After the three-month probation period, He Kao smoothly transitioned to a full-time position as a P2 Level employee. The income was decent, after all, it was a big company. Then He Kao moved to an apartment nearby for convenience.
During this time, the project team hired a batch of new employees, along with some colleagues transferred from other departments. Gao Xue'e clearly placed more importance on the newly hired staff, and tried to assign tasks to them, at least on the surface.
Among these new employees, Gao Xue'e still valued He Kao the most, as if she intended to cultivate him into her core team and as a business pillar. Some colleagues even joked behind his back that he was going to become her little puppy or something.
Gao Xue'e, as her name suggests, truly had skin fairer than snow and was a beautiful young lady.
She held a Ph.D. and was already a P6 Level employee at Tengxin Group at a young age, leading a project team, perfectly fitting the image of a so-called "strong independent woman" in the modern city.
Looking at it this way, Gao Xue'e was not without capability, nor was she completely clueless about the business. However, at work she often gave the impression of making decisions hastily and assigning tasks thoughtlessly, perhaps due to other reasons or just out of habit.
For a young woman like Gao Xue'e, the destructive power over someone like He Kao, who was just entering the workforce, should be the greatest.
And the reality was indeed so. On weekends when He Kao was lazing in bed, he would occasionally recall some types of action films he had seen, unconsciously placing himself as the male actor, sometimes even imagining Gao Xue'e as the female co-actor.
Yet in reality, He Kao became more and more reluctant to interact with Gao Xue'e. Every time President E assigned him work or listened to business reports from him, He Kao felt a lot of pressure.
During interactions, especially one-on-one exchanges with President E, He Kao always felt an inexplicable anxiety. This anxiety likely originated from Gao Xue'e, and He Kao, being very sensitive, was subtly influenced.
He Kao was also unsure what Gao Xue'e was anxious about, but employees throughout the department could more or less sense her "unreasonable" attitude at work, which might be a reflection of her internal anxiety.
Today, He Kao had another unscheduled work task, which initiated from President E picking on Xiaopang's shortcomings. Last month, at the work meeting, she criticized Huang Xiaopang for designing all the virtual store's service staff as female, citing it as typical male chauvinism.
The fact was indeed so; the NPCs designed by Huang Xiaopang for the virtual scenarios were basically in line with the image of young women in the eyes of homebodies, with both anime and reality show types.
The so-called anime type refers to those character images from animations but made three-dimensional. When customers put on VR equipment and enter the virtual scene, it's as if they're really communicating face to face.
The reality show type involves real-life images in virtual reality, sometimes even based on real celebrities. Tengxin Group has an entertainment division and maintains signed partnerships with many celebrities, allowing their images to be modeled and introduced into virtual scenarios.
For example, if a celebrity endorses a brand, that celebrity can be used as a guide in the brand's virtual store, providing services to customers as if it were the real celebrity.
Introducing real celebrities into virtual scenarios is still in the planning stage and hasn't been truly implemented yet.
In the various virtual scenarios designed by Xiaopang, the service staff, guides, and interpreters, whether anime or reality show types, are mostly beautiful and sexy young women.
Gao Xue'e believed this was unacceptable and that handsome, sunny, and healthy male images should also be available for customers to choose from. The leadership made their decision, and Huang Xiaopang accepted it.
The specific approach involved spending money to hire models, signing contracts to scan data, and then having AI model and modify the images. All these tasks were done. But after completing the initial design, at today's work meeting, President E pointed out another flaw.
In the virtual reality scenes, there not only needed to be images but also voices. Xiaopang used AI synthesized voices. Gao Xue'e claimed such voices lacked soul and therefore emotion, primarily disliking their sound, and she requested trying out real human voices instead.
This was obviously an amateur demand. Fixed greetings or introduction words could have real human recordings played, but in random interactive scenarios, it still required synthesis of AI voice based on real human voice quality and tone.
Huang Xiaopang immediately objected, but President E insisted, wanting the pre-written greetings and introductions to be tested with real human recordings—this task unexpectedly fell on He Kao.
Gao Xue'e didn't want He Kao to hire a voice actor for recordings, but she wanted He Kao himself to do the voice recording. Upon hearing this, He Kao regretted his resume embellishment, where he noted his experience as a campus radio station broadcaster.
However, the project team didn't have a recording room. It was Xiaopang's idea for He Kao to find a quiet place and record a few clips on his phone, then reduce noise and edit on a computer, and see what the leadership says if the effect works.
Thus, that afternoon, He Kao went to the café downstairs, using his phone's recording feature to capture a few audio clips. During his graduate studies, He Kao worked at this café and knew it was usually empty and very quiet in the afternoon.
However, being in a state of grogginess since getting out of bed today, after recording the audio, He Kao absentmindedly shoved his phone into his pocket, not noticing it slipping out between the chair and the wall when he stood up.
After returning, he was called to the cubicle by President E to discuss other work, which took a good while, and when he finally got back to his computer, Xiaopang came to request the recording, only then did he realize his phone was missing.