The time for the Penacony grand event was slowly approaching, and his plan to replicate anime and movies in the Honkai: Star Rail World could also be put on the agenda.
Although he was still on the Space Station, this didn't prevent Bai Luan from trying to make some short animations to hone his technical skills.
Otherwise, if he was just giving orders, it would be difficult to convince others.
Anyone can be a critic, but not everyone's criticism is convincing.
To have a say, he must first demonstrate his strength.
He had discussed with Old Yang last time and learned a lot of relevant knowledge, and he had secretly practiced in the Little Black Room for a while.
Although he couldn't make things with too high a technical skill, making some small animations to test the waters was no problem.
Since he planned to make a small animation, what kind should he make... Ah! I've got it!
Bai Luan opened the professional software and began to build models. Soon, a model of a four-legged short cat standing was created by Bai Luan.
Perhaps just looking at this cat, you might not remember it.
But it doesn't matter, as long as it starts to spin, you will definitely recognize it.
And when it starts to spin, it must be accompanied by an appropriate strange sound!
"oiiaioooooiai!"
Soon, a short animated film, meaningless but inexplicably amusing, was produced by Bai Luan.
Bai Luan pressed the play button.
The short-legged cat first stood facing the camera, then spun around without warning the next second.
oiiaioooooiai!
Suddenly standing, looking directly at the camera.
oiiaioooooiai!
Thinking about how people would react when they saw this short film, Bai Luan couldn't help but laugh.
Bai Luan uploaded the video.
Soon, the first batch of victims appeared.
"Before watching this video, knowledge points were neatly arranged in my mind. After watching this video:
A research report on (oiiaioooooiai)², as everyone knows, (oiiaioooooiai)² = o²i²i²a²i²o²o²o²o²o²i²a²i²..."
"Eh? What is this... So weird, let me watch it again. Eh? What is this... So weird, let me watch it again."
"No! Stop it! I have an exam tomorrow! Don't appear in my head during my exam!"
"I can hardly imagine what mental state Yi Mu was in when he made this; is he really okay?"
"Serious videos show strength, abstract videos show mental state."
"Looking closely, the cat is quite cute. Let me show you my cat [image]."
Unfortunately, while the "oi cat" was invading the minds of Honkai: Star Rail netizens, Bai Luan didn't see it, because shortly after Bai Luan posted the "oi cat" video, Screwllum came over for an academic discussion.
After finally seeing Screwllum off, Ruan Mei followed closely behind.
Hiss... No, why does it feel like their visits have increased recently?
Originally, they would just come to chat for a couple of sentences whenever they had a sudden whim, not sure when.
Later, it became once every period of time.
Now, it's once every few days.
Now, it seems to be almost once a day.
No, why?
He didn't do anything, did he?
The simulated universe DLC he secretly developed was also hidden by him in a Curio he created, so even a genius couldn't guess that the simulated universe DLC was hidden inside that Curio.
To cover up the true purpose of this Curio, he now occasionally picks one from the large pile of Curios he made to play with.
After playing, he puts it back, to disguise the fact that he regularly takes out this particular Curio, reducing the possibility of being discovered.
It's impossible for the geniuses to research all the Curios he's idly taken out these days, and among the Staff on the Space Station, there are almost no individuals who can crack this Curio.
Therefore, the risk of him being exposed is not zero, but infinitely close to zero.
He hasn't been discovered, and what he's doing is the same as usual, so why would the frequency of the geniuses visiting him increase?
Bai Luan was utterly baffled.
He didn't know that, in Screwllum's logical circuits, communication with Bai Luan had been marked as a high-yield event.
This mechanical gentleman found that every time he conversed with Bai Luan, he could always gain new sparks of inspiration.
Even if some ideas were eventually proven to be misguided, valuable lessons could be extracted from them, always aiding the progress of his projects.
As the number of interactions with Bai Luan increased, Screwllum gradually noticed something.
How come every time he went to communicate with Bai Luan, he seemed to make a little bit of progress?
Although it wasn't much each time, there was indeed progress every time.
It was as if an invisible hand was controlling the project's progress.
Once or twice was fine, but making progress every time was very interesting.
Even for a genius, research often has stagnant plateaus, but Bai Luan seemed not to have this problem.
When faced with difficulties, he often paused for a moment, then immediately offered directional ideas.
After communicating with Ruan Mei, Screwllum found that she also felt the same way.
However, Bai Luan, with such high talent, had never actively undertaken any projects, mostly joining projects in an auxiliary capacity.
This was somewhat unreasonable.
Screwllum had thought about why, and finally came up with a perfect explanation.
Bai Luan... he was just too lazy to lead a project himself, not that he couldn't.
After all, from Bai Luan's performance, he seemed to quite enjoy his work as an assistant.
Otherwise, what other explanation could there be?
It couldn't be that Bai Luan knew what he wanted before he even spoke, knew the final outcome of the project, but was intentionally controlling the experimental process, could it?
Although Herta had also said that Bai Luan possessed the ability to predict the future, she also stated that his prophetic ability had certain flaws.
Screwllum shared the results of his thoughts with Ruan Mei, and she ultimately agreed.
Ruan Mei also believed that Screwllum's explanation sounded like something Bai Luan would do.
Having incredibly formidable talent, but only using it when he wanted to, otherwise leaving it dormant, just like an ordinary person.
This was truly a pity.
Regarding this situation, Ruan Mei and Screwllum reached a consensus:
Since Bai Luan is so useful, why not use him?
They must seek him out more often; Bai Luan is idle anyway, so he might as well be put to work.
The thoughts of the two geniuses at this moment were infinitely close to Herta's; the geniuses' views on a certain matter were surprisingly consistent.
From Bai Luan's perspective, he completely couldn't understand, because he was already controlling the number of effective suggestions he gave to Ruan Mei and Screwllum.
In fact, many of his suggestions, while seemingly reasonable, actually led to dead ends.
So, in Bai Luan's view, an assistant who provided so many incorrect ideas shouldn't receive such high attention.
Before Bai Luan understood that making mistakes was also a kind of gain for geniuses, he would remain in a state of utter confusion for some time.
When Bai Luan realized what he had done during this period, he really wanted to travel back in time and give himself a big slap on the face.
Of course, that's a story for later.
Currently, Bai Luan was still feeling melancholic.
After all, he had just figured out how to deal with the simulated universe DLC, and had finally found a comfortable rhythm to approach the matter, experiencing a long-lost sense of ease.
However, not long after, as if to make up for his missing workload, the frequency of the two geniuses visiting him increased.
Damn it, could this be a setup by the Aeon of "Equilibrium" to keep me from ever having peace?
Just to ensure I'm never idle?
This idea was extremely absurd.
But the most absurd thing was that after experiencing the gazes of the three Aeons—Aha, Nous, and Yaoshi—he actually started to feel that this absurd idea had a hint of reasonableness.
Every time an Aeon looked at him, it never brought him a good outcome.
Nous doubled his workload, Aha goes without saying, and Yaoshi also glanced at him in a very inappropriate place.
This Equilibrium... won't it also be preparing something big for him?
Although it's a bit far-fetched, the probability is truly not zero.
If this is true... no... I can understand you, Equilibrium, maintaining balance throughout the universe... but why are you balancing my workload for no reason?