All His Assets

Over the next two days, Wang Ye stayed busy with everyone else, handling all kinds of paperwork.

They went to the bank to pay tuition renewal fees, medical insurance, dorm fees, and so on, while also familiarizing themselves with the area around the school.

Actually, Wang Ye did not need to do that, because he was far too familiar with this place!

About five hundred meters north along the main road from the dormitory compound's entrance was a large supermarket. Anything they needed in daily life could be bought there.

Of course, things in such a big supermarket were relatively expensive. If they wanted cheaper options, they had to take the bus two stops south along the main road to the area near the metro station, where there was a fairly large market.

It was like a domestic farmers' market, full of small vendors, and things there were much cheaper.

Having just arrived abroad, everyone found everything new and exciting. A few of them formed a group and, led by their enthusiastic class monitor Zhou Yuan, ran all over the place to explore the surrounding area.

Wang Ye went along with them and did not reveal anything unusual.

But on the afternoon of January 4, he found some time to leave the dorm alone, planning to buy a few things at the big supermarket.

This was where his Russian skills showed their advantage. The other students who had arrived with him would not have dared to go shopping alone.

With the language barrier, if anything happened, they would be at a loss and unable to communicate with anyone.

He walked north along Miklukho-Maklay Street.

It had snowed again today—or rather, the heavy snowfall had not stopped for days!

Goose-feather snowflakes drifted lazily down from the gray sky, and the snow piled along the roadside had already reached Wang Ye's waist.

The snow on the sidewalk had been packed down by pedestrians and was a little slippery to walk on.

Wang Ye wrapped his down coat tightly around himself, bundled his ears and face in a wool scarf, wore a thick furry cotton hat, and had on leather gloves lined with fur. He was armed from head to toe!

This was also the standard "gear" for going out around here...

After all, in weather below minus twenty degrees Celsius, you really could freeze to death if you did not dress like this. It was no joke.

There were not many pedestrians on the road. The occasional person he encountered looked like a student and was probably also from People's Friendship University.

Cars sped along the street. From time to time, he saw someone standing by the roadside with one hand raised and their thumb up.

That was how people hailed a cab.

There were very few taxis in Moscow. You could practically only see official taxis at the airport or outside high-end hotels.

When people needed a ride normally, they stood by the roadside like this, raised a hand, and stuck out their thumb to show that they wanted a taxi.

Soon, a passing car would stop. The driver would roll down the window and ask where they wanted to go. If it was on the way, he would give them a ride.

Of course, it usually was not free. As for how much it cost, they could just negotiate it directly...

When he reached the entrance of the supermarket, he rubbed the snow off his shoes on the snow-removal mat, pulled aside the padded curtain, and went inside.

This supermarket was quite large and had everything one could need, though the prices were a little high.

Wang Ye had come this time to buy a mobile phone.

Strictly speaking, he did not need one right now, and mobile phones were not cheap either—not something he could afford to splurge on.

But Wang Ye had to spend the money, because his grand plan to make money was about to begin, and a phone was an essential work tool!

Other students might buy phones to show off or to contact their families.

But Wang Ye was buying one as an investment, to make money!

Across from the supermarket checkout counters was a row of shops, one of which was a mobile phone store.

It not only sold all kinds of phones, but also handled phone number registrations.

Wang Ye knew the place well and walked straight inside.

An older female sales clerk inside looked up at him but said nothing.

Foreigners really did not know how to do business. At the very least, their service attitude was completely substandard. Wang Ye, who had lived here for many years, felt this deeply.

Whether you went to buy vegetables or visited a high-end restaurant or luxury store, the sales clerks all had the same attitude, as though they did not care whether you bought anything or not.

They were not only like this toward foreigners such as Wang Ye and the others. They treated their own people the same way...

Wang Ye did not pay much attention to it. He walked over to the glass display case and began picking out a phone.

His requirements for a phone were simple: it just had to be sturdy and durable!

As for the price, naturally, the cheaper the better. He might have wanted those phones that cost seven or eight hundred dollars, even over a thousand, but his wallet did not permit it.

After only a few glances, Wang Ye had made his choice: the Nokia 3310!

This was a truly classic phone. It was cheap, did not look bad, lacked the short antennae of other phones, and had a compact, rounded body.

This was still Nokia's most glorious era, so there was naturally no need to worry about the phone's quality.

All those jokes about "cracking walnuts" and "throwing a phone off the tenth floor" were talking about Nokia phones!

"Please get me one of these phones. And I'd like to register a number too, MegaFon will do," Wang Ye said to the sales clerk with a smile.

The older sales clerk lazily got to her feet, came over for a look, opened the display case, and took out an unopened Nokia 3310 from below.

This model was clearly quite popular.

She then took out a phone card that looked like a small envelope and said, "Fill out the form. Show me your passport."

Registering a phone number here required identity verification.

Wang Ye skillfully filled out the registration form, then took out his passport and handed it to the sales clerk.

The Nokia 3310 was considered a fairly cheap phone.

The phone and registration cost him a little over three hundred dollars in total.

Wang Ye had brought a total of seven thousand dollars with him this time. Because he had arrived relatively late and was enrolled in an accelerated preparatory program, he did not plan to return home during this year's summer break.

Of course, that was also related to how expensive round-trip airfare was...

He would not return home until next summer break, a year and a half from now.

So his family had given him enough money to bring over at once for this year's preparatory tuition, the following year's tuition, and a year and a half of living expenses.

These days, wiring money from China to here was also extremely troublesome.

With foreign exchange controls in China and complicated international remittance procedures, people preferred carrying cash.

A small portion of the money had been exchanged at the bank using Wang Ye's visa, at the official exchange rate of around one to 8.7.

But he could only exchange two thousand dollars per year, which was not enough.

So his father had asked someone to exchange the remaining five thousand dollars on the "black market," where the exchange rate was much higher—one to ten!

The preparatory program tuition was about eighteen hundred dollars, while the first-year university renewal fee was about twenty-two hundred dollars. That came to four thousand dollars.

The remaining three thousand dollars were Wang Ye's living expenses for the next year and a half, and that still had to cover the cost of his round-trip ticket home next year...