What It's Like Being a Vampire

Chapter 204: The Reclusive Old Xia?

You Meng’s message told him that the newly shot video, which Tang Baona had helped with the editing and soundtrack, was already done, and a link to the cloud storage site was attached.

After the disastrous results of their first video shoot, Xiang Kun had to redesign and revise the script to accommodate You Meng’s poor acting skills. After briefly reviewing the rehearsed video, he had them prepare for the official shoot.

Two weeks ago, You Meng had sent the finished video to Xiang kun for review. It was the result of three days of shooting – based on Xiang Kun’s storyboard, a video team from Tongshi Town was hired – and several days of editing.

But after watching it, Xiang Kun was still not satisfied. The points he had designed, and the effects he had desired, were not well expressed in the final video.

Based on this single video, it might generate a certain amount of views and followership, but it fell far short of his desired effect and certainly did not justify their investment.

If the first video failed to make a splash, then it was utterly pointless.

Xiang Kun also felt that his shooting script, no matter what, shouldn’t result in such a poor outcome.

Therefore, he sent the video to Tang Baona. After the two of them discussed, Tang Baona believed the problem laid mainly in the editing and post-production. She asked him to send over the raw video footage; she would try to edit it anew.

As he’d recently been busy with Director Lin’s project and his own “AI Assistant Plan,” he hadn’t had time to discuss and exchange views with Tang Baona online. After she finished, she sent the video directly to You Meng to get his opinion.

Besides praising the work with an excited “666,” You Meng couldn’t give any other feedback, so he forwarded the video to Xiang Kun.

After downloading and watching the video from the cloud link, Xiang Kun couldn’t help but exclaim “666” as well.

Damn! The same material, edited by different people, felt like completely different videos!

If Tang Baona’s edited video deserved a 10 out of 10, then the one edited by the photography team in Tongshi Town wouldn’t even score one point!

It was like comparing the work of makeup artists. One could transform a woman into a stunningly beautiful lady, rivalling popular actress Yang Zhen Er, while another would make her look like a hideous sister. The first makeup artist was naturally highly skilled, but the second one’s skills were irrefutably terrible.

“I knew it! There was no way the output of my meticulously designed script would be that bad!” Xiang Kun was extremely unsatisfied with the team that You Meng had hired, he would definitely not cooperate with them again. He even suspected that they intentionally edited the final video to look that terrible, as a way of squeezing more money out of You Meng.

The video edited by Tang Baona, on the other hand, perfectly conveyed Xiang Kun’s intended message and effects. The editing was rhythmically brilliant, the musical accompaniment was excellent, and even the sound effects were well placed. The inclusion of comic-like splits in several segments of the three-minute video added an intense and sharp feel. It was clear that Tang Baona put in a lot of time and effort.

Xiang Kun knew that Tang Baona loved editing videos. Under her Bilibili account, “Princess Tangdou,” she not only mixed and edited her own singing, but also created various themed film and animation mix videos. Even without her singing, they also garnered a lot of views, comments and coins.

Only he hadn’t expected that her editing would conform so well to his ideas. Of course, this partially reflected the principle of “the worse the one, the better the other” —the product made by the team from Tongshi Town was simply too terrible.

In addition, as a renowned Bilibili user herself, Tang Baona had a strong grasp of current online trends and knew well what netizens liked. Therefore, her control of rhythm and sound effects and background music was very spot-on.

Considering that Tang Baona works every day and only found time to do these tasks after getting home from work, sacrificing her leisure time, Xiang Kun felt both touched and guilty. He checked her Bilibili account, and sure enough, she hadn’t posted any new videos for over two weeks.

“I just watched the new video. It’s awesome!” Xiang Kun sent Tang Baona a message, who should have just started work at this time.

“Hehe, do you know how to repay me?” Tang Baona sent a grinning face emoji.

Xiang Kun: “Of course! Ten dinners! I guarantee you’ll be satisfied!”

Xiang Kun: “Are you free tonight? Invite Zhen’er to come over for dinner. If your sister and brother-in-law are free, they can also join.”

Tang Baona sent back an OK hand gesture.

It was already past two o’clock. If he wanted to host Tang Baona and others for dinner, he needed to not only prepare the ingredients, but also clean up the living room.

After “Alice” was officially “activated”, Xiang Kun no longer needed to do a lot of coding himself, so there was no need for such a spacious space. He could move the main machine and various peripherals into the room; it wouldn’t matter even if it were a bit crowded.

Despite being connected to a UPS, Xiang Kun still didn’t dare to disconnect the power when moving the computer. Wherever possible, he preferred to avoid power outages. Otherwise, if something went wrong and “Alice” crashed, he would have nowhere to turn for help.

He checked the progress of “Alice”, thinking that task 1 should have proceeded quite a bit by now. But when he “asked” about it, the feedback he got was that task 1 was only 3% complete.

What the hell!

It had been more than thirty hours already, at this rate, just completing task 1 would take a month and a half. He might as well do it manually in that case.

He asked “Alice” to put forth in Chinese logic the “requirements” she proposed for several functional modules. After looking at them for a while, Xiang Kun realized what the problem was – “Alice’s” “ideas” were too complicated. She had expanded too much on his description of task 1, reaching too far for comprehensive functionality and perfection. But for Xiang Kun, the most important thing right now was for it to be “usable”.

So he revised the requirements a bit and let “Alice” reassign tasks according to the new requirements.

For starters, it would be enough if she could recognize his voice and convert it into text. This was not a complicated function and many existing open-source frameworks could do it. “Alice” just needed to optimize it based on her “understanding.” The subsequent issues and functions could slowly be adjusted and expanded based on the data from the usage process.

So after modifying the requirements again, “Alice” asked Xiang Kun to input some voice data to assist in judgment. He complied and said some dialogue sentences displayed on the screen in a normal speaking tone, changing the tone according to different dialogue situations.

After recording more than an hour of audio, Xiang Kun estimated that “Alice” should be able to sort it out quickly.

Only Tang Baona and Yang Zhen’er came over for dinner that night. Tang Baoting and her fiancé Gao Yao had gone home for dinner with Gao Yao’s parents.

“One, two, three, four, five… Chef Xiang, hold on! We agreed on seven dishes and one soup! Why are there only five dishes? And these four plates of meat, they’re all rabbit, aren’t they? Can’t you change it up a bit? Where’s your spirit of innovation?”

Yang Zhen’er complained right after Xiang Kun served the food.

“Wow, Yang Old Three, you’ve got good eyes, knowing it’s all rabbit without even tasting it?” Xiang Kun laughed, “If you don’t want to eat rabbit meat, you can eat that green vegetable. Wasn’t it prepared especially for you?” He’d actually planned to prepare a few other dishes, but after finishing the recording for “task 1”, he didn’t have much time left to go shopping, and his fridge was now full of rabbit meat, which needed to be used up.

Yang Zhen’er shot him a glare, “I’ve had these four dishes so many times, I can tell it’s rabbit meat just by smelling it! Hold on, what did you just call me? Hey hey hey~? You actually called me Yang Lao San?? Baldy, are you asking for a beating… you believe it or not, I… I’ll beat up Nana!”

Tang Baona, who had been watching the fun, paused and pinched her best friend’s arm while scolding, “You can’t beat him so you come after me? You think I’m easy to bully? I’ll scratch you to death!”

Despite complaining that it was all rabbit meat, Yang Zhen’er really enjoyed the meal once it started.

Xiang Kun was already thoroughly acquainted with their tastes. Having prepared several familiar dishes, there wasn’t much that could go wrong.

During the meal, Xiang Kun deliberately guided the conversation towards Xia Libing.

“Oh, I always thought old Xia didn’t care much about the taste of food and always chose whatever was most convenient and quickest. But after having a few meals at Chef Xiang’s place, I realized when she starts discussing the flavors of food, she can even out-talk me and Nana! She really cares about flavor!” Yang Zhen’er exclaimed, “Chef Xiang, you are a natural-born cook!”

Xiang Kun smiled, “I’ll take that as a compliment.” Then added, “I always feel old Xia seems kind of withdrawn. Has she been like this all her life?”

“I heard from my mother that old Xia had some kind of illness when she was young, and even stayed in the hospital. It was probably something like autism, but it’s not a big deal. It didn’t affect her schooling in any way. She never got into any trouble in school, much better than me and our relatives. Always reading, and very academic. That’s why we call her ‘old Xia.’ She’s just not very good at socializing and doesn’t like interacting with people. Honestly, I was quite surprised when she decided to become a doctor.”

Yang Zhen’er sighed a little as she looked at Xiang Kun, “It’s strange, but old Xia seems to see you in a special light. Before, she would ignore my classmates, friends, and those who wanted to get close to her, make friends, or even pursue her. However, since meeting you, she agrees to hang out every time we invite her over. Mind you, she used to hardly agree to hang out even three times out of ten when I’d invite her. And I’m her cousin who watched her grow up!”

Tang Baona laughed from the side, saying, “At first, Zhen’er and I thought that old Xia considered you as a ‘research subject.’”

Yang Zhen’er said, “Hehe, we were joking, but old Xia, because of her personality, coupled with her studies in psychiatry and psychology, is quite accurate in her judgment of people. When I introduce my friends to her, she can describe their personalities quite accurately after just one meeting.”