FPE Chapter 11

Magic Beast Viewing Corridor

When it came to aesthetics, Chi Yizhen felt he had plenty to say — for instance, the female character he’d modeled had drawn a sea of stares the moment she stepped onto the street.

The first time he’d created a character, unaware of the game’s mysterious nature, he’d casually thrown together a Sal. Now that he knew his created characters would eventually manifest as real people, he no longer dared to be careless. Because he didn’t understand the female body well, he’d even paid for a data package — only to discover that the popular face-sculpting data packages of the day, while striking in-game, were absolutely unwatchable when rendered into a real person. After importing the data and staring at a chest larger than a watermelon alongside eyes that nearly consumed half the face, his first reaction was that it was an eyesore, and his second was that he’d been a complete fool.

If this character design actually came to life, wouldn’t it scare people half to death?

He had no choice but to go back to the game’s default model and make adjustments from there. Fortunately, the result turned out reasonably satisfying. When it came time to set the name, Chi Yizhen first typed the character “Chi,” intending to give his daughter his own surname — but after a long pause, he ultimately chose to use the system’s random name generator. He had absolutely no confidence in his own naming abilities.

The result that came up was: Chi Xiaozhen.

Chi Yizhen was startled. Was this a coincidence? Or had the game done it on purpose?

The game offered him no answer.

****

Like Cao Xiaoliang and Zhang He, Zhang Minmin was also a day student. On Friday evening, when No. 1 High School of Jin’an City let out, she packed her schoolbag and cycled home. Her house was fairly close to the school — normally a five-minute ride — but today the most direct route was blocked off for the construction of a tactile path, so Zhang Minmin had to take a detour.

She took Taoyuan Street, and for some reason, the street was unusually crowded that day. Unfamiliar with the road, Zhang Minmin swerved to avoid a pedestrian while turning a corner and rode straight into a utility pole.

With a loud clang, she went down along with her bicycle. The fall wasn’t bad, but her glasses flew off — and as someone with severe nearsightedness, the world instantly dissolved into a blur. She groped around for a while without finding them, and began to panic. The street was busy today, and she was afraid the glasses might get stepped on or kicked into some corner she’d never find. How would she even get home?

Just as Zhang Minmin was breaking into a cold sweat, a gentle female voice sounded beside her. “Little sister, are these your glasses?”

Zhang Minmin instinctively looked up. All she could make out was a blurry outline — she couldn’t see the face, only that it was a very fair-skinned girl.

Then something familiar was pressed into her hand. Zhang Minmin immediately recognized her glasses. “Thank you,” she said in delighted surprise, and slipped them on at once. The world sharpened in an instant. Zhang Minmin stared, dumbstruck, at the girl in front of her — who looked a few years older — and couldn’t find a single word to say for a long moment.

By the time she came to her senses, the older girl had already walked away. All she had left was a flyer the girl had handed her, with the words “Fantasy Amusement Park” printed in bold, oversized characters that demanded attention.

Zhang Minmin got home, and her deskmate called — voice buzzing with excitement. “Minmin, Minmin! Did you take Taoyuan Street today? I saw the most incredibly beautiful girl there, she was so pretty — “

Zhang Minmin knew immediately who her deskmate was talking about. “Was it the older sister handing out flyers? She helped me out today too.”

Her deskmate’s volume shot up another notch. “She helped you out?! I’m so jealous — I want to be close to a beautiful older sister too!”

Zhang Minmin was still laughing helplessly when she heard her deskmate say, “Oh right — did you see the flyer the beautiful sister was handing out? It’s actually that Fantasy Amusement Park Cao Xiaoliang was talking about! What they said was true — Childhood Amusement Park really did get a complete makeover! Should we go tomorrow and show our support for the beautiful sister?”

In the past, Zhang Minmin would have refused without hesitation — studying came first, after all. But thinking of the beautiful older sister who had helped her, she hesitated, then nodded and said yes.

She thought: the beautiful sister must have worked so hard going out to hand out flyers, and she’d helped her on top of that. I’ll go once — just once — consider it helping her boost her numbers.

Having made the decision, Zhang Minmin immediately pulled out her homework. To free up time for the amusement park tomorrow, she was going to have to pull an all-nighter tonight.

****

The effect brought by the beautiful girl was a hundred times better than Chi Yizhen had anticipated. The hundred flyers in hand were snatched up in under an hour — something Sal could never have managed. After all, Sal was a strapping man of 188 centimeters who, however handsome, carried an air of intimidation. Chi Xiaozhen was different: a tall beauty standing 175 centimeters, with a warmth and approachability that had drawn a trail of small children behind her within less than an hour of being on the street. Unfortunately, the park wasn’t accepting young children yet, so Chi Yizhen had to gently send them home.

Before he knew it, opening day had arrived. At eight o’clock in the morning, Chi Yizhen unlocked the gates to find a crowd already waiting — men and women, mostly high school girls, with a scattering of middle-aged adults among them.

The moment he opened up, someone asked why the beautiful girl from yesterday wasn’t there. Chi Yizhen smiled and deployed his prepared answer. “We work in shifts — she’s on tomorrow’s shift.”

The person’s face fell with a disappointment he recognized all too well, and their interest visibly waned. A few even broke away from the queue and turned to leave. Chi Yizhen noticed that all the ones who left were men, while the group of clearly sixteen-or-seventeen-year-old high school girls remained dutifully in line. Sure enough, he thought, girls are the sweetest.

With the departures creating space, the high school girls moved up. Chi Yizhen collected money and handed out plastic glasses one by one, until a girl stepped up, presented her flyer, and asked with great sincerity, “Mister, I came because a sister gave me this flyer yesterday — can my ticket count toward her performance numbers?”

The word “mister” nearly made Chi Yizhen choke. I’m 28 and in my prime — do I really look that old? But hearing the rest of what she said, he was immediately mollified. Girls truly are kind-hearted — nothing like those awful men who only ever leer at a woman’s looks.

He smiled and took the flyer. “Of course it counts — for every visitor she brings in, I give her a ten percent commission.”

The girls behind her let out a collective sound of wonder, each chiming in to say they had also been brought by the beautiful sister.

Chi Yizhen agreed to them all and watched the group of girls file into the park. Shortly after they went in, the returning visitors arrived — Cao Xiaoliang and Zhang He with a few male friends, along with those regulars who had brought even more of their crowd.

Fortunately, they all came in buzzing with excitement to play the games, and none of them cornered him with questions about Sal. Had they done so, Chi Yizhen wouldn’t have had the faintest idea where to conjure another Sal from.

Seeing them eagerly rushing to buy tickets for the holographic monster-hunting area, he said, “The Abandoned Park Experience Zone is at full capacity right now — there’s a half-hour wait to get in.” Before disappointment could settle on their faces, he continued, “However, our park has just unlocked a brand-new area called the Magic Beast Viewing Corridor, where you can see all the magic beasts currently developed by our park. You’re welcome to purchase tickets and take a look.”

Cao Xiaoliang and the others had been a little let down, but the moment they heard about a new zone, Cao Xiaoliang — who had enormous faith in the park’s holographic technology — immediately said he wanted to buy a ticket. They also made sure to purchase tickets for the Abandoned Park, planning to head there once they’d finished viewing the Magic Beast Viewing Corridor.

Chi Yizhen cheerfully tore off two tickets for each of them and reminded them, “Once you’re inside, there will be electronic alerts and signboards — just follow the signs.”

Even as the words left his mouth, he was once again struck by the pain of being short-staffed. This was only the third day of operation, and his only objective was a daily visitor count of a hundred — yet he already felt stretched thin at every turn. If the game ever pushed the target up to a thousand people, splitting himself in two on the spot wouldn’t be fast enough.

He needed to hire people. But not anyone with too strong an academic background, and definitely not anyone in computer science or high-tech fields — otherwise he was worried he wouldn’t be able to keep up the act.

After a busy stretch with no one left at the entrance, Chi Yizhen immediately turned and headed inside to manage the crowds.

The moment Cao Xiaoliang and Zhang He stepped into the park, they could feel how dramatically different it was from their last visit. First, a stone tablet had appeared at the entrance to the Abandoned Park Experience Zone, embedded with an electronic screen. Second, a signboard had been added to the left of the Abandoned Park, reading: Magic Beast Viewing Corridor Entrance — Please Scan Your Ticket to Enter.

Overhead, a synthesized female voice looped a recorded announcement, introducing the park’s attractions and guidelines to visitors.

“Didn’t none of this stuff exist last time?” Cao Xiaoliang said, puzzled.

“Wasn’t there a closure for adjustments yesterday?” Zhang He replied. “Maybe it was all added then?”

“Sure, the signboard and the tablet could be newly added — but could an entire corridor be newly added?” Cao Xiaoliang pressed.

Zhang He had a realization. “Right — that couldn’t have been built in a day. It must have already been there, and we just didn’t notice last time!”

That was fair enough. They’d come at night last time, and the lighting hadn’t been great — it was perfectly reasonable that they’d missed it.

The two of them dropped the subject and headed cheerfully into the park.

First stop was the stone tablet standing at the entrance to the Abandoned Park Experience Zone. The electronic screen embedded in it was scrolling through a continuous stream of information. Cao Xiaoliang, sharp-eyed, spotted a phone number with the middle digits obscured that looked familiar, and pulled Zhang He over to look. “See that — isn’t that my number?”

Zhang He looked closely. Though the middle portion had been hidden to protect customer privacy, the first and last digits were enough to identify it — it was unmistakably Cao Xiaoliang’s. They both looked at the entry beside it.

— Customer 157***3456 has slain 1 magic beast. Merit Points: 1. Current Ranking: 8.

Zhang He’s eyes lit up. “This park really knows how to do things!” Displaying everyone’s kill counts and rankings like this — anyone with a competitive streak wouldn’t be able to resist buying a ticket and climbing the board. Especially guys; their enthusiasm for leaderboards was no less than any girl’s. “Setting it up like this actually makes it feel like a real monster-hunting game. Though I wonder if you can change your display name — a string of numbers doesn’t stick in anyone’s memory.”

Cao Xiaoliang scanned the area and found no staff in sight. “We can ask when we come back out,” he said.

Zhang He nodded. “Good idea.”

The two of them walked into the Magic Beast Viewing Corridor in high spirits. Even though they’d mentally prepared themselves, they were still caught off guard the moment they stepped inside.

The corridor was clearly curved — it wound away in a long, vine-and-foliage-adorned arc toward an end they couldn’t see, while to the left stood a glass wall roughly five meters high, stretching all the way up to the ceiling.

On the other side of the glass, the environment was strikingly natural: damp earth, wildly growing weeds and flowers, and a scatter of rough, uneven stones. A white wall enclosed the space, which was what made it feel like a viewing walkway in a zoo rather than actual wilderness. And as the first visitor stepped inside, as though a switch had been triggered, a creature emerged from the shadows.

The moment they laid eyes on it, every visitor — whether braced for it or wholly unprepared — drew in a sharp breath.

At first glance it resembled a five-meter-long black serpent, but its triangular head bore four eyes, a mane ran along the crown, and branching horns jutted from its skull. A first impression might suggest a dragon — but no dragon had ever possessed a gaze that sinister, and as it observed the visitors, its four eyes swiveled in different directions, the hunger in them deeply unsettling.

No one had expected the so-called holographic technology to be this convincing — or rather, this didn’t feel like holographics at all. It felt like an actual creature had been caged here.

One female visitor couldn’t help stepping forward and pressing close to the glass wall, examining in detail the scales across the magic beast’s body and the horns on its head. The faint black mist that clung to the creature was significantly dimmer under the fluorescent lighting, making every detail stand out with startling clarity.

“My god, is this really holographic technology?” she murmured. “It feels exactly like watching an animal at the zoo.” Only the subject wasn’t an animal — it was a magic beast.

Many visitors pressed themselves against the glass for a closer look. Cao Xiaoliang and Zhang He were no different — but as the crowd against the glass grew larger, the magic beast that had been still until now suddenly snapped its jaw open and lunged savagely at the wall. The thick glass shuddered and hummed from the impact, and at the same moment, the visitors scrambled back in screaming panic.

The Magic Beast Viewing Corridor instantly filled with a cascade of overlapping screams. Visitors still waiting outside, hearing the commotion without knowing the cause, assumed something horrific had happened within.