018 “Money in one hand, goods in the other!”

“Why are you working overtime? What the hell for?”

“Can’t help it. The city branch leaders are coming tomorrow to inspect our work. Everyone in the bank has to stay late,” Fang Qingye replied lazily, sitting in his chair and holding his phone.

“Damn... Even that senior manager of yours isn’t giving you any special treatment. Tonight’s supposed to be your shining moment,” Song Dahai grumbled over the phone.

“Whatever, whether I go or not doesn’t matter. You guys enjoy the food, drinks, and have a good time,” Fang Qingye smiled.

“Don’t worry, we won’t let Jiang Chen off easy!”

“All right, bye.” Fang Qingye hung up, a slight smile playing on his lips.

He really didn’t want to go.

Even if he had to work overtime, it wouldn’t be for long. He could finish by five, attend the meeting, and still make it to the hotel later.

With so many classmates gathered, he knew he’d end up drunk tonight, so there was no need to show off.

Sure enough, the overtime ended before seven. After eating the boxed meal pre-ordered by the leaders, Fang Qingye rode his scooter straight home and began working on his modeling project.

First came data preprocessing. Dongguan Girl had sent him a pile of investment data from a certain investment bank, which needed to be cleaned and transformed.

Data cleaning meant handling missing values and outliers, while transformation involved standardization, normalization, and other dimensionless processing.

Fang Qingye brewed himself a cup of tea and sat down at his computer to dive into the work.

Time flew when he was busy. Soon it was past ten o’clock, and Fang Qingye stretched.

Rest for now. He’d continue tomorrow.

Stay up all night working?

Not a chance.

He’d worked like a beast in his past life; this time around, he wasn’t about to exhaust himself.

First, a round of gaming.

Just as Fang Qingye launched World of Warcraft, his phone rang. Seeing it was Song Dahai, he answered casually, immediately greeted by Song’s booming voice.

“Damn! Yezi, you missed out big time tonight! Twelve tables of classmates, and everyone’s completely hammered!”

Fang Qingye was puzzled. “Twelve tables? That’s nearly a hundred classmates. How did so many come?”

“Don’t you know? Several classmates working in the city and neighboring counties came back. Plus, some who weren’t even in the group chat joined once they heard about this. It was wild... We haven’t had a reunion this packed since high school!”

“Jiang Chen must have spent a lot,” Fang Qingye chuckled.

“Yeah, they finished five whole boxes of ‘Dream Blue’ liquor! Jiang Chen’s face turned green near the end. He was supposed to go to karaoke afterward but got drunk and sneaked out the back door of the hotel! Haha... but you can’t run from a monk or a temple! He’s definitely paying for the karaoke—no one can stop that!”

Damn...

They really got wasted, even using lines like that.

“All right, all right. Let’s see how you cause trouble.”

After chatting a while longer, Fang Qingye hung up.

Song Dahai wasn’t the only one calling; several drunken classmates were buzzing him, some even asking Fang Qingye to teach them stock trading, which he firmly declined.

“Teach what? I’m just gambling and got lucky. My stocks are still in the red.”

“You asking if it’ll go up or down later? Honestly, I can’t say. Once it breaks even, I’ll get out quick.”

...

After enduring the rambling of these drunk classmates, it was already eleven.

Forget the game; better take a shower and sleep.

The next day, Fang Qingye arrived at work on time. To his irritation, the department informed him that the city branch leaders’ inspection was suddenly canceled due to urgent matters. They’d come another day.

So much wasted effort yesterday.

But that’s the workplace — leaders can change plans anytime; subordinates have no say.

What’s even more frustrating is preparing all day for a leader’s visit, only for them to glance around for five minutes before leaving. It’s infuriating.

Fang Qingye was used to it by now. Since no inspection was coming, he could focus on his own work.

Dimensionless processing, descriptive analysis, then moving on to formal modeling.

According to requirements, Fang Qingye was building a predictive model. Common methods included time series forecasting, regression analysis, machine learning, Markov prediction, or combinations thereof.

He chose regression analysis for prediction.

After a full day’s work, the model was completed. Next was model evaluation.

This step was crucial — the right metrics could accurately measure model performance. No time during the day, so he’d do it at night.

That evening, Fang Qingye continued his work, deciding to use mean squared error (MSE) and root mean squared error (RMSE) to evaluate.

Hmm...

The results looked good.

Done!

Fang Qingye logged onto QQ.

Several groups had unread messages, but he ignored them. The little penguin icon bounced repeatedly, flashing Dongguan Girl’s avatar dressed in a sailor suit.

Every time Fang Qingye logged in, he saw her avatar flashing but usually ignored it unless there was something important.

He clicked her avatar, and a flood of messages appeared.

“Husband, are you there?”

“Husband, your wife misses you. Even though you’re not by my side, we’re still part of the story. Even if I’m not with you, you remain my leading man.”

“Hey, you silly ghost, is your model ready? If not, I’ll come do it myself!” Followed by a string of bloody knives.

...

Reading through the chaotic messages, Fang Qingye sighed and replied, “It’s done.”

Her avatar lit up immediately, and messages came pouring in.

“Husband, you’re finally here. I missed you so much.”

That fast?

Fang Qingye suspected she was glued to her phone or keyboard all the time.

“Miss your sister? I don’t have a sister,” he shot back bluntly.

“I have a cousin. Do you want me to talk about the legendary sisters Ehuang and Nüying?”

“*Blushing* *Blushing*” emojis.

Fang Qingye felt speechless. “If you keep talking nonsense, I’m logging off.”

“Okay, okay, did you finish it?” Dongguan Girl quickly turned serious.

“Yeah, I’ll send it to you. Payment upon delivery,” Fang Qingye reminded.

“Don’t worry, you’re my husband. How could I scam you?”

Fang Qingye sent over the completed document.

After receiving it, she was silent for a while. Fang Qingye wasn’t worried — he knew she was evaluating the model.

He poured out the now flavorless tea and brewed a fresh cup, sipping slowly.

About twenty minutes later, her avatar started flashing again.

“Well done, husband. You’re amazing.”

“Cut the flattery, pay up!”

“Okay, send me your account info. I’ll transfer right away.”

Fang Qingye sent his salary card number and real name.

“Husband, your name is Fang Qingye? Such an artistic name. Was your dad a teacher?” she teased with a smile.

She guessed right.

His dad had once been a literary youth, which was why he’d gotten such a name, but Fang Qingye ignored it.

“Transfer the money!”

Five minutes later, Fang Qingye’s phone beeped with a notification — 200,000 RMB had been transferred.

At last, Fang Qingye relaxed.

He’d really worried that she might take the model and disappear without paying.

Thankfully, Dongguan Girl had a good reputation.

After replying “Received” on QQ and preparing to log off, she suddenly sent another message: “Want to build another model?”