[Ten thousand per person, the price can’t go any lower]

[Translator: The author seems to have made some typos. I changed a few parts based on my understanding.]

Qiu Gangyi going offline meant that the Ghost Bride instance, which required four people to clear, naturally couldn’t continue. Tong Yu went in and led the remaining three out.

The moment the three exited the escape room, they all let out a collective sigh of relief, so synchronized it was as if they’d rehearsed it.

Tong Yu stifled a laugh, trying hard not to look back at their expressions.

Little Fei was the only one, besides Brother Gangyi, who had close contact with the Ghost Bride, and even witnessed the scene where the Ghost Bride licked Brother Gangyi’s neck. Honestly, the shock of that moment was indescribable. To put it simply, his legs were still weak.

“Do you have hot water? I feel a bit cold?” Ling Ling noticed her voice was a little strained when she spoke.

“Um… I haven’t had time to prepare food and water here.” In reality, it wasn’t that he hadn’t had time; it was that Tong Yu hadn’t planned to prepare any. This was a virtual world where people could eat, but it was only for taste; they wouldn’t actually feel hunger or thirst. Ling Ling felt cold purely from being scared.

However, after today, he’d have to consider preparing them. These intergalactic people were just too easily frightened.

Zhang Huai, his face pale, was looking down, dialing Qiu Gangyi’s real-world communication number on his virtual helmet. After a moment, Zhang Huai looked up, his pale face instantly flushed with color, and his eyes stared intently at Tong Yu.

Tong Yu’s heart pounded under his gaze. What is going on? Did something happen to Qiu Gangyi?

“Um… is something wrong with Brother Gangyi?” He couldn’t possibly have had a heart condition and been scared to death, could he?!!

Tong Yu suddenly felt scared. He should have issued a risk warning beforehand.

Zhang Huai didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he turned to his two friends and said, “You two, check your spiritual power consumption.”

Little Fei and Ling Ling were both clutching their chests, trying to calm down. They paused, then as if they’d realized something, they lowered their heads to check their personal attributes. A moment later, both looked up, their faces filled with disbelief.

Little Fei: “I… I consumed 52,300 R of spiritual power.”

Ling Ling: “I consumed 61,321 R.”

Zhang Huai swallowed hard, looking at Tong Yu: “I consumed 50,991 R.”

“R” was the unit of measurement scientists had set for spiritual power, defined by its loss in the virtual world. Tong Yu knew this; his virtual helmet had been calculating his spiritual power loss constantly while he was building the escape room these past two days. At first, Tong Yu would glance at it, but later, he got so absorbed in building the scenes that he forgot about it, only taking a last look, and the number seemed to be in the hundreds of thousands.

Tong Yu didn’t grasp their astonished looks; he was still concerned about the Brave Guy: “Did you reach Brother Gangyi? Is he okay?”

Only then did Zhang Huai reply: “He’s fine. He just lost too much spiritual power and was forced offline.”

So he was scared offline. Tong Yu immediately breathed a sigh of relief. It was good that he was alright.

After confirming that no one had died in his trial-run escape room, Tong Yu remembered to ask them for their feedback: “How do you feel about this game? Is it a little too scary?”

Tong Yu had been reflecting while watching them play. Unlike the real world, NPCs in the virtual world could use “magic.” Simply put, in the real world, if you wanted to set up a Ghost Bride who was beautiful normally but suddenly changed her face when enraged, that would be very difficult to achieve. Because real-life NPCs can’t change costumes that quickly, you’d have to choose one makeup. But the virtual world was different; as long as the script was provided, the AI Ghost Bride could change her face ten times in a second, being as terrifying as desired. There were also things like her fingernails growing long, her feet leaving the ground, flying all over the courtyard, and so on.

The more realistic the environment, the more frightened the players would be. So, he couldn’t entirely blame the intergalactic humans for being timid; he did indeed have some settings that were too extreme.

The three of them seemed to recall the horror inside the escape room, nodding vigorously.

“I’ve never been this scared in my life.” Among the three, Ling Ling lost the most spiritual power, which clearly indicated she was the most frightened. Of course, this excluded Brother Gangyi, who had already disconnected.

“Has it already reached this level?” Tong Yu felt a bit awkward. “Then I’ll adjust it; I won’t make it so terrifying.”

“No!”

“No!”

“No!”

The three spoke in unison, even their tones and expressions were identical, all stopping Tong Yu.

Tong Yu was stunned: “Wh-why?”

“If it’s not terrifying, how will it consume spiritual power?!”

“Playing here for half an hour is equivalent to me killing Zerg for a whole day in StarCraft.”

“Getting scared is great; it’s good for clearing the spiritual sea.”

Tong Yu blinked, then scratched his head, finally remembering the primary secret to making money in the virtual world: maximizing spiritual power consumption.

Simply put, it was paying for thrills. The more terrifying, the more profitable.

“Then… do you think my shop can succeed?” Tong Yu asked.

“Yes, of course, it can! If your shop can’t succeed, what shop can?” Zhang Huai said excitedly. “I’m pre-booking now. I want to come play once every week.”

“Me too, me too!” The other two also said excitedly.

Tong Yu was speechless. Who would repeatedly play the same escape room? “If you like it, you can keep coming until you clear it. But clearing an escape room once is enough; it won’t be scary anymore after that.”

“I think I’d still be scared even after ten more times,” Ling Ling said softly. “Just the background music alone, without a single lyric, sounds exceptionally chilling.”

“…” With that timidness, they still dared to come every day. They were truly both bad at it and loved playing.

However, as the boss, Tong Yu decided to respect the players’ personal choices: “Then, what do you think is a suitable price for my ticket?”

Tong Yu decided to first listen to their suggestions, then go compare prices himself, finally settling on a similar price, and then pay for promotion to officially open for business.

Zhang Huai: “I play fewer games, so I’m not very clear about game pricing. But in our catering industry, if a meal can consume about 50,000 R of spiritual power, it would cost at least 100,000 star coins.”

When Tong Yu heard Zhang Huai’s “our catering industry,” he couldn’t help but inwardly scoff—‘your stinky tofu dares to talk about the catering industry?’—then he nearly lost his footing when he heard the 100,000 star coins figure.

“How much?!”

“One hundred thousand star coins.” Zhang Huai rigorously added, “This is our catering industry’s pricing standard.”

“Ten thousand star coins for this game is acceptable. In StarCraft War, each level consumes approximately 10,000 units of spiritual power and costs 8,000 star coins. Since our game is more engaging and has a more concentrated impact, warranting a higher price point. Plus, the 50,000 R of spiritual power we consumed was only for the first half an hour; it might be even more if we stuck around until we cleared it. So, ten thousand is actually low,” Little Fei, being a gaming enthusiast, immediately used the most popular game to give Tong Yu a comparison.

“Exactly. Your game is very special. For people like Gangyi who get scared straight offline, even several times the price would be fine,” Zhang Huai added.

‘What? Ten thousand star coins and it could still be several times more? My virtual helmet only cost a total of eighty thousand star coins.’

Yes, in just two days, Tong Yu was already using “only” for the number eighty thousand.

If he were to define prices by food, the prices on Shui Lan Star weren’t much different from Earth. This meant one star coin was equivalent to one RMB back on Earth. Was charging ten thousand for an escape room too ruthless? Could these people even afford it?

Tong Yu organized his thoughts: “Wouldn’t this price be too high? I actually wanted to make a more affordable game.”

“Boss Tong, I never thought you were such a magnanimous person,” Zhang Huai suddenly became excited, looking at Tong Yu with reverence.

‘Huh?’

“You designed such a good thing, and you’re not even thinking about making money, but rather about benefiting humanity.”

‘I’m not not thinking about making money. I’m afraid the Industry and Commerce Bureau will come for me. I spent only two days making this thing, and I’d earn forty thousand from you guys in half an hour. I feel guilty! Also, I just made an escape room, and it’s for my own profit. How does that benefit humanity?’

Tong Yu was completely baffled by the praise.

“The price of 10,000 star coins isn’t high at all,” Ling Ling also said. “This price is set according to spiritual power consumption, and no one can easily break it. If you set the price too low, other industries will also be affected, forced to lower their prices too.”

“Is it that… that serious?” Tong Yu was bewildered.

“I know, Boss Tong, you want to do something for humanity.”

‘No, no, I don’t have that idea, please don’t praise me anymore, beautiful lady.’

Ling Ling looked at Tong Yu with admiration: “I personally think that instead of lowering the price, you should start live streaming.”

“Live streaming?!” ‘How could an escape room be live-streamed? If it’s live-streamed, everyone will know the content and levels, so how will I sell tickets?’

“Exactly!” Little Fei also reacted, picking up the conversation. “You only have this one escape room. Even if you continuously host clients 24 hours a day, assuming you serve four people at a time, how long would it take to clear… how long would it take to clear?”

Little Fei looked at Tong Yu.

Tong Yu: “I’ve set the clear time at three hours.”

“Are you sure it can be cleared in three hours?” Zhang Huai questioned.

Tong Yu actually wasn’t sure anymore. Originally, he set it for two hours, as it was a small instance that could be cleared in an hour if played fast. But seeing them stuck on the first level for half an hour, he silently extended it by an hour.

“Even if it’s three hours, in one day, you can only accommodate eight groups of customers, totaling only thirty-two people,” Little Fei continued calculating. “Shui Lan Star has over 800 million awakened individuals, and that number is constantly increasing. You can’t help everyone with an online game. Besides, even if the same escape room is terrifying, if too many people play it and too many spoilers get out, it’ll slowly stop being scary and lose its effect.”

Tong Yu nodded in agreement: “Yes, the most fun part of escape rooms is when they first come out. After a while, they lose their effect.” On Earth, escape room owners didn’t want players to leak game content, but players loved sharing online, so owners had to change level settings periodically, trying every way to keep players interested, otherwise, business would slowly die out.

Ling Ling chimed in: “So, live streaming is the most effective way. Let the first batch of players live-stream it, synchronizing it across major StarNet platforms, letting everyone on Shui Lan Star experience the challenge with the first batch of players. The horror level will always be at its peak, and the spiritual power consumption will also be at its greatest. At the same time, there will be revenue; billions of viewers will surely tip while watching the live stream, and even if they don’t, advertising revenue will be a substantial income.”

Zhang Huai also said, “It’s just like horror movies.”

In the Interstellar Era, due to special environmental needs, cinemas exclusively showed horror movies, while romance films became niche. Why? Because movies about love and affection didn’t help much with spiritual power consumption.

Upon hearing this, Tong Yu finally understood. This meant the 10,000 star coin ticket price could only increase, not decrease. However, live streaming was an option, and it could not only help more people but also generate massive revenue.

This business logic wasn’t hard to grasp; it existed in the Earth era too.

“Alright, let’s do that then.” Anyway, it was just a low-cost escape room; he’d test the waters. If it didn’t work, he’d just build a new one. Tong Yu made his decision: “So, do you guys want to live stream?”

These few had only just passed the first level anyway, so even doing it again wouldn’t affect the experience much.

“I… I can’t. My partner’s spiritual power has already been drained by half. If I live stream, I’ll probably be forced offline before I even clear it,” Zhang Huai waved his hand. “If you’re going to live stream, you absolutely have to make sure you can clear it. So, it’s better to find someone with strong spiritual power.”

Little Fei also said: “Right, at the very least, they need to be a contractor for an A-level spiritual power awakened individual. Isn’t your game’s horror level also A-level? It fits perfectly.”

Ling Ling added: “You also need to find someone timid. The more timid, the better the effect.”

Tong Yu, however, grew concerned upon hearing this: “Being too timid won’t work either. What if they get scared sick, like a heart attack?”

Zhang Huai waved his hand dismissively and said with certainty: “It’s fine. The virtual helmet has a body detection function; what you’re worried about will absolutely not happen.”

Tong Yu thought for a moment: “Alright, then I’ll post an advertisement online and see if anyone meets the conditions.”

Upon hearing that Tong Yu still needed to post an advertisement, Zhang Huai quickly grabbed Tong Yu’s hand: “If you don’t mind, I can recommend someone for you. As for the ticket price, how about 20,000 for me alone?”

Tong Yu was stunned: “Brother Zhang, what are you saying? You’re helping me find clients. I can’t thank you enough; how could I charge you more?”

Zhang Huai: “You should. Little Yu, can I call you Little Yu?”

Tong Yu naturally had no objection.

“The person I’m introducing you to is a friend of mine,” Zhang Huai explained. “The awakened individual he’s contracted with is a mech warrior. He’s been awakened for ten years now. His spiritual power was already B-level when he awakened, and after ten years, it’s long since broken through to A-level. These past two years, his spiritual power has been extremely unstable; my friend undergoes spiritual influx almost every month. He’s practically at his limit now.”

Tong Yu knew that spiritual influx was very painful, but once a month, and it was already unbearable? It seemed spiritual influx was far more agonizing than he had imagined.

“Why don’t they terminate the contract?” Tong Yu asked.

Zhang Huai sighed: “If they terminate the contract, unless one party is brain-dead and their spiritual power naturally dissipates, both spiritual seas will be affected. His awakened individual’s spiritual sea would become chaotic, and his spiritual power level would decrease.”

“Isn’t decreasing a good thing?”

“It’s not as simple as you think. The awakened individual he’s contracted with is an A-level mech warrior. If his spiritual power decreases, he won’t be able to pilot an A-level mech anymore. Furthermore, the spiritual sea would suffer secondary damage, the extent of which is immeasurable. In severe cases, it could directly drop to E-level.”

Even if Tong Yu didn’t understand much, he knew what dropping to E-level spiritual power meant. An ordinary person could potentially reach E-level spiritual power with effort. So, if an awakened individual regressed to that level, they would essentially be crippled.

What about Sheng Jing then? He insisted on a divorce and was determined to terminate the spiritual contract. Wasn’t he afraid of problems?

His spiritual power must be very strong, given that Tong Yu had drained hundreds of thousands of R-units of spiritual power without Sheng Jing reacting. Here, Zhang Huai had only drained fifty thousand R-units and was already almost halfway depleted.

“This game, if it can consume two hundred thousand, no, one hundred fifty thousand R-units of spiritual power, then he won’t have to endure spiritual influx,” Zhang Huai said with a heavy tone.

“But that’s just treating the symptoms, not the root cause,” Tong Yu mused. Even if they avoided it this month, what about next month? The escape room is a game for building courage; if you play it too much, your courage grows, and the effect diminishes.

“One hurdle at a time, I suppose,” Zhang Huai’s tone was full of helplessness.

“Alright,” Tong Yu said cheerfully. He hadn’t expected his game to lead to such a somber story, but helping people was always good. He readily agreed, “Have him come. Do you know anyone else who needs this? The minimum for this game is four people, but I can adjust it for up to eight.”

“Really? I have friends who need it too,” Little Fei and Ling Ling excitedly chimed in.

In this era, the most common issue was awakened individuals whose rampaging spiritual power couldn’t be appeased. Contractors like themselves always had friends in urgent need of spiritual power calming. This was why Zhang Huai hesitated earlier. A rare commodity could be very valuable. If Tong Yu’s escape room truly had an effect, the queue of players wanting to be the first to play would be unimaginably long.

“Then, should they come tomorrow?” Tong Yu set a time.

“Not today?” All three seemed very eager.

“…It’s not impossible, but don’t you need time to gather people?”

“No need, it’s just a phone call away.” After saying that, the three lowered their heads and started making calls.

Right, contractors who urgently needed to expend excess spiritual power would definitely be immersed in the virtual world 24/7. Tong Yu didn’t stop them; instead, he returned behind the counter and began adjusting the escape room’s details. For instance, hiring a few more NPCs—such a large house needed house servants, after all. The servants could help catch players.

Hmm, and while he was at it, add some special effects, like the Ghost Bride tearing apart scum-men.

Make the background music even more sinister…

—-

Meanwhile, at the research institute.

Sheng Jing had been working in the lab since he woke up at dawn, continuously for twelve hours. Usually, after only two or three hours of work, he would get a headache and have to stop to rest. Once the headache subsided, he would continue for another three or four hours, and then he would have to stop working altogether.

Sheng Jing, having worked for twelve consecutive hours, worried the others in the lab.

“Engineer Sheng, don’t you want to rest?”

“Engineer Sheng, you need to rest. We all know you want to finish the battleship engine design as soon as possible, but you also need to pay attention to the stability of your spiritual sea. If your spiritual power becomes overloaded, it won’t be something you can recover from in a day or two.”

Sheng Jing came back to his senses. He looked at the time and was a bit stunned himself.

It was already past three in the afternoon; he had worked for a full twelve hours? But why did he not only feel no discomfort but also remained sharp-minded?

Sheng Jing thought of something. He tapped the detector on his wrist to check his spiritual power consumption.

Spiritual Power Consumption Value: 389,326 R

Sheng Jing’s eyes widened.

What in the world did Tong Yu do? Was he prying open his brain with a knife and letting spiritual power out?