New Times, New Hell Chapter 142 - Extra: Feiyu Amusement Park (Middle)

Chapter 142 - Extra: Feiyu Amusement Park (Middle)

“Now then, next, let us take a look at the entirety of the Ghost City of Fengdu.” Gao Duidui held up his selfie stick, which was attached to the phone he used to livestream. While climbing onto a horse carriage, he introduced to the audience in his livestream room: “The Ghost City of Fengdu is the biggest zone in the Chuandong Feiyu Amusement Park. It has completely recreated the Ghost Market and the Eight Underworld Mountain Views. Even if you’re not waiting in line to go on rides, simply walking around this area will still take almost an hour. However, the park has provided special horse carriage and palanquin tours. The route follows the best sightseeing route, which means that you’ll be able to see the best and most complete views. Friends who are worried about getting tired or friends in a rush, you can also choose a drive-by tour……”
Back when Luofeng had set up the Ghost Festival Garden Party for the first time in Fu City’s technology district, Gao Duidui had only been a nobody livestreamer on Big Eye Livestream doing streams about the supernatural. He had regular fans, but had never picked up much traction.
Until he had mistakenly entered Luofeng’s Ghost Festival Garden Party and accidentally livestreamed his experience encountering a hangwoman ghost. After that, he instantly received an explosion of attention; additionally, he received promotional resources from the livestream app. Ever since then, Gao Duidui’s popularity had steadily risen. As of now, he was already Big Eye Livestream’s most famous streamer working on supernatural occurrences. And, the screenshots of his horrified encounter with the ghost were still being spread online.
Since his career had taken off after Luofeng’s Ghost Festival Garden Party, Gao Duidui naturally needed to come check out Feiyu Amusement Park’s Ghost City of Fengdu during its official opening, especially since the design of the Ghost City of Fengdu was based off the garden party IP.
Coincidentally, Feiyu Amusement Park wanted to find a somewhat popular livestreamer for promotion too. Gao Duidui, who had livestreamed the garden party back then, was obviously the top choice. The two of them instantly reached an agreement. Without much difficulty, they signed the contract.
Thus, on opening day, Gao Duidui brought along the equipment he needed to do his job and appeared at Feiyu Amusement Park bright and early.
Feiyu Amusement Park was a rather well-developed comprehensive amusement park. It had originally already had quite a few very welcomed park rides. The new Chuandong park had also technologically upgraded everything. They had created several new rides. After walking around the entire park, it was very obvious to tell that Excellent Jade Corporation had great ambitions in the amusement park industry.
And, among all their projects, the one everyone’s eyes were on was undoubtedly the Ghost City of Fengdu, which had been anticipated for a long time.
Chuandong Feiyu Amusement Park’s Ghost City of Fengdu had completely reconstructed the Ghost Market and Eight Underworld Mountain Views from the Ghost Festival Garden Party. Additionally, this was only phase one of the construction project. During the second phase of construction, they were also planning on opening up parts of Luofeng Mountain, the Eighteen Levels of Hell, and other places. However, because this was an amusement park for all ages, there needed to be something to balance out the horror content. Due to this, things were still awaiting approval and under design.
“Wow, there are so many people surrounding that area. Has something happened over there, sir? How come there are so many people?” Gao Duidui was carefully introducing the views along the tour. When encountering fresh new sights, he didn’t forget to ask the staff member driving the horse carriage for clarification.
“Oh, that’s a park performance. It’s called “Summon a Crane to Oneself,’” the staff member enthusiastically explained.
Feiyu Amusement Park’s Ghost City of Fengdu also had several small scale performances based on traditional stories. For example, this “Summon a Crane to Oneself” was from records of the ancient text《Dispelling Doubts》. The performer could summon heavenly cranes. Additionally, there were also performances where one killed ghosts with a sword, one caused jujubes to smoke with just a spell, shadow shows, etc. Some of these shows had been designed by Feiyu Amusement Park’s team after they had dug through ancient books. Others were creations by Luofeng’s activity planning department.
“Amazing, the construction is truly amazing!” Gao Duidui passed by the Ghost Market and the Eight Underworld Mountain Views while on the horse carriage. The entire way, he couldn’t stop praising, “Feiyu Amusement Park has genuinely put a lot of effort in. The overall planning is very logical and they’ve been extremely detailed. If everyone has the time to, you definitely need to come visit once……”
In actuality, Gao Duidui didn’t need to put so much effort into promoting. As his camera captured the views on the tour, the comments had already exploded:
【Aaah, amazing. This looks so realistic!!】
【I, who missed out on the garden party back then, have already preordered tickets for next week. Super happy】
【Hahaha, I see the head-falling-off ghost again. He’s still so funny】
【Funny? I, Head-Falling-Off Ghost, require you to immediately apologize】
【It’s so large scale. It looks much bigger than Luofeng’s garden party】
【Of course it’s bigger than the garden party. The garden party was only a temporary thing. This was specially built on a piece of property. Can the two be compared?】
【Fuck, what was that just now?? Why is there suddenly so much fog?】
【Wow, that scared me to death. Do you guys see the hands under the Bridge Over Troubled Water?】
【What happened just now?】
Upon seeing the questions in the comments, Gao Duidui immediately explained, “Just now, that was a ride in the Bridge Over Troubled Water zone. It’s called ‘Ship Confounded by Ghosts’……”
Feiyu’s Ghost City was different from the one Shang Que had originally made. Shang Que had used magic. Feiyu’s Ghost City had redesigned and enlarged the most important areas using the basis of the garden party, then physically created them. Huaxia had never been lacking in construction abilities. With enough superb designers, Feiyu Amusement Park didn’t disappoint anyone and completely recreated a majestic Ghost City.
A few scenic areas that previously couldn’t be properly displayed because of the garden party’s limited conditions had also been built. For example, originally, the garden party could only use lights to replace the Troubled Water. At Feiyu Amusement Park, they directly dug into the ground and created a manmade river. The river contained lights; when looking with the naked eye, the river’s water was a strange red. Under specific circumstances, special effects would also appear.
Aside from this, as a commercialized amusement park, the Ghost City of Fengdu’s various scenic areas all had their own rides. The “Ship Confounded by Ghosts” that Gao Duidui had mentioned just now was a small-scale boat ride for the Bridge Over Troubled Water scenic area.
Customers could rent boats at the riverbanks of the Troubled Water to tour the Troubled Water. While passing by a certain part of the river, fog would suddenly shroud the Troubled Water. There would also be the sounds of crying ghosts, lanterns, ghostly shadows, etc. At the same time, the lighting under the Troubled Water would change. If you looked down at the Troubled Water through the fog, you would see several ghostly hands struggling to climb onto the boat.
Because this ride was rather scary, there was an age restriction for who could go on it.
The “Ghost King Escorts His Bride” ride that had gotten extremely popular at the Luofeng garden party back then had been preserved too. However, because of Shang Que’s adamant attitude, this ride was ultimately forced to switch names. Now, it was called “Ghostly Bride.”
Other events included the Rubbish Money Mountain roller coaster, the Home Viewing Terrace naked eye 3D continent showing, and much more.
“Next, I’m going to take everyone to the Ghost Market. Same old. I’ll randomly choose 20 fans and gift them merchandise. The chosen fans can pick out what merchandise they want.” Gao Duidui finished touring the entire Ghost City. After getting out of the horse carriage, he walked back to the Ghost Market.
Feiyu Amusement Park’s Ghost Market was much larger than Luofeng’s garden party Ghost Market had been. Because it was a Ghost Market in an amusement park, aside from being part of the Ghost City, it also needed to serve the function of selling merchandise. The Ghost Market’s store planning was much more complete. The stores also contained a great variety of products.
The Ghost Market’s employees were still ghosts of all different shapes and sizes. Among them, aside from a small portion who were Feiyu’s employees with makeup on, the rest were all employees sent over from Luofeng.
“Feiyu Amusement Park’s Ghost Market and Amazing Future’s online platform are collaborating. All the products here can be purchased through Amazing Future’s Ghost Market purchasing platform. If you don’t have time to come to Chuandong but still want merchandise, you can also buy them online.”
“I’m definitely getting mini coffins and cinerary urns…… You want luck-changing stones? That’s fine too, but these are too expensive. I can only buy two.” Gao Duidui was overwhelmed by all the options in the stores in the Ghost Market. He suddenly exclaimed loudly and pulled out a few packets of soup base from a shelf. He smiled and said to the camera, “Amazing Future’s soup bases are actually being sold here too. Let me see if there are any fleshed lingzhi soup bases available…… Holy shit. They’re already sold out. Is there a need to be so hardcore?”
Currently, Amazing Future’s soup bases had already become a famous brand. They were the top choice for gifts. And, the fleshed lingzhi flavor was still the most expensive and most sought out type. Following the increase in fleshed lingzhi production these past two years, the amount of available soup bases was no longer so limited. However, there was still more demand than product.
Feiyu Amusement Park’s Ghost Market had only managed to achieve such a collaboration after much difficulty, but it didn’t seem like it was going to be that easy to buy any from here either.
“Oh god!!! What is dis?!!”
Gao Duidui had been in the midst of interacting with his fans when suddenly, a voice started screaming in not-so-accurate Chinese. Gao Duidui looked over, only to see a large, tall foreigner with a terrible expression on his face. He was in the midst of yelling at a shop employee. There were a few people next to him who seemed like his assistants. It appeared that this was a rather important person.
This was Joseph, who had specially come to check out Feiyu Amusement Park.
Gao Duidui made a “sh” gesture at the camera. “I’ll bring everyone over there. Let’s secretly take a peek.”
Comments:
【Gossip streamer has come online】
【It’s clearly you yourself who wants to take a peek!】
Gao Duidui made a silly expression and collapsed his selfie stick. While carrying his phone in his hand, he scooted close. He only figured out what had happened after asking around.
After entering Feiyu Amusement Park, Joseph had headed straight to the Ghost City of Fengdu. He had originally been doubtful that the effects on Feiyu’s promotional videos were real. Upon personally witnessing the entire park’s designs and technology, he suffered a huge shock. He also realized that it was basically impossible for his team’s Western mythology IP to defeat a native Huaxia IP in Chuandong. Though their technology wasn’t so bad that their park wouldn’t get any customers at all, it still hadn’t reached his original design expectations. This meant that it was very possible that the incredible investments he had made in the past few years would all go to waste.
This understanding caused Joseph to become extremely agitated. However, he still kept himself in check and continued to the Ghost Market.
The Ghost Market’s shops, which were full of products, once again dealt him a lot of damage. More terribly, even the assistants he had brought along had been unable to fend off the temptation and had started picking out products. They had also done this while using the excuse of scouting out the enemy. This caused him to not even have a place to take out his anger.
Joseph was so angry he almost lost his logical reasoning capabilities. By accident, he stepped on a pile of strange things. There was a soft, slimy, sticky feeling under his feet. A worker nearby immediately started shouting, “You’re stepping on my intestines!”
Joseph looked down. He really was standing on a mess of bloody intestines. This instantly caused him to jump in fright. Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore and started screaming.
“You guys are frightening your customers! I’m going to file a complaint against you!” Joseph said while pointing at the worker whose intestines he had stepped on.
That worker pitifully picked his intestines up and cradled them in front of his chest. He replied, “You were clearly the one who stepped on me first.”
“You guys look too scary. You shouldn’t be appearing in an amusement park at all!” Joseph continued to shout.
“Mr. Joseph, there’s an age restriction for entering the Ghost City of Fengdu.” Yu Zhengdu squeezed out of the crowd. Today was the amusement park’s opening day. As a representative of the stock owners, and because many of his company’s employees worked here, he had been paying attention to how operations had been going in the Ghost City of Fengdu all this time. As soon as he heard that a dispatched Luofeng employee had gotten into an argument at the shops, he had immediately rushed over with Shang Que.
Yu Zhengdu didn’t have a good impression of Joseph. After getting a rundown of everything that had happened, he didn’t bother being polite with the other either. With a smile, he said, “If you’re scared, there’s also a kids’ area in this amusement park.”
Yu Zhengdu’s words caused a lot of snickering from the crowd. Everyone had watched the entire situation unfold. Who couldn’t tell that this foreigner was in the wrong? Upon seeing this, they felt very pleased.
Joseph’s face altered between being ghastly pale and bright red. He couldn’t keep causing a commotion since all the onlookers were laughing at him. Thus, he angrily turned around and left.
Shang Que gazed at Joseph’s disappearing figure. His hands couldn’t help feeling a bit itchy. He told Yu Zhengdu, “I need to beat him up.”
Yu Zhengdu: “There’s no need for that, right?”
Shang Que hrmph’d. “We’re all ghosts. A foreign ghost dares to be disdainful of the local ghosts. How outrageous.”
Yu Zhengdu: “……”
***
Feiyu Amusement Park’s first day of business achieved unprecedented success. Though there had been a few altercations in the middle, because the park had prepared well in advance and the problems had been solved in a timely manner, nothing too serious had ultimately happened.
At eight in the evening, the Ghost City of Fengdu’s parade, the “Hundred Ghost Night Procession”, officially began. This was a recurring event that would happen in the park every day. It was a complete recreation of the parade from Luofeng’s Ghost Festival Garden Party. The procession would loop around the Ghost Market and Eight Underworld Mountain Views, lasting about half an hour. The difference was, the amusement park’s parade had also been paired with the appropriate background music. This would cause the atmosphere to be even more memorable.
All of the Hundred Ghost Night Procession’s actors were from Luofeng – not because of a requirement on Luofeng’s part, but because given the current technology, even though Excellent Jade Corporation could achieve very realistic makeup looks, this was very expensive, time consuming, and required a lot on the actors’ parts. And, the employees from Luofeng could all come in their own makeup when it was time for work. They could also easily keep the special effects makeup on all day with no problem. It was a lot less expensive than if Excellent Jade were to train their own actors.
After weighing these advantages and disadvantages, it was naturally more worthwhile to use the people sent over by Luofeng.
As for how Luofeng had actually managed to achieve this, Excellent Jade was completely clueless. In the end, they only reached one conclusion: Luofeng’s technology is badass.
After the parade, several topics related to the Ghost City ended up on the trending topics list on Weibo. The park’s staff started clearing out the park. As the tourists slowly left, the park slowly returned to peace and quiet once more.
There was a lot of summarizing and organizing to be done on the first day of opening. Whether it be the leaders of Excellent Jade Corporation, Feiyu Amusement Park’s management team, or the amusement park’s staff, everyone was still nervously taking inventory and reviewing everything after closing. This continued very late into the night.
After the amusement park’s office lights gradually dimmed, a few dark shadows found a hidden corner and secretly flipped over the wall into the amusement park by using some tools. They cautiously headed in the direction of the Ghost City of Fengdu.
This group of people was dressed in lowkey clothing. They all had hats and masks on. The one in the lead was whispering on the phone while walking. “Mr. Mai, we’ve already entered the amusement park. We’re heading in the direction of the Ghost City.”
A man’s voice sounded out on the other end of the phone call. “Careful. Don’t get discovered.”
“Don’t worry, we’re professionals. Even if we do get discovered, we won’t mention you guys.”
“Good.”
“Mr. Mai, are you sure you just want to destroy their main circuitry and fire equipment?”
“That’s the top priority. If you guys can get your hands on the files containing information about their technology, I’ll raise the compensation by an additional 50%.”
The man in the lead revealed a covetous expression. “It’s a deal.”
This person’s name on the streets was Lao San. He was the leader of a small group suspected of belonging to a crime organization. In the past, he had been the tyrant of this region. Because the government had been cracking down on gangs these past few years, though, their organization had suffered quite a bit. He had also been forced to stay in the shadows. However, big trees had deep roots, after all. Though he didn’t dare to publicly continue asking for protection rackets anymore, in private, he was still offering to do illegal things for hire.
Additionally, because this group of people had been systematically trained, they had their own set of rules while working. The most important thing was that they were tight-lipped. If they got caught, they would rather bite the bullet and go to prison than sell out the people who had hired them. They were a group who caused the police great distress and exasperation.
The person who had hired them to break into the amusement park was someone who worked for Joseph. During the day, Joseph had been greatly shocked by the Ghost City of Fengdu. In his heart, he knew that as soon as Feiyu Amusement Park successfully continued opening, his mythology IP’s promotion would suffer great setbacks in Huaxia. After that, he had caused a ruckus in the Ghost Market. Unexpectedly, he hadn’t been treated with respect like he usually was in Huaxia. Instead, he had been sharply criticized. This string of misfortunes caused him to feel extremely angry. Upon leaving Feiyu Amusement Park, he felt increasingly resentful when thinking back on the events that had transpired. In the end, he came up with such an evil plan.
They found Lao San and his group and planned to strike some fear into Feiyu during these first few days of opening. This didn’t need to be too troublesome either. All they needed to do was destroy some of the park’s fire equipment and main circuitry. These past few days, Feiyu had been on the news several times. As of now, they were at the height of their popularity and all eyes were on them. As soon as any safety problems appeared, this would be a fatal blow to their reputation.
Lao San and his group were already extremely familiar with doing these things. As soon as they started working, they were very professional. The entire way, they managed to avoid the patrolling employees and security cameras; they reached the Ghost City of Fengdu without being discovered by anyone.
Of course, just because no humans had discovered them didn’t mean that no ghosts had discovered them.
Luofeng employee group chat:
Headless Ghost:【A group of suspicious people have entered the Ghost City】
Kang Jin:【What kind of people? What do they want to do?】
Headless Ghost:【Don’t know, but they’re definitely not good people】
Holey Intestines Ghost:【Why don’t we place bets? I’m betting five RMB that they’re here to steal.】
Kang Jin:【Given my numerous years of experience from watching dramas, that’s not what it seems like to me. They should be here for a kidnapping. I’ll bet ten】
Qu Guangzhao:【Is there something wrong with you? Who would they be kidnapping from an amusement park in the middle of the night?】
Zheng Yan:【I think there’s really something wrong with you ghosts. Is this the time to be placing bets?????】
Zhao Ruola:【I’m betting fifty that our competitors sent them】
Zheng Yan:【Boss Zhao, you!!!】
Zheng Yan:【Then I’ll add fifty too】
Shang Que:【I’ll be the croupier】
Yu Zhengdu: 【???】
The author has something to say:
Last chapter, someone asked why Xiao Kui still needs to spend money on games when he’s already the big boss in the game…… Because Xiao Kui plays more than one game…… Even though he’s rich now, spending money on games is a bottomless pit……