Bai Luan ultimately failed to convince Ruan Mei to believe him.
He truly didn't know that Hippolyta had the potential to birth a new Abundance species, and he genuinely hadn't intended to plant flora for that purpose.
Bai Luan had simply gotten frustrated after repeatedly failing to open an Anywhere Door to a planet with life, and then he thought, 'Alright, fine, nothing's being born, right? I'll do it myself! I'll plant it for you! How about that!'
With that thought, he planted a bunch of plant seeds on the planet.
Although he did genetically modify these plant seeds... who in the world could have imagined they had the potential to evolve into an Abundance species?
When he did this, he didn't even have the Blessing of Abundance yet... one truly can't underestimate anything from Herta's home; anything casually thrown out has an incredibly high ceiling...
Bai Luan didn't plan to tell Ruan Mei that he didn't have the Blessing of Abundance when he planted the seeds.
Because if he told Ruan Mei, she would think he had been planning it since then.
Forget it, it doesn't matter.
Bai Luan ultimately gave up on trying to lower the genius's expectations and chose to slack off.
Think whatever you want.
If it really comes down to it,
just assume I cheated.
Anyway, I'm slacking off.
During the time Bai Luan was slacking off, Screwllum and Ruan Mei had already noticed his abnormality.
But Bai Luan's previous explanation was that he was in a bad mood and wanted to rest for a while.
So Screwllum and Ruan Mei didn't think much of it; after all, everyone has a few days when they're in a bad mood.
But with Bai Luan still slacking off now, Screwllum felt something was amiss.
Out of friendship, Screwllum didn't want to see Bai Luan continuously in a bad mood.
Furthermore, before meeting Bai Luan, Screwllum had never seen a genius so passionate about life.
What could possibly keep him in a bad mood for so long?
And even now, Bai Luan hadn't asked him for help.
Normally, when he needed help, Bai Luan would directly ask.
Therefore, Bai Luan must have encountered something inconvenient to ask others for help with, and which was making him feel bad.
Screwllum was somewhat worried about Bai Luan's situation and wanted to figure out what exactly Bai Luan had run into.
At the same time, Screwllum also considered Bai Luan's reluctance to speak and decided to investigate the matter without Bai Luan knowing.
For this, Screwllum invited Ruan Mei and Herta over for a secret meeting without Bai Luan.
Screwllum explained to Ruan Mei and Herta the reason he was hosting this gathering.
Ruan Mei nodded, expressing her agreement with Screwllum's assessment:
"Now that you mention it, I've had that feeling recently too. I thought I was overthinking, but now it seems I wasn't being overly anxious."
Ruan Mei and Screwllum reached an agreement, but Herta didn't see it that way.
When Screwllum and Ruan Mei called her over for this secret meeting, keeping it from Bai Luan, she was very curious.
Why they were holding this meeting, and why Bai Luan wasn't included.
Now she knew the reason, but her first reaction upon learning it was different from Ruan Mei's immediate agreement.
Herta's first reaction was a bit of confusion:
Is that so? Isn't he exactly the same as before?
If we're talking about changes... it's not like there aren't any.
Recently, Bai Luan seems to have figured something out, becoming more confident, and his demeanor has shifted more towards that of a genius, becoming more charismatic; he looks more attractive by the day.
This is entirely a good thing, isn't it?
However, geniuses don't make things up; since Ruan Mei and Screwllum both feel this way, it proves there's something to it.
So why hadn't she noticed, and still thought everything was normal?
Could it be that he only maintains his usual self in front of her?
Herta pondered for a moment, realizing this point, and a faint smile appeared on her face.
This guy... he really gets it.
Although she understood this, Herta still decided to continue attending the meeting.
After all, even if Bai Luan wasn't slacking off in front of her, he was in front of the other two geniuses, and such a change must have some reason.
What Screwllum said was not without reason; discussing and analyzing it to see if Bai Luan truly encountered something that caused his attitude to change in front of the other two geniuses.
After confirming the discussion topic for this gathering, Ruan Mei and Screwllum both looked at Herta.
Herta was a bit puzzled and spoke up:
"Why are you both looking at me?"
Screwllum spoke.
"Query: Herta, have you recently had an intense argument with Bai Luan, leading to a strained relationship?"
Herta gave them both a helpless look.
So you think the most likely reason for Bai Luan's bad mood is that he argued with me?
"He and I are fine, don't overthink it."
Screwllum nodded knowingly, and then the entire matter reached a stalemate.
Screwllum truly couldn't think of anything else that could keep Bai Luan in a prolonged state of low spirits besides that.
Subsequently, the three geniuses discussed the matter, and the final result of the discussion was—no useful, substantive results were discussed.
The main reason for this situation was that Bai Luan's performance had always been too perfect.
Before this incident, Ruan Mei and Screwllum had never even considered that Bai Luan would have problems.
In their opinion, the probability of Bai Luan having problems was less than Aha trying to reason with Nous.
Since discussion yielded no results, they could only switch to another method to gather information.
Ask Bai Luan directly.
And the most suitable person to do this... Screwllum and Ruan Mei looked at Herta again.
Bai Luan looked at Ms. Herta, who had come to find him.
"...So Ms. Herta came for this?"
"That's right."
How should he put it, Ruan Mei and Screwllum caring about him was quite touching.
It almost made him too embarrassed to slack off.
"Don't worry about me, I'm fine.
I'm just a little tired, a short rest will do, and I'll find my motivation again after a while."
Herta relayed Bai Luan's answer to Ruan Mei and Screwllum.
After hearing it, a thought process quickly formed in the minds of the two geniuses.
Tired → Only tired when stressed → Why stressed → Stressed from interacting with us.
So, interacting with them made him feel stressed?
If they applied the idea that Bai Luan felt stressed interacting with them to their past interactions, they realized—perhaps as colleagues, they were competent enough, but as friends, they had somewhat overlooked Bai Luan's feelings.
Perhaps Bai Luan's interest in the simulated universe project, and in their research topics, wasn't that great.
Geniuses operate primarily driven by interest.
As fellow geniuses, when faced with things they aren't interested in, they often choose not to do them.
But Bai Luan, as a genius, even when uninterested, would still choose to do things, and do them very well.
Ultimately... this was still because Bai Luan had such a good personality.
Even if he wasn't interested, he would still help out.
Now, he explicitly said he was tired.
It must be due to the excessive pressure they had exerted in the past.
So that's where the problem lay, no wonder Bai Luan didn't ask them for help.
Screwllum suggested giving Bai Luan a certain amount of rest time, and Ruan Mei agreed.
But Herta cast a dissenting vote.
She agreed to reduce Bai Luan's workload and give him more rest time.
But everything should be reasonable; letting Bai Luan constantly slack off would be a waste of his genius talent.
Screwllum pondered for a moment and nodded.
"I agree with Herta's point of view.
Query: How is 'reasonable utilization' defined?"
"Simple. Given his personality, if he wasn't too tired, he wouldn't refuse us verbally. We can't wait until he's tired enough to speak up.
So, we should proactively give him reasons to refuse us.
This reason can be arbitrary, for example, setting a quota for him, like automatically getting a leave slip after completing three tasks, and one leave slip can be used to refuse once.
Over time, he will naturally realize that even without a 'leave slip' as a clumsy excuse, if he refuses, we won't force him."
Herta's proposal was unanimously approved.
The leave slip system was officially established.
As long as he used a leave slip, he could refuse any genius who came to him for help.
Screwllum pondered for a moment, then said:
"Logic: Appropriate incentives can improve work efficiency.
Conclusion: We should prepare some appropriate rewards for Bai Luan for his assistance, and this can also express our compensation for previously neglecting his feelings."
Ruan Mei nodded and said:
"On this point, I also agree."
Herta thought seriously for a moment and spoke up:
"I'll arrange the rewards; you two don't interfere."
Screwllum looked at Herta.
"If you need it, I'd be happy to provide some prizes."
"Don't worry, Screwllum, I have plenty of collectibles myself."
Herta refused.
She proactively took all the reward allocation upon herself.
As everyone knows,
rewards are linked to favorability.
Trying to raise my assistant's favorability this way?
Although our relationship is good, on this matter... no way!