Chapter 350 - Vanished from the Face of the Earth?

Pei Qian had already more or less confirmed that Tang Yishu’s halo effect had not produced bugs in perfect games out of nothing. Although there seemed to be metaphysics involved and she had a special halo effect that could spread bad luck to her surroundings, such metaphysics still had limits.

For example, there would be greater chances of an unlikely event-such as stepping on one’s own shoelaces and trippinghappening if one was standing next to Tang Yishu.

However, if one was not wearing shoes with shoelaces, such a thing would not be possible. In other words, Tang Yishu’s halo effect was only a magnifier that would greatly increase the chances of unlucky events happening. It was the same with the bugs in the game.

There were bugs in many of Tengda’s other games as well. These bugs had not appeared out of nowhere; instead, they had been there from the beginning. However, the chances of them appearing had been low, and they likely wouldn’t have appeared under normal circumstances.

However, under the influence of Tang Yishu’s halo effect, the bugs appeared.

On the surface, it looked like these bugs appeared out of nowhere. However, they had actually just been deeply hidden in the beginning. Tang Yishu had merely increased the chances of them being brought to the surface.

Similarly, Ye Zhizhou’s demo contained many hidden bugs that probably would not have surfaced under normal circumstances.

However, because of Tang Yishu’s halo effect, the demo practically became unplayable.

Pei Qian was satisfied with this result.

Every time he went to check on Shang Yang Games before, news of success kept pouring in. It had been extremely hard for him to handle.

Finally, there was a setback. This was worth celebrating!

If only he could be this happy every day from now on…

Joy put heart into man.

Pei Qian sent a message to his driver, Little Sun: “Come with me to take a look at the factory buildings in the old industrial zone after lunch today.

“I want to start planning the haunted house.”

In the afternoon…

At Jingzhou City’s old industrial zone…

The first thought Pei Qian had after he alighted from the car was ‘this is way too far!!

It had taken them almost an hour to reach this place by car from the office.

The old industrial zone was located northeast of Jingzhou City, which typically expanded towards the west and south.

Ming Yun Villas was located southeast of Jingzhou City. There was a slight chance it would be more developed in the future. However, as for the old industrial zone… Pei Qian was not at all hopeful.

Pei Qian scanned his surroundings and realized that it looked different from what he had expected at first. Initially, Pei Qian had thought that the old industrial zone would just be more deserted and run-down than usual.

However, at that moment, he was seeing overgrown weeds all around the old industrial zone. The style of the buildings all around him looked like they belonged to the previous century, and the place was worlds apart from Jingzhou City.

Furthermore, nearly all the factory buildings were no longer in use. The remaining buildings that were still populated were only so because companies were moving out and tying up loose ends.

There were hardly any residential buildings nearby. The few residential buildings were old and run-down and looked like they were on the verge of collapse. Pei Qian guessed that a very few residents remained in those buildings now.

It was now daytime. If it had been night, Pei Qian probably would not have dared to come alone.

“Boss Pei, watch your step.”

Little Sun led the way.

As Pei Qian surveyed his surroundings, he spotted a few huge factory buildings.

It was no wonder that the rent was so cheap. No matter the purpose-if one wanted to make changes to the area, it was guaranteed that the project would be huge. A large sum of money would probably be needed. If one could not recover their capital, they would have made ducks and drakes of their money. Of course, nobody would be interested in taking over these factories.

Pei Qian gazed into the distance but still could not see the end of the industrial zone.

The old industrial zone was too huge. If he rented all the buildings and turned the place into a huge haunted house, he would probably need to fork out hundreds of millions of yuan. That was not practical.

Thus, Pei Qian considered renting a few bigger factories—measuring several thousand square meters—and then turning those buildings into the haunted house.

It would not be appropriate to work on too huge a project. Many haunted houses attracted fans of horror movies and horror games from all over the world, precisely because they were large-scale and frightening

Pei Qian’s only hope was that his haunted house would neither become famous nor attract huge crowds of tourists. That way, he would be able to burn as much money on it as possible.

Thus, Pei Qian had to control the scale of the haunted house well.

He could not make it so big that it became well known, and yet he had to make it frightening enough to scare Ruan Guangjian sh*tless. Only then could the hatred in Pei Qian’s heart start to dissipate.

The industrial zone was deserted and inconvenient to get to. As long as the haunted house did not become too famous, Pei Qian doubted that tourists from around the country would come and visit it.

The income generated from Jingzhou’s tourists alone probably would not be enough to sustain the haunted house’s daily operations.

Thus, the haunted house would become Boss Pei’s little black room[1]. Each time he wanted to take revenge on someone listed in his notebook, he would send them there.

Not only would he be able to incur losses, but he would also be able to take revenge. He would be killing two birds with one stone -it was perfect.

Pei Qian and Little Sun walked slightly farther in to see the current situation of the factory buildings. All in all, they were a complete mess. Neither of them saw any point in surveying the place any longer.

“Let’s go.”

Pei Qian had only leisurely walked around for five minutes before he turned around and prepared to head back.

Little Sun quickly caught up with him and asked, “Boss Pei, do you want to look at other places? There are many other locations available for you to start a haunted house.”

Pei Qian paused. “Why would I look at other places? I’ve chosen this place.” Little Sun, “Er…”

Little Sun had misunderstood him.

Initially, Little Sun had thought that Boss Pei had only decided to leave so quickly because he had not been satisfied with what he had seen. He had thought that Boss Pei would walk around for a little longer if he had been interested.

Thus, Little Sun wondered if he should drive Boss Pei to another possible location for the haunted house.

As it turned out, he had been mistaken.

Boss Pei had only decided to turn back because he was very satisfied with the place.

It was just that…

This was a multi-million-yuan project. It might even cost more than ten million yuan. Was Boss Pei being too rash by deciding on a place within five minutes of looking around?

Little Sun quickly threw that thought out of his head.

What kind of person was Boss Pei? Would he make rash decisions? He probably already knew a lot about the place before coming down. Perhaps that was why he only needed five minutes to confirm his understanding of the area. This was what it looked like to only take action after carefully planning everything. After all, a general planning in the seclusion of his tent could determine a distant battle’s outcome.

Once he got back to the office, Pei Qian began to think about how to create the haunted house. It would be rather simple to incur losses by running a haunted house. That was especially true if the haunted house was fixed in one location.

That was because haunted houses were typically one-time expenses. Most tourists would only visit it once; most would not visit a second time.

That was unless the haunted house had as different schemes as boys had to pick up girls or underwent a complete renovation to renew its material and gameplay.

However, construction costs of haunted houses were considerable. One renovation could cost a bomb. What’s more, there was no way to continue operations during the renovation process. The size of its output would hardly match its input.

Thus, there were three ways to run haunted houses:

First, Pei Qian could run it like large-scale haunted houses overseas. Those were well-known because of their size, and tourists from all around the world would flock to them as a result. With such a huge customer base, those haunted houses could earn a lot from tickets and side products. Of course, they could generate huge revenue.

Second, Pei Qian could create a moving haunted house. He could set it up in a shopping mall in a city for a while before moving to another city. That could guarantee a fresh customer base regularly. That was the model several haunted houses in the country were using. Third, Pei Qian could build the haunted house in a huge amusement park. As long as the amusement park drew in a steady flow of customers, there would be a constant flow of people into the haunted house as well.

However, Pei Qian would consider none of these models. That was because he had no intention to earn money in the first place.

He had to learn from the bulk of haunted houses that failed. He would create a haunted house in a fixed location that would be big enough to scare people sh*tless… but would not become well-known around the country.

That way, even if people around Jingzhou visited the haunted house on account of its reputation, it would only do well in the short-term. However, it would still incur losses in the long-term.

At the moment, Pei Qian was still unsure about what kind of haunted house he should create. However, there was no rush. He had to first find someone to take charge of the project. Pei Qian was way too busy. He could not possibly personally take care of everything

Furthermore, Pei Qian did not want anything to do with the haunted house.

On one hand, he found them too scary because he was quite timid. On the other hand, he worried that any haunted house that he created would not be scary enough to others. Although haunted houses that weren’t scary could incur losses as well, Pei Qian would much rather his haunted house be scary than to have it lose more money.

After all, this haunted house had another special purpose. Boss Pei was counting on it to exact revenge on the list of people in his notebook. If the haunted house did not turn out to be frightening, Boss Pei would be as good as defeated by the enemies in the notebook. That would be too embarrassing.

After some thought, Pei Qian decided to deal with the mole in the company, whom he had found recently.

Chen Kangtuo, you’re up! You’ll be in charge of the haunted house!

That way, Pei Qian could kill two birds with one stone.

First, Chen Kangtuo was a hard worker. If Pei Qian got rid of him, he would be able to cleanse the office.

Second, Chen Kangtuo took his work very seriously. Putting him in charge of the haunted house would probably guarantee that the project would turn out well.

Apart from those, Pei Qian was considering the special purpose he had for the haunted house.

The first-place-elimination system could only get rid of the outstanding elites in the office. However, it could not help Pei Qian deal with the outstanding hard workers who liked to work overtime in secret.

Now, Pei Qian could throw them all into the haunted house project!

That was because the project was bound to fail. That meant Pei Qian did not have to worry, no matter how hard they worked.

The more Pei Qian thought about it, the more satisfied he became. He could only say that this was fate! If he had not met Tang Yishu by chance, Pei Qian would not have found out that people were working overtime in secret. Naturally, he would not have found out about Chen Kangtuo.

Fate was an amazing thing indeed.

However, would Chen Kangtuo feel lonely working on the project alone? Should Pei Qian arrange for people to help him? He could look for hard workers in Shang Yang Games to help out with the haunted house as well.

Yes, that was a good idea.

The employees of Shang Yang Games had played horror games for over a month. Perhaps they had learned some valuable lessons from that experience.

Pei Qian had to send the more professional employees to handle the haunted house. Then, they could make it scary enough to scare Ruan Guangjian sh*tless.

At that thought, Pei Qian sent a message to Lin Wan.

“Choose an ordinary employee with an excellent working attitude from within Shang Yang Games. I have a new project.”

The next afternoon…

Bao Xu reached the office on time, as he always did, and sat down at his desk. He accessed Zhongdian Chinese Network, opened his document, and carefully began to make edits.

After a few minutes of editing, he realized that something was amiss.

Bao Xu quickly looked around the office to see exactly what was making him feel uncomfortable. At last, his eyes fell on an empty workspace.

Chen Kangtuo had not come to work today.

That was not it-all his personal items had been cleared from his workspace as well!

Was there a need to clear all his personal items if he was merely on sick leave?

Bao Xu suddenly felt a chill run down his spine.

What had happened to him? Had he vanished from the face of the earth?

[1] This phrase is the internet slang for ‘ban list’ in China.