would surely be widely experienced, and her words had truly carried insight. And his senior...
His senior had bragged that the shigu could analyze a project's merits and flaws in a short time. But he hadn't had that much time to develop his ideas and refine them either!
If others didn't know, didn't he, as the experimental subject, know!
"I simply said to Lü Haiying what I said to Liu Wanying." Yu Xing put it simply. "Oh, and I added some refinements. So what she's endorsing isn't you—it's the project itself."
Zhong Zhiling stared fixedly at his senior on the grass. These weren't crocodile tears—this was the crocodile itself!
A crocodile that could even "deceive" someone like his shigu, let alone his girlfriend!
"You can slander me, but don't slander my project. This is a business that makes money on probability." Yu Xing pointed toward the east and repeated, "And once again—if you don't want to make money, don't get in the way of others making money."
He rose from the grass to welcome the company's new member.
Only then did Zhong Zhiling, following the devilish senior's gaze, realize—his girlfriend Lü Haiying had arrived.
Under the orange-yellow lamplight of night, Lü Haiying came jogging over with a smile, close enough now that the beads of sweat on her forehead were visible.
"Hi, Zhiling! Hi, shixiong!" Lü Haiying waved, her crisp voice carried over on the evening breeze.
Watching this scene on the small path by the campus lake, Zhong Zhiling suddenly felt a bit dazed.
On one side was the bottomless abyss of his collapsed investments; on the other was a future as beautiful as the picture before his eyes.
Zhong Zhiling had said to his girlfriend what probably every first love under heaven had said—growing old together, being together forever. They'd discussed whether they'd prefer a boy or a girl, agonized over how to settle down in the city, talked about how they'd treat each other's parents in the future.
All of this had suddenly been brought to the edge of shattering in this sweltering summer.
Was there really a chance to mend what was broken?
A gentle breeze drifted over; the water stirred not a ripple.
But it seemed the dopamine was flowing again.
Zhong Zhiling involuntarily took two steps back, standing beside his senior, and murmured, "Using people against people. Impressive."
In this moment, he deeply understood the power of his senior's insights.
Not fleeting glances over the water, but a fish rising straight to the hook.
"Xing-ge, I just wanted to live a plain, simple life as a doctor." Zhong Zhiling finally said.
"Hey, Lü Haiying." Yu Xing didn't answer right away, first greeting Lü Haiying as she drew near, then smiling. "Being a pathologist doesn't pay."
Zhong Zhiling fell silent.
"I know, right? My family forced me to pick it. I never actually wanted to study medicine." Lü Haiying had short hair, spoke with refreshing directness, and was naturally sociable. "Every time I think about sitting in a hospital for the rest of my life, my legs start to feel like they're getting varicose veins."
She nudged her silent boyfriend with her elbow. "Hey, what's wrong? Not talking? Not happy to see me?"
"Zhiling is thinking." Yu Xing smiled as if nothing had happened at all. "We were just discussing what Marx said—'the essence of man is the ensemble of social relations.'"
Lü Haiying was baffled. "How on earth did you get to talking about that?"
"Guys are like this—chatting about everything under the sun. Though it does have something to do with our project too. Romantic relationships are an important link in social relations, after all." Yu Xing pointed at the grass. "Come, sit down and talk. Lü Haiying, you said on the phone that the friends you asked had some hesitations."
Lü Haiying nodded. She had indeed been asked to help sound out potential customers, and she had asked around.
"I have two friends I'm close with. I talked to one, and she's quite interested—she'd probably be willing. But the other has a lot of concerns. First, she thinks it's unreliable. Second, she thinks the price is a bit high."
Yu Xing gave an "mm" and first characterized it: "This counts as our earliest frontline feedback."
He continued, "Like I told you, from my discussions with Liu Wanying—if a project like this wants to quickly build scale in the early stage, a 500-yuan price point might lose us the interest of some potential customers. But at the same time, I'm also thinking that our activities on campus will eventually have to extend outward, and two different groups need to be treated differently."
"What do you think—if we lowered the price to 299, would your friend still hesitate?"
College students these days generally had a few hundred to a thousand yuan a month in living expenses. Yu Xing felt that 299 should let a portion of price-sensitive potential users make the decision without gritting their teeth too hard.
Lü Haiying thought briefly and answered, "That should work. 299 and 500 just sound like two different things."
Yu Xing took out pen and paper, walked the new employee through the simple model Liu Wanying had established, worked out the answer, and then said, "Her 3.7% probability is still on the high side. If we calculate using the 299 figure, the probability drops further to 2.5%. I think we're gradually approaching the probability in our real world."
"For the student segment, to build scale, we can go down to 299, with the timeframe staying at 3 to 10 years."
"For the working-adult segment, the price goes up to 520, with a shorter timeframe, starting at a 2-year term."
"This both facilitates the launch of our initial work and creates differentiation between customer groups, which is better for scaling up later."
Lü Haiying nodded thoughtfully, then turned her head to find her boyfriend looking at her with a strange expression.
She waved her hand in front of Zhong Zhiling's eyes.
Yu Xing looked at Lü Haiying, then at Zhong Zhiling, and said, "No one is born into the 1%, but couples—including the two of you—can join hands and walk toward that 1%. In the end, you'll receive our rose-blessed wish that all lovers shall be joined in wedlock."
Seeing that her boyfriend still wasn't speaking, Lü Haiying frowned and asked again, "Zhiling, are you unhappy that I joined the company?"
"Do you think..." Zhong Zhiling opened his mouth with some difficulty, pointing at the formulas in his girlfriend's hand. "This... how is this?"
"I think it's fascinating. Behind the 'willing player and willing target' is a precise probability calculation." Lü Haiying found it quite interesting. "Besides, the consultant said they could give advice, and in the end we could negotiate an acquisition with a matchmaking company, right? If an acquisition happened, wouldn't that save us years of effort all at once?"
Zhong Zhiling looked at his senior. You even told her that?
Yu Xing's gaze was sincere, his smile unwavering.
"No, no, I'm not unhappy you're here. I couldn't be happier." Zhong Zhiling strained to adjust his expression, mimicking his senior's smile. "It's just, you're a bit late—you can't be the company's legal representative anymore."
"That's fine. I can run the market side, see how this project of ours actually works." Lü Haiying had already given the matter some thought that evening. "I could also get certified. The company's finances—could I transition into that?"
Yu Xing glanced at his junior. Mm, no reaction.
He smiled. "All that can wait. Right now, we just need to prop up the initial framework."
Lü Haiying nodded vigorously.
Zhong Zhiling rubbed his face and extended his right hand to his girlfriend. "Alright then. Let me introduce myself—I'm Zhong Zhiling, the company's second-in-command."
Lü Haiying tilted her head and burst out laughing. "Second-in-command already? Where even is your company that you're second-in-command!"
Zhong Zhiling laughed too, a laugh tinged with helplessness. Whatever that guy was like, the fledgling project really had been dragged, kicking and screaming, into looking different every single day...