FPE Chapter 37

Mission PK

[Ding! Congratulations, Player, on successfully constructing the Children’s Area. Reward: 10,000 experience points.]

[Congratulations, Player, on achieving the milestone of exceeding an average daily visitor flow of 2,000. Reward: one self-circulating water purification system.]

[Congratulations, Player, on achieving the milestone of exceeding an average daily visitor flow of 3,000. Reward: one advanced solar power supply system.]

[Ding-dong, Player’s experience points are now full. Level increasing…Ding, level-up complete. Player’s current level: 15. Reward: one Interdimensional Travel Card. Player currently holds 5 Travel Cards.]

[Ding-dong, Player’s current points: 150,000.]

“So this is what it feels like to get filthy rich overnight — nothing more than this.” Ever since the Children’s Area opened, the park’s visitor capacity had roughly doubled. Daily visitor numbers now consistently hovered around 3,000, with roughly half being half-price children’s tickets. Fantasy Amusement Park’s daily revenue had climbed to over ten thousand yuan. Chi Yizhen still remembered how, when the park had first opened, they had to rely on Sal sacrificing his looks just to scrape together a few hundred yuan!

Of course, more valuable than money were points. As visitor numbers grew, the park’s operating costs doubled as well. One notable expense was the extraordinary factor that blanketed the entire park — it was depleting at a startling rate. When it had first been applied, the timer showed a full month remaining, but now for every day the park operated, the timer ticked down at twice the speed. In less than half a month, he had already pumped in another 20,000 points. Then there was garbage and waste management. Even though the majority of visitors were fairly civic-minded and, under the park’s influence, wouldn’t deliberately litter or damage the environment, there were always people who left waste behind unconsciously — things like dirt and dust tracked in from outside, or fruit peels and paper scraps carelessly dropped by small children — and the two cleaning staff simply couldn’t keep up. Chi Yizhen didn’t want to hire too many employees, so he had no choice but to spend points on cleaning every day, burning through several hundred points at a time.

It pained Chi Yizhen deeply, yet he kept up a breezy, unbothered front. “It’s only 20,000 points. Your boy’s loaded now, no big deal.”

Game: [When the Player isn’t being greasy, he’s actually quite handsome.]

Chi Yizhen: ……

Having more visitors did have its perks though. Yes, operating costs had doubled, but points were also being earned at a rapid pace. Now when he was developing the park, he no longer needed to watch the expenditure at all — whatever was spent came back quickly. Just as before, whenever he completed achievements or leveled up, the system would issue the next stage of tasks.

[Ding! Main Quest Nine released. Player is instructed to defeat the local Old Amusement Park—Huanqu Fun Park—during the Qixi Festival]

Although Chi Yizhen had seen it coming, he hadn’t expected to be thrown into such a fierce, cutthroat showdown so soon. He said, “I’ve barely been open for half a month, haven’t I? Going to war with the local veteran park already — isn’t that a bit much? Show some respect for the seniors.”

[The Player is also free to skip this quest! But the rewards will be forfeited.]

Chi Yizhen: ……

He immediately pulled out his phone to look up the local Huanqu Fun Park. Before Fantasy Amusement Park had opened, Jin’an City had always been an unremarkable little city — pick any random person off the street across the country and the vast majority wouldn’t even have heard of it. Naturally, the amusement park belonging to such a small city was nothing grand either. Huanqu Fun Park could only be considered a mid-sized park, yet it still spanned over 200 mu of land, with an average daily visitor flow casually starting from 4,000 to 5,000, and breaking 10,000 on public holidays being perfectly common.

Given Fantasy Amusement Park’s current level of fame, if all restrictions were fully lifted, surpassing Huanqu Fun Park wouldn’t be particularly difficult — but Fantasy Amusement Park’s current area was still far too small. It simply couldn’t accommodate that many visitors. The reason the ticketing machines were currently capped at an average of 3,000 tickets per day wasn’t because Chi Yizhen didn’t want to sell 10,000 — it was because Fantasy Amusement Park physically couldn’t hold that many visitors! Even those 3,000 tickets had to be staggered across time slots to let visitors enter in batches!

The Abandoned Park and the extended Magic Beast Viewing Corridor together occupied only about 6 mu. Jasmine Town was 3 mu. Purple Lake was 2 mu. The Children’s Area was 3 mu. Adding in other facilities, pathways, and infrastructure, the total came to under 30 mu. A park selling an average of 3,000 tickets a day with only that much space — who would even believe it if he said so?

Only a park covering over 200 mu could be called mid-sized. Fantasy Amusement Park right now was, at best, a little baby!

The moment he thought about how a magnificent Fantasy Amusement Park, scaled down to human terms, was basically kindergarten-level, Chi Yizhen was instantly flooded with a rush of tender affection for his own park.

He reached out and touched the park’s holographic projection before him, his tone soft and heartfelt. “Little one, don’t worry. Daddy will raise you up properly.”

Game: ……

He closed the holographic projection. Chi Yizhen stretched lazily, opened his laptop, and started drafting a to-do list. “Compete against Huanqu Fun Park. Set up a food shop or a small restaurant. Keep up with the basic infrastructure. Go to the other world to find someone. Flesh out the character cards Sal and Chi Xiaozhen — both of their Prestige Values have already broken 7,000 now, it’s getting precarious… Then there’s that case from last time with Yingda Technology and the snake — need to find someone to represent us at the hearing and try to get as much compensation as possible…”

There was no shortage of things to do. Chi Yizhen was right in the middle of it all when someone knocked on the one-way glass window. He saw it was Meng Xiaodai outside, slid the window open, and looked at her questioningly.

Meng Xiaodai said, “Boss, didn’t you say before that you wanted to recruit a landscape designer? Someone has come to apply!”

Chi Yizhen brightened at the news, snapped his laptop shut, and said, “Let’s go — let’s see them in the office.”

He walked over, took one look, and found it was someone he knew. “Meng Le! Aren’t you working for Manager Wei?”

Manager Wei — Wei Hua — was one of Fantasy Amusement Park’s very first visitors. He had since become a devoted fan of the park, and would periodically bring his employees over for team-building activities. Meng Le had previously worked as a receptionist for him.

Upon seeing Chi Yizhen, Meng Le smiled somewhat shyly, greeted him, and said, “Hello, Director. Here is my résumé.”

The park currently had few full-time employees and no dedicated HR receptionist, so Chi Yizhen led her to a booth himself, poured her a cup of tea, and then looked through her résumé. He found that the young woman had indeed studied landscape design professionally — her university wasn’t particularly prestigious, but it was a legitimate first-tier institution. Her academic record was solid, and her internship had been at a well-known firm.

He asked, somewhat surprised, “So why didn’t you build your career in a big city? Why were you working as a receptionist in Jin’an?”

That had nothing to do with her field!

Meng Le gave a rueful smile at that. “I’d been working outside for less than a year when my parents started pushing me constantly to come back and develop locally. They said they’d already found me a job — introduced through relatives, so I had to show face…”

She hadn’t even finished speaking when Chi Yizhen nodded in understanding. He closed the résumé and said to her, “Alright. You can start right now.”

Meng Le: ……

But she hadn’t even said anything yet!

From Meng Le’s perspective, Fantasy Amusement Park was on a very aggressive growth trajectory, and while the boss appeared frugal on the surface, he was clearly quite wealthy — and furthermore, the team behind the boss surely had powerful backing. After all, even the President of Yingda Technology had been dealt with swiftly and decisively, arrested just like that. Without serious connections in the background, who would believe that?

So after discovering that Fantasy Amusement Park had a position that matched her field, Meng Le had been tempted, but hadn’t expected to be selected. She had only come to try her luck — yet she hadn’t imagined she’d be chosen. The interview had lasted less than two minutes!

Meng Le felt a little uneasy. “Director, don’t you think — shouldn’t we get to know each other a little better first?”

Chi Yizhen put on a perfectly earnest expression and rattled off at lightning speed, “Nine to five, five social insurances and one housing fund, meal allowance, transport allowance, housing subsidy. One-month probationary period. Our park urgently needs talent. I’ll send you the planning blueprints right away! Ms. Meng, my little one — cough, I mean — my park is now in your hands.”

Meng Le looked completely dazed. “O-Okay then!”

Meng Le was promptly assigned a workstation and handed several meticulously detailed park maps. As she sat at her desk poring over them, a few colleagues came over to introduce themselves. When they saw the contents of what she was designing, their faces lit up. “The boss is finally going to redo the layout of the office area!”

“Wonderful — I’ve been feeling for a while that the current office area is badly positioned. It’s too close to Jasmine Town, and visitors are always wandering in by mistake.”

“Let me see — there really is planned space for a restaurant and a food shop. Let’s get those built soon. So many visitors these past few days have been giving feedback that there’s nothing to eat inside the park and they have to go outside.”

“Workers just came to install the water purification system. The water supply issue is finally solved — before this, we always had to buy bottled water from outside.”

“But Meng Le, you have to remember — our park has employee rules. Beyond the basic ones like no tardiness or early departure, there are two very important additional rules: first, absolutely do not enter through the door to the Magic Beast Viewing Corridor; second, absolutely do not stay overnight in the park; and third, absolutely do not enter the Children’s Area after dark.”

Hearing Meng Xiaodai recite these precautions, Meng Le blinked in confusion. “Why?”

Meng Xiaodai said, “The boss said the door inside the Magic Beast Viewing Corridor houses important equipment — the kind worth tens of millions. Whether or not you damage anything once you go in, the moment you enter you’ll be fired. Only maintenance personnel — that is, the boss, Manager Sal, and Chi Xiaozhen — are allowed in.”

Meng Le immediately thought of the park’s holographic technology and nodded in understanding. After all, these were trade secrets and critical equipment — setting strict penalties was perfectly reasonable, minimizing any temptation employees might feel to take their chances. “What about the Children’s Area? Doesn’t the park operate until nine at night?”

Meng Xiaodai said, “The Children’s Area is different. It closes at six in the evening. After closing, only the Children’s Area staff are allowed to remain — they seem to live inside. They probably just don’t want us disturbing them!”

Meng Le found this a little strange, but since it wouldn’t affect her own work, she nodded and didn’t ask any further.

****

Landscape design wasn’t the same as architectural design, but after Chi Yizhen had carefully reviewed Meng Le’s résumé, he discovered that she had taken elective courses in both architectural design and interior design. Entrusting her with the park’s landscape design and office area was the right call — even at her worst, she would still be better than him, a half-baked amateur.

He no longer had to rack his brain over how to harmoniously integrate the experience zones with the surrounding infrastructure. As for the interior of the experience zones, Chi Yizhen could simply replicate architecture from the other world — he’d just need to hand it over to Meng Le for refinements when the time came.

Chi Yizhen took out an Interdimensional Travel Card, then swiftly slipped on two character cards.

It was time to bring the cook over.