You asked for healing, but you wrote Honkai Impact 3rd?

At this point, Otto had already guessed the answer.

Su Nian simply hadn't looked at his phone!

If he had checked it, he would have accepted Schicksal's invitation long ago.

With Otto as Su Nian's life mentor, such a temptation—only one person had ever refused it...

But no matter.

Two judges simultaneously requesting to connect with Su Nian... this was already an exceedingly rare scene.

The eyes of everyone present turned to Welt.

Wouldn't not participating make him seem out of place?

But as it happened, he actually had some questions to ask. Since someone had started this, so be it.

"I agree."

Those in the know couldn't help but sharply inhale.

What kind of weight was this?!

Su Nian had absolutely created history in the competition!

Although the judges in previous competitions were different, the three judges' areas of interest back then were the same as these three now.

Their interests varied.

It was extremely difficult for any work to catch the interest of all three judges and satisfy them.

This was definitely a historic moment!

Eden hadn't lavished praise on Su Nian yesterday, yet she had voluntarily applied to connect.

She didn't show her hand, but when she spoke, it was a bombshell!

[Judges! Where's your pride?!]

[Su Nian has become a wall of sighs! You can only gaze from afar, never overstep!]

[That year, he merely made a slight move and shattered every record in competition history.]

[Su Nian was already bid on the first day. From then on, I knew nothing that followed would surprise me.]

[If heaven had not given me Su Nian, writing would be eternal night.]

"Alright, then let's have a call with this star who has everyone's attention, and unveil his mysterious veil."

As Elysia's words fell, the program's behind-the-scenes staff immediately got to work.

They had been busy until this hour—Su Nian should be awake by now, right?

The staff checked and confirmed that Su Nian had already opened his livestream, so they cut half the screen over.

At this moment, in Studio No. 13, Su Nian had been "staring blankly" at his phone for quite a while.

Who could tell him why there were so many messages on his phone?

Whether it was the original body's private account or the messages on social platforms, they had all exploded. The background only showed a red 99+ icon.

Such a scene... Su Nian had never seen before!

Could it be that he hadn't written the plot well, so people disliked him and he was getting cyberbullied?

Su Nian had never imagined such sudden fame. He thought it was because his work lacked time to accumulate and build up...

Just then, the program's connection request popped up, and a broadcast tone prompted Su Nian to check his computer.

"Please, Contestant No. 13 Su Nian, check your computer pop-up... Please, No. 13..."

The prompt sounded several times. Su Nian got up and looked at the computer that had been sitting there for a while.

[[New Youth Creation Competition] sends you a communication request. Do you wish to accept?]

Su Nian was momentarily stunned.

This scene was even rarer.

Could this be... the legendary judge review session?

Given the judges' massive workload, they wouldn't easily choose someone to connect with.

Unless they truly saw a work with "blockbuster potential," they would only then be willing to communicate and decide whether to offer some guidance.

Could it be that The Past's Paradise was unexpectedly popular?

Su Nian thought it was unlikely.

But his thinking wasn't wrong—opportunities like a pie falling from the sky were few and far between.

Luck and strength were both indispensable.

If Su Nian hadn't stood out in the earlier round of 128 advancing to 64, catching Eden's attention, the impact wouldn't have been this great.

If Su Nian's writing didn't possess a "visual quality" even he himself wasn't aware of, he wouldn't have caught the notice of these people in this world.

If Su Nian's peers in this competition weren't so lackluster—"all relying on rivals to set them off"—he wouldn't have seemed so outstanding...

The current situation had indeed accumulated too many coincidences—so many that Su Nian himself felt it would be fine as long as a few people were watching.

It was also because he hadn't anticipated this outcome that seeing so many messages gave him the illusion of being cyber-bullied.

It probably wasn't anything bad. After a moment's thought, Su Nian chose to accept the call.

Then, the computer provided by the production team in front of him was remotely controlled, automatically switching to the judges' livestream feed to facilitate a better connection between them.

"..." Su Nian fell silent. What was with their gazes? Even through the screen, it felt like they could burn him.

The pressure was a bit heavy.

"I am Eden. Su Nian, this is our first meeting."

"No need to be nervous. I'm merely curious about your work and need your help to clear up some doubts. Could you share your creative process with me, Su Nian?"

Eden chose not to directly ask about the "visual sense" matter—it wasn't suitable to display in front of a large audience.

Besides, at this moment, she was simply curious about the direction the story would take.

"..."

Creative process, huh. A fatal question right off the bat.

This was something he wasn't too clear about.

Although miHoYo had various interview videos with their writers, Su Nian had... no understanding of those.

His gaming career only consisted of three phases: intense grinding, hitting a content drought, and then finding ways to kill time during the drought.

But Su Nian still remembered the concept PV of The Past's Paradise.

So now, using that line seemed reasonable enough?

"The Past's Paradise... is merely presenting some stories that are still somewhat interesting, nothing more."

A brief answer. After all, in this situation, the more you said, the more mistakes you'd make.

[I knew it—anyone who can write riddle-like plots must be a riddle themselves]

[Bro, this is a conversation, don't get lost in the story!]

[But don't you guys think this is cool?]

[wwww, it's a bit chuunibyou, yeah. When Raiden Mei and Chijie fought earlier, the dialogue was chuunibyou too]

[A man is a boy until death. What's wrong with a little chuunibyou?]

Su Nian's answer seemed to say nothing, but this was the essence of The Past's Paradise—at least for Elysia.

The foundation of truth was buried under the dust of old days. The last paradise of the end times was also the destined final resting place of the Fire-Chasers.

The concept PV of The Past's Paradise was jokingly called the "second five-year plan," and it had been set up for a long time.

In a previous crossover event between Honkai Impact 3rd and Genshin Impact, one of the plans Otto mentioned was "a story of thirteen sinners, telling the tale of life-and-death battles between worlds—'The Shore of Good and Evil.'"

Such a grand scheme.

Eden listened to these words, but the fog in her heart still hadn't cleared.

Yesterday, Su Nian had written in his notebook in a deliberately vague manner, spending a full three or four hours.

This made Eden extremely curious—what exactly had Su Nian written?

If one only interpreted Su Nian's answer superficially, the room for manipulation was far too vast.

It was like stacking a dozen layers of armor in advance to avoid being proven wrong.

A cunning and calculating... young man?

Looking at it purely from the literal meaning, it was exactly what Su Nian's main text currently showed.

All the complex plotlines he was writing now had only one purpose: to introduce the Thirteen Heroes of Fire. This matched the synopsis.

But his writing focused on introducing a few heroes with relatively "special" identities.

The others weren't unimportant, but in writing a novel, one had to prioritize.

Focus on shaping a few characters. Once they became three-dimensional, more people would pay attention to the work.

Only when the traffic was sufficient would people start to notice the remaining characters.

This was perfectly normal. Some people would aim too high, wanting to grasp everything at once.

But they often failed to gauge their true abilities, couldn't achieve what they envisioned, and instead made their works lackluster and mediocre.

At least from what she could see now, Su Nian wasn't overreaching. Though talented, he wasn't arrogant.

Pride wasn't a big issue; arrogance was the real problem.

When a creator's mindset was stable, their work would be stable too. Su Nian handled this well.

"The story of the Previous Civilization and the records of The Past's Paradise seem like two different stories with two different tones, but the Previous Civilization is the rough framework, and only when the fragmented clues in The Past's Paradise are pieced together does it become a complete story..."

"While you were still creating, I told all the viewers that I would invest in your story. Now, I will ask as an investor..."

"In the end, do you plan to write both stories in full, combining them into one whole?"

This decision would determine the future direction of the story.

The story was created by Su Nian, so naturally she had the final say, but Eden was uncertain about this direction...

Su Nian's answer just now left far too much room for interpretation.

So now she had to ask more specifically—this was the real question she wanted answered.

If Su Nian simply wanted to write a story about the Previous Civilization, why start from The Past's Paradise?

Wouldn't it be simpler to just write directly about that era's despair tinged with hope?

Why had things become so complicated?

That was the core of Eden's question.

An unexpected surprise landed right in Su Nian's lap, but now wasn't the time to be swept away by happiness and lose herself.

Su Nian instantly understood what Eden meant.

Weaving the Previous Civilization together with The Past's Paradise—that was what made a complete picture of the Previous Civilization's state.

But this also raised a problem, one that only Su Nian knew.

Perhaps...

In their eyes, Su Nian writing Raiden Mei as a character was just to have a camera lens.

Although Raiden Mei had some development, it wasn't as eye-catching as the Flame-Chasers'.

Indeed, if you took the story of The Past's Paradise out on its own.

Then it didn't matter who this successor was.

What mattered were the Flame-Chasers.

The protagonists of this story were the Flame-Chasers.

But Su Nian knew that the one who unveiled The Past's Paradise to the audience and players had to be Raiden Mei.

This was a promise Kevin had made to Elysia.