86: New "hand-rubbed" artwork created during recovery and Emotional Visualization 3.0

In the rehabilitation room of the 'Candle Dragon' base, arguably the most unique and highest-security facility of its kind in the world, Wang Jianguo's physical condition, like a seedling quietly reviving after a harsh winter, was gradually stabilizing and improving with a slow yet undeniable momentum. The daily monitoring data curves from the medical team—those lines representing neural electrical activity, hormone levels, and basal metabolism—though still far below normal standards and occasionally spiking or plummeting in heart-stopping anomalies, were stubbornly, painstakingly trending in a positive direction overall.

His memories remained like a pane of glass violently shattered and hastily pieced back together, riddled with cracks, or a severely corrupted hard drive with massive data loss, only able to reflect or retrieve scattered, blurry fragments. One moment, he might be immersed in abstract contemplation of Riemannian Manifolds or Quantum Tunneling Effects, his fingers unconsciously tracing complex non-Euclidean geometric symbols in the air; the next, his thoughts could 'short-circuit' without warning, his brow furrowed as he began seriously analyzing the deep connection between the optimal fat-to-lean ratio for the cafeteria's Braised Pork, the stewing temperature, and the degree of Maillard Reaction, with a focus no less intense than that required to crack a world-class mathematical problem.

These abrupt 'channel switches' in his thinking often left those around him both amused and exasperated, yet they dared not disturb him, fearing to interrupt the fragile and peculiar self-repair process in his mind. However, no matter what, that once deeply concerning sense of weakness—as if he were on the verge of collapse, a flicker away from being extinguished—was gradually fading. Replacing it was a sign that the 'Excellence Brand Operating System' had successfully rebooted: one that, though full of unpredictable bugs, bizarre operational logic, and prone to crashes or blue screens, could at least run continuously and was beginning to attempt processing more tasks.

After reviewing detailed assessment reports from the medical team, neuroscientists, and Evelyn Li, Wang Jianguo, after much deliberation, cautiously decided to slightly relax the restrictions on Excellence. As long as absolute physical monitoring and biosignal surveillance were ensured, he was allowed to engage in some low-intensity, non-stimulating independent activities within the rehabilitation room. The overarching principle was: avoid causing danger or imposing burden, with the primary goals being to maintain emotional stability and promote the natural recovery of cognitive function.

Thus, the rehabilitation room—cluttered with cutting-edge medical monitoring equipment yet also filled with numerous 'personal items' that clashed with the clinical atmosphere—once again welcomed its true master, and the master's seemingly innate, perpetually eccentric 'hand-crafted' creative endeavors.

This time, the project he set for himself was solemnly named—'Emotional Visualization 3.0: Multimodal Interaction and Biofield Coupling Enhanced Edition.'

This grand, almost intimidating-sounding name had an origin so simple it was startling. According to him, after staring blankly at the sunlight outside the window for an entire morning, he suddenly announced to Su Mu with great seriousness: by observing 'the Brownian Motion trajectories of airborne dust particles under natural light conditions of specific spectral bandwidths and their nonlinear aggregation-dispersion patterns after stimulated perturbation,' he had discovered that they 'exhibited a statistically significant, albeit nonlinear, correlation with the extremely weak electromagnetic field disturbances—triggered by neural sheath discharges during human emotional fluctuations and conducted through biological fluids—at specific phases.'

Su Mu was utterly confused, struggling to comprehend for a while before attempting to translate it into plain language: 'You mean... you watched the dust dancing in the sunlight and thought it was related to the 'electric currents' in your body when you're happy or not?'

Excellence nodded vigorously, his eyes sparkling as if he had discovered a universal truth: 'Yes! Class Monitor, you're so clever! It's that kind of... nonlinear correlation between Dopamine secretion curves and dust trajectories! Very precise!'

Su Mu: '...' (Alright, it's still nonsense, but at least it's an improvement over studying the crack patterns on the ceiling the other day...)

Once inspiration was 'in place,' action immediately followed. Excellence enthusiastically began listing his 'materials procurement list.' This list, as always, was imbued with the extremely distinctive 'Excellence-style' Pinduoduo aesthetic and a hardcore spirit of environmentalism through waste utilization:

Sensing Units: Several pressure sensors and micro strain gauges of varying precision secretly salvaged from decommissioned rehabilitation training equipment (for monitoring muscle micro-tension and gestures); a bundle of multi-colored optical fibers of unknown origin (suspectedly scavenged from a discarded decorative light), which he claimed were for 'Optical Conduction of Emotional Signals.'

Perception Extension: A front-facing camera module salvaged from an old phone, with a resolution that was touchingly low (claimed to be for 'Non-Invasive Optical Capture and Pattern Analysis of Facial Micro-Expressions'); a tiny microphone connected to worn-out cables, salvaged from some unknown device (for 'Speech Emotion Spectrum Analysis').

Energy and Field: Several powerful neodymium magnets (planned for 'constructing a locally controllable micro-magnetic field to study the coupling effect between biofields and emotional states'); a small, crookedly wound electromagnet that looked extremely unsafe (self-proclaimed as an 'Emotional Resonance Exciter').

'Core Material': A large bucket of medical-grade, sterile-packaged, colorless transparent saline solution (when the head nurse saw this requisition form, her eyelid twitched for a full half-minute. After repeatedly confirming it wasn't for drinking or injection, she finally relented under Excellence's utterly sincere (and innocent) gaze, approving a small bucket for him). Excellence's plan was to use it to prepare a 'High Ionic Conductivity Emotional Field Sensing Medium.'

Watching him rummage through boxes and cabinets again, gleefully collecting these 'junk items,' Su Mu felt a complex mix of emotions, as if a bottle of assorted flavors had been knocked over. On one hand, she was genuinely happy to see him regain this focus and vitality, which was undoubtedly a significant step forward in his recovery; but on the other hand... just look at this mess! This pile of stuff assembled together looked more like a scene primed for a small electrical fire or chemical leak than any 'Emotional Visualization 3.0'!

'Excellence,' Su Mu cautiously pointed at the heap of components on his workbench—haphazardly glued together with hot melt adhesive, electrical tape, and what appeared to be self-curing resin, with exposed wires—struggling to make her tone sound curious rather than discouraging, 'this... um... 'Multimodal Emotional Coupler'... what exactly are its intended... remarkable functions?'

Excellence was completely focused, wielding an old soldering iron, trying to solder an optical fiber thinner than a strand of hair to a barely visible pad. Without looking up, his tone carried a mysterious confidence, as if he were creating the next Nobel Prize-winning device in his hands: 'An upgrade! A comprehensive iterative upgrade! Monitor, version 1.0 could only measure single-channel galvanic skin response and heart rate. Version 2.0 added rough brainwave noise analysis—too primitive! Version 3.0 will not only synchronously capture Heart Rate Variability (HRV), Galvanic Skin Response (GSR), and a simplified Electroencephalogram (EEG), but also introduce visual channel feedback (based on a minimalist localized model of the Facial Action Coding System, FACS), environmental field strength Perception (inferred from micro-magnetic fluctuations), and even... attempt to establish a preliminary biofield resonance with nearby observers! This is a breakthrough in interactive experience!'

Evelyn, who had just walked in for her daily data recording, happened to hear this 'bold declaration' and nearly tripped over the threshold. Looking at that pile of 'devices' seemingly cobbled together from a junkyard and radiating an unsafe aura, her strong professional instinct compelled her to speak up: 'Excellence, measuring and interacting with biofield resonance requires an extremely precise shielded environment, highly sensitive sensors, and powerful signal processing capabilities to suppress background noise. With these... materials... and the electromagnetic environment here, the Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) will likely be absurdly high, making it almost impossible to extract valid signals.'

Only then did Excellence look up, his face still smudged with black solder paste and white adhesive residue, yet his eyes were clear and earnest, even carrying a 'why doesn't anyone understand' kind of confusion: 'Sister Evelyn, a high signal-to-noise ratio means rich data dimensions and abundant background information! What we need to do is precisely find the hidden Order within this Chaos! It's a kind of... philosophy!' He paused, as if to strengthen his argument, then added, 'Besides, pretty faces are all the same, but interesting signals are one in a million!'

Evelyn: '...' (Well, that's Excellence for you. His logic is self-contained, unrefutable, and somehow rhymed at the end.)

Seeing this familiar yet headache-inducing scene in the rehabilitation room through the surveillance screen, Wang Jianguo's mouth twitched involuntarily. He rubbed his temples and sighed to Xiao Zhang beside him: 'Let him tinker. It's better than him staring blankly at the wall all day or sinking into that cold, calculating state. At least now... he seems more human.' But he immediately added with seriousness, 'However, the safety red line must be held! Enhance the real-time energy fluctuation monitoring and fire alert level for that room! I don't want to receive a report one day saying he turned the ward into a Tesla coil or an electrolysis lab!' Clearly, he was still haunted by the potential unintended consequences of Excellence's past 'hand-crafted' projects.

What was most amusing was that Excellence had also earnestly designed a complex 'Multimodal Emotional Interaction Feedback Mechanism' for this seemingly extremely unreliable device. He claimed that when the device, through his unique 'algorithm,' comprehensively determined he was in a 'strong and positive emotional state,' the system would not only project warm halos and cheerful patterns on the main projection screen (a small salvaged OLED panel) as before, but also... drive a small pinwheel made from an old CD motor, popsicle sticks, and colored paper to start spinning, while simultaneously activating a recording module to play a previously secretly recorded audio clip of Su Mu saying 'Jiayou!' (Due to microphone quality and encoding issues, the sound was so distorted it sounded like a creepy, glitchy echo from a horror movie.)

During the first integrated test, Su Mu, wanting to encourage him, deliberately told a corny joke she found online. Excellence very obligingly burst into laughter (even though the joke probably wasn't that funny). Then... a miracle (or comedy) occurred! After a few indicator lights on the 'Emotional Visualization 3.0' device flashed wildly, it actually 'recognized' the success!

The crude little pinwheel began to creak and wobble, spinning unevenly as if it might fall apart at any moment. At the same time, the tiny speaker emitted Su Mu's extremely compressed, distorted, and unnervingly pitched 'Ji-a~yo-u~! J-i-a~~y-o-u~~!' sound. Combined with the randomly flashing, utterly un-aesthetic rainbow-colored splotches on the small wall screen... the entire scene instantly became mentally polluting and surreal.

Watching this suffocating operation and feedback, Su Mu couldn't help but facepalm: 'Excellence, this presentation method of your 'positive emotional feedback'... isn't it a bit... overly abstract and... hardcore?'

Excellence, however, looked excited and proud, as if he had just witnessed some scientific miracle. Pointing at the spinning pinwheel and flashing screen, he said: 'See! It works! Interaction successful! Monitor, you're even smiling!'

Su Mu: '... That's a smile of exasperation, I tell you!'

However, despite the process being filled with all sorts of laughable 'performance art,' this wholehearted, even somewhat mischievous 'creative' activity seemed to genuinely have an unexpected positive effect on Excellence's recovery. Whenever he immersed himself in his 'hand-crafted' world, carefully soldering wires, writing bizarre code only he could understand, and debugging various parameters, his eyes would become exceptionally bright and focused. Those fleeting moments of brilliance that occasionally surfaced, reminiscent of his past genius era, seemed to increase in frequency. Although the final 'results' still appeared absurd and incomprehensible to others, at least during this process, he seemed truly happy, full of vitality and engagement.

In a private conversation with Su Mu, Evelyn attempted an analysis from her professional perspective: 'Although his methodology... is extremely atypical, even completely contrary to the basic norms and safety regulations of modern engineering, this state of complete focus and wholehearted engagement in creative activity itself can indeed effectively promote the reorganization and repair of neural networks, helping to strengthen connections between different brain regions. Perhaps... this seemingly irrational, intuition-driven, and strongly interest-fueled exploration can sometimes bypass the constraints of traditional logic and touch upon cognitive areas and repair pathways that rational thinking cannot easily reach?'

Su Mu looked at Excellence not far away, who was seriously trying to use those strong magnets to construct an 'Enhanced Emotional Particle Oriented Field' around a bucket of saline solution, and sighed: 'I understand the theory... I just sincerely hope his next 'experiment' doesn't turn the ward into a large-scale electrolysis site or trigger the fire alarm... And, could his feedback audio module be... slightly... more normal?'

The road to recovery steadily advanced amidst these daily 'hand-crafted' routines that were utterly unreliable yet inexplicably heartwarming, constantly accompanied by unexpected 'surprises' and minor chaos. Everyone in the base who cared about Excellence, from Wang Jianguo to the medical team, to Su Mu and Evelyn, gradually reached an unspoken consensus: as long as he's happy, emotionally stable, and doesn't cause major safety incidents... let him be. After all, for Excellence, perhaps this seemingly chaotic and disorderly creative process itself is a unique and remarkably effective rehabilitation medicine.