Money allows you to do whatever you want.
In Hong Kong, Ding Zhitong was promoted to manager but continued her life devoid of personal time. This time, however, she didn’t need Qin Chang’s reminder; she had already begun considering her next promotion. After all, there was nothing else worth considering in her life.
The higher the level, the fiercer the competition. One-third of analysts were eliminated, half of the managers, and at least 80% of VPs. Advancing required stronger communication and sales skills to oversee entire projects and coordinate each step of a transaction.
At that time, Ding Zhitong was grateful to be in Hong Kong, handling Chinese business and guiding them into the overseas markets she knew well. Her background as an international student, once a disadvantage, had become an asset. Whenever she thought about this, she felt that returning with Qin Chang had been the right decision, based on career development rather than just escaping her experiences in New York.
From manager to VP, and then to director, she now spent limited time in the office. Her days were filled with meetings or traveling to meetings:
– Meeting potential clients to persuade them to give her projects.
– Meeting existing clients to secure more projects.
– Meeting convinced clients to discuss project fees.
– Meeting with her VPs and managers to discuss project execution.
In short, it was an endless cycle of meetings and problem-solving, all aimed at bringing in deals. Without deals, there was no income.
Like vegetable vendors in Sheung Wan market selling pea shoots, lettuce, or Chinese broccoli, if they couldn’t sell their produce, they couldn’t earn money. With labor costs, rent, and inventory losses, they woke up each day already in debt, under immense pressure.
Moreover, Qin Chang had told her that opportunities to make money in their industry were becoming scarcer. Deal processes were becoming more standardized, with more steps being outsourced or replaced by software. Teams would inevitably shrink, with limited future growth potential.
This trend was particularly evident in IPOs and sell-side M&A transactions, where much of the work was procedural, tedious, and lacking creativity.
When Ding Zhitong first entered the industry over a decade ago, a sell-side M&A deal might have involved manually sending confidentiality agreements to over a hundred potential buyers. Quickly finding appropriate comparable companies required extensive experience. Now, a single customer relationship management system could handle these tasks.
The only remaining stronghold was buy-side M&A. Discovering buyers, understanding their needs, finding matching companies, deciding on offers, and facilitating deals required a constantly evolving process with more thought, communication, and negotiation, necessitating experienced bankers throughout.
As Qin Chang often likened himself to a real estate agent, when faced with a client wanting to sell a house, the agent’s value was limited to negotiating a good price and facilitating the sale. However, when dealing with a cash-rich buyer looking to invest, the potential transactions were endless.
Ding Zhitong had long sensed this shift in trends. In recent years, Qin Chang had intentionally focused on buy-side transactions, which explained why the planned “Training Box” project, despite being a relatively small financing deal, had received so much attention. Unfortunately, the deal had fallen through under her watch.
As darkness fell, mostly analysts and managers remained in the office working overtime. Unable to devise a solution, Ding Zhitong decided not to linger. After spending some time replying to emails, she left the office.
Just as she exited the elevator, she received a WeChat message from Gan Yang. Having seen her friend request approval, he sent a photo of what appeared to be a home-cooked meal, asking, “Have you eaten?”
Is this some kind of daily report? Ding Zhitong found it amusing but ignored it. She stuck to her original plan, buying groceries at the supermarket and ordering takeout from a cha chaan teng before walking back to her apartment. As soon as she entered, her phone vibrated in her hoodie pocket. For a moment, her heart raced, thinking it might be Gan Yang again. But when she checked the screen, it was Song Mingmei.
Ding Zhitong answered, putting the call on speaker as she organized her kitchen. Song Mingmei was waiting for Yuqi to finish her extracurricular class and made small talk until both fell silent briefly.
“There’s something…”
“I saw Gan Yang yesterday.”
They spoke almost simultaneously, but Ding Zhitong’s news was more explosive. Song Mingmei swallowed her words and immediately asked, “Gan Yang? Which Gan Yang?”
“Is there another Gan Yang?” Ding Zhitong laughed in response.
“Where did you see him?” Song Mingmei asked, intrigued.
“I saw him when I went back to Shanghai during the National Day holiday, and yesterday he came to Hong Kong,” Ding Zhitong explained.
Song Mingmei inquired, “What’s he like now?”
Ding Zhitong was vague: “He hasn’t gained weight, and he still has his hair.”
Song Mingmei pressed, “Single?”
Ding Zhitong avoided the question: “He came for business.”
Song Mingmei chuckled softly and said, “I want to hear all the details, right now.”
Ding Zhitong suddenly found herself at a loss for words, unsure where to begin. After a pause, she summarized in one sentence: “I just wanted to discuss a project with him, but he talked about the past.”
“What past?” Song Mingmei asked quietly.
“The reason he broke up with me,” Ding Zhitong stated matter-of-factly. “He said his family had some issues back then, they were in debt, and he had to repay it.”
“How much debt?” The tone on the other end changed, no longer playful.
“Does the amount matter?” Ding Zhitong asked.
“Of course it does,” Song Mingmei remained practical.
“A lot,” Ding Zhitong replied, equally practical.
“Has it been repaid?”
“Yes, he’s now a limited partner in a PE firm.”
For a moment, neither spoke. Song Mingmei seemed to consider before saying, “Actually, that’s quite a valid reason.”
“How is it valid?” Ding Zhitong didn’t understand.
“Ding Zhitong,” Song Mingmei addressed her formally, “Over these years, you must have encountered many businesspeople. Debt, bankruptcy, restricted spending – that kind of pressure isn’t something just anyone can handle.”
“But he should have told me, let me make my own choice,” Ding Zhitong said, somewhat agitated.
But Song Mingmei simply asked, “If he had told you, what would you have chosen?”
Ding Zhitong was at a loss for words. If Gan Yang had told her then, her choice would have been certain, with no other option. But what about after that? Would they have supported each other or tormented each other? How long would that state have lasted, and was there any hope? No one can predict the future, so no one would know.
As she pondered this, Song Mingmei laughed and fired off a series of questions: “Do you remember how frugal you were back then? Do you think you could have managed it?”
Ding Zhitong remained silent. She had indeed encountered people in debt and bankruptcy situations, as Song Mingmei described. Some lived well, unconcerned as long as they weren’t worried, leaving the banks to worry instead. They might be involved in five or six lawsuits simultaneously, with pages of execution records on court websites. Or they might have simply fled, continuing to engage in large-scale financing, always promising to repay and return to the country next week. But some truly aged overnight from the stress.
She could almost certainly guess which category she would have fallen into.
“What’s the point of bringing it up now? Besides, he insisted on not working with us on that project. I treated him to dinner, he told me about his stomach ulcer, and I ended up being the one drinking…” Ding Zhitong tried to speak jokingly, finding the situation quite amusing. Gan Yang claimed they weren’t over, showed signs of pursuing her again, yet refused to make any concessions…
“Mm, CEO syndrome,” Song Mingmei suppressed a laugh. “Besides stomach problems, there’s anxiety, insomnia, never smiling, surrounded by scheming people. No one has been able to enter his heart for years, only his lifelong love can cure him.”
Ding Zhitong found it even more absurd and scoffed, “So if someone told you this, would you believe it?”
But Song Mingmei turned serious, stopping her laughter to reply: “Ding Zhitong, you don’t need to worry about whether he’s being truthful now. You only need to consider if you still like him.”
“Why don’t I need to?” Ding Zhitong disagreed.
“Because you have money now,” Song Mingmei gave her a seemingly domineering reason. “Money allows you to do whatever you want. Rich people only need to act based on their feelings.”
“And here I thought you were being serious…” Ding Zhitong laughed. “I may have money, but he has even more.”
Song Mingmei immediately elevated the discussion to a theoretical level, saying, “You’re mistaken there. Once annual income reaches $70,000, the marginal effect on happiness starts to diminish. Any more doesn’t make a difference.”
Ding Zhitong was at a loss for words. Really? Was the threshold for being rich so low, even less than her first small goal from years ago?
But that moment of enlightenment also arrived, and the problem she had been pondering all day suddenly became clear.
“I have something to do, I’ll talk to you later…” She said goodbye to Song Mingmei, but just before hanging up, she remembered to ask, “What were you going to tell me earlier?”
Perhaps due to poor signal, Song Mingmei’s end was quiet for a moment before answering, “It’s nothing really, just that ‘Mo Qi’ is about to cease operations.”
Ding Zhitong was taken aback. Song Mingmei had fallen in love and married Deng Baiting because of this website. Although it had been sold long ago and had fallen out of favor years back, the day it finally ended would still be poignant.
Before she could say anything, Song Mingmei laughed, her tone light: “It’s been so many years, it has nothing to do with us anymore. I was just sharing some gossip, seeing if you’d heard about it. If you’re busy, go ahead. We’ll talk next time.”
The call ended, and Ding Zhitong returned to the issue she had just thought of. As she organized her thoughts, she washed and blanched two small lettuce heads, pressed some minced garlic, and stir-fried a garlic and oyster sauce to pour over them, pairing it with the duck leg rice she had bought.
She still wasn’t very good at cooking, especially afraid of heating oil, but she was willing to learn from online recipes. She couldn’t remember when it started, but she found the cooking process comforting, and the food she made tasted better, even with the simplest methods.
She took a photo and sent it to Gan Yang, typing below: About to eat.
Her phone vibrated almost immediately. She looked at the screen displaying “LT CEO Gan” and answered.
“Did you make it yourself?” Gan Yang asked on the other end.
“Only the lettuce is homemade,” Ding Zhitong answered honestly.
For a moment, she wasn’t sure if he was also remembering the same past event – her promise to him in her Upper West Side apartment to eat well and rest well.
She had done it intentionally, yet feared he might think that way. Not waiting for him to say anything, she got straight to the point: “Mr. Gan, could you introduce me to Dr. Chen?”
Gan Yang hadn’t expected this question. After a slight pause, he asked, “Ding Zhitong, what do you mean?”
Ding Zhitong took a breath and answered straightforwardly: “You said it yourself, we keep business separate from personal matters.”
The other end was silent. After a moment, he chuckled softly and said, “All right, I understand. Wait for my reply.”
The next morning, Ding Zhitong went straight to Qin Chang’s office as soon as she arrived, briefing him on the “Training Box” situation.
After listening, Qin Chang confirmed: “There’s no room for further negotiation?”
“No,” Ding Zhitong replied, “Their attitude is very clear and firm.”
Qin Chang nodded, habitually looking at the photo frame on his desk. The little girl in the photo had grown into a young woman, set to graduate from high school next year.
Ding Zhitong continued: “But from my conversation with their representative, I got the feeling that they’re doing this because they have a set investment plan. ‘Training Box’ and the two previous sports platforms are all part of that plan…”
Qin Chang, still looking at the photo frame, slowly smiled.
Ding Zhitong knew he understood, so she delivered her final thought: “I think this might be an opportunity for us to do a buy-side M&A. Since they’re unwilling to sell, perhaps they’re looking to buy something?”