Chapter 10

◎First Day on the Job◎

Setting the alarm was pointless. The next day, Fan Qi woke up early. After breakfast, she took out her work uniform, laid it on the bed, and ironed it smooth.

The uniform was a white shirt with an embroidered chest logo paired with a black pencil skirt. It was formal attire that reminded her of her time in investment banking. Going makeup-free felt a little off, so she applied some lipstick in front of the mirror. That would do—enough to get by.

She couldn’t wear sneakers or casual shoes, could she? Resigned, she put on a pair of high heels.

The morning rush on the Hong Kong subway was unbearably crowded. Fan Qi had to wait for two trains before she could squeeze in. When she got off at the Central station, she was thankful she hadn’t worn makeup. If she had, it would have surely smudged from the sweat.

She wiped her forehead with a tissue and followed the crowd towards the building.

At the back entrance of the building, a bright red convertible sports car pulled up, and Xu Miaoyer from Changxing stepped out, carrying a Hermes bag.

Fan Qi reached the elevator lobby. During rush hour, there was a long line for the elevators. “It’s only the second floor. Do I really need to take the elevator? I’ll just use the stairs.”

She turned around and nearly bumped into Xu Miao’er, who was strutting in like a proud peacock. Several people greeted her: “Good morning, Miss Xu!”

When Xu Miao’er saw Fan Qi, she paused, looking her up and down, her gaze landing on the chest logo of Fan Qi’s uniform. “Even an actress can get into Yaohua? Looks like Yaohua isn’t very selective after all.”

There were many people in the elevator lobby, and the financial industry had always been a high-barrier field. Her words made many people turn to look at Fan Qi.

Fan Qi smiled and responded: “Some companies claim to be picky, but in reality, they’re just hollow shells, like pumpkins with holes carved in them for decoration.”

Xu Miaoyer was momentarily stunned: “What do you mean by that?”

“It means that Yaohua is actually quite selective. At least we don’t hire people with poor reactions.” Liao Yazhe walked over to Fan Qi’s side. “She means that Halloween pumpkins may look scary, but they’re just for show.”

Xu Miaoyer, now being called a mere decoration with no real capability, turned pale with anger.

Liao Yazhe grinned: “Miss Xu, after you.”

Fan Qi noticed that of the five elevators, one seemed to be reserved for VIPs.

She walked towards the stairs and headed to the second floor. As she pushed open the door, the elevator doors opened at the same time, and Xu Miao’er, aloof and proud, walked out, Liao Yazhe trailing behind her with a smirk. Seeing Fan Qi, he quickly walked up to her: “Fan Qi.”

“Mr. Liao.”

“I’ve always thought our company’s female uniforms were ugly, but you wear it with style.” Liao Yazhe said to Fan Qi.

“Thank you for the compliment.”

Liao Yazhe expected her to be shy, but she accepted it confidently. He asked, “Are you very confident?”

“Without confidence, how could I transition from the entertainment industry to the financial world?”

Liao Yazhe: ???

Entering the company, Fan Qi noticed that Ma Jiasheng’s seat was empty, so she went to the break area to sit down and continue reading the English financial magazine from yesterday.

Liao Yazhe simply sat down beside her. Seeing that she was reading a professional article analyzing the current South American debt crisis, he asked, “Can you understand it?”

He didn’t believe a mainland girl could understand such an original, professional magazine.

“The Federal Reserve’s loose interest rates in the early 1980s are part of the current South American economic crisis…”

Fan Qi turned her head to explain the background of the article. After giving a brief analysis, she shook her head. “South America is like a nested ring; it’s hard to dig out of this mess, even in the medium to long term.”

Liao Yazhe sat beside Fan Qi and leaned in to look at her closely. He didn’t play around like Feng Xueming, but many of the rich second-generation people in Hong Kong liked to indulge. He had met many female celebrities who were more famous than Fan Qi. However, it was rare to meet a female celebrity with skin as delicate and smooth as hers, and even rarer for one who understood economic history like she did.

Fan Qi saw Ma Jiasheng enter, so she stood up. “Good morning, Mr. Ma!”

At this moment, Ma Jiasheng saw Liao Yazhe staring at Fan Qi absentmindedly.

Hearing Fan Qi greet him, Ma Jiasheng nodded. “Good morning.”

“Good morning, Uncle Ma,” Liao Yazhe quickly responded.

“Morning.” Ma Jiasheng gave Liao Yazhe a deep glance before turning to Fan Qi. “Fan Qi, come with me.”

Fan Qi followed Ma Jiasheng to his desk. He opened a drawer, took out a stack of documents, and grabbed a red vest from the cabinet, putting it on. “Let’s go, we’re heading to a meeting.”

Ma Jiasheng walked quickly, and Fan Qi followed him into a meeting room, where six employees were already seated.

Ma Jiasheng pointed to a seat at the end of the table. “Sit there.”

Fan Qi sat down under the gaze of the other employees, and Ma Jiasheng turned to a man in his forties. “Ah Hao, Fan Qi will be working with you. She’ll be taking notes and organizing materials.”

Fan Qi turned to Ah Hao and said, “Good morning, Uncle Hao. I’ll be relying on you.”

“Brother Sheng, I’m saying I’m too busy. You told me to find a student, at least one who can understand our industry jargon. But you found someone like this…”

Fan Qi interrupted, “A vase.”

The other team members laughed when they heard Fan Qi.

“It wasn’t me who said it, it was you,” Ah Hao said.

Fan Qi raised an eyebrow. “I said it, but even if I’m just a vase, shouldn’t you give me a chance to show my worth? If I really can’t do it, then you can ask to replace me.”

“Alright, let her try for now.” Ma Jiasheng stopped Ah Hao, who was about to say more. “Let’s start the pre-market review.”

Ma Jiasheng quickly discussed yesterday’s stock market situation, especially focusing on several stocks in the same sector moving together.

At that time, the concept of sectors wasn’t really established yet. Fan Qi realized they divided stocks into categories based on their groups, not by concepts or themes.

After the meeting ended, Ah Hao, with a look of disdain, said, “Come on, follow me to the trading hall.”

No matter how disdainful he was, to Fan Qi, just entering the trading hall felt like a victory.

She followed him into the room and saw that most people were wearing red vests. She knew this was a uniform worn by the traders of various brokerage firms. However, she, being somewhat oblivious, asked, “Uncle Hao, why aren’t you wearing a red vest?”

Ah Hao turned around, staring at her with a long face. “You don’t even know about red vests, what else can you do?”

“Isn’t it okay to ask?”

“Those are licensed stock brokers. Do you think everyone can pass the stock broker exam?”

“Is it difficult to get a stock broker license?” This was exactly the question Fan Qi was curious about.

“Of course, it’s difficult! The stock trader exam has three subjects, and each one only has a 30% pass rate. If you don’t pass within three years, your results become invalid.”

This was a bit different from what Fan Qi knew from her previous life. After becoming famous in her last life, someone suggested she get involved in private equity, and she looked into the Hong Kong stock market at the time. She found that as long as you graduated from a recognized university with a relevant bachelor’s degree, you could be exempt from the exam. It seemed easy, and the process of private equity was more complicated, so she didn’t pursue it further and didn’t dig deeper.

Ah Hao led Fan Qi to a corner of their company, asking, “Can you use a computer?”

Fan Qi hesitated. The computers in this era were probably quite different from those in her past life, although the keyboard was still the same.

She shook her head, and Ah Hao sighed as if resigned to his fate. He pointed to a button. “Press here to turn it on.”

Fan Qi pressed the button and waited a long time. Finally, the black screen lit up with light dots. Ah Hao said, “Now type this command…”

Seeing that Fan Qi was copying the command, Ah Hao pointed to a piece of paper on her desk. “It’s written on that paper, you don’t need to copy it.”

Fan Qi looked down, and sure enough, the instructions were there. She followed Ah Hao’s instructions, typing the command. A prompt appeared on the screen, and after typing a second command, several lines of Chinese characters appeared, showing stock prices.

Ah Hao took out a stack of printed grid paper from the drawer. The paper had stock codes, names, the highest and lowest points for the morning session, with a coordinate axis drawn. There was also a blank space to fill in explanations.

He handed her another sheet, already filled out with a pen. “Fill it out like this, no mistakes.”

Ah Hao impatiently explained what to do. Even though he was brief, Fan Qi understood. Essentially, they wanted the stock’s half-hour K-line data and some basic information. In her previous life, with stock software, this information would be generated and categorized automatically by the system. But in this era, everything had to be handwritten.

“Do you understand?”

Fan Qi nodded. “I understand.”

Ah Hao looked at her speechlessly. “Miss Fan, this isn’t acting. These messages are real money.”

“I really understand.”

Seeing that Fan Qi was still being stubborn, Ah Hao sneered and handed her a few sheets of paper. “Then you can start working.”

Fan Qi looked at the list, which had ten stocks on it. She nodded. “Okay.”

The bell rang, signaling the start of the pre-market auction. Fan Qi copied the information onto her sheet according to Ah Hao’s instructions. With some spare time, she checked the commands pinned to her desk and reviewed the stocks she had studied over the past two days, comparing their trading data to what she had expected.

“What are you looking at? Hurry up and get to work,” Ah Hao said sternly, his earlier casual attitude replaced with one of authority.

Fan Qi pointed to the sheet in front of her. “I’ve copied everything. Now I’m just waiting for the opening price.”

Ah Hao grabbed the ten sheets and, seeing that everything was neatly copied, nodded. He then handed her two more sheets. “These twenty stocks, follow up with these too.”

Fan Qi glanced at his desk and realized that by giving her these, he had left himself with only a dozen stocks to follow.

These were the key stocks that analysts were tracking. If she had to do more, then so be it. Fan Qi took the sheets and began filling out the blank forms. As she worked, the market opened.

The minute-by-minute charts and K-lines were deeply ingrained in Fan Qi. The only issue was that the computer was slow, and it took time for the commands to register. Fortunately, she was working on half-hour K-line charts. Tracking thirty stocks at once was manageable, and she had some time to familiarize herself with the commands. The desk was covered with queries—each command for a different piece of data: transaction volume listed separately, prices in another, leaving the data fragmented.

Ah Hao, who tracked so many stocks, barely had time to relax. Initially, he had been worried that Fan Qi wouldn’t keep up with all the work, but he hadn’t expected her to still have time to fiddle with the computer.

“I’m going out for a smoke,” Ah Hao said, placing a few more sheets on her desk. “Follow up with these too.”

Fan Qi glanced at the barely filled-out forms on his desk. Some just had a stock code written, while others included the stock’s name.

Had he really handed over the key stocks to a new employee who had only been here for a little over an hour?

She had no choice but to continue filling in the data based on his instructions.

Wait a minute, this Ailai Electronics stock is priced at only seven cents—why was it being tracked?

Penny stocks like this one were often “pump-and-dump” stocks, but even among these low-priced shares, there might be some good picks. However, picking good stocks from the trash was like searching for gold in a pile of garbage. In her past life, Fan Qi would have completely ignored stocks like this. But now, as an intern, if they asked her to record it, she would just do it.

Fan Qi began looking up the data for the penny stock and, after adding the information, she noticed a slight anomaly. She looked closer at the commands and entered the data again. When the transaction records popped up, she saw that someone had been consistently placing orders and buying up the stock.

She entered the data and quickly moved on to the next stock, aware that the efficiency between manual and computer work was vastly different.

With all this data, she had to update it every half-hour, and it wasn’t allowed to be written in bulk. After the lunch market closed, analysts had to manually enter each command to pull up the data, which didn’t leave much time for breaks.

Once the lunch session closed, Fan Qi still couldn’t leave. She had to fill in the closing data as well.

Ah Hao stood next to her, waiting for her to finish entering the final number. Once she was done, he grabbed the papers and said, “I haven’t eaten yet. Buy me a curry beef brisket rice and a cup of milk tea.”

The lunch break was only an hour, and it was almost 12:30. Fan Qi quickly went to the nearby tea restaurant to take out a curry beef rice, ordered two milk teas, and got herself a sandwich. She figured the market would open again when she returned to the brokerage, so she would eat while filling in the data.

The Ailai Electronics stock had caught her attention. It was a penny stock with large funds accumulating, and she wanted to follow it closely.

Fan Qi entered the brokerage with her lunch, but as she headed toward the downstairs meeting room, she almost bumped into Liao Yazhe, the son of Liao Jiqing. “Mr. Liao,” she greeted him.