8: Chapter 8: The Consultant, the Contract, and a Chance Song

The palm trees on the University of Southern California campus looked a bit wilted under the scorching California sun, but the Roman-style stone building near the fountain plaza was cool and pleasant. Alex sat in the small office of his academic advisor, Ms. Emily Chen, feeling like an intern waiting for an interview, even though all that lay before him was a blank course schedule.

Ms. Chen was in her forties, with an Asian face, wearing rimless glasses, and sporting a professional yet slightly scrutinizing smile. "So, Alex, welcome to USC. I see your intended major is 'Communication,' a very good choice. Could you tell me why you chose this? And what are your initial plans for college life?" She flipped through his file, her eyes skimming quickly over the note about his "parents' passing," her expression softening with a hint of imperceptible warmth.

Why choose Communication? Because it was the most convenient major to cover up all his future "creative" and "influential" activities. Plans? His real plans were in the YouTube backend and the system interface, which he couldn't talk about.

"I've always been interested in media and content creation," Alex said, sitting straight, his tone sincere. Thanks to the [Basic Social Intuition] he had just redeemed, he could subtly adjust his posture and tone to better fit the image of a serious freshman. "I feel that Communication can provide a relatively comprehensive theoretical foundation. As for plans... I hope that while doing well in my major courses, I can have opportunities to engage in some practical work, such as participating in campus media or trying out some personal creative projects." He intentionally kept it vague, leaving room for interpretation.

"Very good ideas." Ms. Chen nodded, marking the form. "USC has very rich resources in this area. The requirements for the Communication major are quite flexible, but core courses must be guaranteed. I suggest you don't take too many courses in your first semester, focusing mainly on adaptation. 'Introduction to Communication,' 'Media Writing,' and 'Fundamentals of Visual Communication' are very good starting points. In addition, for general education requirements, for the 'Arts Practice' credit, you could consider the course 'Introduction to Digital Media Production.' It fits your interests well and you can also learn practical skills."

The courses she recommended were standard and not too burdensome. Alex noted them down while quickly evaluating. These courses took up a manageable amount of time, and some content might even overlap with what he was already doing (like Visual Communication and Digital Media Production), which might, in turn, provide him with some theoretical support and proof of "learning outcomes."

"Also," Ms. Chen pushed up her glasses, "considering your personal situation, if you encounter any difficulties in your studies or life, be sure to contact me or the Student Services Center in a timely manner. The school has some targeted support programs." Her tone was cautious, but her intentions were good.

"Thank you, Ms. Chen. I will." Alex displayed moderate gratitude. He had successfully shaped the image of a freshman who had "suffered a setback but was positive and goal-oriented." This layer of protective camouflage seemed even more solid now.

After finalizing his course schedule, he walked out of the cool teaching building and plunged back into the heat wave. His student status was temporarily settled; next was the time to fulfill his commercial commitments.

He drove his BMW, carrying the full set of gear from Horizon Outdoors, to a stretch of coastline at the northern end of Santa Monica Beach that had relatively few tourists and was covered in black reefs. The afternoon sun was scorching, and the sea breeze was strong. He set up his tripod and the newly purchased portable camera (bought with the advance payment from Horizon Outdoors) and put on that dark grey shell jacket.

The concept for the video was simple: a young explorer (himself), wearing professional gear, climbing and jumping among the rugged reefs, looking for the best vantage point to view the sea. The footage would focus on demonstrating the performance of the gear in motion—the wind resistance of the fabric, the fit of the backpack, the grip of the soles. But Alex didn't want to make a boring product showcase. He intended to pair this silent footage, full of power and a sense of speed, with ethereal, slightly epic electronic music in post-production, creating a mood of "a lonely conqueror in dialogue with nature." Brand and product information would only appear in the most concise way on the opening and closing title cards.

The filming process went smoothly. The strong sea breeze made the shell jacket flap noisily, which actually added tension to the footage. His movements as he moved across the reefs were vigorous (thanks to the physical enhancement redeemed earlier) and flowed naturally. Some low-angle shots even captured a bit of the raw, documentary-like beauty.

In the evening, he returned home with the satisfying footage. Just after putting down the equipment, his email signaled a new message. It was from Mark's cousin in Silicon Valley, Eric.

The email style was very geeky, without small talk, directly attaching an invitation code for an internal testing platform and a short NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) electronic document. "Alex, welcome to our 'Chaos Testers' group. The platform has an Alpha version of our tool, as well as some simulated environments deliberately 'broken.' Feel free to play, feel free to dismantle, use any weird way you can think of to mess with it, and record all the moments when it crashes, freezes, or makes you feel 'what kind of design is this.' Leave feedback directly in the platform logs. Gift cards are settled monthly, floating based on the number of valid issues. See the attachment for stock option details; they aren't worth much, just treat them as a souvenir. Also, don't discuss specific technical details in public. Have fun."

Alex quickly browsed the NDA, using the newly redeemed [Basic Business Negotiation and Contract Review Points] to scan it, confirming there were no trap clauses, mainly confidentiality obligations and intellectual property ownership (explicitly stating that the creative ideas he fed back belonged to the company). These were standard terms for a tester. He readily signed it electronically.

Then, he logged into the testing platform. The interface was crude, like an unfinished construction site. The tool itself was a security assistant integrated into a browser plugin, with messy functionality, including vulnerability scanning, password security scoring, privacy settings checks, etc. He tried running a few functions; it was sluggish, and the interface interaction was anti-human. As expected, it was still in the early stages.

He didn't start "testing" immediately, but first observed the structure and logic of the entire system. Then, instead of following the conventional approach of looking for bugs one by one, he began to try some "invalid operations" and "conflicting commands"—such as forcibly disconnecting the network mid-scan, repeatedly and rapidly clicking the same button, entering extremely weird long strings... Many of these behaviors were based on his "pre-judgment" of common future software problems and bad user habits.

In less than twenty minutes, the plugin crashed three times, the browser tab froze once, and it triggered a strange error message pointing to a piece of unprocessed underlying code. He recorded these, along with simple reproduction steps and the system state at the time, one by one, and submitted the feedback. He even wrote in one piece of feedback: "An ordinary user would just curse and uninstall when encountering this situation. If the error message could be friendlier, or even provide a 'one-click recovery suggestion,' wouldn't it be better?"

This wasn't traditional testing, but more like a "destructive simulation of user experience." He knew that this early, rough, but tricky feedback might be more valuable to developers than finding ten ordinary bugs.

After dealing with the testing platform, it was late. While munching on a sandwich, he began editing the reef footage shot in the afternoon. The new computer had powerful performance, handling 4K footage with ease. He selected shots, adjusted the rhythm, and looked for suitable background music. While browsing an independent musician platform, he accidentally clicked on a playlist recommended based on his recent listening habits.

A crisp guitar intro flowed out, followed by a young, clear, narrative-style female voice singing. The lyrics were about the nervousness of leaving home, the longing for the future, and the little rebellion hidden in the bottom of one's heart.

It was Taylor Swift. But not the feeling of the later pop superstar with full aura, but rather the earlier, more 'Fearless' or even 'Taylor Swift' album flavor, a relatively obscure but catchy song.

Alex's fingers stopped on the mouse. The singing echoed in the quiet room, carrying the rustic feeling unique to 2010 that hadn't been overly polished by commercialism. He closed his eyes and let the melody flow. At this moment, he was not the reborn person calculating popularity, contracts, and test feedback, nor was he the Alex Su who needed to play the role of a good student. He was just a listener touched by a simple melody.

He thought of his own "leaving home" after living two lives, thought of the huge secrets and ambitions hidden in his heart, and also thought of everything he still needed to carefully explore and build in this life. The emotions in the singing unexpectedly resonated subtly with his state of mind at that moment.

He had originally planned to use electronic music to accompany the reef video to create a sense of alienated technology. But at this moment, a bolder idea popped up.

Why not try this?

He used this Taylor song as the foundation and readjusted his editing approach. The fast-paced climbing shots matched the drum beats, the slow-motion shots of standing against the wind on the top of the reef corresponded to the rising melody, and the close-ups of checking the details of the gear were accompanied by the guitar arpeggios... He carefully edited it, not letting the video become an MV for this song, but letting the music become a backdrop for the atmosphere, letting the visuals tell an independent story about "exploration and gear."

This was a risk. The brand might want a more "direct" display, and using a pop country song as background music might also bring copyright risks (although at this time, YouTube's copyright review for personal creative use was far less strict than it would be later). But he felt that this attempt might bring unexpected results, allowing the commercial collaboration video to also carry the unique aesthetic imprint of "Alex's Wonderland."

He decided to take a gamble. At worst, if the brand objected, he would switch back to the safe plan.

By the early hours of the morning, the video rendering was finished. He checked it one last time, and in the description bar, he @-ed the official account of Horizon Outdoors according to the contract requirements, and added the purchase link. At the same time, he also noted the music source in a small font: "Background Music: [Song Name] - Taylor Swift."

Click publish. He titled the video simply: "Above the Reefs."

After doing all this, exhaustion finally welled up. He leaned back in his chair, watching the computer screen go dark, reflecting his own blurry silhouette. Today, he was like a skilled juggler, tossing the balls of student, business partner, technical tester, and content creator all at once, and he hadn't let any of them drop yet.

Outside the window, the sound of the waves in Santa Monica could be faintly heard, echoing gently with the melody of Taylor remaining in his mind.

He suddenly felt a bit of anticipation for tomorrow, wondering what expression Eric would have when he saw those "tricky" test feedbacks. He was also a bit curious if Sarah from Horizon would frown or be pleasantly surprised when she saw the video using a pop song to accompany outdoor gear.

And that singing girl, where in the world was she at this moment, writing what kind of songs?

He shook his head, dispelling these wandering thoughts. Time to sleep. Tomorrow there were classes to choose, popularity in the system interface that needed attention (there should be a wave of growth after publishing the new video), new tasks for the testing platform, and perhaps he would have to deal with the "computer genius" reputation that might spread around campus.

Life was accelerating, and the roar of his "engine" seemed to be getting clearer and clearer. He turned off the desk lamp and plunged himself into darkness and silence. Only that accidentally intruding melody left a string of wet, glowing footprints on the shallows of his memory.