Yin Zibo has almost never eaten home-cooked food since he was a child, basically a breakfast noodle shop, and the main meal is either a hotel or a box lunch, so he ate happily, and he killed more than half of the dishes alone, hugged the bowl and drank almost all the soup.

Ling Ran was worried: "Is it a stomach ache?" ”

Ye Ling gave a roll of her eyes: "Don't worry, it's just a pot of soup, and it will be over when you can pee." ”

Ling Ran muttered: "Why do you drink so much, it's like a drought for eight hundred years." ”

Yin Zi wavelength breathed a sigh of relief and smiled: "It's so cool, I'm sweating out." Ling Ran, why are you so good at cooking? Why don't I marry a wife like that? ”

"I learned it. Ling Ran laughed, "However, it's useless to marry me as a wife, I accidentally got into a hate to burn such a meal, maybe a year and a half, maybe three or five years." ”

"A waste of talent, a waste of talent. Yin Zibo shouted, "It's a pity, you should burn it every day, how about burning it for me every day?" Yin Zibo looked at Ling Ran with a cheeky face.

"Where is the time, I cook every day, you give me an annual salary of 500,000 yuan" Ling Ran laughed.

"I've been at Merrill Lynch for three years, and I haven't cooked a decent meal. My American boyfriend had been eating scrambled eggs for three years. Ling Ran suddenly sighed a little emotionally, "Just because of such a tender egg every morning, our relationship can be maintained for five whole years." It is said that a woman grabs a man's heart through a man's stomach, but the heart is actually ungraspable, and I think it is the woman who mixes the man's feet through the man's stomach, making him reluctant to run away. ”

Ye Ling muttered: "For five years, a meal of scrambled eggs every morning, well, American men are really enough to start from the beginning." ”

Yin Zibo nodded: "Yes, Ling Ran, your American boyfriend is a weasel, and he is still a minor." ”

"Well, no, it's someone else's good" Ling Ran was unhappy and explained: "At that time, I was in Merrill Lynch as an investment banker, very busy, I never went home before 4 o'clock in the morning, sometimes I even came back to sleep at 8 o'clock in the morning, but I had to get up before half past 10 o'clock, and I must go back to Merrill Lynch's office before 11 o'clock to work." ”

"My boyfriend works as a press assistant for a trader. The trader has to browse all the important news before the opening of the market every day, but the trader does not have time to read the deleted information by himself, so he must have one or two assistants in advance to collect, sort, abbreviate, and analyze the news, and then the next day before the stock market opens, spend 20 minutes or half an hour, all orally read to him. As soon as the stock market opened, the news assistant's day's work was over, so my boyfriend worked all night and took the subway home after the report. ”

"He came home, I was yawning up, he made coffee and I scrambled eggs. After eating, under normal circumstances, he is with me, this is not a good time, but there is no way, because we will not meet again on this day, after exercising, he went to bed, I took a shower and put on makeup and went out to take the company shuttle bus to work. I have to work 7 days a week, weekends are often the most rushed, often 48 hours a day, plus business trips I think although he never complained, but his heart was dissatisfied, so we lived together for five years, he never proposed to me, I can fully understand, in fact, I myself, do not want to marry him, because, the communication has completely stopped, the two are actually strangers living together. ”

Yin Zibo frowned: "What's the matter, Brother Ye also said that he works until late at night every day, are you so busy in investment banking?"

Ling Ran and Ye Ling glanced at each other, the two smiled bitterly together, and Ye Ling sighed: "Say it." In fact, Ye Ling also wanted to know how Ling Ran had spent the past five years in the United States.

Ling Ran didn't know where to start: "Well, I am an assistant at Merrill Lynch, the assistant is a low-level position in the investment bank, and the lower level than us is the analyst, the assistant generally graduated from an Ivy League MBA, and the analyst generally graduated from a prestigious university. Analysts and assistants are all on the pyramid chain of the investment bank, but at the bottom, and there are many positions in the investment bank, such as secretaries and clerks, but they are not on the pyramid chain, and the business they do has nothing to do with the professionalism of the investment bank. Therefore, analysts and assistants are also called junior bankers, and they have to climb up one level at a time, VPSVP, D, EDMD. It takes very, very hard to climb to a million-dollar senior banker position, because too many people are eliminated at each level. The loss of analysts and assistants in investment banks is the worst, countless people leave every year, and when it comes to VP, SVP can't leave, their salaries are too high, and they have nowhere to go if they want to change jobs. ”

"The average company in the United States, like the Chinese company, has a working day divided into morning and afternoon, and from after lunch, the enthusiasm for work deteriorates, and before five o'clock, people are basically discouraged. Ling Ran smiled at Yin Zibo.

Yin Zibo was embarrassed and muttered: "I often work overtime, either in the design studio or on official business." I usually don't go to bed until 2 o'clock in the middle of the night. ”

"But in investment banking, an assistant's working day is divided into: before lunch, after lunch, after dinner, and after midnight. Ling Ran continued, "Before lunch, there are few people in the office, I usually go to the office before 1011 o'clock, review yesterday's work, sort out today's thoughts, and then have lunch. After lunch, the real working time began, all the desks were full, all the phones rang non-stop, we were answering all the calls from our bosses, and the projects were pressed down one after another, under normal circumstances, everyone had more than a dozen jobs to do, of which 23 were being done at the same time, so we never had enough time, we were always in a hurry, we were always too busy, we were always having a headache, we were always sore feet, and we could always hand over the work at the last minute. ”

"For example, a MD managing director calls down: Mary, there is a client who wants to buy a company, I have 500 pages of information, you can take it and read it, and give me an acquisition plan within 3 days, including all the cost budget, risk estimate, profit forecast, and capital preparation. Then he hung up the phone, I scolded **you, ready to receive the packet, then an ED executive director called: Mary, what are you doing, the company that is going to issue bonds notified us to go to their company tomorrow to deliver the "project proposal", has it been written, send it to everyone in the project team for review, it will be bound tonight, and the plane will be boarded at 9 o'clock tomorrow morning, and the secretary has been asked to book a ticket for you. ED's phone beeped and I cursed bull**, and then hurriedly sent the manuscript to everyone in the project team. ”

In this way, the phone rang non-stop all afternoon, and the assistants took one phone call after another, swearing a swear word, while constantly taking notes, what work to do, and what to do, but not really what to do. After receiving the boss's unreasonable but unable to carry out the order, many people slammed the phone and the keyboard in addition to swearing, so the consumption of office supplies in the work area of low-level employees is very serious, and our monthly broken telephone is enough for a normal company in the United States for 10 years. Seniors are generally afraid to come to our work area for fear of being foamed at our mouth and drowned. ”

"In the afternoon, in addition to receiving tasks, I also have to have meetings, endless meetings, one after another, sometimes to the conference room, sometimes to conference calls, bosses, lawyers, accountants. Meetings are the most terrifying, because of the uncertain creation tasks, a casual proposal will split into a task as high as a person, and crush the low-level staff directly into the waste paper pile. ”

"Finally, it was five o'clock, ed, and the MDs were off work, and the phone stopped ringing. The assistants went to dinner. Usually the assistant will gang up, occupy a small restaurant with a few good confidants and friends, and then close the door to eat. Why do we eat behind closed doors, because we have to swear while eating, and we invent the most novel and unbelievable new words of swearing in the world during the meal, giving our bosses all kinds of whimsical code names, and scolding them in every detail, pervasively, this is our collective psychotherapy. If it weren't for this dinner, we would have gone crazy a long time ago, even though investment banks are better than mental hospitals. ”

"After dinner, the real day's work begins, this is the most important and efficient working time for low-level bank staff, all the information is read at this time, all the manuscripts are completed at this time, write proposals, write memos, draw charts, choose analysis models, do financial analysis, everyone is immersed in hard work, thinking is highly concentrated, and the mind is clear. Investment banking is a highly competitive industry, and if you can't complete your tasks and performance, you will be eliminated. In such a rapid, except for fighting to swim upstream, only the share of drowning remains. ”

"For example, writing a project proposal I send the proposal that has been written to every member of the project team, including SVP, including MD, to make sure that each of them can see it, and then they will mark the proposal with all kinds of changes they want, what to add a financial report here, then add a curve analysis, add a color photo here, underline there in different fonts, and sometimes they will whimsically change this page to that page, and replace this chapter with another chapter, so the proposal is changed beyond recognition. ”

"Their instructions kept coming, and I kept revising the copy according to their instructions. Every time I made a correction, I would send us the word processing part of my company, where the people were similar to professional typists, who were hourly workers for $15 an hour. So don't expect them to be nice to you, if you want to dictate to them, then they will deliberately make a mess of your documents and make mistakes everywhere, so when you send them, it's best to attach a few nice words to it"

"The document came back from the word processing department, and I sent it to my bosses to make sure that everyone could see the revised draft, and then they continued to make endless suggestions for revisions, and I continued to make endless changes, and the rule of investment banks is to keep drafting until the last second. It's a complete disease, a typical symptom of an anxiety attack in a senior bank employee, who relies on endless tossing and turning of his staff to relieve their inner panic, who think that our proposal is all-encompassing, and the more beautiful and perfect it is, the more likely it is to be chosen by the customer, so the proposal is always so thick that no one will want to read it. In fact, the contents of Recommendation 90 will never be seen by the customer. ”

"If you're lucky, there's an occasional night when you can finish your work by midnight, and then you can leave work. ”

"So what about the rest of the night? Go home and sleep? No, the abuse of doing investment banking is through, and letting them go home from work in the middle of the night will simply kill them, so generally at this time, men will go to look for flowers and willows, and women will desperately think that who may not sleep in the past can still seduce them, but this kind of opportunity is very small, it can't happen a few times a month, so after working hours enter the middle of the night, for me, it is generally until 4 o'clock in the morning, but there are always two or three nights a week that work all night until 8 o'clock in the morning, and then at 11 o'clock the money has to be energetic, neatly dressed and come to work again。 ”

"For example, if I have a project proposal tomorrow to meet with a client, and before midnight, all the revisions are finally completed, so I go to the copy room to print out 10 to 20 copies of the proposal before I board the plane tomorrow. The people in the copy room are much more difficult to handle than the people in the word processing center, because they are blue-collar workers, and they only take the minimum hourly wage set by the US Department of Labor, which is $65 an hour, and they don't take us seriously at all, and if we want to urge them to print quickly, they will give us a roll of the eye and say, "You have 20 copies in front of you that need to be expedited printing, what special do you have, go, line up in the back." But we have to ask them to help us expedite printing, because tomorrow morning at 9 o'clock we have to carry this stack of things on the plane, and this is no better than the word processing department, the word processing department does not work for us, we can complete the text revision ourselves, it takes a little more time, but the copy room does not give us printing, we are really blind, so we have to do everything possible to pat the copy room workers on the back. ”

"Every year at Christmas, I give Christmas cards to everyone in the copy room with a $20 to $50 tip, and I usually order takeout to bring them pizza and pasta. This way, I can keep the documents I want to print at the top of the list for a long time. If there is a temporary emergency, this is actually the norm, I simply pay 50 dollars and stuff it directly into someone's pocket, and then ask the pizzeria to send two large boxes of pizza and eat with them. Not only will they help me print out the documents, but they will also help me pagination, checking, and binding. This is very important, because the proposal is more than 100 pages thick, and there are so many color page illustrations and photos in it, which must be printed separately on other paper, and then inserted into the middle of the black and white printing, there is no problem with one book, but 20 copies, it takes two or three people to divide the night, each book has to carefully check the page number, check whether there are any printing errors, and then print the cover, and then bind. It was all physical work, and I often knelt on the cold ground of the copy room to pagination, and my knees were swollen, and by the time the binding was finished, I was so exhausted that I couldn't move my legs. But no, it's time to catch a flight. ”

"We always carry a cabin suitcase with us to work, always ready to travel, and always arrive at the last minute before the plane takes off. When I jumped on the flight, I always dragged a large bag and a small bag, which was cumbersome and heavy, and the 23 things in it were not what I wanted to bring or could use. But forget about these, the most hateful thing is that when we don't sleep for one or two nights in a row, wearing dirty clothes, the strange smell of staying up late, and the bloody bursts in our mouths make ourselves sick, and when we step into the business class, we always see the MD or ED who leads the team, sleeping well, full of energy, sitting there drinking coffee and reading the Wall Street Journal. Every time I rushed up and grabbed him by the throat and slapped him back and forth. I started to think that I was the only one who was so criminal, and then my male colleagues told me that every time they saw these mdeds, they wanted to do just go up and castrate the dog that had been so cleanly washed. ”

Yin Zibo was terrified when he heard this: "God, you have such a deep hatred for your boss." Brother Ye, you" Yin Zibo thought worriedly: Do Ye Ling's employees also want to castrate Ye Ling.

Ye Ling smiled: "China's investment banks are better than the United States in terms of overtime, and the bosses generally love their subordinates more and dare not torture them too cruelly, so they are not qualified to be hated by their subordinates." Many people only work overtime until midnight, which is more humane. It is the week of the material report, basically the whole week is not sleeping, really can't stay up, everyone on the sofa or table a little eye in addition, there are a lot of employees in China's investment bank, a project team in the United States, 47 people, we often need more than a dozen people, in which there are indiscriminate fillers. But if people want to go up, it is better to rely on talent than on diligence, and the improvement of business ability is completely a kind of self-accumulation, so if you want to do well in China's investment banks, it is more tiring than the United States, because you have to bear the share of those colleagues who fish in troubled waters. ”

Ye Ling smiled: " However, Zibo, you see Ling Ran, a little assistant, usually goes to work with a big brand, a face is impeccable, hair is combed neatly, all kinds of the most advanced office equipment in the office, coffee and food supply is sufficient, business trips are in business class, sleep in five-star hotels, and there is a company shuttle bus to and from work; 。 What kind of brand do you wear, in China, investment banking is not a well-dressed business. If you have a belt starting with H, then you must seize the opportunity, and you must take it out on the day of the listing reception, maybe you will only have that chance in two or three years. ”

Ye Ling continued: "Also, you see how chic they are, working overtime until midnight, the men can go out to look for flowers and willows, and the women are even better, they can find free men." Do you know how men and women in China's investment banks live? The man is always being forced to marry by his parents, obviously so busy that he doesn't even have time to sleep, so he has to be asked by his parents when they can let them hold their grandchildren; he is always apologizing to his girlfriend, he must work overtime on weekends, he can't attend his mother-in-law's birthday party, and tonight's date is canceled, because he suddenly has to go on a business trip, and he doesn't know when he will come back. As for the women, it's even purer, they simply don't have a boyfriend, and it's useless to have them anyway, and they can't use them a few times a year. I don't have time to sleep, and I still talk about fitness exercises. How can there be a game like Mr. Ling, who eats scrambled eggs every day, more than others in a lifetime. ”

Ling Ran laughed: "Mr. Ye, you have what you said." I'm going to shed tears of sympathy, are you so sad?"

Ye Ling smiled: "Why not, I originally had a bunch of girlfriends in college, but after entering the investment bank, my girlfriends left me one after another." In the end, there was only one left, and I haven't seen each other for a month. ”

Yin Zibo laughed: "The remaining one is not good enough, you want several at the same time, can you sleep?" Yin Zibo thought that the remaining one was the one Ye Ling said yesterday to cook for him.

Ye Ling smiled bitterly: "The problem is, that one is the ugliest and the worst in all aspects of all my girlfriends." She didn't have any other men to ask for, so she couldn't run away. You think she doesn't want to run, she's riding my horse, looking for donkeys. ”

Ling Ran was angry and funny: "Nonsense, people obviously like you, so they tolerate you, I hope you can marry her for the sake of this tolerance." People even put up with you for a one-night stand for prostitution, and you beat them up. ”

Ye Ling herself also felt funny: "Well, it's my fault, so that from undergraduate to graduation, to 26, she has never been able to find a better boyfriend than me, but fortunately, she turned back later, immediately found another man, and quickly got married." ”

"But you can't blame me for the one-night stand of prostitution. She's my girlfriend, I work seven days a week, I get off work every day after 2 o'clock in the middle of the night, I'm working hard when she's free, and she's always sleeping when I'm off work. I can't bother her, so what should I do? Don't prostitute and let the men who do investment banks find a place to vent after being physically and mentally tortured? I just have one more one-night stand than the average colleague, and they are relatively rare to encounter this kind of good thing, I sit in the bar one by one, and they are all stunner-level, and they all take the initiative to talk, and they will leave me a number, expecting me to make another appointment, is this the only proud achievement in my life that is worth boasting about?"

Ling Ran nodded: "It's worth it, it's worth showing off, it should be advertised, Mr. Ye, you should take a tweeter and go to the crossroads to do some publicity." ”

Yin Zibo wondered: "Why don't your colleagues have a one-night stand?

Ye Ling shook her head: "No, when investment banks select people, they generally have requirements for the appearance of the applicants, so whether they are men or women, they will not be too sorry for the audience." It's that they don't want to look for it, they would rather go to prostitution. Because time is the most scarce in investment banks, they don't want to waste so much of their hard-won opportunity to solve their physiological needs on finding a one-night stand. ”

Yin Zibo was a little inexplicable: "Prostitution is also solved, one-night stands are also solved, one-night stands are free, and they are more or less cleaner than chickens." ”

Ling Ran frowned: "Mr. Ye's expression is not right, the words are not enough, for example, in Merrill Lynch, where I am located, every time before Christmas, a grand New Year's party will be held, which will be held in a five-star hotel in Manhattan, with sumptuous food, high-end drinks and drinks, extremely luxurious, all night long." ”

"There are relatively few women in investment banks, but it is not that there are fewer women in investment banks, in fact, there are many women in investment banks, and the secretaries are basically women, and half of the various clerks are women. On the night of the Christmas party, it is generally Friday, the women's bathroom is full of people, the girls take off their stereotypical work clothes one by one and change into topless and backless dresses, and the perfume sprayed can directly smoke the people in the bathroom unconscious, and the air is full of various incense powders, which is very dangerous, and whoever lights a fire, the bathroom may explode. ”

"And the young men in the investment bank, from major prestigious schools, are young, handsome, high-income, after wearing a suit or even a tuxedo, they are personable, and they can be rich and handsome as they want. ”

"Everyone indulges in carnivals all night, drinking as much as they like, and the company pays for it anyway. So, can these dog men and women hit it off, drink alcohol, dance, and sneak out to roll the sheets? No, at 12 o'clock in the middle of the night, those handsome young guys in the investment bank, one after another, in groups, left the dance hall and went to various bars in New York to find prostitutes. The rest of the senior staff who were over 40 years old, pot-bellied, and slightly protruding on the top of their heads, and the hard work of the female staff were all in vain. ”

"Why do those young handsome guys have to spend money to go to the ** when they don't have free beautiful women? The reason is simple, they don't want to waste the opportunity to relax. If they want to sleep with some beautiful female employee in the company, then he has to go and offer some courtesy, ask her to dance, make her laugh, and get her drunk. He may not be able to find an accurate one, maybe the beautiful female clerk doesn't like his handsome face, maybe he said something wrong, maybe he stepped on her foot while dancing, so he has the possibility of being courteous and failing to make an appointment. They have counted that the success rate of coaxing the girl they like to go to bed is 30, which means that they have to please three women a night to ensure that they can go to bed once, how tired they are, this is not a waste of their time, energy and physical strength. ”

Then, if the girl was willing to sleep with him, trouble would come again, and he must have slept for a few hours in the first two days in order to be able to attend this ball, and now he was completely overdrawn, and the unfinished project was still pressed on his heart, although they were looking for fun, they were still mentally nervous, and he was sleepy, tired and anxious to vent in the first half of the night. ”

"If he's with a female colleague, does he need to have foreplay, doesn't he behave too badly, if he does something in three minutes, the next day the whole company will know that he has many times. So, why should he take this risk, female colleagues are not more beautiful than chickens, why risk falling into a laughing stock to spend time and energy to please female colleagues, it is convenient to pick a prostitute, prostitutes will not find fault with your appearance or not, whether you talk to her appetite, will not ask you for foreplay, to perform, what posture you want, how long it will take, she only asks you for money, as long as you give money, you can do whatever you want, you can't do what she wants, she won't complain, the most important thing to do in an investment bank is money, these men have money and no time to spend, so of course they would rather go to find chickens。 So the women who work in the investment bank are the saddest, guarding the Yellow River and having no water to drink, so many young, handsome and handsome guys in the school would rather spend money to find chickens to solve the problem than have a one-night stand with female colleagues, and those chickens are not necessarily younger and more beautiful than female colleagues. ”

Ling Ran sighed: "In investment banking, people are neutral, women are men, and men are dogs. No matter how beautiful a woman is, no man will look at you except for fat and ugly senior staff. Every year, when MBA students from various universities enter investment banking internships, mentoring interns is the favorite job of female investment assistants, because only these interns will covet the beautiful female assistants and circle around. The most beautiful female assistants are always sent to guide them, and I am in it every year, and this is the only time that makes me feel that I am still a woman, and I can still attract the lustful eyes of young men, you know, as long as they officially step into the investment bank with one foot, they look at your eyes like looking at a dead fish. ”

Yin Zibo immediately flattered: "They are too visionless." Miss Ling, I promise that you will never be treated like this in our company, and I am willing to sincerely dedicate my lustful eyes every day, anyway, I don't need to pay for it at a glance. ”

Ye Ling was a little gloomy: "Actually, it's not that men really like **, who doesn't want to have a stable and safe sex life, have their own true love, no matter how late they work overtime, no matter how far they travel, no matter how hard and stressful the work is, it's warm when I think of her, the question is, where to find it." The more sleepy and deprived the man himself is, the more he wants to find a good woman, but a good woman will not be with us, and those who are with us are all gold pans. Because the SVPs have to deal with the company and participate in the business, they socialize a lot, often go to bars, run song halls, they have more one-night stands, and they meet those singers, models, peripheral women, and those girls are with the SVPs because the investment bank men have money and no time, while the girls have a lot of time but no money, or they don't have enough money to spend. ”

"When I was a VP, I often met girls like this. But my luck is more special, those girls didn't come to me for money, just to sleep with me, but since each other slept in vain, they couldn't be too demanding of each other. When they are free, I am not necessarily free, and when I am free, they may not be in this mood. I told them that they can't disturb my work, so they can't take the initiative to come to me, otherwise they will block me directly, but in the same way, when I go to them, people don't necessarily take care of me, and sometimes I can't find a person who rolls the sheets with me after 3 phone calls. ”

Ye Ling sighed: "My original wish was to be a good man and a good woman, but it turned out to be a dog man and a cheap girl." ”

"Well, VP, SVP. Ling Ran nodded, "The SVPs in the United States are starting to want to get married and want a stable life, because they are old, more than 30 years old, and their salaries are already able to buy a mansion and a yacht." VP, SVP annual salary can reach $500,000 a year, but in our business, if the year is passable, the bonus is often the same as the salary, so they can earn millions of dollars a year. And the salaries of SVPs are so high that they can't change careers or change jobs, they have resigned themselves to their fate, but people can't always find sexual satisfaction in brothels all their lives. At this time, they began to want to seek a serious relationship, so trouble came, and they had no time to do it. ”

"Once, when a client accepted a project to issue new shares, a leading executive director of ED asked everyone in the project team to go to a fancy nightclub in New York, and he paid for it personally. That nightclub only accepts men, but it's not that they don't let women in, it's just that women can only move in the established private rooms, and can't go anywhere else, because it involves **. ”

"In investment banking, such nights are the most drunken and dreamy. Ed took the opportunity to show off, and was extremely extravagant, stipulating that everyone's wine glasses were not allowed to be empty, and everyone went down the most expensive drinks one by one, ordering so much food that everyone would eventually spit directly on it, and then all kinds of absurdity and shamelessness. That night, an SVP drank too much and jumped off the table and said that he was going to give everyone a reality show. Ed said that he paid for the SVP's reality show, and took out $2,000 in cash on the spot and threw it on the table, so SVP had a fight with a stripper in a nightclub, which lasted for a total of 30 seconds, and the SVP collapsed at the touch of a button, which was also expected. These men basically start on their own initiative and end in disgrace. The dancer stuffed 2,000 dollars in cash into her bra and kissed us away, and SVP sat down and cried. ”

It turned out that he had a girlfriend who spent five hours flying from California to New York last weekend to see him, but he stayed in the office since Friday to catch up on the project, and he worked overtime on Saturday and Sunday, and he didn't have time to go home to see his girlfriend until he boarded the plane on Monday, put down his luggage, buckled up his seatbelt, and then had time to call the flower shop and ask them to send flowers to his girlfriend who had returned to California and apologize to her. SVP cried so much that he was sorry for his girlfriend, and that she had spent 10 hours coming back and forth to see him, but he had left her alone in his apartment for the whole weekend, and he hadn't even seen her in person. Three days later, he was still here for a failed prostitute. SVP chattered while crying and talking about how he loved his girlfriend, they were middle school classmates, he really wanted to develop marriage, and finally, he had an alcohol attack, and he fell directly from the chair to the ground and snored. Ling Ran shook her head and sighed.

"When I was a VP, I also had a girlfriend. Ye Ling said suddenly, her voice hoarse, "I worked at least 100 hours a week at that time, and I could sleep up to 4 hours a day. But I really, really love her, maybe it's the passion that makes my physical performance extraordinary, and I dedicate all my time, energy and passion to her. But I still didn't have time to see her. I know, she's been waiting for me, all night long, all weekend long. I had to work overtime in the office, I had to go on a business trip, 72 hours a day overtime, and a business trip was ten days and half a month. I knew she was waiting, in order to wait for me, insomnia all night long, but I could only ask her to meet in the half-hour interval between meetings and business trips, always making her wait, always in a hurry, not having time to give her any caresses, not even being able to say goodbye calmly, always taking off clothes when I entered the door, and having to leave when I pulled up my pants. And it may be ten days and a half months. She always tried to come to my business trip to see me, stayed with me in such a shady country hotel, ate such unpalatable food, and had a long and unsafe journey back and forth, but I could only watch her leave. ”

"When she met me and asked me to report to the conference, she wouldn't see me for a whole week, even though she was in the same city. She thought I was thinking too much, so she called me downstairs and called me and told me you stick your head out of the window and let me look at you. I really had to stand at the window and let her look at me, because our meetings were always one after the other, and MD was constantly giving orders there, what to do here, how to write there, and we tried our best to write down every sentence, we couldn't miss a word, we couldn't make a mistake, I couldn't sneak out of the toilet for 5 minutes. So I had to stand at the window, stick my head out, let her look at me, smile at her, and then go back to the conference table, and I couldn't stand there and watch her fight back."

Yin Zibo interjected: "Brother Ye, is this the girl you told me yesterday and finally parted ways with you?"

Ye Ling held back her tears and nodded: "Yes, we have been together for two years, although I have repeatedly tactfully retained, she still abandoned me." I have nothing to complain about. Actually, I never expected her to be with me for two years, that long. But people are easy to be greedy, when she was with me for two years, I really thought that she would be with me for a long time, but she still resolutely left me and found another boyfriend in a week. “

Ling Ran was a little silent, and said after a while: "Actually, it's right for you to part ways, after two years together, after the passion has passed, and then continue, you will hate each other, just like me and my American boyfriend." ”

"My boyfriend is very nice, I have been in the investment bank for more than a year, and he has never complained. Ling Ran said slowly: "However, once, our project team's pre-market promotional reception for the roadshow, we conducted a roadshow in 7 different big cities in the United States for 7 days, from the East Coast to the West Coast, and then back to the East Coast, the roadshow ended, and on the day I returned to New York, I was so tired that I was completely exhausted, I smelled of blood in my mouth, I couldn't lift my arms, and I barely dragged my luggage back to the apartment." As soon as the door opened, I was stunned, the house was cleaned, there were roses on the table, cream cakes were on the table, balloons were floating on the roof, and my boyfriend was smiling at me. It turned out that it was my 26th birthday, and he came home to wait for me before I arrived, wanting to surprise me. ”

"My boyfriend came up and kissed me and asked me if I wanted to eat steak, and he made it for me. How dare I wait for him to fry me a steak, because as soon as I sit down, I will fall asleep. I had to lie to him and tell him that I missed him so much that I could eat later, so let's go to bed ooxx first. Then I said I'd go take a shower and tell him to come in 10 minutes, but I actually smelled sick to the stench. ”

"I went into the bedroom to take a shower and saw that he had changed white sheets and sprinkled rose petals on the bed. I had no choice but to smile secretly and hurry into the bathroom to rinse. But when I came out of the bathroom, something magical happened, and suddenly my legs went limp, and I fell on the carpet, and I couldn't open my eyes. I thought, this is not good, I can't fall asleep on the floor, I haven't got my clothes on, I'm going to catch a cold when I fall asleep, I can't get sick, I still haven't written a summary report. So I crawled towards the bed with my eyes closed, all the way through. It's really that sentence: the road you choose, you have to finish it while you crawl. ”

"I crawled around with my eyes closed, and then I hit my head on the mattress, so I climbed into bed with my eyes closed, and I thought, just climb into bed, I'm dead. As a result, with a "bang", I crawled over my head and fell off the other side of the bed. ”

He heard a noise outside, and he pushed the door in surprise, and asked me, "Honey, what's wrong with you?" I took advantage of the momentary sobriety, and quickly rolled over and climbed onto the bed, and said, "Baby, I'm all right, let's start now." As soon as I finished saying this, I suddenly fell headlong on the bed, and fell asleep upright, really sleeping like I was dead, naked ** fell between the white sheets and rose petals, like a corpse. Later he said he ripped the sheets and covered me and went to work. ”

"When I woke up, I had no idea of time, I didn't know how long I had been asleep, and the only thing I could think of was getting dressed and going to work, because there was another project to come. By the time I got home and saw my boyfriend again, it had been another day and the cake had hardened on the table. He threw away the cake, I scrambled eggs for him, and fried salted pork for him. We sat down to face each other and had breakfast in silence, and he stopped talking a few times. I knew he was trying to break up with me, so I preemptively said, "We're just a sexual partner, and I'm not going to get in the way of you finding a new girlfriend." But now that you don't have a new girlfriend, can you not move out? At least half of the rent can be saved. He thought for a long time, sighed, and said, "All right." And so our relationship lasted for another two years. But in the next two years, there was nothing to say between the two. ”

"Actually, I am very grateful to him, I know that the mistakes are all mine, he is such a good man. I am very grateful to him for the 5 years of companionship he gave me, especially in the next three years, if he leaves me, he will not lack women, but I lost him, but I can no longer find a stable man, so I actually cherish him very much. ”

But what's the point of cherishing it, the communication between the two has completely stopped, and although there is only one bed in the bedroom, there is no time to sleep together. The relationship is unsustainable, but it is still together out of habit and inertia. When I finally offered to break up with him because I was going back to China, we were both relieved. We hugged and kissed goodbye in a friendly way, knowing in our hearts that we would never see each other in this life. Ling Ran looked at Ye Ling: "So you have been in love with that girl for two years, and breaking up at the moment of your favorite is the most perfect ending, so that the memory is eternal, the notes are solidified, the love is set in this life, and the swan song is forever." ”

Ye Ling was silent for a moment: "If you want to say that, just say it." I can't object. ”

After a while, Ye Ling asked, "You and your American boyfriend broke up before you returned to China?"

Ling Ran nodded: "Yes." ”

Ye Ling was relieved, Ling Ran had only returned to China for a month, what Caltech Ph.D. fiancé, fart.

Yin Zibo was a little strange: "You say that the investment banking work is so miserable, then why do you do it." For money?"

Ye Ling and Ling Ran glanced at each other and nodded together: "Yes, for money." ”

Ling Ran explained: "I graduated from investment banking in 04, and the starting salary was $80,000, when the U.S. economy was sluggish and how difficult it was to find a job, this was almost the only place in the United States where I could get such a high starting salary." You must know that California, the state with the highest average income in the United States, has a median household income of only $620,000, including 42 people. My income alone is $80,000, which is higher than the income of the average middle-income family in California. And by Christmas, I had only been working for half a year, and although I was not given a raise, I was given a bonus equivalent to two full months' salary. '05 was the highest-paid year, and the bonus in '05 was also $80,000, and I earned $160,000 a year. Come to think of it, I had only been a year out of school. ”

"But in '06 the situation took a turn for the worse, in fact, at the end of '05, it was not good, the subprime mortgage crisis was triggered, and Wall Street was in a depression. Salaries have not risen at all, bonuses have not been paid at all, and work has become heavier, because the worse the economy, the more fierce the competition. In 07, Wall Street began to lay off employees, many private equity fund managers with an annual salary of more than $400,000 lost their jobs, and then spread to investment banks, and now there are a bunch of banks on the verge of bankruptcy, and layoffs always start from the top, because they have the highest salary, and they don't do specific work, and the senior bankers who used to be poor and extravagant are now starting to fall into the streets, Merrill Lynch is now very bad, I don't know if it can survive this storm. I don't have a green card, I can't sit still, the big ship is stormy, I can only jump ship and escape. My uncle gave me a life-saving pole at a critical time, and I quickly grabbed it, so I went back to China. ”

Ye Ling couldn't help but laugh: "Actually, it's not the time to come back, the recession in the financial industry is global, and now China's investment banks are the same." IPOs are stopped and released, the competition is fierce, and the money is not easy to make in the past. But now at this time, it is the time of transformation, the IPOs of large state-owned enterprises have been stopped, but private enterprises have been listed, seize this opportunity, and they can hit 3,000 miles and soar to 100,000 miles. ”

Ye Ling said: "In China, although investment banks are not as high as in the United States, the annual salary of one million yuan is still a dream for many investment bank employees. However, the income of investment banks is still the highest compared with other industries. Even before 2000, when workers in Beijing were paid less than 1,000 yuan, investment bank MDs could earn more than 1 million yuan, and it was completely legal. In other markets, it is difficult to make tens of millions of dollars in a business. As an investment bank, no matter how small a project is, it will cost tens of millions. For a project of hundreds of millions of dollars, the sponsor's bonus can be tens of millions. This is an industry with a lot of money and thousands of taels of gold, and it is worth paying for it. ”

Ling Ran smiled: "As an investment bank, I can best understand the meaning of the lyrics: use our flesh and blood to build a new Great Wall." In fact, we are stacking the walls with our youth, our will and spirit, and the gold tank of Wall Street rumbles over our flesh and skin, crushing our souls into scum along with our bones. ”

Ye Ling nodded: "That's true, but I never regret my choice." Only by being an investment bank can I satisfy my influence on money and power**In fact, I don't feel about spending money at all, clothes, watches, and cars are all for customers to see, but making money is very important to me, and my greed is endless"

Ling Ran smiled: "It's not just about making money, but also about being abused, only by being an investment bank can I meet my spirit and the needs of being trampled on and destroyed by ruthlessly. ”

Ye Ling laughed: "It's too correct, if you don't do investment banking, your life will be too dull." So people like us, who have already sold their souls to the devil, do not deserve sympathy at all. ”

Yin Zibo said: "If the position is promoted, it will be better." Didn't Ling Ran say that the senior staff all left work on time? ”

Ling Ran nodded: "It'll be better, stay up until Director R, and you can get off work almost on time." But thousands of troops will die at the SVP level, or the position will be promoted, and the work will still be stuck in the SVP stage, or work overtime until it is tireless. At that time, you can only change jobs and go from a large investment bank to a small investment bank to give yourself a room for growth. ”

Ye Ling sighed: "Ling Ran, you're not right. In investment banks, low-level employees are overworked, have no sleep, no private life, and their humanity is challenged, so they focus their hatred on their bosses. In fact, the pressure on senior employees is even greater, although they seem to be able to leave work on time, in fact, they can get off work after work, especially in China, where MD time is spent socializing and pulling projects. If there is no project, or the project cannot be passed, the investment bank has to drink the wind, and the MDs are willing to say and do everything in order to get the project and pass the meeting, and they don't want human dignity at all. ”

Ling Ran nodded: "Hate is hate, in fact, we can also understand it, and we can feel the pressure and pain of the boss." ”

"I was involved in a project that was an acquisition program. The CEO of the company who wanted to buy the company had a good relationship with one of Merrill Lynch's MDs, and entrusted our investment bank to recommend the company to him that could be acquired. MD asked me to prepare a list of 500 acquisition targets, each of which had to explain why it was selected. Then starting from these 500 companies, the project team of 7 people, various analysis and comparison. Pick out 10 of them, and there is a variety of strong evidence to prove why these 10 are the most valuable to acquire. After determining the acquisition target, the acquisition cost and acquisition profit of these 10 companies are calculated. ”

"I was assigned to a company that supplied steaks to supermarkets, and in order to calculate the profit of this company after it was acquired, I had to compare it with 100 meat food companies, and I had to use the company's financial statements for three years, 100 companies, each company issued 4 statements per year, and 100 companies had a total of 1,200 reports, all of which were analyzed for data, and finally when the company's recommendation came out, I felt that I knew so much about the beef food industry that I could go to California to open a cattle farm. ”

"For 10 companies, the final written documents of the investment bank are about the same height as one person, but the waste paper we make, after shredding, is estimated to be able to flood the company building. In the end, we went to show the CEO a list of 10 company recommendations with a recommendation letter as high as a mountain. The CEO flipped through the catalog, steak companies, I'm not interested in the food industry, Internet companies, Internet companies are not in a recession right now. In the end, the CEO reluctantly picked a company, and MD immediately handed over the company's information, and the CEO went directly to the chapter on acquisition profits, and only glanced at it and said, "The profits are too small, and I am not satisfied." You recommend another 20 companies to me. All the comparative analysis and calculation of night and day, all the financing feasibility analysis, asset restructuring plan, market expansion plan, all the all-night overtime, all the excessive caffeine intake, just didn't even have a chance to show their faces, and they were all shot in 10 minutes. ”

"At that moment, I really had a strong urge to kneel down and cry with tears in my eyes, and I beg you to raise your noble hand and choose one of these 10 families...... My colleagues said afterwards that kneeling is a fart. If the CEO is willing to pick one of these 10 companies to buy, our MD will let him pack his wife and send it to someone's bed, he will be happy. Unfortunately, the CEO was not happy, so we had to sneak back and start all over again. ”

Ye Ling looked at Ling Ran silently for a while: "What is this, you are just catering to the needs of customers, once the customers are satisfied, you will have money to earn." You know what is the most difficult thing about China's investment banks, which is passing meetings. Because the China Securities Regulatory Commission has set a series of strict listing standards, and requires enterprises to pass the review of the CSRC's Issuance Examination Committee. Therefore, in order to meet these standards of the China Securities Regulatory Commission and achieve the purpose of passing the meeting, we have to package the enterprise according to these standards, from historical issues to future development goals, from financial status to daily corporate governance, from taxation and customs environmental protection to employee social security, everything is covered. ”

"It took a year or two for investment banks and companies, countless manpower, material and financial resources, and countless efforts to finally hand over all the information, and then, they were shot, and everything became useless, this kind of thing often happens, so our hearts are strong enough. ”

"But there's something even more devastating. For example, a project has been met, and then Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen held a three-day gorgeous roadshow, in the financial core area of the three places, the best five-star hotel, millions of yuan smashed down, the CEO of the listed company memorized all the answers to the questions that may be asked in advance, all the scenes were rehearsed over and over again, all the unexpected ** pieces were taken into account, and even the inquiry had been completed, and suddenly a call from the China Securities Regulatory Commission came, calling it to stop, because of a new problem that was suddenly reported. ”

"At that time, if you were the person in charge of the project, if you contracted the project from the company, if you had a deep relationship with the CEO of the company during the project, if you knew that the company was actually running well, there was no problem. At that time, you faced the huge costs paid by both the investment bank and the company, the CEO of the company who entrusted the project to you because he trusted you, and the subordinates who worked hard for the project for two or three years, and still did not get a penny, or even overtime pay, how did you feel? At that time, people really dare to go up the knife mountain, the sea of fire is willing to go, and the oil pot is willing to jump, but in reality, there is nothing to go up the knife mountain and go down the oil pot, we can only follow the requirements of the Securities Regulatory Commission to make up the parts, and everything will start again. ”

Ling Ran looked at Ye Ling quietly for a few seconds: "If at that time, your ex-father-in-law said that he could help you get over the meeting, on the condition that he marry his daughter again." Will you?"

Ye Ling's face suddenly turned snow-white, and Yin Zibo looked at Ye Ling's face nervously, and then looked at Ling Ran. Ling Ran had a smile on her face, as if she were a pure teaser.

Halfway through, Ye Ling bit her lip and said in a dumb voice, "I will, because I have no choice." ”

Ling Ran nodded: "Since the strength is so great that I can't resist, why should I resist." Ye Ling's body couldn't help but tremble, in fact, this was a sentence that Ye Ling said to herself five years ago, but I didn't expect Ling Ran to remember it word by word to this day.

Ye Ling silently said in her heart: Ranran, it's different, five years ago I opened the upward channel, standing in front of the door of wealth, looking for the key to open the door, but now I am not what it used to be, the door of gold has been opened in front of me, I am only the difficulty of the initial stage, as long as I finish the crown project, the future will be smooth, all the channels will be opened, all the relationships will be straightened out, and I will have economic freedom. At that time, there will be nothing to restrain me anymore, and the sky will be high and the birds will fly. Ranran, we are still young, please give me a little more time, let's be together in the stratus clouds.

Ling Ran glanced at his watch: "It's almost 11 o'clock, gentlemen, you have sobered up." Isn't it time to retreat?"

Ye Ling and Yin Zibo looked at each other and smiled, Ye Ling stood up and wanted to help Ling Ran clean up the table. Ling Ran stopped: "No, no, a person who is busy working will be quick and faster." ”

Ling Ran sent the two out of the door, and when he came back, he cleaned up the table and prepared the food again, because it was too late, Ling Ran thought about it, so he cut a little meat and vegetables, and waited for Shao Chengzhi to come back and cook noodles for him, so that he could sleep after eating hot.

Ling Ran began to sit on the sofa while watching TV, and slowly fell asleep on the sofa.

At three o'clock in the middle of the night, suddenly there was a knock on the door, Ling Ran jumped up, and sure enough, Shao Chengzhi came back.

Ling Ran ran over to greet him: "You are really back." ”

Shao Chengzhi was stunned: "You haven't slept yet, you've been waiting for me." ”

Ling Ran nodded, tears pouring up. Shao Chengzhi took her into his arms: "Fool, why don't you sleep, what if I don't come back." ”

Ling Ran's tears fell: "I know you will definitely come back." ”