Chapter 40: Xiao Yu’s Daily Life (Part II)

At 2:00 PM, Secretary Sun knocked on his door again.

"President, your scheduled appointment has arrived. Would you like to see him now, or should I have him wait?"

"See him now."

Lu Xing rose from the sofa, smoothed out Xiao Yu’s long hair, which he felt had become a bit disheveled, and ducked into the restroom to tidy up.

"Would you prefer to meet them here in the office, or go somewhere else to sit and talk?"

"How was it handled before?" Lu Xing asked.

"Previously, most were in the office, some were at the café downstairs, and a few required you to conduct on-site inspections at their companies."

"Fine, we’ll talk here in the office."

Too lazy to go out, Lu Xing chose a casual seating area by the floor-to-ceiling window. He asked his assistant to brew a coffee and waited for the secretary to bring the visitor in.

Sun Ying quickly headed to the reception desk and asked the receptionist to escort the guest from the waiting room. A moment later, they arrived.

"Hello, hello!"

A man in his late thirties shook hands with Sun Ying enthusiastically and introduced himself: "I am Wu Yunze, Chairman of Yanmian Tech. I am very happy to be here at your company to discuss a partnership!"

"Hello, I am the secretary to the President of Tashan Company. You can just call me Secretary Sun."

Sun Ying introduced herself and led him toward President Xiao. On the way, Wu Yunze tried to probe: "May I ask... what is the President like?"

He was essentially looking for information about the owner—personal preferences, things to be careful about during the conversation—hoping that if the secretary were willing to share, he might have an edge. It was no wonder Wu was so forward; this company was quite mysterious. Online, one could only find public information, and even intermediaries didn't know much, saying only that they had money to invest, so he had come.

"Our President has just returned to the country and is recently interested in investing more in domestic enterprises."

Sun Ying answered briefly and quickly led him to the floor-to-ceiling window.

"Your President..." Wu Yunze wanted to ask more, but his eyes were uncontrollably drawn to a beautiful woman sitting in a chair by the window. She had a perfect profile, and the silhouette revealed by her back was nothing short of dreamlike. Wearing a white dress, she sat bathed in sunlight, seemingly indifferent to the bustling office around her, sipping coffee with an ethereal, dream-like beauty.

Wu Yunze’s gaze was firmly captured, and he asked instinctively, "Is this beauty an employee of your company?!"

"No, that is our company President!"

Sun Ying stepped forward to introduce him to President Xiao, gesturing toward Wu Yunze. As Lu Xing turned his head, he saw a man stunned by Xiao Yu's beauty, staring blankly at him. Only after the secretary’s reminder did the man snap out of it and hurry forward.

"Hello." Lu Xing stood up to greet him.

"Hello, hello! I didn’t expect the President to be so young and accomplished, and a beautiful woman at that!"

Wu Yunze remained very enthusiastic. After the pleasantries, the two sat down. Assistant Zhang arrived to serve tea, while Sun Ying sat to the side, taking out a notebook to record the meeting.

Lu Xing had already reviewed the background checks for the three candidates today. After a brief chat, he got straight to the point: "May I ask what Yanmian Tech does?"

In truth, he already knew, but since they were meeting in person, he needed the individual to present it themselves. Through the content of the conversation, he could judge the other party's character and competence.

"We do AI research!" Wu Yunze declared, filled with pride.

But that first sentence caused Lu Xing to lower his rating of him in his heart. *Do you not know the level of your own company? Is AI research something your tiny startup can touch?*

He should have been direct and honest, saying they do AI applications or, better yet, small AI-related games, trying to ride the wave of the AI boom to see if they could take off.

"What kind of research?" Lu Xing asked again.

"Just AI stuff!" Wu Yunze continued. "We hired a master’s student from a prestigious university to lead a group of undergraduates in programming, so that the little character on the phone can move in sync with human faces and play some fun, interesting games. I’ve shown it to some friends, and they all said it was fun and has great potential!"

Lu Xing lowered his head, pretending to look at the documents Wu had brought, while muttering to himself: *Did this boss originally work in a traditional industry and get swindled into the internet sector? He’s a total sucker.*

*Xiao Yu, where did you find this guy?*

"Please, go on." Seeing the President silent, Secretary Sun bit the bullet and urged the man to continue. She had also realized that this entrepreneur’s level wasn't very high... or rather, his style was entirely different from Xiao Yu and Tashan Investment.

Wu Yunze laughed cheerfully: "We started this business last year. Our office is rented in the Wanghai Building. It’s two hundred square meters; I had it renovated. I didn't hire a contractor; the renovation company quoted five hundred thousand, so I found people myself and laid the carpet myself, saving over two hundred thousand! Later, buying computers and such cost me another two hundred thousand—I had no idea computers were so expensive!"

Lu Xing felt something was off and asked: "Is the demo ready? Let me see it." It didn't matter if the boss was unreliable as long as the product worked well.

"What do you mean, 'demo'?" Wu Yunze hadn't heard clearly.

Secretary Sun glanced at him and silently looked back down.

Lu Xing said: "The program. The one installed on the phone for demonstration."

"Oh, the program! I have it! Let me show you!" Wu Yunze immediately pulled out his phone, opened his program, and handed it to Lu Xing.

"No need, you demonstrate it."

"Sure, watch how I operate it; this thing is fun!"

Wu Yunze faced the camera. As a 3D animated character appeared, he began to make faces and talk at the screen, or laugh loudly, causing nearby employees to glance over.

Wu Yunze explained: "Look, whatever move I make, the figure inside does the same. It learns from me, and I can even make it appear in real life, just like it’s real!"

"Anything else?" Lu Xing asked.

"Yes!" Wu Yunze raised his hand and shouted "Slash!" In the mirror, the female animated character pulled out a small knife, waved it to match his movement, and slashed the Tashan Company background on the phone into pieces.

"How about that? Is the program's effect great?!" he asked, full of expectation.

Lu Xing was a computer science major; how could he not see the quality? But he said: "Not bad, but I need to consider the overall picture."

"Don't consider it, boss!" Wu Yunze said urgently. "You saw the demonstration just now, it can..."

Lu Xing patiently humored him for five minutes, but being too lazy to listen further, he waved his hand and had the secretary show him out.

"Boss, if you invest five million, I guarantee I’ll return ten million in a year!" Wu Yunze didn't forget to call back before leaving.

Lu Xing’s mouth twitched. *You hired someone for a year to make something that three or five college students could put together? It looks intimidating, but in reality, it's just using someone else's open-source technology, wrapping a shell around it, and showing it off. Whether it makes money is purely a matter of luck.*

"Is the next person here?" Lu Xing asked.

"He has arrived. I will go get him."

Soon, a young man in a suit came in, enthusiastically shaking Lu Xing’s hand. After sitting down, Lu Xing asked him a question, and he immediately launched into a non-stop speech:

"Our company focuses mainly on the short-video economy, taking the new traffic track, combining community marketing, conducting big data analysis, integrating online and offline, and building precise profiles for every potential customer!"

Lu Xing listened for a long time without understanding a word, and looking at the documents he brought didn't help either. He picked up the background check provided by the secretary and read it.

*Oh, so he’s doing live-stream shopping.*

Looking closer, the specific method was to cultivate a group of female streamers who show off their legs and chests, pour money into attracting traffic, and then build fan groups to sell goods.

*Damn it!*