FPE Chapter 25

Purple Lake

Setting aside how frenzied the netizens had become, Fantasy Amusement Park was still operating normally that day. The visitors inside were busy playing and taking photos, completely unaware that the park had once again made a name for itself.

Since the park had now opened a party mode, Cao Xiaoliang had gathered a group of like-minded classmates and friends to team up and fight monsters. They had originally wanted to try the newly opened Jasmine Town first, but Jasmine Town had an entry requirement — visiting with a Merit value below 20 was pointless. Cao Xiaoliang and Zhang He, being among the park’s very first visitors, had enough Merit and levels, but most of the other students in their group had only learned about the park later and couldn’t enter Jasmine Town at all. Even if they did get in, they could only look around; they wouldn’t be able to join other visitors in fighting monsters and earning Merit. So they had no choice but to run through Abandoned Park again and again. When the group was about to do their fourth run, the ticket machine suddenly let out a beep and displayed the message: [You have reached today’s limit. Please come back tomorrow.]

Cao Xiaoliang clutched his head in despair. “This is supposed to be an amusement park, not an actual game — why is there a limit on how many times you can go in?!”

The staff member standing at the entrance of Abandoned Park maintaining order smiled and said, “We’re very sorry, but there are too many visitors waiting in line. In order to give as many guests as possible the chance to experience Abandoned Park, our park has set a daily limit of three visits per visitor.”

Zhang He said with some dissatisfaction, “There was no limit before.”

Even as he said it, he understood — the park was nothing like it used to be. Back then there were barely any visitors, so of course you could go in as many times as you wanted. Now that people were coming from all over after hearing about it, if the limit didn’t exist, the visitors waiting behind them would certainly have something to say.

The group of high schoolers huddled together to figure out their next move.

Cao Xiaoliang said, “Looks like we can’t get back into Abandoned Park today. We’ll have to go somewhere else.”

Zhang He said, “These tickets seem to have some kind of tracker on them. We’ve scanned Abandoned Park three times, and the value on the ticket dropped from 50 to 20 — meaning we only have enough left to visit two more places. Where should we go?”

As longtime regulars of Fantasy Amusement Park, they genuinely felt the park’s pricing was a steal. Back when Abandoned Park was the only attraction, tickets cost 10 yuan. Then when the Magic Beast Viewing Corridor was added, the price went up to 20 yuan. The park director had explained at the time that it was a half-price trial period. Now, roughly two weeks later, the ticket price had risen to 50 yuan — but the number of accessible areas had gone from one to four. All things considered, the price hadn’t really gone up that much.

Cao Xiaoliang and the others had even tried tapping a used ticket against the Abandoned Park ticket machine again just to test it, and it had actually worked. They’d discovered the secret that a single ticket could be used multiple times for different attractions. Convinced they’d found a bug in the system, the delighted group had immediately led their friends on three back-to-back runs through Abandoned Park to farm Merit points — only for the park to catch on far sooner than any of them had expected.

The group muttered among themselves. If they only had two more attractions left, they might as well head to the newly opened Jasmine Town and Purple Lake to see what all the fuss was about. However, Jasmine Town had a level restriction — only visitors with a Merit value of 20 or above and a Warrior level of at least 1 could enter. On top of that, their group had been unlucky, and none of them had managed to obtain any items from Abandoned Park so far.

When the group of high schoolers arrived at Jasmine Town and gathered at the entrance to watch the visitors inside wielding weapons and fighting monsters, they found it utterly captivating — more thrilling than any big-budget movie. A fair number of people had congregated outside the Jasmine Town gate: some, like them, watched with undisguised excitement, some had brought folding stools and sat watching as though at a cinema, and others were loudly demanding to know why they weren’t allowed inside.

The staff member explained over and over that it wasn’t that they couldn’t enter — they simply had to wait for the current group to finish fighting the monsters — and that because their Warrior levels were too low, they could go in to look around the town buildings but would be unable to fight the monsters.

The noisy ones were naturally unconvinced, insisting that the park was treating consumers unequally and threatening to report them to the consumer protection department.

The staff member had no choice but to let this rowdy batch of visitors in once the previous group had finished off the three-headed serpent. At first, these visitors were thrilled — they grabbed ordinary wooden sticks and charged after the three-headed serpent. But their Warrior levels were far too low. Their blows landed on the serpent like little more than a gentle scratch. Rather than being intimidated, the serpent turned around and started chasing them like a cat after mice. Even though everyone knew it was fake, the creature was terrifyingly realistic. Some of these visitors had never even been inside Abandoned Park before. They immediately screamed in terror, leaping and scrambling all over the place — a complete reversal from the bold and boisterous attitude they’d had while standing outside the Jasmine Town fence watching others. It provided plenty of comic relief for the crowd gathered outside.

Some spectators were laughing so hard their phone footage shook uncontrollably. The air outside Jasmine Town was filled with joy.

In the end, it was the staff member who couldn’t bear to watch any longer. He pressed a button on the ticket machine, and the three-headed serpent immediately seemed to be held down by some invisible force, flattening itself against the ground before turning and slithering away into the shadows out of sight. By that point, the visitors stumbled out still trembling and gasping for breath. Having caused such a scene without getting any enjoyment out of it — and thoroughly embarrassing themselves in the process — they had no choice but to lower their heads and slink away.

During all of this, someone spotted the button, and when the staff member wasn’t looking, sneakily pressed it. Not only did nothing happen, but their fingertip stung sharply, as though bitten by a mosquito. Far from being annoyed, the person found it thrilling, and excitedly called over the people around them to try it too. Before long, a crowd had gathered around the ticket machine’s button, voluntarily sticking their fingers out to be “bitten” one after another, then crying out in surprise and grabbing the staff member to ask what the mechanism was.

The staff member had absolutely no idea and could only smile and say it was a trade secret.

The curious ticket machine later became one of Fantasy Amusement Park’s iconic sights. Whenever someone searched for a guide to Fantasy Amusement Park, “the mysterious button” would inevitably come up, and pressing it became one of the must-do experiences many visitors added to their itinerary.

Someone once specifically asked the park director about it during an interview. The director smiled outwardly while secretly fuming inwardly. In truth, not just the ticket machines — other key machines throughout the park had the same feature, specifically to deter certain visitors from pressing buttons they shouldn’t. Who could have imagined that people would actually line up to get pricked? They must all have wanted to be like Ziwei!

But that, of course, was a story for later.

At that moment, Cao Xiaoliang and the others had watched the farce at Jasmine Town play out, collected their dose of entertainment, and were now making their way as a group toward Purple Lake.

Purple Lake was not far from Jasmine Town, and like the other attractions it was enclosed by a fence. After scanning their tickets at the machine, they passed through the main gate, where a wide and tall fountain waterfall screen greeted them. They walked around the screen, and then their eyes were suddenly filled with light — a shimmering expanse of purple lake reflected itself in every pair of wide, stunned eyes before them.

Cao Xiaoliang’s eyes went wide as he breathed, “This is absolutely stunning!”

TL/N:

“Ziwei” (紫薇) appears to be a proper name in this context, or it might be a play on words for “ciwei” (刺猬, meaning porcupine/hedgehog), since the context involves being pricked. The translation keeps it as “Ziwei” to preserve the reference, but the pun may be intended.