"Don't worry, I'm not the type to go looking for trouble."
"Some media might show up today. I've invited a few of them myself, but judging by how things are developing, plenty more are going to come on their own. You'd better keep a low profile." Chairman Luo's original plan had been to ride this wave and make New Century Paradise a trending topic — after all, every student who'd woken up had mentioned the park by name. What he hadn't expected was for Chen Ge's own name to land on the trending list too. "Leave everything to Uncle Xu. Just stay inside the haunted house, conserve your energy, and get ready for tomorrow's new scene opening."
"Sure." Chen Ge agreed immediately. He headed back to his haunted house and ducked into the staff break room. "A scene can't just have maximum-difficulty missions — I need to design some easy ones too. The Spiritualist Ghost School is massive; I've got room to go all out."
Drawing inspiration from the Black Phone, Chen Ge studied the way it issued missions and designed a whole batch of hidden quests and side missions. They appeared completely unrelated on the surface, but if a visitor completed every single side mission, they would uncover the full truth of the Spiritualist Ghost School.
New Century Paradise was far livelier today than usual. Chen Ge glanced out the window — multiple media crews were camped outside the haunted house.
Chairman Luo hadn't barred them from entering. So long as they bought tickets like everyone else, no one would stop them.
Chen Ge and Chairman Luo kept out of sight, but that left Uncle Xu in an impossible position outside. Tourists who'd seen the news and journalists alike swarmed him with questions, layer upon layer of people, the crowd practically drowning him.
Chen Ge stayed in the staff break room until noon. Once he'd finished everything on hand, he picked up his phone. Four of the top ten trending topics were already about New Century Paradise. The most eye-catching one was a promotional video the park had released for the haunted house's new scene.
Possibly because the video had an obvious advertising flavor, countless netizens had begun questioning its authenticity in the comments. Many suspected it was nothing more than a shameless publicity stunt, and a few especially loudmouthed posters fancied they'd seen through the whole thing, cursing openly.
Cursing was fine — it meant there was buzz, and Chen Ge couldn't care less. But when he tapped on his own trending topic, he realized something was off.
The discussion board was crawling with throwaway accounts steering the narrative. Someone was impersonating Chen Ge and smearing New Century Paradise. Other sock-puppet accounts were even dropping casual mentions of Virtual Future Paradise as if by accident.
"Is Virtual Future Paradise making its move?" Chen Ge stared at the accounts impersonating him as they rampaged through the comments, and irritation flared. He'd grown up with a personal philosophy: if you can settle things with your fists, don't waste your breath. So he almost never got into online arguments.
He logged into his own account, intending to expose the impersonator, but found that the entire discussion board had been hijacked. The other side clearly had a whole team running operations.
From last night through this morning, everyone had been focused on the connection between the comatose students and New Century Paradise, curious whether the world after death truly existed.
The topic had reached a boiling point, and as the buzz grew louder, every variety of troll and instigator had crawled out of the woodwork. Some were analyzing rationally, others were fanning the flames.
Between morning and noon, the public mood shifted. A great many bystanders who didn't know the full picture got swept up in the manufactured narrative, concluding that the whole thing was a New Century Paradise publicity stunt — that there was no afterlife, and the comatose students had only woken up because irresponsible media outlets had fabricated stories for clicks.
More and more people started attacking New Century Paradise, saying the park was shameless. Several influencers with millions of followers published their takes. One of them — an influencer named Liu Gang — dug up New Century Paradise's old records and declared that the park had been on the verge of bankruptcy. With Virtual Future Paradise opening in the same city right now, he argued, New Century Paradise had no hope against such a powerful competitor and had resorted to this desperate stunt, using the afterlife as bait to stage a last-ditch comeback.
The man carried himself with an air of "the whole world is mired in filth while only I remain pure; everyone else is drunk while only I am sober," calling on the public to boycott such an unscrupulous business — all while casually slipping in the mention that Hanjiang's Virtual Future Paradise was no ordinary park, but a cutting-edge sixth-generation paradise rarely seen even on the international stage.
"How much is Virtual Future Paradise paying this Liu Gang guy?" Chen Ge gripped his phone, feeling a growing sense of unease. Virtual Future Paradise had deep pockets and had been running its promotional campaign for weeks. There was no way they would let New Century Paradise steal their thunder at a time like this — they would absolutely take every measure they could.
Judging by the current situation, someone sharp was pulling the strings over at Virtual Future Paradise. The buzz was already too hot to suppress, so they'd simply gone with the flow, planning to turn New Century Paradise into a laughingstock and then ride that very same wave to promote themselves.
"Virtual Future's grand opening is less than twenty-four hours away. This timing is incredibly sensitive." Chen Ge was still turning over countermeasures in his head when Chairman Luo's call came through.
"Chen Ge, Virtual Future Paradise has also launched a themed horror scene called Samsara. They've changed their marketing slogan to focus on the afterlife as well, and they're pushing it across every platform."
"Unbelievable. But it doesn't matter. Our scene is the real deal. No matter how realistic theirs looks, it won't matter."
"The real deal?" Chairman Luo seized on the keyword in Chen Ge's words.
"Don't worry about that, Chairman Luo. When it comes to game content and sheer terror, we will absolutely crush them."
"Knowing you say that is enough." Chairman Luo seemed ready to hang up.
"Wait, Chairman Luo. I can guarantee our haunted house is better quality than theirs, but tourists and bystanders don't know that. When we open tomorrow, could we stream it live?" Chen Ge laid out his proposal.
"What are you planning?"
"In the morning we stream our own haunted house. In the afternoon, I go to their park and take on their haunted house. The comparison should make the truth obvious to a lot of people." Virtual Future Paradise's underhanded tactics had stoked Chen Ge's anger too.
"Are you confident? Their horror scene is supposedly built from dozens of horror-movie segments, all recreated with the most advanced technology out there. Can you handle it?" Chairman Luo was genuinely worried, afraid something would happen to Chen Ge.
"Don't worry. I can promise you this: when they come to our haunted house, they'll be carried out. And when I go to their haunted house? They'll still be the ones getting carried out."
"There's really no need to go that far..." Chairman Luo mulled it over and said, "When they visit our haunted house, you absolutely must not hurt them. But if you're going to their haunted house, then go all out. Whatever happens will be their problem."
"Good point." Chen Ge felt he really had learned a thing or two from Chairman Luo.
"Oh, and that Liu Gang, plus all those people making waves online — when the time comes, you can poke at them a little. If you could get them to come visit in person, that would be even more perfect." Chairman Luo added a few more words.