013 Who Can Run Faster
An hour later, Wang Heng and his father were back home.
The rip-off machine, priced at five thousand but with a configuration worth only four thousand, was of course successfully returned. Five thousand in cash was safely back in his father’s bank account.
Then, Wang Heng opened the computer and placed an order on Jindong. It was also a machine priced at five thousand, but with a solid configuration. After placing the order, Wang Heng pointed to the computer’s parameter list and gave his father a lesson on graphics cards and CPUs…
After listening, his father couldn’t help but feel a little puzzled. “When did you learn all this? You’re a high school senior. Instead of studying properly, you’re thinking about computers all day?”
Wang Heng shrugged. “I looked into it after the college entrance exam. It didn’t affect my studies.”
“Then, what about Bitcoin?” his father remembered the topic they had discussed a few days ago. “Did you also look into that after the exam?”
“Yeah, since I decided to study computer science. And I was already quite interested in this area. Now that I have the time, it’s normal for me to learn about it myself.”
With that, Wang Heng stood up, closed the shopping webpage, and gave up the computer.
However, his father didn’t immediately click on the game client as usual. Instead, he frowned and thought for a while. Suddenly, he said, “I have a fixed deposit I made last year, about twenty to thirty thousand. It was originally for your university tuition…”
Wang Heng sensed something was up. “Originally?”
“I looked into it. The university you’re going to, the tuition isn’t high, only about five thousand a year. Twenty thousand is enough for your four years of tuition. Of course, there’s also the accommodation fee and other miscellaneous expenses… But if I give it all to you, you definitely won’t need any more support from me for the first two years of your undergraduate studies, right?”
“Twenty to thirty thousand, you’re going to give it all to me at once?”
His father scratched his head. “Didn’t you say you were very optimistic about that Bitcoin thing? Since you’re optimistic, go ahead and invest. Anyway, this money is for you. How much you use for investment and how you invest it is up to you.”
Wang Heng couldn’t help but feel a little strange. “You have that much faith in me?”
Wang Jian said in a serious tone, “This is a father’s confidence.”
However, rather than ‘a father’s confidence,’ Wang Heng was more inclined to believe that his performance in confronting the dishonest merchant at the computer mall had boosted his father’s confidence in him.
Wang Heng laughed. “Alright then. But not just for the first two years. You won’t need to give me any more money in the future.”
“Stop bragging, you brat!”
**
Jindong’s logistics were indeed fast.
Wang Heng soon received the laptop. He unboxed it, installed the operating system, and then some necessary software. After all that was done, he opened the Bitcoin trading platform.
Because it was a foreign platform, the pure English made it a bit difficult for him to read. But when he glanced at the current trading price, he felt much more at ease.
Before his rebirth, he was of course aware of the Bitcoin craze, but unfortunately, he hadn’t invested any money in it. Of course, the biggest headache for him in those years was that tragic battlefield of love. He didn’t have much money in his bank account, so naturally, he had no need for investments.
But now it was different. Since he was reborn, if he didn’t take advantage of his foresight, would he even be human?
His memory of Bitcoin’s specific trends wasn’t very clear. But he vaguely remembered that it seemed to have suddenly become popular in the country during his first semester of university. The power of Chinese buyers to drive up the price of whatever they bought was beginning to show its might, pushing Bitcoin from its international price of one or two hundred US dollars all the way up to over a thousand!
Converted to RMB, that was a rise from over a thousand yuan to seven thousand yuan, and in just a few dozen days. The speed was as if it were on drugs. If you told someone about it before it happened, no one would dare to believe it.
This would be Bitcoin’s highest point for the next few years. The window of opportunity was very short. By December of that year, the attitude of the domestic financial regulatory authorities towards Bitcoin would become clear—a ban. Before that, he had to sell in time, because a major crash would follow, and it would take several years for the price to recover.
What Wang Heng had to seize was this short window of opportunity.
Struggling to read through the English webpages, Wang Heng muttered to himself:
“It’s still about a hundred US dollars per coin now… Recent news, the Siamese government might ban Bitcoin trading, a major bearish signal, so it dropped again? Good thing. Before the Fed starts to look favorably on it, in the next two or three months… it should be enough time…”
In two or three months, the capital Wang Heng could use, besides what his father gave him, was what he earned from his part-time job. Before the peak arrived, if he continued to earn money at the rate of his milk tea shop job, he could probably save a few thousand yuan. After deducting necessary school expenses, he would have at most thirty thousand yuan.
“A six-fold increase would be one hundred and eighty thousand… That’s pretty good, but I still feel a little unwilling… So it’s time to get into this line of work!”
Wang Heng closed the exchange page and opened two freelance platforms for programmers. These were the two largest freelance platforms in the country. Wang Heng planned to register accounts on both and list himself.
Compared to a low-threshold job like working at a milk tea shop, the market price for coding was naturally much higher. In the same amount of time, by writing more code, he could save more money and then use it as capital to invest in Bitcoin trading. In that case, three hundred thousand or even five hundred thousand would not be a fantasy…
Wang Heng wiped the drool from the corner of his mouth and realized another problem.
He should probably talk to the manager about his part-time job at the milk tea shop. The pay wasn’t great, and there was a girl who bothered him at any time. Shouldn’t he quit this troublesome job as soon as possible?
**
“You don’t want to work here anymore?”
The manager stared at the young man in front of him, his face filled with astonishment.
Wang Heng said in a serious tone, “Yes. Thank you very much for your care, manager, but I have some family matters, so…”
“You’re still a student, right? What kind of family matters do you need to handle?”
“…Going on a long trip, for travel.”
After thinking about it, Wang Heng found that this excuse was the most common and reasonable.
The manager was also a little hesitant. From his expression, it was clear that he didn’t want to let his employee go just like that, as if there was something he couldn’t say.
The problem was that a position like a milk tea shop employee really had no threshold. And it was summer vacation now. It would be easy to recruit new employees by just putting up a poster at the door. What was there to be hesitant about?
After struggling for a while, the manager finally said, “To be honest, you actually only need to stick it out for another week. After that, you won’t be able to work here even if you want to. I’ve been talking with the landlord these past few days. Next month, this shop space has to be returned to them.”
This time, it was Wang Heng’s turn to be surprised. “You’re quitting?”
The manager spread his hands, looking very innocent. “You’ve been working here for so many days. You should be able to tell whether our shop is making a profit or a loss.”
Wang Heng: “All your employees are low-priced part-timers. You can’t make it work even with such low labor costs?”
The manager’s face was quite melancholic. “I can’t… So just stick it out for this one week. It’s okay if you come in less often. It’s the final stretch. Stand the last watch, help me save some trouble, okay? At worst, I’ll give you a raise.”
Wang Heng suddenly became a little curious. “How much did you lose opening this milk tea shop?”
The manager looked up at the sky, speechless, and held up three fingers.
Wang Heng guessed, “Thirty thousand?”
“Three hundred thousand!”
**
