The interview room door swung open, and Zhang Fang’s head popped out. Zhu Yun and Guo Shijie were standing right outside. Zhang Fang stared at Guo Shijie.

“What kind of people are you bringing into this company?”

Guo Shijie looked at him blankly. Zhang Fang glanced at Zhu Yun, then said, “Forget it — both of you come in. Better to get them done at once.” He looked back at Guo Shijie. “You too.”

The four of them sat in silence inside the small room.

The interview space was only about six or seven square meters. A square table divided them into two sides. On one side sat the Feiyang employees — Zhang Fang and Guo Shijie — both slight in build, slouching listlessly in their chairs. On the other side, by contrast, sat Li Xun and Zhu Yun. Zhu Yun was neatly dressed and sat with her back straight. Li Xun had his arms folded across his chest and was leaning back in his chair, expression neutral, not saying a word. In comparison, it was actually their side of the table that looked more like the interviewers.

The atmosphere in the room was strange and unsettling. Sweat began to bead on Guo Shijie’s forehead again.

Zhang Fang felt his authority slipping, and wasn’t about to stand for it. He straightened his face, let the corners of his mouth droop, and put on an air of cold indifference.

“Why are you just sitting there? Don’t you know to hand over your resumes?” he said, frowning at Zhu Yun with undisguised displeasure. “Or are you like him — don’t even have a proper resume to show?” He turned to Guo Shijie and started venting. “I have to say, the people coming in to apply these days — they’re nothing like what we were back then. No qualifications to speak of, and not even —”

He stopped mid-sentence.

A neat stack of papers had appeared on the table.

“My apologies — this is my resume,” Zhu Yun said.

Zhang Fang cleared his throat and picked up the resume, settling back to review it like a lord surveying his holdings.

The room fell quiet again, filled only with the soft rustle of turning pages. Shortly after, Zhang Fang exhaled slowly — and just when everyone expected him to offer some kind of assessment, he abruptly raised the resume and smacked Guo Shijie hard across the head with it.

Guo Shijie was completely bewildered. “What… what happened?” he asked in alarm, clutching his head.

Zhang Fang narrowed his eyes at him. “What kind of people are you recruiting?”

“Huh?”

“First a delinquent, now a con artist — do you even want to keep your job?”

Guo Shijie had absolutely no idea what was going on. Zhu Yun shot a sideways glance at him and spoke first: “A con artist? I’d like you to be more specific.”

Zhang Fang fixed her with a steady look, a knowing smile on his lips — the expression of a man who believed he had seen straight through everything. He held up the resume. “If you’re going to fake it, at least make it convincing. Someone with a resume like this coming to apply at our company? Did you think we’re all idiots?”

Guo Shijie leaned over to try to get a look at the resume in question, only to get smacked on the head again by Zhang Fang. “Can you have a shred of self-respect?” Zhang Fang muttered through clenched teeth.

When he looked back, Zhu Yun was watching him.

“You have very little confidence in your own company,” she said.

Zhang Fang cleared his throat. “Let’s stick to the facts.”

“The facts are that you clearly don’t believe in your company at all,” Zhu Yun replied. “If even when interviewing potential employees you can wear an expression that says the company is shutting down tomorrow, then how do you ever expect to attract real talent?”

Guo Shijie sat quietly beside them, inwardly agreeing with every word.

“Even if your company’s actual capabilities really are lacking, you have to have confidence,” Zhu Yun continued. “Confidence brings good fortune. That’s how you get a chance to draw a better hand and turn things around. Also —” She looked at Zhang Fang. “Are you the HR Director?”

Zhang Fang said, “What? Yeah.”

“Let me ask you something off-topic,” Zhu Yun said. “In your view, what’s the most important quality for someone in HR?”

Zhang Fang had been thoroughly thrown off by her rapid-fire words, and answered honestly, “No idea.”

“The ability to recognize people,” said Zhu Yun.

She leaned slightly forward, both hands folded on the table, her eyes fixed on Zhang Fang’s.

“Because if you can’t tell a trump card from a losing hand when it lands in front of you — that’s a real waste.”

Zhang Fang found himself pinned under those sharp, bright eyes and suddenly jolted awake.

This woman talked fast. She had almost talked him right into a ditch.

“Now look here —” He was about to claw back some authority when his phone buzzed. A message from Zhao Teng outside:

“Stop posturing. The boss Dong Siyang gets back the day after tomorrow. If you haven’t recruited anyone by then, get ready to cut off an arm and serve it to him for dinner.”

Zhang Fang’s head was pounding after reading that. Right — everyone and their mother could step on him now. He didn’t even have the energy to deal with Zhu Yun anymore. He grabbed his phone and fired back a flurry of replies:

“Screw you, done with your game? I’m out here doing all the work while you sit there and run your mouth?”

He waited a while but no reply came — Zhang Fang knew that meant Zhao Teng had probably started a new game. Furious enough to grind his teeth to dust, he smacked the table and took it out on Guo Shijie instead: “Is he being unreasonable or what? I do all the work, I take all the blame, what has he ever done? Sits around playing games all day — do you know how hard I have it?”

Zhang Fang ranted, then stared at Guo Shijie, obviously wanting him to chime in. But Guo Shijie had the verbal agility of a brick wall and genuinely had no idea how to respond in kind. Zhang Fang was about to lose his temper when the other man in the room came to Guo Shijie’s unexpected rescue.

“I think you’ve got it tough too,” said Li Xun, in exactly the same posture as before, sitting back in his chair.

Zhang Fang looked at him blankly. Zhu Yun quietly took note. Based on everything she knew about this person, whatever he said next was unlikely to be anything kind.

But the situation unfolded in a way she didn’t expect at all.

“In any company, someone has to step up and lead,” Li Xun said, his tone level. “That person absorbs more blame than anyone else — simply because they do more work than anyone else.” He shrugged. “The ones who don’t do the work naturally don’t make the mistakes.”

Zhu Yun: “…”

Zhang Fang suddenly thought: Wow, this Li Xun is actually kind of wonderful, isn’t he?

Good-looking in that dangerous, magnetic kind of way, voice deep and low, steady and measured. When he spoke, you just believed him.

“I completely agree!” Zhang Fang said with great feeling. “All they do is run their mouths — they don’t understand me at all!”

“That’s right,” Li Xun said, shooting Zhang Fang a brief smile. “Talking is so easy, isn’t it. You just open your mouth and the words come out — and you never have to answer for any of them.”

He paused, then turned to look at Zhu Yun, eyes half-narrowed, and asked: “Isn’t that right?”

Ten thousand horses stampeded through Zhu Yun’s mind. She nearly dug a hole right through the seat of her chair.

Zhang Fang, his spirits thoroughly restored by Li Xun’s expert flattery, waved his hand. “Alright, you can both head back. I’ll be in touch.”

Li Xun left first. Zhu Yun inwardly sighed and was gathering her things when she heard a quiet voice beside her: “…Is it real?”

She turned. Guo Shijie had somehow gotten hold of her resume without her noticing and was flipping through it, asking, “It’s genuine, right?”

“Of course,” said Zhu Yun.

Zhang Fang had collapsed back in his chair, languidly spinning it, studying her with a scrutinizing look. Just as she was about to leave, he suddenly bellowed at the outer room:

“Lao Teng——!”

No response from outside. Zhang Fang muttered a curse under his breath and shoved his chair back.

“Come with me.”

He led Zhu Yun out, where Zhao Teng was hunched in his chair with headphones on, playing games. The round had just reached its peak — Zhao Teng was clicking the mouse furiously, his entire body taut, his expression lethal. And then, right at that excruciating, high-stakes moment, the screen went black —

“What the —!”

Zhao Teng ripped off his headphones and slammed down his mouse, and actually launched himself straight up out of his chair.

“I’ll kill you!”

“Actual work first!” Zhang Fang roared at him.

The moment he heard the words “actual work,” Zhao Teng deflated immediately, and shuffled back to his chair with total disinterest.

“What is it? I’ve got a backlog of stuff to get through.”

Zhang Fang looked at Zhao Teng’s bone-idle posture and felt his teeth ache with irritation. He dropped Zhu Yun’s resume on the desk in front of him.

“Make up a test. Any questions you want — just do it fast.”

Zhang Fang, boneless as seaweed, sprawled back in his chair to look over the resume. He’d barely turned the first page before he stopped, and looked up at Zhu Yun. He stared at her and reached for a box of gum on the desk, popped two pieces into his mouth, chewed for a full two minutes, and seemed to be pondering something deeply.

Zhang Fang nudged him impatiently. “What’s taking so long? How hard is it to come up with one test question?”

Zhao Teng glanced over. “Want to do it yourself?”

Zhang Fang kicked his chair.

Zhao Teng opened a document and started typing the question. He asked as he typed, “Weren’t there two people interviewing just now? We’re only testing one?”

“Don’t even mention the other one,” Zhang Fang said. “Honestly, I’m not that unimpressed.”

Guo Shijie piped up quietly at the side, “Only because he flattered you into it…”

Zhang Fang spun around. “You want trouble?”

Guo Shijie made himself invisible again.

Zhang Fang sighed and said, “But thinking about it more carefully, forget it. He couldn’t even produce a resume. And on top of that, he’s done time — for intentional assault. That’s years of prison food behind him. Who knows if he’s developed some antisocial tendencies after all that. Bring someone like that in and we’re just asking for problems.”

“The boss Dong Siyang has also done time,” Zhao Teng said flatly.

Zhang Fang put his hands on his hips. “That’s different.”

Zhu Yun stood quietly nearby, listening.

“Come on,” said Zhang Fang, having finished writing the questions. He got up and let Zhu Yun have his seat. “Two questions. The first one you can answer verbally. The second is a logical programming question — give it a try in writing.”

“Alright.”

Zhu Yun looked at the first question in the document: A mobile game has poor “feel” — what should be done?

She turned to look at Zhao Teng.

“What does ‘feel’ refer to?”

Zhang Fang despaired. Just as he’d suspected — the resume was a fake.

Zhao Teng, however, didn’t seem bothered. He pulled out his phone and opened a game. “Here, try it.”

Zhu Yun played it for a while — it was an extremely simple little monster-battling game. Zhao Teng watched from the side. “Well? How is it?”

Zhu Yun said honestly, “Boring.”

Zhang Fang’s face went red. This was a game he had planned and produced himself.

“We all know it’s boring,” Zhao Teng said with a smile. “Aside from boring — how does it feel to play it?”

“It lags. Not smooth.”

“Right. And the logical flow isn’t good, is it?”

“No.”

“All of that is what we mean by ‘feel.'”

Zhu Yun nodded. “Then I’ll interpret that as optimization and improvement for now.”

Zhao Teng shrugged, gesturing for her to continue. Zhu Yun organized her thoughts and said, “The data structures and optimization algorithms in this game have problems. Resources aren’t loaded dynamically, and memory that’s no longer in use isn’t being released in a timely manner.”

She tapped the little character on the phone screen. It shuffled forward a reluctant two steps.

“The responsiveness design for player commands is unreasonable, and the data transmitted over the network should have redundancy built in.”

She pointed out a few more issues, then put the phone down.

“If all of these are addressed, the ‘feel’ you’re talking about should see a significant improvement.”

Zhang Fang shot Zhao Teng a sideways look. Zhao Teng said to Zhu Yun, “Go ahead and work on the next programming question.”

Zhu Yun was still sitting in the chair. She looked at Zhang Fang and Zhao Teng and said, “Actually… before I do that, can I say something first?”

Zhang Fang’s game had just been dissected and thoroughly criticized by Zhu Yun, and he still had some wounded pride to nurse. “No chatting during the test,” he said coolly. “Get the question done first.”

“It doesn’t matter whether I do it or not,” Zhu Yun said. She looked at Zhao Teng. “You know that, don’t you.”

Zhao Teng worked his tongue around the inside of his mouth for a moment, then finally said, “As for salary — why don’t you name a number.”

Zhu Yun: “You can decide the salary. But I have one condition.”