The office door was pushed open, and Tian Rao skipped in, holding three cotton candies.
She was wearing a white tank top and khaki shorts today, her good figure clearly displayed. Her skin was as pale as snow or salt, and her fluffy short hair was dyed a pastel pink, like ice cream. With a strawberry-scented perfume, she exuded an aura of youthful vitality.
"Candy, candy! I saw a shop selling cotton candy on the roadside, let's each have one," Tian Rao said happily, like a child, holding out the candies.
"Thank you," Xu Yan took the cotton candy but didn't eat it, just held it in her hand.
Jiang Ye did the same, holding the candy without eating it, looking at Tian Rao with a peculiar gaze.
Tian Rao was taken aback. "The atmosphere is wrong. What's going on, calling me over so suddenly?"
Jiang Ye popped the cotton candy into his mouth and clapped his hands three times.
With the crisp sound, the standby screen suddenly lit up, displaying the resume.
Tian Rao froze when she saw the photo on the resume.
Xu Yan and Jiang Ye moved in unison, first looking at Tian Rao, then at the photo, then back at Tian Rao.
It was uncanny how similar they were, like looking into a funhouse mirror, except this mirror didn't distort size but showed what someone would look like twenty or thirty years later.
The conference room was deathly silent. For a full two minutes, the three of them stared at the photo on the screen without a word, like archaeologists gazing at a newly discovered ancient mural.
"Who... who is this?" Tian Rao asked, bewildered and a little scared.
Anyone would be creeped out seeing someone who looked exactly like them.
"It's written on the resume," Jiang Ye said, looking up and reading. "Yue Qiaoyun, Bachelor of Science in Electronic Engineering from Quebian University, Master of Science in Communication Engineering from Greba University, Master of Science in Data Analysis from Tangyu University."
"This resume belongs to a staff member we're about to recruit to our planet," Jiang Ye explained. "As you can see, she looks almost identical to you. So we wanted to ask you... do you know her?"
Tian Rao shook her head, her brow furrowed, her small hands clutching the stick of the cotton candy. "She... really looks so much like me."
"Do you have any long-lost... relatives? Blood relatives?" Xu Yan asked tentatively.
"I... I don't know," Tian Rao said pitifully. "I don't think so, but seeing this person's photo, I have a feeling she must be related to me somehow..."
"Then do you want to meet her?" Jiang Ye asked. "If I recruit her, you can meet within about a week. This is up to you. If you want to meet her, I'll arrange it. If you don't, I won't hire her, and Xu Yan and I will keep it strictly confidential, not letting a fourth person know."
"I definitely want to meet her," Tian Rao said softly, wilting like celery left out in the sun. "I'm also very curious who she is."
Jiang Ye observed her reaction, suspecting she might have some hidden secrets, but she was unwilling to share them for now.
He suddenly realized that although he had been friends with Tian Rao for many years, he knew very little about her past.
If it were truly a long-lost sister... the age difference would be a bit too large, but with current medical advancements, it was possible even with a significant gap. It could even be a mother-daughter relationship; the ages would fit, and looking alike could be understood. Some people's genes were so strong that they looked similar across generations.
It was also possible it was just a pure coincidence, but the more he looked at the photo, the more he doubted if such coincidences could exist in the world.
In any case, since they had encountered this, they should investigate it thoroughly.
Jiang Ye clapped his hands, and the resume was automatically processed as "Hired."
"Am I... done here?" Tian Rao blinked.
"Stay for dinner, we're about to eat," Xu Yan said.
"No, no, I have too many orders to process, I need to get back to work," Tian Rao stood up, holding the half-eaten cotton candy. "If that person comes, just... call me."
"Definitely, definitely," Jiang Ye nodded. "Thanks for the cotton candy, bye."
"Bye, Brother Jiang, bye, Sister Xu!" Tian Rao ran out, her face heavy with thought.
Jiang Ye continued working, sifting through resumes.
Throughout the day, he selected six thousand decent resumes from a pool of twenty thousand.
The combined monthly salaries of these individuals amounted to a staggering thirty billion, with an average monthly salary of fifty thousand yuan per person.
It was a considerable expense, but Jiang Ye could afford it. Once the solar storm passed, he would encourage these individuals to teach at universities for extra income.
The construction of the stellar observation bases began that day, with six bases commencing simultaneously worldwide. Almost all of the construction teams mobilized by White Ant Real Estate were deployed, along with auxiliary engineering corps from the military.
Jiang Ye supervised the construction daily through live video feeds. The scale of the observation bases was larger than he had imagined, almost like small towns. Each base had a different geographical environment: one overlooked a black-blue sea, another was situated on a high-altitude snow mountain, and others were in desert interiors, grasslands, and stone plains.
In addition to supervision, Jiang Ye also focused on the logistics city and the intelligent fungi.
The logistics city was operating at full capacity, with a massive throughput of goods daily. This week, the average daily throughput was 800 large containers, 3,300 small containers, and 200 ships of special cargo, with a daily cargo weight of 80,000 tons. With a single tap on his desk screen, Jiang Ye could access all cargo manifests, listing all sorts of items, more spectacular than any in-game inventory.
He had already instructed Che Zhen to establish a special force responsible for inspecting incoming goods, both to check for contraband and to prevent alien species from invading. After all, these goods were coming from various planets, and the consequences of accidentally introducing strange alien creatures could be dire.
Isabelle seemed to be extremely busy during this period. A couple of days ago, she posted on her social media about her sleep time displayed by her bedside lamp: "Average daily sleep in the past week: 4.8 hours, deep sleep: 2 hours. Cultivating immortality is easy, but meeting the King of Hell is also easy. Sleep more!" Jiang Ye estimated that the miscellaneous tasks at the logistics city must be overwhelming.
The intelligent fungi were still growing robustly.
The music-producing fungi had already received an order to compose a film score and were working diligently on the music. Jiang Ye had listened to a preview; the music was incredibly moving and, in his opinion, would have easily won an Oscar for Best Original Score in the past.
The novel-writing fungi continued to be highly productive, simultaneously serializing three web novels, two of which had already climbed into the platform's top ten, showing fierce momentum. The traditional short stories they had previously written were also being serialized in literary magazines to great acclaim, and they had received notifications for several literary awards. However, it was unlikely the intelligent fungi would be able to attend the award ceremonies.
Jiang Ye drafted a thank-you email, essentially stating that he was immensely grateful for the award, but his current creative schedule was too demanding to allow him to attend in person, and he requested understanding. If he could still receive the award without attending, he asked for the certificate and trophy to be mailed to Jiang Ye Star. If non-attendance was considered a forfeiture, then they could do as they pleased. This email was quite versatile and could be sent with minor adjustments to the salutation.