The Red Dragon Lord is OP, but Insists on a Pop Culture Invasion!

Professor Connor Moore figured things out quickly and came to Zog’s Toy Store that very evening.

He even came with a do-or-die attitude, having resigned from his post at the research institute. After all, he didn’t have a single student under him, so he wasn’t responsible for anyone’s diploma.

Zog was stunned when he heard. A position at the institute was a tenured post, and he’d just thrown it away. Back in Zog’s hometown before he’d transmigrated, a tenured position made you an elite, a "real job." As for a game designer? That was basically a street loafer.

Professor Moore was highly professional. It was a mystery how he recovered so quickly from the blow of his years of research ending in total failure and threw himself right into his work.

What was even more rare was that he held no prejudice against goblins, judging everything by technical merit. He also got along surprisingly well with Xin 104, perhaps because Xin 104’s demeanor was the most Human-like.

Xin 104 himself wasn’t involved in R&D, but as Zog’s personal attendant, he held one of the highest statuses among the goblins. This helped Professor Moore quickly establish his authority among them, allowing the construction of the assembly line to proceed rapidly.

Meanwhile, the game development team took over the testing for subsequent developments of the Visible Inscription Workshop. This created a complete work cycle of adding new features while getting feedback during their application.

In other words, Zog was idle again.

If this were him back when he was slaving away at a company, his first thought when idle would be to lie in bed scrolling through short videos and reading novels, too lazy to even go out.

But times had changed. The Zog of today would, whenever he had a spare moment, think about how to rake in more money.

’No, wait. It’s how to create happiness for more people.’

He felt that comic books were a very suitable form of happiness. Over the past year, comics had already built a decent public foundation, but they were still dependent on traditional media like newspapers. It was time to launch a dedicated comic magazine.

When the time came, they would attack on all fronts with comics, movies, and games. The IP-powered wealth-harvesting machine was ready to launch!

However, the prerequisite for all of this was a stable output of high-quality content.

"Elsa, draft a proposal for me for the Zog Cup Comic Contest. Outstanding works will receive generous prize money and the chance for a long-form serialization."

’The joy of management is that you don’t have to do a lot of things yourself.’

’Speaking of not having to do things myself, wasn’t there a film crew I’ve been leaving to their own devices for a while now?’

’How is `Hunting` coming along?’

’No time like the present. I’ll go visit the set today.’

You can’t visit a set empty-handed. Zog ordered plenty of food from the best restaurant in the city and had a delivery guy send it to the filming location.

Food delivery is actually a profession with a long history. However, in an era without delivery platforms and electric scooters, delivery people were usually permanent employees of a restaurant, responsible only for delivering that restaurant’s food. The role was often filled by waiters.

On the way there with the delivery guy, Zog reviewed the financial statements the film crew had sent over.

Although he was the producer of this Shadow of Evil, he had never actually paid attention to the crew’s expenses. He was definitely the most incompetent member of the entire production team.

He had only set a budget cap for this Shadow of Evil; as long as they didn’t go over, it was fine.

On Earth, there were plenty of great directors who could blow their budgets several times over, but that was a privilege reserved for the famous. Huan didn’t have that kind of clout.

And Zog was surprised to find that not only had Huan not gone over budget, but judging from the expenses so far, he would likely even save a considerable amount.

’An Otherworld James Wan.’

From an investor’s perspective, this kind of extremely cost-effective director was the most suitable for commercial film and television.

As long as `Hunting` turned out alright, Huan was a director worth cultivating a long-term partnership with.

The filming location was outside Twin Tower City, in a small suburban town with few residents.

Unlike the original `Hunting`, the male lead was not a kindergarten teacher, because there were no kindergartens here.

Huan had given Raul’s character the background of an actor who volunteered at a children’s welfare home outside the city. He even used the name Raul for the character, maximizing the sense of immersion.

From this foundation unfolded the story of him being falsely accused by a little girl, ostracized by the townspeople, and finally, even after the truth came out, still being attacked.

The attacker at the end absolutely had to be faceless, representing a blind collective consciousness rather than a specific villain.

Zog was a little worried about whether the audience would be able to accept this Shadow of Evil.

Unlike the previous `Holy Mountain Journey`, `Hunting` contained no visual spectacles. All its scenes were mundane and realistic.

Furthermore, the plot was oppressive from beginning to end. It wasn’t an entertaining film but was filled with a sense of despair and suffocation, as if everyone was a participant in the crime.

Although it had no terrifying or gory scenes, the more you watched, the more unsettling it became.

All in all, it was a very serious work.

’I’ll just treat it as a test of the audience’s tolerance,’ Zog thought. ’Anyway, the losses wouldn’t be that great. The Zog Group makes or loses thousands of Gold Coins a minute these days.’

Let those theater critics who always called Shadows of Evil shallow entertainment see this. I’ll give them something deep this time and see what excuses they can cook up.

On set, they were filming a scene from near the end of the script.

Raul, after enduring the whole ordeal, was meeting again with the one who started it all, the little girl who had caused him to be branded a criminal.

The role of the little girl was not played by Marin. Audiences were too familiar with her, after all. They were father and daughter in the last Shadow of Evil; such a drastic change in this one would be hard to accept.

So they found a new child actress. Perhaps children are just natural actors, carrying no psychological baggage when playing a role. Her performance was quite good.

And Raul, who was responsible for the pivotal scene, gave an outstanding performance. His grasp of acting was becoming more and more masterful.

The momentary hesitation and struggle upon seeing the little girl were all meticulously conveyed through micro-expressions.

In the end, the character Raul played overcame his psychological barrier and told a joke.

"Do you know how to avoid stepping on the floor tiles?"

"I don’t know, there are too many."

"Come here." Raul walked over and picked up the little girl, as if nothing had ever happened.

The Raul in the scene chose to forgive, just as Raul the person had adopted Mira.

CLAP CLAP—

Zog didn’t hold back his applause. He believed the final quality of this Shadow of Evil would be anything but poor.

"Mr. Zhuoge." Huan had also noticed Zog’s arrival. What followed was standard procedure.

A warm welcome, simple pleasantries, a speech from the boss, digging into the food, and a good time had by all.

’You know, giving a speech as the boss is kind of addictive,’ Zog mused. He was starting to understand why principals had to drone on for dozens of minutes before any event.

’Where you sit really does determine how you think.’

During the meal, Raul found Zog for a private word.

"Mr. Zhuoge, Mira might be having some problems right now, and I’m not sure what to do."

"What kind of problems?" Zog’s first reaction was to wonder if Mira was turning to the dark side.

’Though if she had, it would be completely understandable.’

"She doesn’t talk much anymore. She often shuts herself in her room to draw, and even Marin has a hard time communicating with her."

’Got it, she’s become withdrawn,’ Zog thought. ’The problem is, the profession of a psychologist hasn’t developed yet. Usually, Priests handle that kind of work.’

"What does she draw?"

"It’s hard to describe. Let me show you."

Mira and Marin were both at the filming location. They couldn’t just be left at home with no one to look after them.

There were no RVs; the staff were all living in tents set up in an open area.

Inside an orange tent, Mira held a charcoal pencil, completely absorbed in scribbling on a piece of paper.

Now Zog understood why Raul had said it was hard to describe. Mira’s drawings were all of grotesque, terrifying humanoid monsters, dark and grim.

The locals might be frightened by them, but Zog was thrilled. ’A genius at monster design! Mira is about to kick down the door to a whole new category of comics!’

’Could it be that my golden finger from transmigrating isn’t just my Dragon identity, but also the luck of stumbling upon geniuses wherever I go?’