Shang Jingyan projected a hologram from her optical brain, displaying a 3D model of the haunted house. “I built this using my psychic power before I arrived. The concept is actually pretty simple. Let me show you, and you’ll get it right away.”

A miniature version of the Eldritch God’s castle appeared before them. The exterior was an exact replica of the one from the movie. But when she zoomed in, the internal layout, traps, and details became visible.

A tiny figure walked in under her guidance. The moment it stepped through the entrance—bam!—a long-haired ghost dropped down from above. The little figure jumped in terror, landing on its backside with a shriek.

Xue Jiang raised an eyebrow, her expression turning serious. “This is kind of like your holographic games or escape rooms, but with a twist—it relies on mechanical traps and actors playing the ghosts. That’s… actually perfect for a theme park attraction.”

Dreamweaving wasn’t the only way to deliver an adrenaline rush. This world’s tourism and amusement park industries were highly developed, too.

Since Xue Jiang was already in the business, she caught on immediately. In fact, her initial redesign of the castle already had the makings of a haunted house. Shang Jingyan’s idea was like the missing piece of the puzzle, suddenly bringing everything into focus.

“…Director Shang, I really like this idea.” Xue Jiang’s eyes lit up, her enthusiasm unmistakable.

Her mind raced as she took the idea further. “We could even create different themes—classic Western castles like this, or traditional Chinese-style haunted houses. Hell, why not make haunted attractions the core of Roseheart’s brand? Visitors could experience their own personalized horror movie adventure!”

She’d previously considered building a traditional courtyard-style mansion like the one in Rouge Comb, but wooden structures were ridiculously expensive. Plus, to tourists, it wouldn’t be much different from the countless film set replicas out there. The cost-to-benefit ratio wasn’t worth it.

But a haunted house as the focal point? Now that was a game changer.

“And for the best immersion, we’d have to use the aesthetic of your creations. That’s the only way to get the perfect atmosphere…” Xue Jiang suddenly chuckled and turned to her assistant bot. “Adjust my schedule. From now until bedtime, I’m working exclusively with Director Shang.”

Initially, Xue Jiang had assumed Shang Jingyan just wanted a one-to-one recreation of the Eldritch God’s castle—a common dream for Dreamweavers. Even in a world dominated by virtual experiences, creators still longed to see their work come to life.

But from a business standpoint, that kind of investment was unnecessary. A similarly styled castle would attract visitors just as well, without the added cost of licensing the intellectual property.

Cold? Maybe. But that was the reality of business.

Xue Jiang did believe Shang Jingyan had potential. If she continued to grow, Xue Jiang might have considered working with her in the future.

But this idea? This was so good she was willing to pay the IP fee right now—and not just that, but secure the rights for all of Shang’s future works, too.

–

By the time they wrapped up their discussion, the city lights were already twinkling. They even had dinner together.

Compared to Sister Cui, Xue Jiang was in a whole different league of wealth. Before parting ways, she even generously promised an investment.

Shang Jingyan received the highest-tier VIP treatment from Xue Jiang—her entire trip was now fully compensated, and from now on, she had lifetime free access to all of Xue Jiang’s tourism properties.

Xue Jiang was a woman of action. Even during their negotiations, she was already reaching out to her construction contacts. By the time they signed the contract, the project was ready to break ground any day now.

X71: [Congrats, Yan Yan!]

Shang Jingyan decided she could definitely get used to business trips like this. Stretching lazily, she logged back into the control panel. “Let’s see how the players are doing… Lu Zibing hit a Bad Ending… huh? Not bad, Azure Snow finally made some progress.”

–

Meanwhile, Lu Zibing was still locked in a desperate mop battle against the Ratmen.

After suffering repeated deaths, he had to log off for a three-hour mental health break before coming back.

[Keep it up, streamer! This is the funniest thing I’ve seen all year.]

[LMAO, I think I’m desensitized to Ratmen and hair at this point. The more I watch, the funnier it gets.]

[What if he’s permanently stuck here? Everyone else advances the story while he’s just… eternally fighting Ratmen. Tragic.]

Modern narrative-driven holographic games had a special mechanic—unless a player somewhere on the server reached the True Ending, no one could restart their run.

Which meant that if Lu Zibing wanted to reload, he could only pray that someone else reached the ending first.

“You guys are my haters, aren’t you?! Stop jinxing me!” Lu Zibing gritted his teeth, sweating profusely as he fought in the freezing cold environment.

Meanwhile, the chat had moved on to theorizing.

[What’s the in-game explanation for these Ratmen? Is Building 18 contaminated? Are the rats mutating into these things?]

[That’s possible. So far, a lot of weird stuff in the game seems to be tied to animals—rats, moths… Maybe it’s a clue.]

[Actually, do we even know if these monsters started as rats? Or as people? That’s a terrifying thought.]

After eight grueling attempts, Lu Zibing finally impaled the last Ratman against the wall with a toilet plunger.

It collapsed onto the floor, shrinking until it was no larger than a hairless, palm-sized rat corpse.

Blood spattered the hallway like a scene from a serial killer’s lair, but all Lu Zibing felt was the overwhelming relief of clearing the area.

“Let’s see what my victory prize is…” He rubbed his hands together excitedly and stepped over the threshold at the end of the corridor.

The air shimmered imperceptibly.

This area looked like a dormitory. Building 18 had a strange layout—part school, part living quarters.

The nearest door had a dorm number on it. Lu Zibing could just barely make out a “4.”

But before he could get closer, everything went dark.

Lu Zibing: “???”

A text box slowly faded in.

[Bad Ending 1: Although you defeated the Ratman, the truth of Building 18 is still beyond your grasp. You have died. Try again in your next life!]

As the darkness lifted, Lu Zibing felt a wave of dizziness. He was back in the office, where Lin Huailu greeted him with the same familiar smile.

“Good evening, Principal Lang.”

[HAHAHAHA he’s the first person to reach an ending?!]

[BE is still an Ending! No lies detected! RIP, though.]

[So after five hours of pain, what did the streamer gain? Answer: The experience of killing Ratmen with a mop and a plunger. Useless skill EXP +1!]

Lu Zibing: “……”

He coughed up a mouthful of metaphorical blood.

Damn you, devs. You’re heartless!

–

Meanwhile, in Qingxue’s livestream room.

Ao Qingxue had already started teaching in the game two days ago. Given the limited faculty at No. 2 High School, even the protagonist had to double as a math teacher for a class.

After playing for two days, her biggest takeaway was: No. 2 High School had a terrible school atmosphere.

“Wolf Spider’s assignments are brutal. That old hag! I’ll borrow the homework from the class next door tomorrow—no way she’ll notice.”

“Caught another paper note.” Ao Qingxue sighed as she stood next to the protagonist, then shrugged at the livestream chat.

“Wolf Spider” was clearly the students’ nickname for Lang Zhu.

On the first day of school, when Ao Qingxue introduced herself in class, she noticed students dozing off below the podium. A game prompt popped up: [You’re determined to be known as a strict teacher. How will you handle this?]

Since strictness was part of the role, Ao Qingxue made the sleeping student stand for ten minutes. But that decision seemingly offended Class 3-4, who then started pulling all sorts of tricks to mess with her.

She handled it fairly well—some players with short tempers were already on the verge of throwing hands with the students. But if you didn’t enforce discipline, it was worse—those who initially didn’t bother establishing authority got pranked even more mercilessly.

The student whose note she confiscated wasn’t fazed in the slightest. He just stuck out his tongue and made silly faces. Lang Zhu, unfazed, assigned a punishment of copying out text lines, and Ao Qingxue maneuvered the protagonist into the office.

[After playing this game, I never want to get a teaching license. This is exhausting.]

[Dev, what the hell? How do we progress the storyline? I didn’t sign up for a teacher simulator!]

[I remember playing a crappy otome game once where key plot points only unlocked based on accumulated in-game days. Don’t tell me Director Shang is pulling the same stunt here? This is a full-dive VR game! You can’t just skip days like in a mobile game.]

“I don’t think so,” Ao Qingxue muttered, analyzing, “The clues should already be there. We just haven’t discovered them yet.”

So where was the missing link?

She suddenly remembered a clue she had overlooked—something in writing. The principal’s handbook and school documents handed out at the start of the semester.

Hardly any players had seriously read those. Determined, Ao Qingxue switched to full exam-prep mode and resolved to go through everything thoroughly.

Principal’s Handbook. Common Psychological Issues in Adolescents. Teen Safety Education.

The livestream chat was caught off guard by this approach and erupted in shock:

[No way. Director Shang wouldn’t be this cruel, right??]

Ao Qingxue spent three hours reading, then jokingly changed her stream title to “Immersive Studying in ‘Building No. 18’”, which attracted a lot of curious viewers.

[Classic Qingxue. Calmly studying in a horror game.]

[Now I’m curious. Will there actually be a clue?]

[This is my first time watching a study streamer… in a horror game, no less. LOL.]

After finishing four or five booklets, Ao Qingxue suddenly looked up, eyes shining. “I think I got it!”

Her heart pounded with excitement. One recurring theme in all these documents was: Preventing school bullying.

The trigger for the main storyline was likely tied to campus bullying.

The clue wasn’t even hidden that deeply—it was right there in the table of contents. But to be thorough, Ao Qingxue had read everything cover to cover.

The chat immediately bombarded her with questions. Instead of answering, she glanced at the in-game clock. Just in time for the morning running drill.

“Let’s test this out together,” she said.

The game’s weather always seemed gloomy, and today was no exception. Students in blue-and-white uniforms sluggishly assembled and started jogging to the beat of the music.

Ao Qingxue focused on one boy. He clutched his stomach and gradually fell behind, eventually raising his hand. “Teacher, my stomach hurts. Can I skip today?”

This student always feigned illness to get out of running, earning him a reputation as a problem kid among players.

But looking closer, Ao Qingxue realized—this wasn’t an act. His expression showed genuine pain.

Before, she would just scold him or suggest he visit the infirmary, only for him to blow her off completely.

Today, she added, “Mu Shuai, if someone is bullying you, you can tell me.”

Mu Shuai flinched—clearly, the character’s hidden setting had been triggered!

[Whoa! A brand-new approach! Did she actually deduce the right clue from the handbook?]

[Now that you mention it, I did see some forum posts about players trying to befriend him, even take him to the doctor, but he never cooperates.]

[But even if bullying exists, how do you confirm it? You’re just a substitute teacher…]

Mu Shuai lowered his head in silence.

“I’ll try to get closer to him first,” Ao Qingxue decided.

In real life, she was a top student and had done tutoring part-time before. She was good at teaching. Her chosen method was to tutor Mu Shuai one-on-one. If the game allowed finer control over character actions, she could’ve taught even better.

A flood of new viewers poured into the livestream, and Ao Qingxue updated the title: “Immersive Tutoring in ‘Building No. 18’—What’s It Like?”

After two in-game days of tutoring, Mu Shuai hesitated before saying, “Teacher… someone asked me to ‘hang out’ after school. Can you keep an eye on me from a distance?”

–

Shang Jingyan, monitoring from behind the scenes, could see Mu Shuai’s affection score shifting. When a player raised this student’s favorability to 10 points, it would trigger the “Student Confides” event.

The requirement wasn’t high—just three or four tutoring sessions would do.

But because Ao Qingxue had already laid the groundwork, she succeeded in two sessions.

She followed Mu Shuai to the sports field grove, where a group of students was waiting.

–

Some of them were smoking. As soon as Mu Shuai approached, the ringleader shoved him. Several students gestured for money.

A pop-up appeared: [You’ve discovered a hidden clue: A student gang is engaging in bullying at No. 2 High School. Main storyline progress +5.]

It really was school bullying!

Ao Qingxue sat up straight, unable to suppress her excitement. She knew she shouldn’t be happy about seeing this scenario, but finally seeing the progress bar move? That was satisfying.

[First in the entire player base!!]

[Damn, now I’m hyped too!]

[These kids are awful. Can we send them all to juvie?]

The protagonist stepped forward to intervene. As Ao Qingxue scanned the group, she suddenly spotted someone surprising—Xiaomei!

Lin Xiaomei, tall and stone-faced, actually looked a bit intimidating. She didn’t say a word while being reprimanded.

[Wait, but there’s no follow-up option after stopping the bullying?]

[I didn’t expect Xiaomei to be involved. She seemed so innocent before.]

[The progress bar moved—there has to be more. Maybe Mu Shuai will share a key clue later?]

But as it turned out, the audience was being way too optimistic—

The next in-game day, during morning reading…

At this point, Ao Qingxue had been playing in real life for almost 48 hours straight—she was about to hit the full-immersion anti-addiction limit.

Langzhu had stepped away to use the restroom. Still groggy, she followed behind the protagonist and mumbled, “Why did they bother making such a detailed cutscene? This wasn’t in the game before.”

Due to privacy settings, Ao Qingxue’s screen went dark.

Her vision only came back when she suddenly found herself inside a bathroom stall. Langzhu reached out to open the door, only to realize it wouldn’t budge. She froze.

[You have triggered a key story event. Please proceed with caution.]

“…Guys, I never thought I’d see the day where I’d get trapped in a bathroom.” Ao Qingxue was stunned.

The cramped, enclosed space already felt suffocating, and to make matters worse, the school’s bathrooms were ancient and eerily gloomy.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

The world outside was dead silent, except for the sound of dripping water echoing in the emptiness.

Ao Qingxue shivered, rubbing her arms. Maybe it was just her imagination, but the water sounded thick, almost viscous—like blood.

Screeeech—

Out of nowhere, a sharp, grating noise broke the silence. It sounded like something scraping against the floor, as if a door in the hallway had just been pushed open.

[Ahhh, this is terrifying! Is this revenge from a bullied student?!]

[Help! The limited field of view makes this even scarier—what’s out there?!]

[This reminds me of the monster Lu Zibing ran into… Don’t let it come any closer!!]

Summoning her courage, Ao Qingxue called out, “Hello? Is anyone there?”

Under normal circumstances, she would never say a word—talking to “unknown entities” rarely ended well.

But since this was a key story event, she had no choice but to bite the bullet. Worst case? She dies and respawns.

No one answered. But the next second, she heard footsteps in the hallway.

The chat exploded with non-stop “AHHHHHHH!!” as the footsteps got closer. Then, the tightly shut bathroom door creaked open, and someone—or something—stepped inside.

Ao Qingxue held her breath, pressing herself against the stall wall, heart hammering in her chest. Instinctively, she clung to the protagonist’s arm.

[Is it a ghost?! Or just someone coming to use the bathroom?!]

[Ask again! Don’t chicken out, streamer!!]

[Ahhh, if I were her, I wouldn’t dare speak either!!]

The intruder seemed to be searching for something. Ao Qingxue barely dared to breathe, gripping her quantum-brain device like it was a lifeline. The only thing keeping her sane was the scrolling chat reminding her that this was just a game—there weren’t any real ghosts.

Stay calm. Stay calm!

She kept repeating the words to herself, forcing her attention onto the glowing screen to distract from her fear.

Eventually, after what felt like an eternity, she realized the room had gone completely quiet.

Did… did it leave?

No… something wasn’t right.

She could hear another breath.

Ao Qingxue’s head snapped up—only to see a pale, disheveled face peering down at her from the top of the stall door!

“!!——”

Her pupils shrank to pinpricks. A scream caught in her throat, barely held back. She wasn’t exaggerating—her heart almost stopped!

“… Teacher Lang?”

The “ghost” spoke.

It took a second for Ao Qingxue’s brain to catch up. It wasn’t a ghost. It was Lin Xiaomei.

“L-Lin Xiaomei?! It’s you?!” Relief flooded her, but her limbs were still weak from fright. She forced a shaky laugh. “What are you doing here?”

[Holy crap, I nearly had a heart attack!!]

[This is definitely revenge, right?! These students are awful!!]

[Is it just me, or does Xiaomei seem like she doesn’t know what’s going on either? Maybe she had a change of heart…]

Lin Xiaomei hesitated for a moment before answering, “I came to use the bathroom and saw this stall was blocked by a mop. So I climbed up to check.”

…Climbed up because it was blocked? That was the lamest excuse ever!

Ao Qingxue screamed internally.

Lin Xiaomei disappeared from view. A moment later, there was some fumbling outside, and the stall door swung open. Lin Xiaomei stood there, holding a mop in one hand and a stool in the other—clear evidence that she had prepared for this.

[Your choices:]

[A. Scold her for locking you inside.]

[B. Thank her for letting you out.]

Ao Qingxue was still on edge and nearly picked A out of reflex. But something told her that was the wrong move.

So, she swallowed her frustration and chose B.

Langzhu gulped and forced out a polite, “Thanks, Xiaomei.”

Lin Xiaomei didn’t even acknowledge her. She dropped the mop, slung the stool under one arm, stuffed the other hand into her pocket, and strolled out like nothing happened.

Ao Qingxue just wanted to get out of that creepy bathroom ASAP. But as she reached the staircase, something on the floor caught her eye.

“Huh? Did Xiaomei drop this?”

She bent down and picked it up. It was an old, tattered cloth doll—downright eerie. The eyes were sewn on with buttons, but one had fallen off, leaving only a dangling thread. Its mouth was stitched with red thread, curving into an unsettling expression—somewhere between a smile and a sob.

[You have obtained an item: Xiaomei’s Possibly Cursed Doll.]

[Area ‘Building 18 · Floors 1–4’ unlocked.]

[FINALLY!! Fastest progression on the whole platform—Qingxue, you’re a legend!!]

[Why does Xiaomei have this thing?]

[Are you going to Building 18?! Lu Zibing went there before—it’s terrifying!!]

Ao Qingxue was completely drained. “Next stream, okay? I need to log off and rest.”

Fear plus exhaustion—no way was she pushing through any longer. Even a machine would break down!

–

Meanwhile, Shang Jingyan had stopped watching as soon as Qingxue raised her favorability with Mu Shuai. While other players were busy getting spooked, she was fast asleep in a luxurious VIP suite at the castle.

A call from Xiao Zhang woke her up.

“Director Shang! Are you planning to apply for the Dreamweaver Association this year? Registration starts at 9 AM!”

Shang Jingyan groggily blinked. “Yeah, I was considering it… but I thought the deadline was three months away?”

“Oh, you were looking at the universal Dreamweaver certification schedule, huh? The central star system doesn’t include us in that. Our exile zone has a separate timeline.”

Shang Jingyan: “…”

She actually didn’t know that.

The interstellar Dreamweaver system had a structured ranking system. At the lowest level, anyone with a completed project and at least one public event under their belt automatically qualified as an Apprentice Dreamweaver.

Shang Jingyan was already an apprentice.

From there, Dreamweavers progressed through five star-rankings.

Passing the association’s entrance exam granted the title of One-Star Dreamweaver.

Higher ranks were awarded based on project performance, and the final level, Resident Dreamweaver, came with an entire Dream-Origin Crystal Planet.

Technically, she wasn’t sure if she really needed to pay off the original owner’s mining rights debt. Given how young the original owner was when she signed, the contract might not even be legally binding.

But still… the Dreamweaver rankings intrigued her.

Director Shang always loved a challenge.

“Alright, I’m up. I’ll go register…” She shuffled out of bed, the tail of her dinosaur-print pajamas dragging behind her.

A new voice joined the call—Chai Yuanlin.

“This year’s examiners are top-tier talents from the central star system. Anyone who’s in the know has already gathered past exam questions.”

She wisely swallowed the question “Do you have a study guide?” and instead said, “I compiled one. Send me your address—I’ll mail it to you.”