Shady Agency

After hesitating for a moment, Wang Ye still reminded her tactfully:

"Since it's your first time selling phone cards, you'd better be careful. Won't taking so many leave you sitting on them for a long time? There's really no need. Just take enough to sell for two weeks or a month at a time. It's convenient for me to come over anyway."

Yanzi smiled with pursed lips. "I know, but you might not realize how many Chinese students there are in the dorm area over there. I figure these cards will only last a week or two."

Wang Ye was stunned.

He really had not visited Moscow University's other dormitory much. He had always come to hang out around the main building.

The students living around the main building were mostly science majors, while humanities students mostly lived in the other dormitory area.

His cousin Ruan Xiaozhu was also in a humanities major, but he had no idea how she had managed to get herself a dorm room near the main building.

Yanzi was in the same class as Ruan Xiaozhu and lived in that other dormitory area.

In truth, Wang Ye had overlooked one point: the overwhelming majority of Chinese international students who came here studied humanities...

Russian itself was already one of the hardest foreign languages, and science majors were difficult to study as well. Coming to Russia to study science was simply making things even harder!

Ordinary students really did not have the nerve to take on that challenge.

So the true "home base" of Chinese international students at Moscow University was in the satellite dormitories...

Moscow University had one major in which roughly more than half the students were Chinese international students: sociology.

There was a joke among international students in Russia: "Enter Moscow University's sociology department, and you become a member of society!"

It was not that the major was especially good. It was simply easy to coast through and easy to graduate from...

But Moscow University's true flagship majors, such as mathematics and computer science, had almost no Chinese international students daring enough to enroll.

According to the upperclassmen, there had once been Chinese students who refused to believe it and enrolled in the mathematics and computer science departments.

But reality was cruel. Over all these years, the number of Chinese international students who had managed to graduate from those departments could be counted on one hand!

Universities here had "easy admission, strict graduation." Every year, lists would be posted outside the offices of every department, containing the names of students who had been expelled...

With all those factors combined, most Chinese international students here only chose humanities majors.

That was why there were not many Chinese students around Moscow University's main building. Most of them lived in the dormitory area where Yanzi was.

No wonder Yanzi was so confident and had taken so many phone cards on her first try!

What else could Wang Ye say? He immediately pulled out his wallet and began counting out the phone cards.

Twice Ruan Xiaozhu's amount...

That meant twenty hundred-dollar cards and forty fifty-dollar cards, with a total face value of four thousand dollars!

At an eighty-percent wholesale price, he collected three thousand two hundred dollars.

This trip had truly not been in vain. The phone cards he had just gotten from Liu Jun were already almost sold out.

He had smoothly recovered four thousand eight hundred dollars in payment!

Later, he would ask how sales were going on Song Xiaogang's side. Song Xiaogang would probably take all the remaining cards off his hands...

Being a wholesaler really was much more comfortable than retailing. He no longer had to run around every day delivering cards himself. He only needed to contact a few distributors and bring them cards once every week or two.

Now that Moscow University and People's Friendship University were settled, he needed to quickly figure out the remaining schools as well.

Ruan Xiaozhu was busy dressing up in the bathroom when Wang Ye turned and noticed a computer sitting on the table.

It was a desktop computer, with one of those bulky old monitors—a Sony Trinitron CRT flat-screen monitor.

Back then, it was high-end equipment!

An idea struck him, and Wang Ye called toward the bathroom, "Sis, your computer can get online, right? Can I use it for a bit?"

Ruan Xiaozhu replied crisply, "Sure. Just turn it on. There's no password."

Internet access around Moscow University's main building was very cheap. Apparently, unlimited monthly access cost only twenty-five dollars!

Of course, the connection speed was not particularly fast, but there was not much to do online back then anyway.

At most, people chatted on QQ, browsed the news, or chatted idly on forums.

There was no need for especially fast internet.

Wang Ye was not going online to fool around. He wanted to get in touch with Chinese international students at other schools in Moscow.

The other schools could not compare with Moscow University or People's Friendship University in terms of Chinese student numbers. They might only have a hundred or so, perhaps even just a dozen or twenty...

That was not worth Wang Ye making a trip to every single school.

But Wang Ye knew of a forum. On the then-famous domestic Xici Hutong Forum, there was a subforum for studying abroad in Eastern Europe.

There were quite a few Chinese students studying in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and other countries.

There were also people preparing to study in those countries, asking questions for advice.

Wang Ye planned to make a post there, leave his phone number, and wait for Chinese international students from other Moscow schools to contact him.

That would be more efficient and would not waste time.

After turning on the computer, Wang Ye skillfully opened Internet Explorer, entered the Xici Hutong Forum, logged in, and found the Eastern Europe study abroad discussion section.

The internet was not very developed back then, and the major forums were the most popular places online.

Places like Tianya Community, Mop Forum, Xici Hutong, and so on...

As soon as he opened the forum, he saw many posts asking questions related to studying abroad.

<May I ask the senior students, are schools in Ukraine legitimate? Is it easy to graduate?>

<I'm planning to go to Russia this year. With my grades, I definitely can't get into a good university. Can any older brothers or sisters recommend a legitimate university with cheap tuition? Also, which study abroad agency in China is more reliable?>

<Taking advantage of the Spring Festival break, I've already paid and signed up through an agency. Moscow University, here I come, haha...>

Wang Ye smiled when he saw those posts.

Before coming to Moscow, he had often asked people on the forums about various things too.

They were all trivial questions, such as how many clothes to bring and whether he could get used to the food in Moscow.

After all, he was going to a foreign country. It was only natural to feel nervous beforehand.

He casually clicked on the post by the person planning to attend Moscow University.

The poster had detailed the costs and procedures for arranging overseas study through an agency, which were matters forum users were quite interested in.

The poster was from Northeast China and had arranged his studies through an overseas education agency in the capital. The agency fee was forty-five thousand yuan, not including tuition, accommodation, plane tickets, and so on...

Seeing that, Wang Ye could not help saying, "What a rip-off!"

Naturally, he was complaining about that study abroad agency. It had charged such an outrageous fee all at once.

Wang Ye himself had gone through an agency in the capital of Central Plains Province, and they had charged only thirty-two thousand yuan...

He thought to himself, This guy got fleeced for so much money, yet he's still making a post to celebrate. How ridiculous...

Just as that thought crossed his mind, Wang Ye suddenly froze.