The staff corridor was hidden within the walls, narrow and dimly lit—darker than the main visitor paths even when the attraction was open.

Lai Yuanjia had to turn on his wrist computer’s flashlight. The beam barely illuminated a small white circle in front of him, and as he walked, his fear grew. His shaky hands made the light tremble wildly with his movements.

Then, as he reached a corner, he froze, eyes widening in horror, before letting out a bloodcurdling scream.

“AHHHHHH!!”

Under the eerie green glow of an emergency exit sign stood a figure with long, unkempt white hair. The overhead lighting cast deep shadows on their face, obscuring their features. They wore a light-colored dress, now soaked in crimson stains, and in their hand dangled what appeared to be… an octopus head, glowing under the green light in an almost phosphorescent hue.

【HELP ME!!!】

【Don’t panic! It’s probably just a staff member. NPCs are bound to be lurking in the staff corridors, right?!】

【I’d rather take my chances outside! Isn’t this basically walking into a nest of horror NPCs?!】

Lai Yuanjia had barely managed to keep a grip on his sanity—until the white-haired woman suddenly spoke, shattering his last shred of composure.

“Oh no,” she murmured. “You saw me.”

The livestream chat went wild.

【?】

【???!】

【Would a normal staff member say something like that?! Shouldn’t they be asking, ‘Sir, what are you doing here?’ Why does it sound like she’s the one who got caught?!】

【I CAN’T BREATHE. WHAT DID THE STREAMER JUST WALK INTO?!】

“D-don’t come any closer!!” Lai Yuanjia shrieked, scrambling backward on his hands and knees. Tears streamed down his face as the woman took a step forward. He couldn’t even scream anymore—his head lolled to the side, and he fainted on the spot.

His wrist computer hit the ground, cutting off the livestream instantly.

Shang Jingyan blinked in shock. “…Wait a minute. Did my haunted house just cause an accident on opening day?”

【Don’t worry, his vitals are stable. He just passed out from stress.】

X71’s voice carried a hint of solemnity. 【…But, uh, your phrasing back there was extremely misleading.】

Shang Jingyan swore it had just been an instinctive reaction. She’d heard footsteps and had tried to leave quickly to avoid scaring another NPC—only for this guy to sprint right into her, turning a corner into a full-blown horror encounter.

As for her bloodstained dress? It was part of a special event route, where every visitor got splattered with a temporary dye that would evaporate within a few hours.

And the octopus head in her hand? She’d picked it up along the way—some unlucky NPC must have lost it to an overzealous guest.

She crouched down and poked the unconscious Lai Yuanjia. “Huh. Not a staff member, after all.”

Now that she thought about it, a real staff member would have a key. Why would they be pounding on doors?

X71’s voice bristled with indignation. 【That guy’s a streamer. A terrible one. Here, let me show you what he’s been up to.】

Shang Jingyan skimmed through the data X71 sent over and shrugged. 【Well, there goes my last bit of sympathy.】

Some people just bring disasters upon themselves. Rude, entitled visitors deserved a haunted house experience they’d never forget.

–

After Lai Yuanjia’s livestream cut out, it didn’t take long for viewers in Jiang Yuran’s private fan group to piece things together. Turns out, the “princess dress lady” who had left early to take a shortcut was the same one he had run into.

【I CAN’T. Lai Yuanjia’s luck is unreal. Serves him right!】

【But why was she in the staff corridor? Was she actually hired by the castle to scare visitors?】

【Wait… her hair color and length… don’t tell me—】

Their speculation was soon confirmed.

Two hours later, after Jiang Yuran and Jiang Xue had finally cleared the haunted house, they found someone waiting for them at the exit—Shang Jingyan, chin resting on her hand, watching them with an amused smile.

“S-Shang… Director Shang?!” Jiang Yuran blurted out, her face instantly flushing red. She’d spent the whole day gushing over how cool and elegant this mysterious woman was—only to now realize she was none other than the Dreamweaver herself!

【NO WAY, IT’S DIRECTOR SHANG!】

【I’M SO JEALOUS. I WANNA GO THROUGH THE HAUNTED HOUSE WITH HER TOO!】

【I CAN’T HANDLE THIS. She wears frilly princess dresses?! The contrast is TOO CUTE. I’M IN LOVE.】

The haunted house’s first day of business had been a rollercoaster of chaos, landing it on several trending lists.

With the Jiang siblings’ permission, Shang Jingyan even edited together security footage—one clip of Jiang Yuran hugging an NPC in fright, and another of herself scaring an NPC by accident—and uploaded it as a promo video for the haunted house’s official site.

【LMAO THE NPCS CAN’T CATCH A BREAK.】

【Most people: “This haunted house is terrifying.” The ghosts: “Director Shang is terrifying.” Conclusion: Shang Jingyan is at the top of the horror food chain.】

【NPC: “Director Shang, you never told me I’d be the one getting scared here!!”】

 【If Director Shang hadn’t explained things, that poor NPC would be lying awake at 80 years old, still wondering: What the hell did I run into that day?】

【I hope Lai Yuanjia spends the next 50 years wondering the same thing. (doge)】

—

“Damn it!!”

A furious yell echoed from a medical ward inside the Rose Heart.

Lai Yuanjia sat on the hospital bed, shaking with rage. He hurled his wrist computer across the room—but the comments he’d just seen were already seared into his mind, impossible to forget.

【Lai Yuanjia totally deserved that. Good thing he’s not actually injured, or he’d probably try to sue Xue Tourism.】

【Is this the kind of behavior we get from central star system streamers? Ugh, people like him should be banned.】

【I used to follow him, but he’s such a disappointment. Ugh. Unsubbed.】

【Did we really need this incident to realize he was trash? He’s been spreading fake news about the exile systems for ages.】

【From fan to hater in record time!】

Normally, Lai Yuanjia could handle hate. He’d long since mastered the art of being shameless.

But this? This was different.

This time, his audience wasn’t just angry—they were leaving him. The same viewers who had once felt superior watching him belittle the exile systems were now distancing themselves to protect their own image.

And to make matters worse, an old clip surfaced—a visitor had caught him littering inside the park. He had carefully avoided security cameras, but he hadn’t accounted for other guests recording him.

In the past, a video like that would’ve gone unnoticed. But this time, with all the haunted house drama fueling public outrage, it went viral.

People who looked down on others hated nothing more than becoming the butt of the joke themselves. And so, in an effort to disassociate, they turned on him with a vengeance.

Lai Yuanjia was now hated by everyone.

Then, to top it all off, another blow landed.

—Xue Tourism issued a statement banning him from all their properties.

【HAHAHA HE THOUGHT HE WAS TOO GOOD FOR THE EXILE STAR SYSTEM, BUT TURNS OUT THEY DON’T WANT HIM EITHER!】

【Who would want him?】

Lai Yuanjia shivered. His entire career was crumbling around him.

What was he supposed to do now?

He was finally starting to regret it. Why the hell did he have to go and pull that door open?

Fear ripped away his usual facade, exposing his true self for all to see.

And right on its heels, an even deeper fear crept in. Lai Yuanjia found himself biting his nails.

Would his travel livestream career even survive this?

He wasn’t exactly irreplaceable. Plenty of people were trying to copy his style, and even the company he signed with was grooming new talent in the same niche. Lai Yuanjia knew exactly what set him apart, but at the end of the day, his biggest advantage was getting famous early. That was it.

Now that he’d crashed and burned, he’d probably start hemorrhaging viewers. And if that happened, the company might just take this as a chance to push a more controllable newcomer into the spotlight.

What should he do? Would apologizing and making peace with Xue Tourism even help?

Just as he was grasping at that slim hope, reality smacked him in the face.

—Xue Tourism issued a public statement: their affiliated businesses did not welcome tourists like him. He was officially blacklisted.

[Hahaha, Lai Yuanjia must be fuming right now. Thought he was too good for the Exile Systems, only for them to turn around and reject him!]

[Who wouldn’t reject someone like him?]

[This is the first time I’ve seen the Exile Systems get this much attention. Their Dreamweaver industry is actually this interesting?]

[I need to rethink my biases. I always assumed that place was backward, but watching Lai Yuanjia’s livestream… it’s not that different from what we have here.]

The Exile Systems had always been a background element in mainstream discourse—mentioned only in crime reports like “Convicted felon transported to Exile System” or “Exile System pirates spotted in [insert star sector].” But this time, their tourism industry had taken center stage, flipping the narrative in a way that caught everyone off guard.

–

Gamma Star System.

“Damn it! Why is it only available in the Exile Systems? I wanna play too!”

Lu Zibing had originally planned to play Building 18, but once the haunted house opened, he became a jealous spectator instead, eyes practically glowing green with envy.

Even a guy like Lai Yuanjia got to experience it. Why couldn’t he?!

His livestream chat was full of lamenting viewers:

[At least I can buy an agent account for a full-dive game. But a real-life haunted house? No chance.]

[Director Shang, hurry up and make it big! We need haunted houses across the entire galaxy!]

[Someone else could totally copy this idea, right? I give it a month before we see something similar pop up. But I doubt it’ll have Director Shang’s creativity…]

[Hehe, I got to play it! And I’m almost at the final stage. I’ll livestream the autograph session with Director Shang later!]

The lone lucky player from the Exile Systems was immediately swarmed with envy, while Lu Zibing tried to console himself. “Hmph, what’s the big deal? The game’s just as fun…”

But even he wasn’t convinced.

Building 18 was a single-player story game. No real NPC interactions, no teammates to explore with.

Fully immersive multiplayer games were rare—every additional player meant exponentially more strain on a Dreamweaver’s mental energy. Usually, only massive corporations with dozens or even hundreds of Dreamweavers could afford to make them.

If an independent Dreamweaver attempted a multiplayer game, the result was almost always a barebones experience—just a bunch of people wandering a map, aimlessly enjoying the scenery.

After watching a few more haunted house clips, Lu Zibing finally shook himself out of his daze and announced, “Alright, time to start today’s stream! I swear, I’ll be the first player in the entire network to clear Building 18!”

[Azure Snow: Do I look like I care?]

[Streamer, let’s be real. The only leaderboard you’ve beaten Azure Snow on is ‘Most Deaths’ (dog emoji).]

Ever since Rouge Comb blew up, droves of players had flocked to Building 18. The sheer number of streamers getting scared out of their minds could fill an entire comedy compilation. And yet, people kept throwing themselves at it. That’s just the twisted allure of horror games.

To be fair, Lu Zibing wasn’t doing too badly. Even with his habit of taking long breaks between attempts, he was still in the top 10% of players.

Last time, Azure Snow had unlocked the notebook. A few days ago, Lu Zibing finally did too.

Unlike Azure Snow, though, he refused to watch any spoilers. After piecing together the hints about school bullying, he never even considered using after-school tutoring to gain favor with Xiao Shuai. Instead, he brute-forced his way through—

When Xiao Shuai ate, Lu Zibing lurked nearby, tray in hand, watching.

When Xiao Shuai attended class, Lu Zibing snuck out of the principal’s office to spy from the window.

When Xiao Shuai went to the bathroom, Lu Zibing was this close to making the female principal follow him into the boys’ restroom…

His relentless tracking eventually led him to witness the bullying firsthand. The chat, of course, roasted him for it:

[Bro, are you sure you’re playing a horror game? This looks more like a stalker simulator.]

After a particular jump scare in the bathroom, Lu Zibing screamed out a string of profanities so intense that the game auto-registered his choice as [You chose to reprimand Xiao Mei]. He panicked for a moment, but chat reassured him that, so far, it didn’t seem to have any major impact on the story.

Now, logging back into the game, he found the protagonist in the middle of a dream.

Any player who unlocked the notebook would trigger a dream sequence that night.

Players had started compiling these dream fragments, though most seemed like meaningless snippets. However, every single dream featured the same girl.

She looked like a high schooler, wearing a winter uniform with a pink knit scarf pulled up over half her face. Her features remained hazy, shrouded in mist.

From her build, she was clearly the same girl from Langzhu’s nightmares. But unlike the nightmare version—where she turned around to reveal a grotesquely mutilated face—this dream carried a heavier, more sorrowful tone. She always shouted something before running away, leaving the protagonist to wake up in tears.

Some players theorized that this girl was someone deeply important to Langzhu—perhaps her daughter. And her secret might be tied to this girl’s fate, possibly an incident at the school a decade ago that Langzhu had returned to investigate.

“Damn… that’s depressing.” Lu Zibing “woke up” from the dream, still shaken even as the protagonist went about her workday.

Lin Huailu handed him a cup of tea. “Didn’t sleep well, Principal?”

Lu Zibing, still determined to crack this character’s secrets, seized the moment. “Yeah. Mr. Lin, got any remedies for insomnia? I visited Building 18 a few days ago, and I swear, I’ve been haunted ever since.”

[Wait, can you just say that to an NPC?]

[First time seeing a player be so direct with Lin Huailu.]

[Give up, streamer. He’s obviously hiding something. Every player who tried to get close to him ended up dead.]

Most players had long abandoned hopes of getting useful info from Lin Huailu. He was just a regular math teacher, transferred to the school a year ago. Anytime someone asked about Building 18, he’d claim ignorance.

But instead of brushing it off, Lin Huailu actually hesitated. Then, he said, “I got a charm from the temple the other day. It’s supposed to ward off bad dreams. You can borrow it if you’d like.”

[?? This wasn’t in anyone else’s playthrough. What the hell?]

[Maybe it’s just a rare event? Streamer does have the highest favorability with him.]

[Wait… are we actually supposed to romance him? That really doesn’t seem like Director Shang’s style.]

Lu Zibing froze for a second—then grinned. “Hell yes! Gimme!”

The charm looked like a small brocade pouch, golden in color, with strange symbols drawn in cinnabar that Lu Zibing couldn’t decipher.

[You have obtained an item: Lin Huailu’s Mysterious Calming Talisman.]

The item was stored in the inventory alongside Lin Xiaomei’s ragged doll. Lu Zibing muttered, “Did the devs do this on purpose? Both of them have the surname Lin.”

Feeling pleased with himself, he spent the rest of the in-game day completing his daily routine. As night fell, he expected the game to transition seamlessly into the next day and trigger a new storyline. Instead, “he” started dreaming again.

This was an entirely new dream—one that had never been unlocked before. In it, he wasn’t himself. He was a girl, almost as if he had possessed her body.

Rather than a dream, it felt more like a memory. The scene started with the girl walking through a dormitory hallway and unlocking the door to her room.

Lu Zibing saw the room number clearly: bright red, “404.”

[Holy crap, the streamer actually stumbled onto new story content!]

[So hyped! This is the dorm where the diary was found! Could this girl be the diary’s owner?]

[Judging by the condition of the surrounding buildings, this is definitely ten years ago!]

The live stream’s perspective had shifted—it was no longer in third-person but fully synchronized with Lu Zibing’s first-person view, making the experience all the more immersive.

Lu Zibing had grown up in the countryside of his home planet. His school didn’t look exactly like this, but he had lived in a dormitory before, sharing space with classmates. The scene felt oddly familiar, easy to sink into.

The dormitory wall clock read 9:55 PM, likely right after evening study hall. The other roommates returned one by one, making eight girls in total, including the dream’s protagonist.

Their faces were clear, but since the view was first-person, the audience could only tell that “she” had long, black hair.

It was just an ordinary night. The girls were chatting, laughing about math problems from study hall, venting about weird encounters from the day—everyone except the dream’s protagonist.

They didn’t speak to her, and she didn’t acknowledge them either.

[Called it—there’s definitely some exclusion happening. Poor protagonist.]

[This reminds me of my school days… Sigh.]

[Could bullying be a central theme in both the past and present timelines of Building 18?]

At around 11 PM, the dorm lights went out. The dream’s protagonist turned on a small bedside lamp and wrote in her diary for a while.

The entry read:

2123/4/1

A boring April Fool’s Day.

Will he come again?

Strangely, she had first written “it” instead of “he,” hesitated for a moment, then corrected it. Her hand trembled as she wrote, as if afraid.

[It is the diary’s owner!!]

[This entry comes right after the torn page #1!]

[Why did she almost write “it”? Was she talking about an animal or something?]

The dream’s protagonist was the last to go to sleep. When she switched off the nightlight, darkness swallowed the dorm.

But she didn’t stay asleep for long.

Maybe around midnight, she woke up.

Or rather, she was trapped in sleep paralysis. Lu Zibing, sharing her perspective, was completely conscious, yet unable to move.

Outside, rain had begun to fall. A heavy downpour. Branches lashed against the window, producing a sharp, rattling noise.

[I hate sleep paralysis. No matter how hard you try, you can’t wake up.]

[Streamer, I know you can’t ask questions right now, so let me drop some fun facts (doge emoji): The phenomenon known as “sleep paralysis” was historically referred to as “ghost oppression.”]

[Aaaah, that makes it sound way worse! What if there really is a ghost in this game?!]

Lu Zibing: “…”

What the hell was the point of this explanation, other than making him even more scared?!

With his body immobilized, his senses sharpened. His hearing, in particular, became unnaturally acute.

And then, slowly, a chill crept down his spine.

Beneath the sound of the rain… there was something else.

It wasn’t just his imagination—the balcony door handle was turning.

Clink. Clink. The noise grew clearer. The live chat noticed too.

[Wait, is someone climbing in from the balcony? A break-in?!]

[Streamer, you gotta fight back! We can’t see a thing from your POV—just wake up already and check what’s going on!]

[It’s probably a scripted animation. He won’t be able to move yet. Let’s just… preemptively offer our condolences.]

Lu Zibing wished he had simply stayed unconscious. Being trapped in this awareness was pure torture.

The dorm remained eerily silent, except for the slow, steady breathing of the other seven girls, all fast asleep.

And then—

Creeeeak—

The balcony door opened. The sound of wind and rain surged into the room. Then, just as suddenly, the door closed again, shutting the storm outside.

Drip. Drip.

Raindrops fell from someone’s soaked clothing, landing on the dorm’s dry floor.

Their footsteps were barely audible. But the sound of water dripping followed them, marking their presence.

Whoever it was… they were searching for something.

They paused first at beds 1 and 3, then slowly moved toward 2 and 4.

Lu Zibing’s host body was in bed 5—top bunk, directly across from bed 1.

The water sounds were fading, indicating that whoever entered was drying off.

Lu Zibing felt his breath becoming uneven, trembling beyond his control.

[Even watching this live, I feel like I can’t breathe…]

[Ahhhhhh QAQ]

[This is like having a knife hanging over your head, not knowing when it’ll drop!!]

Aside from the sound of breathing, the room was dead silent.

Had the intruder left?

Lu Zibing clung to that hope.

Just then, he realized something—his body was waking up. Not just the sleep paralysis lifting, but his ability to move. His eyelids twitched.

Shit!

For the first time in his life, Lu Zibing found himself struggling with an impossible dilemma: to open his eyes… or not?

Should he look? Should he find out what was in the dorm?

[No, no, NO! Don’t look! I’m scared!]

[Come on, just a peek! It’s a game, what’s the worst that could happen?!]

[I vote he looks. Streamer, do it!]

Steeling himself, Lu Zibing slowly opened his eyes.