[Are you running low on spiritual power?]

Tong Yu signed a contract with Lan Hai Game Group to jointly develop the escape room, with him responsible for creation and Lan Hai Game Group handling everything else. The group also committed to producing a second escape room dungeon within a month.

Zhang Xin was the one who signed the contract with Tong Yu. Even though Tong Yu repeatedly guaranteed that a week was enough time, Zhang Xin insisted on changing it to a month. He also reminded Tong Yu repeatedly to ensure the horror level of the escape room while meeting the deadline.

Horror level? Tong Yu wasn’t worried about that at all. The horror level of “Ghost Bride” wasn’t very high to begin with; although it was one of the representatives of Chinese horror, he hadn’t even truly elevated the horror aspect. He still had a bunch of even scarier things he hadn’t unleashed yet.

However, Tong Yu didn’t plan to do Chinese horror again; he wanted something different.

How about a Western horror?

With this thought, the first thing Tong Yu remembered was the movie Hannibal he had seen before.

Tong Yu had watched many horror films, and among Western horror films, Hannibal was one of the most memorable. He was still in middle school when he watched Hannibal, and his psychological resilience wasn’t as good as it was now. After watching the movie, he had nightmares that night, dreaming that Hannibal had tied him to a dining table and was using a knife and fork to peel open his skull and cut out his pituitary gland. When he woke up the next morning, he felt like his skull was cold, and he stubbornly wore a wool hat in the middle of summer.

Cough… let’s not dwell on the past.

Anyway, didn’t people in the interstellar era want excitement? Didn’t they want to stimulate their spiritual sea? Then let Hannibal directly peel open their skulls; that should be exciting enough, right?

“Hehehe~”

Just thinking about it, Tong Yu couldn’t help but let out a lewd laugh.

‘As for the setting, should it be a beautiful manor or a magnificent old castle?’ Speaking of old castles, Tong Yu naturally thought of vampires. ‘Vampires are also a very popular theme for escape rooms. Maybe do a vampire one too? Calm down, calm down, good things come to those who wait, one step at a time, let’s do Hannibal first.’

Having made his decision, Tong Yu stopped his wandering thoughts and began to conceive the dungeon’s plot. He still decided to limit this dungeon to eight people or fewer. Escape rooms aren’t about unlimited horror; they require teamwork, and too many people can easily lead to chaos.

As Tong Yu conceived, he sketched a rough outline on virtual paper with a virtual pen, then marked the locations of several key checkpoints. What content should these checkpoints have? “Ghost Bride” only required them to find things in a terrifying environment, so it basically didn’t require much brainpower beyond courage. This time, he absolutely had to add some intellectual elements.

For the first checkpoint, let’s do a Rubik’s Cube. Solve a Rubik’s Cube within 30 seconds, and if you can’t, Hannibal will drag you away. Then for each person dragged away, add 30 seconds until the Rubik’s Cube is solved. People in the interstellar era seem pretty smart, so they should be able to solve it quickly, at most three people would get dragged away.

What should the second checkpoint be?

Tong Yu designed it little by little, quickly completing the game’s checkpoint design, then the players’ movement paths, and the triggers for horror mechanisms during the process. He gradually refined it, taking a full day to complete the first draft.

Logging in the next day, Tong Yu began to construct the scene. He had already bought the shop. With Lan Hai Game Group’s investment, buying a shop was no longer just buying a shop for Tong Yu; with a wave of his hand, he bought a large plot of land. He had already planned it out: before divorcing Sheng Jing, he would fill this land and build an escape-themed amusement park.

To create the “Disney” of the interstellar era.

Just thinking about it filled him with excitement.

Tong Yu energetically began constructing the scene, imagining the old castles he had seen in movies and TV shows. Soon, a Baroque-style castle rose from the ground. And rising along with the castle was his rapidly depleting energy.

—-

At the research institute, Sheng Jing had just left the lab. He was back at work after canceling his leave, so his workload these past two days wasn’t heavy. He had just finished organizing the data needed for tomorrow’s experiment and was preparing to go back and get some good sleep when, as soon as he stepped out of the lab, he heard his light-brain alarm.

[Your contractor has consumed over 20,000R of spiritual power in a short period and may be in danger.]

Sheng Jing was startled. He opened his optical computer to check the value: 23,587R. In just a few short minutes, Tong Yu had actually lost over 20,000 units of energy. ‘What is he doing?’

Previously, when Tong Yu was constructing the Ghost Bride dungeon, he also consumed a large amount of energy in a short time. However, back then, he had no experience with constructing virtual scenes and built them one area at a time. Although Sheng Jing’s spiritual power was continuously draining, the amount lost each time wasn’t large.

But this time, relying on his experience, Tong Yu went straight for an entire castle, exceeding the 20,000 threshold for spiritual power, which triggered the spiritual connector’s alarm.

Almost without thinking, Sheng Jing made a video call to Tong Yu. After dialing, Sheng Jing himself was momentarily stunned. This would have been almost impossible before. In the past, even if Tong Yu called him, he would avoid answering if he could. Even when Tong Yu sent him self-harm photos, he would at most make a call. He didn’t want to see Tong Yu’s hypocritical, innocent, and pitiful face.

But at this moment, looking at the video call about to connect, Sheng Jing thought of the face he had seen that morning while eating wontons with him.

The call rang for a long time before connecting. The young man’s face abruptly appeared on the video screen, perfectly overlapping with Sheng Jing’s imagination.

“You’re looking for me?” The young man greeted cheerfully, his handsome face showing no trace of panic, only confusion.

Sheng Jing saw his expression and knew he must have misunderstood, but still asked, “What were you doing just now? I felt a large amount of spiritual power being lost.”

Sheng Jing, fearing the young man might misunderstand or have other unnecessary thoughts, specifically added the latter sentence.

Tong Yu suddenly realized: “I’m sorry, I forgot to say hello to you. I was just constructing a castle in the void, which requires a lot of spiritual power. Did it affect you? I’m so sorry, I didn’t do it on purpose.”

Tong Yu was extremely annoyed. He had only thought about constructing the castle himself but had completely overlooked the spiritual power aspect. He had already consumed a lot of Sheng Jing’s spiritual power last week, and now, after less than two days of rest, he was going to draw on Sheng Jing’s spiritual power again. Even a donkey on a production team wouldn’t work this hard! He really shouldn’t have done that. The more Tong Yu thought about it, the more embarrassed he became, apologizing profusely.

“Are you running low on spiritual power? Then I won’t draw any more; I’ll stop right now.” Tong Yu was now incredibly grateful that Zhang Xin had changed the deadline from one week to one month; otherwise, he really wasn’t sure if he could finish on time.

‘How could I forget to calculate the spiritual power!’

Sheng Jing heard this and became displeased. ‘What did he mean, my spiritual power wasn’t enough?’ Sheng Jing’s face darkened: “How much spiritual power do you need?”

Tong Yu replied: “Around 400,000R, probably about the same as last week.”

Tong Yu had originally intended to make the castle escape room larger, but considering that Sheng Jing’s spiritual power would be completely drained, he temporarily changed his mind and decided to slightly reduce the castle’s area.

When Sheng Jing heard that Tong Yu still needed about 400,000R of spiritual power, he was secretly startled. He had consumed so much spiritual power just last week, and now he needed another 400,000 this week. The rate of consumption was too fast. Tong Yu had said that the reason he consumed so much was because he was creating in the virtual world. Creating something entirely new certainly consumes spiritual power, but it had only been a few days, and he was already creating something entirely new again?

There weren’t no such geniuses in the world, and clearly, Tong Yu wasn’t one of them—at least, the Tong Yu he knew wasn’t.

Sheng Jing had many thoughts, but on the surface, he remained incredibly calm and said, “As long as you can use it all, 500,000 is fine.”

Tong Yu’s eyes immediately lit up with surprise. “Really? Can I use it now?”

Hearing the eagerness in Tong Yu’s voice, Sheng Jing felt a sudden, inexplicable pang of guilt. ‘This guy isn’t planning to draw 500,000R of spiritual power from me in one day, is he?’

“I have no problem, but I must warn you, your spiritual sea hasn’t been stimulated before. Excessive prolonged use of spiritual power can damage it,” Sheng Jing cautioned.

“I know. I won’t use it all at once. I’ll spread the 500,000R of spiritual power over three days.” After constructing the Ghost Bride last time, he experienced a throbbing headache, but he didn’t think much of it then, assuming it was from spending too much time online. He later caught up on some knowledge about spiritual power and understood the reasons. So this time, he didn’t plan to build the entire castle in one day but intended to perfect it little by little over three days.

Three days should be enough time.

Sheng Jing secretly breathed a sigh of relief. “Tell me before you use the spiritual power.”

“Okay, okay! If I need to use a lot of spiritual power in the future, I’ll definitely let you know beforehand. It was my oversight before, I’m really sorry.” Tong Yu apologized again. “I’ll treat you to a meal sometime. Oh, by the way, did you receive the wontons I sent you last time? If you like them, I can send you some more.”

‘Wontons?’ Sheng Jing couldn’t help but think of last night. He had cooked the wontons in the cafeteria. At first, the aroma wasn’t strong, and only the chef who helped him cook praised how fragrant they were. But the moment he bit into a wonton, and the aroma spread, the entire cafeteria went wild. Those scientists, whose brains were filled with high-tech knowledge, became like simpletons for a moment, staring eagerly at the wontons in his bowl, trying every possible way to get a taste.

But how could he show his fondness for such a thing? What if Tong Yu misunderstood that he liked him? So, Sheng Jing merely gave a faint “mm-hmm” and hung up the phone.

Then he turned around, swiped his card, and returned to his lab, which he had only left less than 5 minutes ago.

A colleague in the lab saw Sheng Jing return and asked curiously, “Why are you back? Weren’t you going to rest?”

Sheng Jing calmly replied, “I suddenly had some ideas.” Then he buried himself in his work.

He had to figure out how to produce 500,000R of chaotic spiritual power. Throughout the entire research institute—no, even the entire Shui Lan Star—everyone was trying to figure out how to reduce chaotic spiritual power. Having his kind of problem was truly unique.