Transparent Gift
Old Chen had been in the "Transparent Gift" project team for three months. His daily work was to stare at the screen, monitoring the "transparent gifts" sent by WeChat users - a type of virtual gift, where the recipient could see the gift but not touch it or convert it into real money.
Project supervisor Old Wang, a balding middle-aged man in his forties, would send out a "Today's Transparent Gift Sending Guide" in the group chat every morning, teaching everyone how to cleverly use transparent gifts to please clients and superiors. Old Chen felt this guide was like a carefully written palace intrigue manual, except the battlefield had moved from the harem to the office.
Old Chen’s wife, an elementary school teacher, didn't understand his job. "You guys study these superficial things all day, what's the point?" she complained. "It would be better to teach the children to recognize more words."
Old Chen couldn't explain. He knew that this project was the key focus of the company's new round of "digital transformation," which was said to greatly improve the "emotional circulation rate" between employees. Although he himself felt that this virtual "emotional circulation" was more like some kind of advanced PUA.
Today was Old Wang's birthday. According to the "guide," Old Chen had to take the lead in sending a "transparent gift." He carefully selected a "Starry Sky Gift Box," which shimmered with virtual starlight, and also included an emotional text: "Director Wang, thank you for illuminating our path forward like the stars!"
He nervously clicked "Send." A prompt popped up on the screen: "Gift has been sent. Since you are the first employee to send a transparent gift, you will receive an 'Active Response' badge." Old Chen looked at the shiny badge, feeling like a stamp collector, collecting these meaningless virtual medals.
In the afternoon, Old Wang sent out a red envelope in the group chat, thanking everyone for the "transparent gifts." The red envelope was a "lucky draw" type, and Old Chen grabbed a one-cent red envelope. He looked at it and felt that the "emotion" in this red envelope was not as real as the apple his wife peeled for him every night.
In the evening, Old Chen, as usual, opened the background data report of the "transparent gift." He wanted to see how many people had sent "transparent gifts" today and how many "Active Response" badges had been earned. Suddenly, he was stunned by a set of data: the "Starry Sky Gift Box" he had sent today was reported by Old Wang to the system's backend for "personal emotional information leakage."
On the screen, a line of small words slowly appeared: "User 'Old Wang' reported the transparent gift you sent, the reason being 'use of personal information with privacy risks'. The system has temporarily frozen the gift and deducted 10 credit points from you."
Old Chen was dumbfounded. He repeatedly checked the blessing he had written, and it clearly didn't reveal any privacy, so how did it become "leaking personal information?" He clicked on the report details and found that the reason for the report was blank.
Old Chen suddenly understood something.
He turned off the computer and looked out the window. The city's neon lights flickered in the night, like those illusory "transparent gifts," gorgeous yet cold. He picked up his phone and sent a message to his wife: "I'll treat you to something good tomorrow, something real."
Then, he opened WeChat and silently deleted the "Active Response" badge.