In October 2007, Ding Zhitong found her “soulmate.”
The quotation marks are necessary here, as the term comes from a comment by Song Mingmei: “Him again? Could this guy be your soulmate?”
“This guy” referred to Gan Yang.
Song Mingmei was only joking. Ding Zhitong didn’t take it seriously, rolling her eyes before returning to her computer to reply to emails and confirm interview times with HR.
Feng Sheng, overhearing nearby, found the exchange jarring. For once, he didn’t invite Ding Zhitong to lunch, leaving quietly instead.
That year, the Shanghai Stock Exchange Index surpassed 6,000 points. Three-year fixed deposits yielded an impressive 5% interest, while the average price for commercial housing in first-tier cities reached 20,000 yuan per square meter.
That year, no one had yet thought of occupying Wall Street. The title “VP” was still neatly translated as “Vice President,” and investment banks’ annual bonuses were the stuff of legend.
That year, Ding Zhitong was 22, pursuing a master’s degree in Financial Engineering at Cornell University and approaching graduation.
The school, located in Ithaca, New York, offered an 18-month program that attracted young fortune seekers from around the world, with Chinese students making up a significant portion.
Years later, as more students began pursuing American bachelor’s degrees, these short master’s programs lost some of their luster. But at the time, the Ivy League’s prestige remained strong, giving these students a sense of pride.
They all shared a single goal: to make money on Wall Street.
Their behavior followed a remarkably uniform pattern:
They started looking at campus recruitment opportunities as soon as they entered school in the fall. The following April, they competed with American juniors for summer internships, hoping to secure return offers for full-time positions.
If unsuccessful, they’d wait for the next year’s campus recruitment, casting a wide net with their resumes. They scoured job sites like Indeed, Glassdoor, and LinkedIn. They tapped into networks of alumni, fellow expatriates, friends of friends, and even distant connections through family. They made at least two cold calls daily and sent hundreds of networking emails over several months. It was less like studying and more like a job-seeking boot camp.
Ding Zhitong’s upcoming interview, and this “soulmate,” came about through this process.
About a month earlier, she and Feng Sheng had attended the school’s career fair, where the prestigious M Bank from Wall Street held an information session. Afterward, both submitted resumes passed the initial screening and completed an online test. Ding Zhitong received an interview invitation; Feng Sheng did not.
The result was surprising, for obvious reasons.
Feng Sheng had a higher GPA than Ding Zhitong, more internship experience, and was male. Until then, all of Feng Sheng’s applications had passed initial and online screenings, progressing at least to the first round of interviews. M Bank was the sole exception.
Frustrated, Feng Sheng inquired among classmates, discovering that only two Chinese students from their school had passed M Bank’s online screening: Ding Zhitong and Gan Yang.
This puzzled Feng Sheng even more, as he considered Gan Yang less qualified than Ding Zhitong.
Gan Yang was two years their junior, a senior majoring in Finance. He had left China after middle school, going straight from an American high school to an American university. He represented precisely the type of international student Feng Sheng both envied and disdained. It was well known that the path from an American high school to an American university was entirely different from the route of a Chinese university to an American graduate school. Without facing China’s grueling college entrance exam, these students entered higher-ranked schools, albeit at the cost of nearly a million dollars more in tuition.
Feng Sheng concluded that such individuals weren’t necessarily more talented, just wealthier. Ding Zhitong found his resentment odd, given that they were all there to make money. How could he look down on others for being rich?
Considering Gan Yang’s actual situation, however, the matter did seem peculiar.
Gan Yang showed little interest in academics, often socializing with American athletes on the track team. While everyone else busied themselves finding internships earlier in the year, he continued training daily. His athletic performance, unremarkable among his black and white teammates, was hardly worth mentioning. In essence, he had secured a first-round interview with M Bank based on mediocre grades and no internship experience.
But Feng Sheng was Feng Sheng, already possessing the professional acumen of an analyst, skilled at finding patterns in chaos. He quickly concluded that M Bank’s rejection of him and acceptance of Gan Yang for the first round stemmed from flaws in the online screening test. Beyond the usual logic and case analysis questions, it included a lengthy personality assessment.
The multiple-choice questions were too numerous to complete within the time limit, so candidates answered as many as possible. The prompts were highly abstract, such as, “If men are dogs and women are cats, what are children? Kittens, dogs, or puppies?” Unable to discern the test-makers’ intentions and pressured by the on-screen countdown, test-takers could only follow their instincts, selecting an answer before moving to the next question.
Confident in his logical reasoning and case analysis skills, Feng Sheng theorized that the psychological portion of the test had skewed the results, leading to the current situation.
Ding Zhitong found this theory amusing, given that she had also advanced to the interview stage. What kind of psychological test would group her with Gan Yang?
Gan Yang was an eccentric, carefree rich kid who drove a fiery red 1966 Mustang and rented a detached house in a nearby village. Rumor had it that an entire wall of his home was dedicated to shelving his various athletic shoes. Athletes from the track and basketball teams frequently visited a diverse group of muscular men high on testosterone, often staying overnight with much physical affection. The rumors went further, but… well, Ding Zhitong omitted those three thousand words.
She, on the other hand, was a studious girl from a small Shanghai alley, fixated on making money. Influenced by her upbringing, she approached every decision with a cost-benefit analysis: walking instead of taking transportation when possible, cooking rather than eating at the cafeteria if time allowed, and photocopying textbooks instead of buying them. Her primary goal was to save $80,000 in her first year of work.
In their program, they often reviewed financial statements and analyzed cases with figures in the thousands, separated by commas. $80,000 might seem insignificant in that context, but earning and saving that amount was no small feat.
Sell a kidney? Not enough money.
Sell her body? She had neither the connections nor the skills.
She often saw people mention Sugar Daddies and wanted to ask, “Where do you meet these old men? Can you introduce me to one?”
Among all the legal and illegal methods she could think of, aside from winning the lottery, only a job at a prestigious Wall Street firm could help her achieve her goal. For over a year, she had been working towards this.
These two individuals had little in common.
They first met at an international student gathering. They learned each other’s names later, thanks to Song Mingmei’s wide social circle.
Song Mingmei, like Ding Zhitong, was pursuing a master’s in Financial Engineering. True to her name, she was beautiful and charming, with many admirers. One of them, an entrepreneur in China, had created a social networking site called “Mo Qi.” Song Mingmei wasn’t particularly interested in him but enthusiastically promoted his site to everyone she knew.
To attract users, the site featured a game after registration. It was essentially a compatibility test where users were recommended as friends if they matched on at least five out of ten questions. Ding Zhitong and Gan Yang matched on all ten.
Song Mingmei described this as a “terrifying destiny.”
Ding Zhitong didn’t take it seriously, but Gan Yang initiated contact with a private message: “Hello, Ding Zhi Tong (straight cylinder).”
Ding Zhitong found this childish and replied three days later: “Hello, A-Gan (Forrest Gump).”
After sending it, she never checked the site again.
Later, Song Mingmei informed her that Gan Yang had changed his English name from “Young” to “Forrest” on his profile.
Ding Zhitong wasn’t sure what to make of this – whether it was self-deprecating or dismissive. She didn’t care either way; he had started the nickname game, after all. Tit for tat.
In any case, she couldn’t see what she and Gan Yang might have in common.
Nevertheless, Forrest Gan and Tammy Ding had both passed the initial resume screening and online test, securing first-round interview opportunities with M Bank.
The interview was scheduled for Saturday, leaving a few days to prepare. Knowing Feng Sheng was upset about not being selected, Ding Zhitong felt awkward asking him for help with a mock interview. Instead, she turned to Song Mingmei.
The two girls shared a two-bedroom student apartment.
Typically, young women might compete over looks and fashion, but Ding Zhitong had little interest in that. She only envied Song Mingmei’s successful summer internship, which had led to a return offer from G Bank’s Investment Banking Department (IBD). Now, Song Mingmei could relax and casually look for other opportunities while waiting to graduate. Unlike Ding Zhitong, who had only received a polite email wishing her future success after her internship.
If Feng Sheng was her study and exam preparation partner, Song Mingmei was her job-seeking mentor. Song Mingmei taught her to write enthusiastic cover letters, helped refine her eye-catching resume, practiced handshakes with her, and even cured her glass heart and social anxiety – at least on the surface – by encouraging her to network more boldly. It’s no exaggeration to say that without Song Mingmei’s guidance, Ding Zhitong would likely still be naively chasing her GPA in the library.
After Feng Sheng left, Ding Zhitong mentioned the mock interview, and Song Mingmei gladly agreed to help.
They had just settled this when Ding Zhitong noticed a text from Feng Sheng: “Do you want me to help you prepare for the interview?”
She replied honestly: “No need, thanks.”
Song Mingmei peeked at the phone and criticized, “It’s not like you’re sending a telegram charged by the word. Why are you being so stingy?”
“It’s just a simple matter, isn’t it?” Ding Zhitong retorted. Though frugal, she wouldn’t deliberately type more just to lower the cost per character.
Song Mingmei looked at her thoughtfully and asked, “What’s the deal with you two?” She had been pondering this question for a while.
“What deal? We’re just classmates,” Ding Zhitong answered.
Beyond that, Feng Sheng also had the most comprehensive collection of mathematical logic test questions, interview experiences from major financial institutions, and authentic case analyses from assessment centers. They could happily practice together. All in all, being friends with Feng Sheng was also a cost-effective arrangement.
Song Mingmei snorted, about to speak when her phone rang. The first-generation iPhone screen displayed a long string of numbers – it was her Shanghai-based suitor number one, Deng Baiting, founder and CEO of “Mo Qi.” At the time, his full-time employee count was zero, and the CEO himself still worked a day job.
She answered, demonstrating how a woman should talk to a man: “Working all night again?… Mm-hmm, I support you spiritually… I’m not coming back for Christmas, moving to New York… I’m not telling you which day… No… You won’t be here to help anyway, why should I tell you?… I don’t want surprises, how do I know if it’s a surprise or a shock?…”
Neither clingy nor distant, neither too close nor too far.
As Ding Zhitong observed and learned, she recalled her boyfriend from her undergraduate days. When she went abroad and he stayed in Shanghai to work, the long distance naturally led to their breakup. His final bitter words were also: “Did you have to be so stingy with your words?” Given this history, she had to admit that she might indeed have some issues communicating with the opposite sex.
But Feng Sheng? She still found the idea amusing.
Feng Sheng had attended the same university as her for his undergraduate degree, majoring in Mathematics. During their senior year, when applying for overseas studies, they often exchanged advice on the campus forum. They were just online acquaintances then, only truly getting to know each other after arriving at Cornell.
But even after getting acquainted, it wasn’t much different.
Feng Sheng was the type who found even saying “parents” in the Shanghai dialect too crude, clearly from a family with strict rules. Ding Zhitong, coming from a more common background, only realized in her twenties that such terminology was unsophisticated. She changed to saying “my father” and “my mother,” speaking more formally.
Moreover, Feng Sheng was very concerned about appearances.
Last autumn, as they walked to school together, they found a tree with chestnuts scattered beneath it. Ding Zhitong crouched down to pick them up, jokingly asking if they could be roasted to eat.
Of course, if someone had agreed, it might have been more than just a joke.
Feng Sheng, however, just frowned at her. It wasn’t an “oh, you silly girl” look, but more of a “either stand up quickly or don’t say you know me” expression.
Just imagining herself talking to him the way Song Mingmei did made Ding Zhitong want to dig a hole and hide from embarrassment.
Conveniently, Feng Sheng’s reply came, even more concise than hers: just two letters, “OK.”
When the call from Shanghai ended, she showed it to Song Mingmei to prove her point.
Song Mingmei clicked her tongue and said, “You two are a match.”
Ding Zhitong shrugged, feeling this statement wasn’t wrong. She and Feng Sheng were indeed compatible but in the sense of a study group and job-seeking team – a revolutionary friendship for practicing problems together and preparing for CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) and AICPA (American Institute of Certified Public Accountants) exams. Adding a romantic element would only cheapen it.