America: I came here to study, not to show mercy.

Chapter 137 Signing Contract, New York Trip 2
The midday sun was shining brightly, and October brought some autumnal touches to the world. A gentle breeze blew in through the open windows, causing the curtains to swell and sway slightly.

The two-story white villa was very quiet. In the open kitchen by the window, on the island, a young man was facing four beautiful girls with different styles.

After Victoria finished speaking, she looked at the young man opposite her mischievously, and a smile appeared on the faces of the girls on both sides.

"From what you said, it tastes good?"

Li Xiaoen didn't care and smiled back at the girls. "The fruits are fresh, the flavors don't clash, and the method and technique don't ruin the taste of the fruit tea. I'm really good."

"Thank you for the recognition, Victoria."

"You're so thick-skinned."

Rolling her eyes, Victoria lowered her head and took another sip of the fruit tea.

"I prefer to call it, optimism."

Li Xiaoen put his hands on the island and smiled, "Twenty dollars, thank you."

"Twenty dollars?!"

Victoria was stunned for a moment when she heard that, then she reacted and glared back, "The tools and fruits you used are from our dormitory!"

"You know, Victoria, labor costs are very high in America."

With a gloomy face, Li Xiaoen said seriously.

"That's the truth."

Victoria nodded seriously, the purple tea making her rosy lips look a bit seductive. She said slowly, "Do you want some tacos?"

"Well, that cancels it out."

Li Xiaoen sighed and held out his hand, "Barter, where are my things?"

“Let’s eat together after we’re done!”

Victoria rejected Li Xiaoen's words without hesitation and couldn't help but glare at him warningly.

She finally understood that the young man's long speech was actually about this.

At this moment, a voice suddenly came from the side that attracted attention. It was Sufei's voice.

"I want a cup of that fruit tea too."

"..."

"I also want!"

Reacting quickly, Seraphina raised her hand, followed by Mary.

"You want money, right? Twenty dollars a cup?"

Raising his eyebrows, Sufeier looked at Li Xiaoen meaningfully.

"Forget it, beautiful women are free."

Li Xiaoen waved his hand proudly. Looking at Sufei's expression, if he nodded in agreement, he would probably take out hundreds of dollars immediately and ask him to make dozens or even hundreds of cups in a row.

"Humph……"

Sufeil hummed softly, a faint smile appeared on his face, and he lowered his head to start making tacos again.

Just as he was about to take out more blueberries from the refrigerator, Li Xiaoen noticed Victoria giving him a leisurely look and was stunned for a moment.

"They're free, so I have to charge money, right?"

Victoria murmured softly, her red lips opening and closing slightly.

Li Xiaoen: “???”

Not finished?
……

"what--"

Coming out of the girls' dormitory and walking back to the dormitory, Li Xiaoen couldn't help yawning and rubbed his face with his hand.

After this trip, he was full but a little tired.

He should have known that after inexplicably provoking all the girls, his lunch would not go well.

Forget about Sophie and Victoria, but later on Seraphina and Mary also joined in for no apparent reason - the point is, as far as he could remember, he didn't provoke them.

After going back to the dormitory for a nap to restore his spirits, Li Xiaoen didn't get up until two o'clock in the afternoon. He picked up his backpack and went to the laboratory.

It's not just to cope with Professor Sedgewick's inspections and assessments every two weeks. Since he has joined the laboratory and determined his research direction, he has to spend energy and time to do his best.

Needless to say, whether before or after obtaining the system, he decided that this would be his future development direction.

In the next few days, in addition to completing various courses, Li Xiaoen spent all his time perfecting the prototype of the system model, and time flew by and it was Saturday morning.

It's half past eight in the morning.

Li Xiaoen came to the parking lot at the school gate and drove his Maserati towards New York.

In theory, Apple does not work overtime on weekends, but this is only limited to the R&D department where the development progress is not urgent and other coordination departments where business is not busy.

After communicating with Apple's HR colleagues in New York and learning that they were working overtime on Saturday morning, he decided to go there on Saturday so that he wouldn't have to drive there in a hurry after class on Friday afternoon.

Driving out of the town, Li Xiaoen did not have the leisure time like the last time he came back. He followed the Princeton highway into the interstate highway and drove towards New York according to the fastest route on the navigation.

Unlike last time, perhaps because he was riding in a convertible, Li Xiaoen realized that there were quite a few cars carrying residents from neighboring cities or states heading to New York on weekends. After being stared at by several cars along the way, he ran into two black women in a jeep who opened the window to greet him and try to get close to him. He quickly closed the roof again.

The attention around him decreased, and there was no one opening the window to greet him. Li Xiaoen sped up and successfully arrived in Manhattan, New York at 10:30.

Even on weekends, when there are fewer office workers in suits and the financial district seems a little deserted, the streets of Manhattan are still bustling with people.

There are more tourists carrying shopping bags of all sizes, curiously taking pictures with their mobile phones, street hip-hop singers dancing with microphones on the roadside, and even homeless people in tattered and old clothes squatting on the roadside begging.

In the most prosperous area of ​​the world, the security and appearance of every street may be very different.

After parking the car in a nearby parking lot and walking about 300 meters, Li Xiaoen arrived downstairs of Apple.

Seeing that there were still many people coming in and out of the Starbucks downstairs, Li Xiaoen simply went in and bought a cup of coffee, sipping it in his hand while taking the elevator to go upstairs.

At least, she looks a bit like a white-collar worker in Manhattan, New York.

Sitting in the elevator, Li Xiaoen glanced at the coffee in his hand and felt a little amused - he was wearing casual clothes today, and he looked like a real tourist walking on the street.

The elevator stopped on the fourth floor. As Li Xiaoen walked out and turned the corner, a beautiful young girl in a uniform skirt came to greet him.

"You are...Mr. Li, right?"

Looking up at Li Xiaoen's face, the girl opened her eyes wide and said, "I'm here to sign the contract."

"Yes."

Li Xiaoen nodded and confirmed this week's check-in in his heart.

"So, it's not Daniel, right?"

The girl had a mischievous smile on her face.

"..."

"If I say I have two names, would you believe me?"

After pondering for a moment, Li Xiaoen asked back with a smile.

"Li Xiaoen, you can't use a fake name to sign the contract. This is what the HR manager told me."

The girl rolled her eyes. Seeing how talkative Li Xiaoen was and how few people were working overtime on weekends, she felt a lot more relaxed and quickened her pace to the front.

Last week, a young and handsome man suddenly came, and she naturally remembered his name. But when she met him again this week, before she was surprised, she found out that he had deceived her. She was always depressed.

Li Xiaoen had no choice but to follow behind, but his eyes were still attracted by the graceful figure of the girl in front of him, who was wrapped in black stockings and hip-hugging professional attire. Her waist was swaying, and even when she was walking quickly, her feminine lines were still graceful.

The person who invented the hip skirt is a genius. Li Xiaoen sighed inwardly, without any evil thoughts in his mind.

Arriving at the front desk, the girl sat back on the chair inside, picked up the phone, dialed it and put it to her ear.

While waiting, Li Xiaoen looked around at the decorations on both sides of the company's front desk. Suddenly, his cell phone rang. It was Sufeil.

"..."

After taking a look at the receptionist who was still waiting, Li Xiaoen made the call and walked to the waiting area not far away.

"Sufeil, what's going on?"

Li Xiaoen lowered his voice.

"Where are you?" Sufeil's words were as concise as ever.

"If you have anything to say, just tell me."

"Did you go somewhere shameful?"

Sufei's voice became depressed, and Li Xiaoen, who noticed it, sighed helplessly.

"New York."

"Reporting so soon? And on the weekend?"

"HR is working overtime this weekend, so I just reported here."

Li Xiaoen answered casually and looked towards the front desk. The girl at the front desk had already looked over after finishing her phone call. "Someone is waiting for me. Is it okay to hang up?"

As soon as he finished speaking, to his surprise, Sufeil hung up the call first.

No, you still need to fight for the top position in this kind of thing.

Shaking his head helplessly, Li Xiaoen walked back to the front desk.

"Let me take you to the conference room over here."

The girl at the front desk had already come out and was waiting on the side. She spoke slowly and walked in front, leading the way.

"Actually, you can go ahead. I don't mind."

Seeing everything, Li Xiaoen couldn't help but tilt his head and make a teasing sound. He immediately received a resentful look from the girl, which made him laugh even more.

"From now on, we'll at least be half colleagues. I'll come here occasionally. Can I know your name?"

The girl turned around and glanced at him, then nodded slightly: "You can call me Lavinia."

"A very nice name."

Li Xiaoen nodded, and came to the conference room surrounded by transparent glass and walked in.

The facilities in the conference room are simple, with a large long table, rows of chairs on the two long sides, and a lighted touch-sensitive computer near the inside.

The middle-aged man who was having the video interview was sitting among them and was looking over at this moment.

"Hello, Sean, nice to see you again."

"Hello, Mr. Heck."

The door of the conference room was closed by Lavinia. Li Xiaoen nodded and greeted him, then sat down opposite the man.

"I was very curious at the time. Sean, you are so young, but you have enough knowledge to be qualified for the job of a full-time software engineer for us."

After Li Xiaoen sat down, Heck smiled and started talking, repeatedly expressing his admiration, "I later found out that you were Professor Sedgewick's student. That's not surprising."

To this, Li Xiaoen could only respond with a smile, feeling quite helpless in his heart.

When he said this, people who didn't know would think that Professor Sedgewick was present and he was flattering Professor Sedgewick.

Could it be that, according to Apple's human resources, he got in through Professor Sedgewick's connections?

Sometimes, it can be a problem if the mentor has too many powerful backers.

"Enough of the nonsense, take a look at our contract."

After a few jokes, the man took out two documents from a briefcase on the side and pushed them over.

The contract involves many clauses, including not only his salary and benefits, but also the requirements of the outsourced work, the minimum number of work tasks to be undertaken each month, and privacy and confidentiality clauses.

For outsourced work which is not confidential, Apple has taken sufficient precautions in this regard.

Li Xiaoen browsed through it quickly, but it still took him quite some time. The man seemed to have expected this and sat quietly in the chair waiting. During this time, he even called Lavinia to bring him two glasses of water.

"I have no opinion."

Only after reading through all the terms did Li Xiaoen finally raise his head.

"Haha, then we are colleagues."

The man smiled and nodded, then stood up and extended his hand after waiting for Li Xiaoen to sign the contract.

After shaking hands with the other party and finalizing the matter, Li Xiaoen felt a little bored.

He couldn't go to other floors of the company and had already finished clocking in. Li Xiaoen walked around this floor and saw that it was already noon, so he decided to leave.

By coincidence, I met the receptionist named Lavinia in the elevator.

"Sean, are you going back?"

Lavinia took the initiative to speak, she knew that Li Xiaoen's contract was outsourced.

"Yes, I came here today just to sign a contract."

Li Xiaoen laughed and nodded, "The weekend is not the time to work."

"air……"

Lavinia rolled her eyes and couldn't help but look at the young man several times, "Sean, you look so young, did you just graduate from college?"

At Apple, some people could become full-time employees but chose to outsource. This kind of freely arranged work is indeed something that freshly graduated and energetic college students can do.

"Why do you think so?"

Li Xiaoen looked over and said, "I'm only a freshman, so it's probably impossible for me to become a regular employee."

"..."

"You're only a freshman in college?"

Lavinia couldn't help but exclaimed, "So you are really still very young?"

Originally, she thought Li Xiaoen looked young and thought that it was because Asians look young, but she didn't expect that the young man was really young.

It seemed that everyone would be surprised if he told it to them. Li Xiaoen didn't say anything, but waited quietly for the other party to come back to their senses, and couldn't help but think to himself.

How about you mention this when you introduce yourself next time?
But if you say it out loud, it will seem a bit strange and like you are showing off.

It wasn't a good idea at all, so Li Xiaoen simply stopped thinking about it.

After chatting for a while, they left the building, said goodbye to Lavinia, and walked towards the parking lot nearby.

Looking from a distance, his gray Maserati with smooth lines was parked there quietly. Unlike when he left, there was another tall girl leaning against the car.

The girl was wearing a gray shoulder-length top, black tight pants and long boots, and was wearing sunglasses so big that they almost covered half of her face.

The girl's face cannot be seen clearly from a distance, but her slender figure shows how beautiful she is.

As if noticing his gaze, the girl turned her head and looked over.

Although they were far apart and he was wearing big sunglasses, Li Xiaoen inexplicably felt that Sufei's gaze was full of resentment, and he couldn't help but wonder.

Did he offend this young lady again?
(End of this chapter)