Becoming a Confidence Coach to an Arrogant Director - Chapter 3

Chapter 3: The Art of Manipulation

Normally, the cool and composed Director Gu would never lose her composure in front of others, but this young woman had broken through her defenses multiple times.

After regaining her calm, she slowly stood up and casually tossed the pin onto the computer desk.

She crossed her arms and scrutinized the person in front of her.

“Do you remember why you were in my room?”

A deliberately suppressed frustration laced her calm tone. She didn’t miss the look of confusion in the girl’s eyes as she lay on the sofa.

“I… I… I just… I just wanted to use the computer…”

Yuan Yishan subconsciously clenched her fingers. The speech she had rehearsed countless times in her mind still came out timidly.

“Hmm?”

Gu Jin raised an eyebrow, motioning for her to continue.

“To upload my onboarding documents.”

She fell silent after saying that.

Gu Jin’s silence made the entire room feel exceptionally heavy.

Her eyes, as clear as autumn water, radiated a cold, chilling light.

Yuan Yishan felt like a criminal awaiting a judge’s verdict.

After a long pause, Gu Jin said in a low voice,

“You used the computer in the director’s office?”

“I… I didn’t see clearly.”

“You didn’t see clearly?”

Yuan Yishan pursed her lips and said nothing, looking like a good student who had fallen asleep in class and was suddenly called on to answer a question. A strong sense of embarrassment washed over her.

“Then do you know the consequences of a sudden power outage during a critical moment of Double Eleven?”

If the first two questions had only made her feel awkward, this one was a real, fatal blow.

Yuan Yishan was completely speechless.

As a core R&D person, how could she not know the consequences of a server crash during a user’s flash sale?

If this was investigated, it was something she, a mere employee, couldn’t afford to bear.

What’s more, in this world, she seemed to be just a newly graduated college student, a programmer mood booster.

At this moment, the unintelligent sprite became quite effective. After detecting the user’s emotion, the porcelain doll-like face instantly changed.

Gu Jin had intended to hold her accountable on the spot, but seeing the person’s pale face, she was afraid of accidentally making her faint again.

She thought, it’s better to leave this kind of thing for Pei He to handle!

“How do you feel now? Should I send you to the hospital?”

This was a 360-degree turn.

Yuan Yishan gave a start, almost bouncing off the sofa. She half-fell and half-sat up.

She quickly waved her hands.

“No, no, no, I don’t need to go to the hospital. I just had a bit of low bl00d sugar. I’m fine now, I really don’t need to go to the hospital!”

—I can’t go to the hospital! If I go, my identity as a robot will be completely exposed.

Yuan Yishan clearly remembered that when the R&D department first entered the data, the core sprite’s sample data came from the first programmer mood booster in real life.

Back then, there were no such things as core robots. Her company, as one of the three major internet giants in the country, began introducing core robot products in 2020. It took hundreds of R&D personnel a full 8 years to develop this one barely passable intelligent machine, which had now transmigrated to another dimension, machine and all.

She had to hide her identity well to preserve this lifeline for her company.

To safely come from reality and return to reality.

Gu Jin looked at the person’s pensive expression, and it seemed there was nothing seriously wrong with her.

She glanced at the time. Pei He had said they were going to have a meeting, so they should be connected by now.

“I have a meeting to attend. You?”

Yuan Yishan was still thinking about how to answer when the system’s mechanical voice prompted her.

Host, the system is relatively fragile in the early stages of reboot. It is not recommended that you be too far from the bound user.

“I’ll go with you!”

…

In the conference room, Pei He had already set up the projector. Thirty-some developers sat with long, dejected faces.

“I’m really sorry to call you all in for this meeting so late. It was an emergency…”

Before Boss Pei could finish his official speech, Gu Jin arrived.

When the programmers saw the familiar figure, their relaxed demeanor instantly disappeared, and they all sat up straighter than before.

Gu Jin walked straight in with her laptop, found an empty seat, and sat down.

Behind her, Yuan Yishan was hesitant, unsure whether to sit or stand. In the end, it was Boss Pei who kindly smiled at the young girl.

“Find a seat, Yishan!”

Yuan Yishan sat down under the gaze of a group of unfamiliar faces.

She had always thought she had a thick skin, but facing a group of programmers whose code she had ruined, she felt inexplicably guilty. She even felt her cold, porcelain-like face starting to get hot.

After sitting down, Gu Jin immediately went into work mode.

She pulled everyone’s latest commits onto her laptop and stared intently at the code in the editor.

Boss Pei glanced at Gu Jin and stopped his official speech.

“Alright, I’ll get straight to the point! There was a sudden power outage just now, but thankfully, Director Gu saved the day and restarted the server before midnight.”

“The main reason for calling everyone here is to check on your current situations. Let’s just go over them briefly, okay!”

When Yuan Yishan heard “saved the day,” the tense string in her mind finally relaxed a little.

—Thank goodness they managed to save it! No substantial damage was done, otherwise, a small-time worker like her…

Following the boss’s gaze, the young man to his right stood up.

“I was in the middle of entering customs data when the power went out, so I’m re-summarizing it now.”

“When do you think you can finish?” Boss Pei asked.

The young man’s eyes flickered to Director Gu. He hesitated for a few seconds, unsure.

“I’ll try to finish before noon tomorrow!”

Gu Jin, in a delayed reaction, didn’t even look up. She kept staring at the code on the screen and asked in a low voice.

“Why until noon tomorrow? Can’t you restore the data backup?”

The young man stammered.

“I… I don’t know how to do that…”

“Move the CBR, back up local data directly to the cloud. Go look it up yourself, and get it done before work tomorrow morning!”

Gu Jin’s simple sentence was delivered with an unmistakable authority.

Silence fell over the conference room once again.

Yuan Yishan looked at the young man’s crestfallen face and, with a strong sense of guilt, silently lamented the hardships of being an office worker.

Although she couldn’t control what happened, making others take the blame for her was a bit too immoral.

She thought she should apologize to everyone in person after the meeting.

“Xiao Shu, how’s your situation?”

Boss Pei got the meeting back on track.

With the scraping sound of a chair being dragged across the floor, a mature, steady man stood up with a look of deep emotion.

You could tell from the amount of hair he had that he was a major player.

And as soon as he spoke, it was confirmed.

The man’s tone and entire demeanor radiated the superiority of a successful person.

“My order-processing function is okay. All the lost code has been restored. The latest commit is on GitHub, so there’s no big problem!”

While he was speaking, Gu Jin had already projected the corresponding order-processing code onto the screen for everyone to see.

She didn’t say a word and started marking up the code directly.

Soon, under the rapid clatter of Director Gu’s keyboard, a bunch of very obvious bugs appeared on the projector.

Yuan Yishan scanned the annotations and, combining them with the man’s earlier confidence, almost burst out laughing.

The next second, she heard the woman deliver a soul-crushing question to the guy.

“Is this the code you wrote? Huh?”

Yuan Yishan followed the gaze and saw the man’s face, which was already thin-skinned, turn beet red from her single sentence.

“I wrote this in a rush, so it was a bit hurried, and…”

He was still trying to explain, but he immediately cowered when he met the woman’s light, inky gaze.

Gu Jin’s silence made the entire conference room exceptionally heavy, and time seemed to pass slowly.

Then, Director Gu deleted the man’s code in front of everyone.

Without any mercy.

Yuan Yishan shivered on the spot.

As a senior programmer at the P8 level, she had also mentored many apprentices.

For simple-minded, straight male programmers, she had always taught them hand-in-hand, little by little. If that didn’t work, a little coquettish whining would usually get the job done, and everyone would be friendly. How could she be so harsh now? This was a bit too strict!

The programmers were also in a state of confusion.

The man whose code had just been deleted had white knuckles but didn’t dare to say a single word.

The atmosphere instantly froze.

Pei He, who had been silently observing from the side, finally stepped forward to ease the awkward situation.

“Alright, Director Gu, the sudden power outage was indeed an external factor. Xiao Shu worked so hard to get this code done. Can you not be so serious about it?”

“Rushed? So if I’m not serious, will you fix the problems that arise later?”

Gu Jin’s meticulousness at work left Boss Pei speechless.

He rubbed his nose and coughed lightly.

“Um… I take that back!”

Yuan Yishan held back her laughter, thinking that this senior brother was a little bit cute.

At the same time, an extremely intense gaze was reflected on the control panel of her electronic brain. She looked up, and her porcelain-like face met Director Gu’s sharp eyes head-on.

Then, that cold voice appeared again.

“You explain it to everyone!”

Yuan Yishan was terrified. She didn’t know what excuse to use.

After some thought, she decided to repeat the system’s earlier, uncontrollable electronic message.

“I’m sorry! It’s all my fault!”

“Seeing everyone working so hard, I just thought I’d brew some coffee for everyone. Who knew the power would suddenly go out? I really didn’t mean to, I’m sorry!”

The programmers, who had been looking somber, finally couldn’t help themselves when they heard this. They exchanged glances in twos and threes.

Gu Jin glanced at Boss Pei but said nothing.

The conference room fell silent once more.

After a long time, Boss Pei sighed gently.

“Yishan, do you know how critical the Double Eleven sales push is for our company?”

Everyone’s eyes converged. Boss Pei’s kind tone was tinged with a hint of helplessness.

Yuan Yishan couldn’t be sure of his attitude.

But to keep her position as a programmer mood booster and stay close to the user, she had no choice but to be ruthless.

So, she activated the core sprite’s cute-act program.

The robot body bowed in a curtsy, and a sweet, electronic voice apologized repeatedly in front of everyone.

Her beautiful eyes welled up with tears, and her voice was laced with a hint of a sob.

Looking at the pitiable young girl, everyone was stunned.

Only Director Gu’s eyes were terrifyingly cold.

Boss Pei glanced at Gu Jin.

—As expected of my senior sister. One second she’s getting things done with the girl, the next she’s bringing her out to be publicly shamed.

He immediately changed his tone and played the good guy once more.

“Yishan, I don’t mean to specially blame you. As a newcomer, everyone makes mistakes, but you must be careful next time!”

The programmers: ?

Gu Jin: !!!