After Ruan Mei assured him it was fine, Bai Luan handed The Swarm over to her and turned back to creating his Pokémon.
After all, Pokémon looked far more pleasant than The Swarm.
Who'd rather study The Swarm when you can research beautiful Pokémon?
Only Ruan Mei and the special Swarm were left in the lab.
Looking at The Swarm, Ruan Mei suddenly had a thought:
Could it be that crafting such a Swarm from scratch wasn't as hard as she'd imagined?
Bai Luan had simply seemed too relaxed and taken too little time.
That gave Ruan Mei the illusion that the task was easy.
Previously she'd assumed the project would be difficult, based on past experience.
In other words, it was only conjecture—an educated guess.
Yet now a living example suggesting it might be easy stood before her.
An example versus a guess—which is more convincing needs no explanation.
With that idea, Ruan Mei tried to create a special Swarm from scratch herself.
After days of attempts, Ruan Mei confirmed one thing—she had been right.
Not, however, about "it being easy"; rather, her experience had correctly judged it "definitely not easy".
People really should trust their own experience.
Hands-on feedback showed the success rate of the experiment was low.
She'd achieved some results these days, but at her speed she could never craft an evolved Swarm in three days.
How had he done it?
Curious, Ruan Mei went to Bai Luan's lab.
She found that while she'd struggled with The Swarm, Bai Luan hadn't stopped; he was still creating creatures she'd never seen.
Several such beings moved calmly inside a custom-built habitat.
A small brown beast with a fluffy Tail and bright black eyes curled lazily on a thermal pad, napping.
A jade-green caterpillar slowly nibbled a leaf, red antennae swaying slightly.
An orange-and-white puppy-like creature energetically chased a rolling ball.
Even a strange beast resembling a dragon-kid hybrid lay quietly in the corner, eyes gleaming with curiosity—while Bai Luan stood at the central console, wholly focused on adjusting the incubator's parameters.
Inside the chamber floated a tiny Pikachu-colored embryo, faint lightning flickering across its surface.
On the nearby holo-notepad were scribbled names: Eevee, Caterpie, Growlithe, Chimera… and the current project "Pikachu."
Below was an addendum:
"Land Beast size estimate exceeds limits; placement pending—suspended."
To avoid equilibrium elbowing him, Bai Luan had created all these Pokémon in their initial forms.
Once they evolved, equilibrium could go cry in a corner.
His reason for choosing these Pokémon as the first batch was equally shallow.
Cute and adorable.
The only downside of being surrounded by cuteness was that one person couldn't look after them all.
"Hm… wonder if the Staff Members would mind adopting a Pokémon."
Ruan Mei stared at the lab full of species she'd never seen.
Creating an entirely new species isn't hard for a genius.
But were these creatures
really just ordinary animals?
Ruan Mei stepped inside, greeted Bai Luan, and began pulling up the lab data.
As expected, every unfamiliar creature could also evolve.
They were not just new species but potentially evolutionary life-forms with clear growth paths.
So not only had he achieved The Swarm objective, he'd also mastered by analogy?
And maintained such a high success rate?
An absurd yet overwhelming question surfaced in Ruan Mei's mind:
Were the two of them even working on the same experiment?
She tried to think of an explanation that could make sense of it all.
Gradually she suspected Bai Luan had already known this technology.
After all, her own inspiration had originally come from him.
And the species he was now creating were clearly the Pokémon they'd chatted about.
If not, how could his success rate be so high?
Without extensive trial-and-error, how could he be this proficient?
He couldn't have magically gained decades of experience in a few days.
Yet if he'd long mastered the field, how had she failed to notice?
Ruan Mei was certain that when she first met Bai Luan he'd known nothing about creating life.
Much of what he knew in that field she had taught him herself.
In the end she could only attribute everything to Bai Luan's talent.
From their first meeting till now, a long time had passed.
They still hadn't seen Bai Luan's limit.
Ruan Mei looked at Bai Luan.
You really are terrifying.
"I'd like to hear your view on this topic—simple? Easy?"
Bai Luan paused, turned to her in surprise, then gave a complicated, rueful smile.
He'd run every kind of experiment in the Little Black Room till he was sick of them.
For such a high-difficulty project, Ruan Mei's only options were "simple" and "easy" ?
Was this the perspective of a true genius?
It scared him to tears.
"I find this topic really hard."
Ruan Mei tilted her head, a rare, clear puzzlement on her face.
Hard?
You produced results on this scale in a few days, and now you tell me it's—hard?
Do I look blind?
Bai Luan caught her bewildered gaze and felt the pressure skyrocket.
Just how easy was this project to her?
That expression silently demanded:
"An experiment at this level—how could you find it hard?"
He thought he'd already over-performed—why did she still look like that?
What was wrong with the world?
When he felt he hadn't done much, everyone praised him; when he thought he'd done well, everyone rated him low.
Were they even using the same evaluation system!?
Bai Luan couldn't figure it out, but still wanted to defend himself.
He began analyzing the experiment's difficulties one by one for Ruan Mei, explaining them thoroughly.
He tried to show her that the project really was hard—at least for him.
As Ruan Mei listened, she largely agreed.
Every problem Bai Luan listed was something she'd encountered, so it resonated.
But… where had he learned all this?
He had never failed.
He shouldn't have any failure experience to summarize.
Unable to understand, she gave him another puzzled look.
How do you gain failure experience without ever failing?
Planning for danger while safe?
Bai Luan felt even greater pressure.
No way!
I've explained everything!
How can you still look like you don't get it?!
Is this project that easy for you? Am I just weird?
Geniuses are terrifying!
Ruan Mei looked at Bai Luan and asked her question:
"Did you prepare for this topic in advance?"
Without prior preparation, you could never reach this level of proficiency.
Yet to Bai Luan the question sounded completely different:
(With results like these)
'Did you prepare for this topic in advance?'
Bai Luan fell silent for a moment, almost resigned:
"How could I prepare in advance… the core tech for the evolution mechanism was only just broken through by you. Without your research I wouldn't even have a direction—how could I experiment?"
After hearing that, Ruan Mei fell silent too.
In other words, in just this short time he had mastered her brand-new technique to perfection and could even walk back through its difficulties to explain them to her?
Though the two spoke on completely different wavelengths, deep inside both their minds rang the exact same realization:
He/She really is a genius…