"Just by looking at Yinyin's demeanor when she came back, it's obvious things didn't go smoothly!" Kang Siyin, the only girl in the dorm room wearing glasses, pushed up her glasses on the bridge of her nose.
"KK, don't even mention it! It's been utterly disastrous! All that for nothing, wearing this wig today to cover up my blonde hair!" Zhou Xueyin walked away from Li Jixiang, carrying a brownish-red wavy wig, and began to arrange it.
"Ah! Yinyin's back! How did the investment talk go today?" Another girl in the dorm, holding a drawing board, had just returned.
"Shush!" Li Jixiang and Kang Siyin simultaneously gestured to Yao Shanshan, who had just entered the room, signalling her to not bring up that topic again.
"Hey, it's okay. I wasn't expecting to succeed on the first try..." Zhou Xueyin said, trying to sound nonchalant.
"Yinyin, I'm sorry..." Yao Shanshan looked at Zhou Xueyin with deep regret.
"Sigh... Even though I wasn't expecting to succeed in one go, I never anticipated they'd be so shameless!" Zhou Xueyin continued, still agitated, "Judging by appearances is one thing, I have a youthful face, but that's not the key to questioning my abilities, right? And what's worse! Those people didn't even glance at the proposal. It was absolutely revolting!"
"Well... Yinyin, how about considering turning your proposal into an illustrated PPT?" Kang Siyin opened her computer and the PowerPoint software at the same time.
"PPT? Is that more acceptable than a Word document?" Zhou Xueyin asked skeptically.
"Let's put it this way! Which do you prefer, reading a novel filled with nothing but text, or enjoying a comic with both pictures and words?" Kang Siyin adjusted her glasses again.
"Comics, of course! With concise language, all the content needed is present in the illustrations!" Zhou Xueyin had an epiphany, "I get it! If the text is expressed through graphics, it will be easier for the reader to accept, right? That's what you mean!"
"Exactly! You're studying Computer Networking, and you didn't think of that?" Kang Siyin smiled contentedly.
"Guess I was too excited... By the time I had transformed the ideas in my head into text, I forgot all about the magic of PPT!" Zhou Xueyin changed into something more comfortable and gave a silly smile, "Besides, with my old clunker of a computer, it crashes every time I make a PPT. It's so bad, I feel like dying every time I try... That's why I didn't do a PPT. Heh heh..."
"Listening to you two talk about computers is like reading a book of spells... I'll stick to practicing drawing on the computer." Yao Shanshan also turned on her computer.
"KK, come play an online game with me! There's a boss I can't solo, I need support!" Li Jixiang pleaded with Kang Siyin.
"Right away!" When it came to gaming, Kang Siyin immediately perked up.
"Are you two going to abandon me? I want to play as well..." Zhou Xueyin said pitifully.
But on the one hand, she wanted to redo the proposal; on the other, she wanted to vent her frustrations of the day in the game.
"Once you finish the proposal, we can carry you through it, okay!" Li Jixiang and Kang Siyin said in unison.
"Okay then... I'll go remove my makeup and then get to work!" Zhou Xueyin made a "fighting" gesture and took her washbasin to the sink room.
With the graduation season of 2004 fast approaching, some students had already received internship offers, while those who hadn't secured a job were anxiously searching for suitable employment.
But the four people in Agricultural University Room 304 weren't worried or in a hurry at all.
Zhou Xueyin, a Beijing native and a true blonde, dyed her hair golden yellow to conveniently cosplay her favorite characters.
Her first choice had been the veterinary medicine program at Agricultural University, but due to a heatstroke on the day of her math exam, her scores suffered, leading to her acceptance into her second choice, computer networking. Thinking of switching majors, four years went by with no progress on that plan whatsoever.
The reason Zhou Xueyin wasn't in a hurry to find a job was partly that none of the enterprises participating in campus recruitment fairs either matched her major or interested her at all.
Additionally, not a single internet company had a channel dedicated to women's service, which really annoyed her, making her feel as if the internet was a man's world.
Inspired by a speech from the founder of a well-known instant messaging software, she became even more convinced that in this era, where anyone could make it in the internet business, she, a fresh graduate, could definitely be the first in the industry if she had a unique idea.
Kang Siyin, from Shenzhen, like Zhou Xueyin, did not get into her first-choice major of biodiversity and ended up in e-commerce instead.
Compared to Zhou Xueyin's mere scratching the surface of computing knowledge, Kang Siyin was truly adept with computers. Don't be fooled by her demure appearance; when it came to assembling a computer, she could do it even faster than the boys.
However, she naturally emanated a 'keep away' vibe, causing many who would have liked her help to instead spend money to solve their computer issues.
Kang Siyin's reluctance to job hunt was mainly due to her personality; she abhorred interacting with people, especially those with whom she had nothing in common.
Add to that a completely unreliable older brother at home, Kang Siyin found herself constantly torn between moving back home to take care of her mother and staying in Beijing.
Li Jixiang, from Nanchang, studied international trade, a major that seemed impressive but was utterly useless. For Li Jixiang, what she studied was not important. The critical thing was the opportunity to leave her hometown for a big city.
She was the one with the best family financial situation in the dormitory, but she didn't want to live her whole life on the path laid out by her parents. So, when Zhou Xueyin decided to start her own business after graduating, Li Jixiang was the first to say she supported her in spirit.
As for the prospect of finding a job, Li Jixiang hardly worried about it. Given her family's above-average economic status back home, even if she couldn't make it in Beijing, she could always return to Nanchang and depend on her parents.
Yao Shanshan, also from Nanchang, studied tour guiding. She had wanted to take art exams, but gave up due to the cost, and continued to self-study drawing, in which she was extremely talented.
Though she presented as a mature beauty, her heart held a childlike innocence, and being a few months younger than the other three, she was the one taken care of in the dorm.
Despite studying tour guiding, Yao Shanshan, like Kang Siyin, didn't enjoy interacting with people either, which was why she chose the major without much consideration.
Even though she had sent her artwork to gaming companies in Beijing, they insisted on hiring only graduates from art schools, so she narrowly missed out on a career in game original painting.
Disheartened, Yao Shanshan had no idea what she could do and could only bury herself in honing her drawing skills.
However, it must be said that fate played a part, as these four girls, despite their different personalities and majors, all shared the same hobbies: anime, gaming, and cosplay.
When Zhou Xueyin decided to start her own business, creating a website specifically for women, the other three all raised their hands in agreement.
Right after Kang Siyin and Li Jixiang finally defeated the game boss, Zhou Xueyin also finished revising her business plan.
"Jixiang, I have an appointment with an investment company in a couple of days. Will you come with me?" Zhou Xueyin asked, blinking her eyes imploringly at Li Jixiang.