Chapter 75: Personnel

Before the postgraduate entrance exam results were released, Di Ye had kept a low profile and did not disclose to his classmates that he intended to lead an R&D team to Pengcheng, because although his grades were usually excellent, he still lacked the credentials to make a definitive statement that would convince others.

Now that the results were out, a score of 493, while not perfect, was enough to shock all his classmates. Therefore, on the morning of February 27, after Di Ye had directed Xu Chaobo via long-distance call on how to short the Nikkei Index, he arrived once again at Room 402 of Dormitory Building 11 to officially begin recruiting members for the R&D team.

Upon entering, he found he had made a wasted trip; only Zhu Zichun was in the dorm, sitting at a large desk reading several books related to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, taking notes as he read.

"Where are the others?"

"They went to class, 'Software Engineering Introduction'."

Zhu Zichun looked Di Ye up and down and asked curiously, "You never used to skip class, but now you've actually missed a whole week, and you've even forgotten the class schedule. What's going on?"

"I asked for leave from the college; it doesn't count as skipping."

Di Ye looked at the class schedule posted on the wall by the dormitory door and discovered it was a major lecture with three classes attending together, starting at 10:00 and ending at 12:00. Since it was just past 11:00, he would have to wait an hour for his classmates to return, so he sat down at the desk and asked, "Why aren't you in class?"

"I've already self-studied this course; it's meaningless, it makes no difference whether I attend or not."

"When do you plan to go to Beijing for your internship?"

"Next week. They are preparing to develop a game with a Three Kingdoms theme, and they want me to look at the relevant historical materials in advance."

The Three Kingdoms was a popular theme in the field of video games, and Di Ye had played quite a few, so he asked with interest, "What is the name of the game?"

Zhu Zichun held up a copy of the *Battle of Guandu* comic book he had gotten from somewhere and introduced it: "It's called *Guandu*. It's based on the Battle of Guandu and uses real-time strategy, allowing players to fully experience how this battle was conducted. If the response is good, they will develop *Red Cliff* later."

Di Ye had absolutely no impression of *Guandu*, but he did have a slight impression of *Red Cliff*, so he summoned Xiao Honghua to search for it and discovered he had played it when he was a child, so he asked, "Is the software company you're going to called Thousand Islands?"

"Yes, how did you know?"

"I heard someone mention it."

When Di Ye was a child, his family had a Lenovo Tianqin 959 computer, which came pre-installed with an integrated software suite called Happiness Home, which included *Red Cliff*, produced by the Thousand Islands company in 1997. He had played it a few times and found the experience quite good at the time.

Being able to produce a sequel, and a decent one at that, meant it was likely a legitimate game company. Di Ye abandoned the idea of recruiting Zhu Zichun again and instead asked him to help as an advisor. He took out the student list given by Dean Fei yesterday and explained his plan to stay at the university for a doctorate and go to Pengcheng to develop a browser.

Zhu Zichun's parents were both teachers, so he had a good upbringing and rarely used profanity in his daily speech. After hearing Di Ye's account, he was both surprised and impressed, and couldn't help but let out a curse, asking, "Did you eat some miraculous pill or learn some peerless secret manual during the winter break? How did you suddenly become so formidable!"

"I didn't eat any miraculous pills, but I did learn some peerless secret manuals; I read the source code of quite a few excellent software programs."

Di Ye gave a vague explanation, spread the list on the desk, and said, "I plan to take 10 people to Pengcheng, two from each class, and leave the remaining 4 for the juniors and sophomores. Who do you think would be suitable to choose?"

"Why are you taking juniors and sophomores for R&D? The juniors are one thing, but the sophomores basically don't know anything."

"If the browser R&D is successful, I plan to open a company after graduation and be my own boss. I'm just cultivating some backup talent now."

"You really are far-sighted."

Seeing that Di Ye's attitude was very serious, Zhu Zichun set aside his joking mood, looked over the list carefully, and suggested, "Cheng Zhongwei from Class 2 should be fine; he has already been recommended for postgraduate study and doesn't need to go to a unit for an internship. Qi Ping from Class 3 has also been recommended for postgraduate study, but can you take a girl to Pengcheng?"

"Yes, Teacher Qi will accompany us."

"Then you should go ask her later. Besides, Yang Desen and Mo Jun are also quite good..."

Zhu Zichun had served as the minister of the Student Union's Life Department of the Computer College and had a richer social circle than Di Ye. He commented on everyone from the other two classes on the list, and finally said very tactfully, "I won't recommend anyone from our Class 1; you choose for yourself. You can take whoever you want."

"I'm planning to take Su Zhaonian and Dong Jianzhong. What do you think?"

"Su Zhaonian is cheerful and eloquent; he's very suitable as a lubricant in the R&D team to help liven up the atmosphere. As for Dong Jianzhong... he's also alright."

Di Ye couldn't help but laugh and said, "Minister Zhu, you really know how to speak like a bureaucrat. Does 'also alright' mean he's not?"

Seeing that Di Ye had figured it out, Zhu Zichun had to be blunt: "Dong Jianzhong is very smart, but he likes to follow the crowd. He has no opinions of his own and no willpower. He is particularly easily tempted. If the surrounding environment is good, he makes progress; if the surrounding environment is bad, he degenerates."

Di Ye agreed with this assessment and said, "Do you know about canaries? Canaries are very sensitive to their environment. Miners used to use them to monitor gas levels in mines. I have many things to be busy with and don't have the time or energy to keep an eye on the R&D team all the time, nor do I intend to manage them too strictly, so I plan to take Dong Jianzhong along as a monitoring tool. If I discover any bad signs, I can correct them in time."

Hearing this arrangement, Zhu Zichun exclaimed, "You are truly a different person compared to before. You used to only care about studying and didn't care much about interpersonal relationships. Now you actually know how to use people flexibly, and you use them so cunningly."

"People always grow."

Di Ye found a pen, marked the names recommended by Zhu Zichun, and said, "If you don't have a smooth time at the Qian Dao company in the future, you can come find me at any time. I will welcome you with bare feet."

Zhu Zichun felt the phrase "welcome you with bare feet" sounded familiar. He picked up the *Romance of the Three Kingdoms* in front of him and looked at it, discovering it was the phrase Cao Cao used when welcoming Xu You. He smiled and said, "You don't have Xu Chu by your side, do you? I don't want to be killed by him later."

"Can Su Zhaonian be Xu Chu?"

"At most, he could be a character like Li Dian or Yue Jin."

After the two chatted for a while using the topic of *Romance of the Three Kingdoms*, the Big Brother in Di Ye's backpack rang. It was Dean Fei calling to say that Jinling University had called several times in a row to demand an explanation, and he was in a rush for Di Ye to hurry to the office to save the situation.

"Professor Xu from Jinling University doesn't believe you stayed at the university and insists that I'm playing tricks to deceive people. He is an old senior who taught me back in the day; I can't hold him off. You hurry over and coax him away."

"Dean, if even you can't hold him off, what can I use to hold him off?"

"You have thick skin and are the best at talking nonsense. You can use whatever you want to hold him off."

Di Ye had no choice. After hanging up the phone, he handed the list to Zhu Zichun and said, "Help me contact them at noon. If they don't want to go, so be it. If they are willing, have them register. I'll treat them to a meal at the Lingyun Hotel tonight, and then I'll decide on the final candidates."

Zhu Zichun was not a local of Yuncheng and had no concept of the grade of the Lingyun Hotel. He put the list on the desk and asked curiously, "Jinling University calling specifically means your postgraduate exam results are very good. What was your score?"

"493."

"Damn! Are you even human?"

Di Ye laughed triumphantly and pointed at the list, saying, "Last week, I gave the professional papers from this year's postgraduate entrance exam at Jinling University to Teacher Liu and asked him to help organize an exam. Everyone on this list scored above the passing line, but the highest was only 109. Too weak."

"You got a perfect score?"

"Of course."

"You hurry to Dean Fei's place. Our dorm temple is too small to hold a great god like you."

Di Ye laughed out loud, picked up his backpack, and walked out. When he reached the door, he turned back and said, "When I came here on the first day of school, I forgot to tell you one thing: all the VCD Players in the video parlors in Yuncheng were set up by me. When you go to watch movies outside the West Gate, as long as you report my name to the boss, you can watch for free."

With the support of the film library of thousands of movies from Ying Feng, the business of the video parlors outside the West Gate of Yun University was extremely hot, and the ticket prices had also risen quite a bit. Zhu Zichun was greatly astonished upon hearing this and asked, "You opened Ying Feng?"

"Yes, but I sold my shares the day before yesterday. Reporting my name is useless now."

"If Su Zhaonian heard this news, he would surely vomit blood. He ran to the video parlor every day last week and spent almost 100 yuan."