The Rise of Otaku

Although Zhou Yu is not a very responsible person, and he would give up whenever his interests die down, this does not mean that he dislikes those who are committed to the things they do. Instead, he respects them a lot. Elder Lu is obviously a respectable person. For his hope, he could persist in looking for a year-long and was willing to offer help for free.

But even so, Zhou Yu still could not tell the truth. The only thing he could promise to Lu Lao was, that they would continue to make animated movies in the future.

With this promise, Lu Hansheng felt that the purpose of his trip had been achieved, although he still had some regrets about not seeing the team that made the Flaming Mountain. After that, he continued to stay in the amusement park for a while. He did not have much interest in the amusement park’s projects. Instead, he greatly enjoyed the exotic villas and took pictures in front of each one.

Truly an old man with a unique view on everything.

However, there seemed to be something wrong with the old man’s words. Although Beidou studio and his own animation base were all very good, any work made by both the animation base and Beidou studio could be considered as an excellent work. However, no matter how strong a person’s ability is, the rise of the domestic animation industry couldn’t depend on one person.

For example, if Japan only has Miyazaki Hayao, then only Ghibli studio would rise up, not the entire Japanese animation industry. It is precisely because there are many talented artists, plus a lot of animators, the Japanese animation industry could rise up.

Therefore the old man’s wish of having an excellent studio to support the entire Chinese animation industry seemed to be pretty impossible, not to mentioned that the studio refused to reveal their identities.

But how was the domestic animation industry able to rise?

Zhou Yu was not a strategist, nor had he studied this question in detail before. He only knew how to criticize domestic animation. He didn’t know how to answer such a macroscopical question. But the old man’s expectations were clearly too high, or maybe he was just overly confident in Beidou studio and his animation base’s abilities.

Anyway, Zhou Yu decided to focus on his own thing, and continue to complete his amusement park. The big environment could not be changed by a small person, at most, he was able to slightly influence the environment. He could only hope that with his influence, the environment would gradually get better.

It was rare for Zhou Yu to think something deeply all morning. He felt that his spirit had been elevated to another height, and he must reward himself for that.

In the gourmet street that had been moved into the park because of the increasing number of tourists, Zhou Yu was buying and eating the food all the way until he couldn’t eat anymore.

Ordering some food to take away, he wanted to bring it to his apprentice Wu Yun, who was practicing hard in the Doll Villa. That girl’s ability to stay in the villa all day long could not be underestimated. She only appeared in the canteen, studio and the doll villa those three places every day. Even on weekends, she still didn’t stop working, as if it had become her daily life.

She was so obsessed with the handcrafted models, that it scared Zhou Yu a little. If she carried on like this, she might even treat those models as her boyfriend…

Hmm… Couldn’t help having little evil thoughts.

Sure enough, Wu Yun was still sawing wood, making parts in the studio. It seemed that she could use various tools skillfully now. She was really talented.

Because Zhou Yu only occasionally helped the beaver to make some parts, so he only had a little woodworking foundation skill. He was only better at assembling models.

The beaver was no longer sighing by the tree near the river anymore. It stayed in the same room with Wu Yun all day long, which clearly showed that it cared for this disciple a lot. Every day after Zhou Yu came over, it would tell Zhou Yu all the mistakes that Wu Yun had made in her self-study, and then Zhou Yu would pass the message on.

Wu Yun was stunned by this strange teaching method because she didn’t understand how Master Zhou was able to point out all the mistakes she had made, just by looking at it for a while. But it was really amazing.

Seeing Zhou Yu, Wu Yun put down the planer and asked, “Master Zhou, I think I have mastered this entry-level secret manual. I don’t know when I can take the exam?”

‘What the…!?’ Zhou Yu had read that entry-level secret manual before. The manual not only introduced the use of various tools, but it also had various basic skills. Generally speaking, it would take a month or two for normal people to master it. Zhou Yu himself barely reached the passing line, which had been criticized by beaver many times already.

But it had just been a week since she was accepted as an apprentice. Did he just accidentally accept genius?

Zhou Yu didn’t believe it. But seeing the beaver was stroking its beard with pride, he knew that Wu Yun had really completed the entry-level carpentry secret manual.

This was not good. The entry-level secret manual was relatively shorter. There were not many words. But the intermediate level secret manual was very thick. There were also many professional diagrams and pictures, which would take at least a week or two make.

Originally he thought that could be relaxed for a week or two, but he didn’t expect that this girl didn’t follow the normal rules. She only spent a week to master the entry-level secret manual. Now he had to rush to complete the intermediate secret manual.

“Well, cough, cough… don’t worry. You can review the old manual for another week. It will take a little time to prepare for the exam. The donkey meat is quite good. I’ll leave it here. O… Kay, It looks like you are busy at the moment, and I have other things to do, so… bye!”

Zhou Yu quickly ran out of the Doll Villa while dragging the carpenter beaver away to make the intermediate secret manual. He could not let his disciple discover that he hadn’t prepared anything.

Then the following week was like a hell to him. He could still cope with those words, but the diagrams and images were just nightmares. You might think it was just a carpentry book, but once it required you to use all kinds of rulers, it was comparable to geometry, which gave Zhou Yu a lot of headaches. But he still had to draw it under the beaver’s instruction.

Scanning, typesetting, and finally printing out, it was difficult to complete the secret manual within the agreed date. But eventually, he still managed to complete it and save his face. In case he might discover another apprentice soon and need to do everything again, he saved everything on his computer this time.

The entry-level graduation Examination was to make a dressing box independently.

You might think this kind of dressing box was easy to make. The complicated ones could be absurdly complicated sometimes. A small dressing box could hide dozens of hidden mechanisms. When it was used, it could change its shape in many ways, just like a Transformer. Of course, after all, it was only an entry-level graduation exam. Beaver would not be that cruel. All Wu Yun needed to do was to make a simple one.

Selecting materials, making parts, and then finally assembling them, Beaver was an old-fashioned carpenter, it disliked using nails and other things like that, so all kinds of parts’ joints needed to be carefully designed, the smallest mistake could easily cause the dressing box to collapse. Fortunately, Wu Yun was very skillful with her hands, and the finished work also looked pretty good.

The judge would be the beaver. But Zhou Yu also walked around the dressing box, pretending that he was checking it, and then he repeated the beaver’s evaluation.

Overall, Wu Yun passed the exam, but there were still some minor flaws. Being a strict master, the beaver pointed out all of them without hesitation.

“Good, it’s very amazing that you can master it that quickly. This is the intermediate-level secret manual. Please do not leak it out, because it took me a huge effort to type it… ouch!… cough, I mean… Because it is very important.” Zhou Yu was about to tell Wu Yun that it took him a long time to type it out until he was hit in the head by the beaver.

A manual that was 5-centimeter-thick almost tormented Zhou Yu to death. Although he used to write novels online, he had never been that hardworking before.