After waking up in the morning, I'd go for a run, then punch in at the supply distribution station.
I'd work as a gardener in the Botanical Garden, tending to the exotic plants, and teaching the Inspiration Shrooms to make strange noises, including but not limited to Mambo, Inspiration Shroom, Coo-Coo-Ga-Ga, and Sleeping Banana Monkeys…
Afterward, I'd head to the laboratory to create all sorts of wondrous gadgets and see what strange items the Oddity Forger would provide me with.
When hungry, I'd go to the kitchen to prepare my three daily meals.
Occasionally, a Herta Puppet would appear, taking Bai Luan to open up new ventures.
Just like that, three years flew by in a flash.
Heh heh, in these three years, I've super-evolved my cooking skills, honing them fiercely in a kitchen where any ingredient could be found.
I thoroughly enjoyed three years of free meals at Herta's place, it was fantastic.
Over the three years, Bai Luan successfully grew back to his original height and acquired a large collection of peculiar and strange Oddities.
Most of them were useless, for example, a pixel-style pair of sunglasses Bai Luan made when he was bored; its Oddity effect was to automatically adjust to the wearer's prescription, allowing even nearsighted people to wear sunglasses.
There was also a long umbrella; its Oddity effect was that if you used it as a parachute, it actually worked.
Is it useful?
A little bit.
Is it very useful?
Not very.
These three years allowed Bai Luan to generally figure out all the facilities at Herta's place; now, his work options here were not limited to just gardening. No matter what kind of job it was, Bai Luan could do it once he tried.
After basically learning all the jobs, Bai Luan rarely even saw the Herta Puppet anymore.
As for Herta herself, he had only met her once when he first arrived in this world, and had not seen her since.
Bai Luan felt that Herta must have forgotten about him.
This was normal, after all, Herta would immediately act on anything that piqued her interest and discard it just as quickly when she lost interest.
He must belong to the category of things that lost her interest and were discarded.
Bai Luan was very happy about this and quite satisfied with the current situation.
Given his current usefulness, there was no need to worry about being fired, and Herta had now lost interest in him, meaning he didn't have to worry about his lies being exposed.
Three years had given him the ability to protect himself in this world. The reason Bai Luan hadn't left yet was that this place was much better than anywhere else.
The environment was beautiful, the facilities were complete, and it had everything he needed.
But it was still not as good as the Astral Express. Recently, Bai Luan started saving up Credit Points, preparing to buy a spaceship so that whenever the Astral Express departed again, he could immediately fly after it and board.
If only there was a ticket that could take him directly to the Astral Express, but unfortunately, the train roamed the universe along the silver rails, and no one knew where its next stop would be…
The train was probably still resting at Himeko's old home.
Bai Luan had already investigated in the simplest and most direct way—opening the search engine on his phone, typing "Astral Express Relaunch" into the search bar, and clicking search.
Going through the search results, most of them were useless information:
The Mystery of Akivili's Fall You Don't Know.
Daily Expanding Knowledge: The Legacy of the [Trailblaze] Path — Astral Express.
Ghost Story: The Phantom Train Urban Legend.
Does Anyone Still Remember the Legendary Astral Express? Is It Really Completely Over?
As for any news about the Astral Express restarting, there wasn't a single bit of information.
He had indeed arrived a bit too early…
But this was also good news; at least he had enough time to save up Credit Points.
Staying here to work for Herta didn't pay a salary.
Of course, Bai Luan also knew that if others found out he said this, many people would drown him in their spit.
Because many people considered working for Ms. Herta their life's goal, Bai Luan's extremely boastful statement would definitely draw criticism.
Not to mention the priceless "miscellaneous items" Ms. Herta casually gave him at the beginning.
Born in Rome, but his life's goal is to leave Rome and see the world.
Hmm, that's a very irritatingly boastful statement.
But Bai Luan's original intention was genuinely not to boast.
The miscellaneous items Ms. Herta gave were indeed priceless, but he had no suitable channels to sell them.
Firstly, buyers were hard to find. When he finally found someone brave enough to buy, they looked at the address and exclaimed, "My goodness, it's Ms. Herta's house!?"
"It must be a prank by some idle little CS!"
Thinking this, they blacklisted Bai Luan.
Bai Luan had a mountain of gold in his hands, but the mountain of gold couldn't be converted into Credit Points.
So Bai Luan had no choice but to earn Credit Points in a different way.
Using the facilities at Herta's where he could find anything he needed, he managed to replicate the instrumentals of songs from his previous life. He sang the ones he could himself, and for those he couldn't, he used an AI voice. Brother, he practiced tuning like crazy in the Little Black Room, and the finished products were truly as good as a real person.
What "Nunchucks," "Blue and White Porcelain," "The Only One," "The Brightest Star in the Night Sky"…
He finally got to Honkai: Star Rail, so why not let the friends in this world enjoy some fine dining!?
You won't even get a mouthful of coarse grain!
Just listen to these songs! You'll be speechless!
After the songs became popular, Bai Luan used his popular account to take on some advertisements, thereby earning Credit Points.
He also re-skinned some small games from his previous life and released them online to earn Credit Points.
For example, using the Swarm Disaster as a background to make Plants vs. Zombies, or using Aha as the protagonist to make Jump King…
He also opened an account on a short video platform, filming the magical plants in the Botanical Garden and his daily cooking.
These three accounts all showed some promise, bringing Bai Luan a considerable income, but it was still far from enough to buy a spaceship.
Interestingly, the short video account was even questioned by people who thought he used AI for the visuals: potatoes as big as houses, pumpkins that changed expressions, roses that changed colors—they looked nothing like things that would exist in reality.
Then Bai Luan simply set up a camera and live-streamed the Botanical Garden for seven consecutive days, without a single break.
He successfully crushed the skeptics, who deleted their accounts and ran away. Thanks to that little hater's fuss, Bai Luan received many donations during those seven days.
What a benefactor…
Watching the Credit Points in his account continuously increase, Bai Luan's face was plastered with an uncultured smile.
Indeed, when you don't have to worry about food and drink, things are easier to succeed.
Suddenly, a message came from his phone:
Herta: [Location]
Herta: Come here, quickly.
The Herta Puppet hadn't contacted him in a long time. This time, contacting him with such an urgent tone, there must be something important she needed him for.
Bai Luan didn't delay, putting away his phone.
Then his tuxedo suddenly rippled. The nanobots attached to his clothing, relying on mimicry technology, surged and gathered behind Bai Luan. Before long, a flight unit was assembled on Bai Luan.
With a thought from Bai Luan, the wings of the flight backpack behind him spread, and at the same time, four thrusters spewed blue flames, sending Bai Luan into the sky, then he zoomed away.
Rapidly weaving through various buildings, avoiding all obstacles, Bai Luan reached Herta's designated location at maximum speed, then landed in an Iron Man-like pose.
After landing, Bai Luan stood up, and the flight backpack behind him quickly disassembled into nanobots, reattaching to his clothes.
Bai Luan scanned the area and quickly found the Herta Puppet.
"Ms. Herta, I'm he—…"
Bai Luan's greeting was cut short as he froze, because he saw a prominent figure he hadn't seen in years standing beside the Herta Puppet—Herta herself.
"Ms. Herta, you're here too…?"
"Did you make that yourself?"
"Haha…"
Bai Luan gave an embarrassed, awkward laugh.
"Just a little gadget, made it for fun."
Showing off technological creations in front of Ms. Herta was like teaching a fish to swim…
To quickly dispel the awkward atmosphere, Bai Luan took the initiative to ask:
"What did Ms. Herta need me for?"
"I collected too many trinkets and had nowhere to put them, so I planned to just build something to store them. As this genius was constantly refining this plan, I suddenly realized, this is the Herta Space Station you mentioned.
Congratulations, you've used three years to prove that your ability to see fate is not fabricated."
"…"
For a moment, Bai Luan didn't know whether to be happy or sad.
The good news was that his identity as a prophet of destiny hadn't been exposed.
The bad news was that this identity had successfully reignited Herta's previously faded interest in him.
Bai Luan felt a bit helpless; Herta was almost forgetting about him…
He probably thought of building a Space Station this time, and then suddenly recalled a dusty memory.
Didn't someone tell him three years ago that there would be a Space Station?
His name was… Bai Luan, wasn't it?
And so, she came here to find him.
"Since what you said is true, tell me now.
How much do you know about that Space Station? What does it look like? How is it designed? What's its internal structure? Can you draw its blueprint?"
"…"
Herta fired a barrage of questions.
Bai Luan wanted to cry but had no tears.
miHoYo's description of the Herta Space Station in his previous life was, at best, game text plus a model. Where was Bai Luan supposed to get a proper, legitimate plan for building a Space Station for Herta?
The stone he picked up three years ago had finally landed on his own foot three years later…
He was just a game player; how could he possibly know the structural blueprint of the Herta Space Station…
And no one told me that playing a game required knowing aerospace design!
This… what am I supposed to do!?