Television Set

A-Qiang looked in the mirror, once again confirming the shape of his face. It was truly a perfect isosceles trapezoid, expanding outwards from his forehead down to the sharp right angle of his chin. He thought, he had completely said goodbye to the word “beauty” for the rest of his life.

Eight years of chewing betel nut had transformed his face into its current state. It’s not that he hadn't considered stopping, but once the slight numbing sensation disappeared, he felt like something was missing in his life, like an old television set without a signal, leaving only the emptiness of snow static.

Today was his interview, for an algorithm engineer position at a large tech company. In his resume, A-Qiang had avoided all personal photos, only describing his expertise in various data analysis algorithms. He thought, as long as his technical skills were strong, appearance shouldn't be an issue.

The interviewer, a middle-aged man with gold-rimmed glasses, took A-Qiang's resume, quickly scanned it, his brow slightly furrowed, then he looked up, his gaze directly meeting A-Qiang's face. "Your... your face shape is quite unique." There was an undisguised surprise in the interviewer’s voice.

A-Qiang was a bit embarrassed, managing a forced smile: “Well, I… I used to do gymnastics when I was a kid.” He thought, this was probably the worst lie he had ever made.

The interviewer didn't ask further, instead immediately diving into technical questions. With his solid technical foundation, A-Qiang answered smoothly. He felt that this interview was in the bag.

"One last question," the interviewer said suddenly, "If you were to use a data model to analyze the current definition of 'beauty', how would you do it?"

A-Qiang was stunned, he had never considered this question. He was used to solving problems with logic and algorithms, but had never thought about 'beauty', such a subjective thing. “I… I would collect a large amount of social media data, analyze users' likes, comments, and the frequency of use of various beauty apps.” He tried to make his answer sound professional.

After hearing this, the interviewer gave a meaningful smile: “Very interesting approach, A-Qiang. However, I have a better method. Take a look at my monitor.”

He pointed to a large curved display on the desk. The monitor showed a facial recognition interface, a green box appeared in the center of the screen, and the system prompted: “Please align your face with the scanning area”.

A-Qiang was confused, but he still followed the instructions and brought his face closer to the screen. The scanning started, the green box adjusted continuously, and finally, a clear red box appeared on the screen, accurately framing A-Qiang’s peculiar face.

A large line of text appeared on the monitor: "System detected a non-standard face shape, not matching the aesthetic database, it is recommended to re-evaluate."

The interviewer pointed at the screen and said to A-Qiang: “Your algorithms are very impressive, but our system has a higher standard for ‘beauty’. I’m sorry, you did not pass the interview.”

A-Qiang looked at the red box on the monitor, as if seeing an epitome of his own life. He suddenly remembered the old television sets he had watched when he was a child, no matter how much he adjusted the antenna, the picture would never be clear.

He walked out of the building, looked up at the clear sky, his heart filled with mixed feelings. He took out the betel nut from his pocket, put it in his mouth, and the familiar tingling sensation burst on his tongue. He thought, perhaps, for him, the only thing that could bring a little signal was this small betel nut. As he chewed, his television-like face, reflected an absurd light under the sun.