Chapter 23

'Doesn't seem like it.'

Sang Yu paused.

There were some in the garage.

Sang Yu wasn't actually obsessed with luxury cars — but he'd already bought a whole estate, so wouldn't it be a waste not to fill it with cars that matched the vibe? The divine-spender system wasn't going to overdraft him. He treated it like building with Lego. Every 'piece' had to be there.

'Alright, Xiao Cao — go buy or rent a few cars, whichever's faster. Don't hold up the crew.'

The ones here couldn't be used, so they'd have to rent from outside. Watching the whole group reading faces and tiptoeing around, Sang Yu wasn't annoyed — he found it kind of funny.

Mo Jialiu: '...'

Listening to Sang Yu talk sometimes gave her this weird dissociated feeling, like there was a membrane between them and the rest of the world.

Couldn't hold up the crew?

He built this entire production from scratch.

Is this just how rich people think?

Can't wrap my head around it...

Jiang Yang's face had gone completely red.

He didn't have the guts he'd imagined he would.

Driving a supercar for the first time was supposed to be great promo material — the crew had even planned to film it as a behind-the-scenes clip. Instead, every camera was already set up and pointed right at him, capturing the full chain-dropping disaster in real time.

Embarrassing, sure. But at least he felt a lot better now.

That thing was just too expensive!

Jiang Yang quietly made a vow to himself... if someone handed him a twenty-million-yuan car right now, he'd absolutely drive it — smooth and steady, no problem.

After that, Sang Yu didn't get too involved in the rest. He went off to watch the racing — he genuinely wasn't that interested in romance dramas aimed at female audiences. That said, since The Favored One had gone through the production pipeline, he did watch the first cut of episode one out of a mix of responsibility and mild curiosity.

Not bad.

Actually...

Sang Yu narrowed his eyes.

He could use The Favored One for something else.

·

From the outside, Sang Yu looked like a hands-off boss who'd dumped two drama projects and walked away. But he wasn't exactly idle.

Because his most anticipated project — the Xianxia Theme Park — was finally on track!

Sang Yu had been hyped about this for a while.

From the start, he'd decided: he wanted to build a real-world RPG.

RPG — Role-Playing Game. A type of video game where players take on a character and move through a pre-built world.

Interactivity is the core of an RPG.

You can explore freely, interact with the environment, talk to NPCs, or team up and socialize with other players.

You can travel between different attractions.

Accept quests, complete quests, level up, buy gear, trigger random encounters, party up with other players, chat with NPCs.

...How fun is that?!

So for the past month or so, he'd basically been pushing forward the new company setup, then locked in the location for the first zone — Qingfeng Sect.

While keeping an eye on the theme park's project approval, he'd also been writing the Aurora Fairyland setting bible, starting with the Qingfeng Sect section.

Linjiang had great geography — mountains on one side, water on the other. He dug a little deeper and found a spot that was perfect for building a park.

Sang Yu stood on the mountainside.

Below him, mostly undeveloped forest, with a few crumbling brick houses scattered around.

In the distance, layered dark-green peaks — still wrapped in mist from a recent rain, like an ink painting someone had just started to color in.

Beautiful.

The preliminary survey results said: suitable for development.

After that, he'd reach out to the local government. Once the research and proposal cleared, he could submit the formal project application.

And that was just the start — after approval came the land-use permit, then design, then regulatory review, then construction, step by step.

Sang Yu sighed.

Fun as it was, you couldn't rush it.

Just building a unified network system was a serious challenge. The feedback he'd gotten was that they'd probably need to develop a dedicated app.

Sang Yu: Let's build it. Sending funds. JPG

There was also another piece of feedback: the dungeon module — current tech couldn't fully meet the requirements.

Because there are no actual bosses in real life.

The current working plan: build a physical 'secret realm' on-site.

Fill it with traps and props, let players explore, then layer in VR.

Give players VR headsets — that way they can actually see the boss.

Downside: VR tech isn't mature enough yet, and it'd need to work with wire rigs, since players are supposed to be cultivators — they fly.

Also, to give players the physical sensation of hitting enemies, you'd need another system working alongside it. Otherwise you swing and feel nothing — what's the point?

But end-to-end, it's a whole production. Complicated. Expensive.

Sang Yu: Love the chaos. Sending funds. JPG

...

Bottom line: Sang Yu was dead set on making this happen.

No matter the cost, no matter how many people it took — he was throwing money at Aurora Fairyland like the number didn't exist.

Xi Xingfa, standing nearby: '...'

He'd built up some immunity by now, but it still hit.

Originally, his dad had been the one playing around with friends, happy to chip in as a way of building relationships. But now, looking at all this...

Dad, I suddenly feel like our family is kind of broke.

Can we go back to the film and TV sector?

Comfort zone.

So much cheaper over there.

Xi Xingfa had been steadily working on building closeness with Sang Yu for a while now, and it was paying off — he was genuinely happy about it.

Look at the whole country — nobody had a relationship with Sang Yu like he did!

Right now Sang Yu had two dramas in the pipeline: A Demolition Office Is Not Ordinary and The Favored One — and Xi Xingfa had backed both.

If Sang Yu liked what he saw down the line, maybe he'd let a little investment slip through his fingers too. That'd be more than enough.

Sang Yu sighed again and said, 'Let's go. Head down the mountain. I'll take you to dinner.'

Xi Xingfa had been recommending restaurants to him for a while now — and he genuinely knew food and loved it, every place he'd suggested had been good.

Might as well try some local flavors this time.

Xi Xingfa grinned so hard the wrinkles showed. Honestly, the food was secondary — it was the company that mattered.

After several meals together, he'd figured out that Sang Yu didn't like fancy business cuisine. He liked home-style cooking.

So every place he recommended was tucked away and low-key, but with a serious reputation.

The kind of spots only real food lovers knew about.

This time, the two of them went to a little restaurant hidden in an alley.

A local gem.

Sang Yu ordered tomato egg-skin soup — something he hadn't had in a while.

First you beat a few eggs, add cooking wine and salt, stir it all together, then fry it in a pan until it's thin and soft. Slice it into strips and drop it in the broth.

Simple. Delicious.

Xi Xingfa stared at the soup: '...'

He'd spoken too soon.

He could never get into this. Back home, they didn't even call it soup — his mom would roast him for it, say it tasted like tomato hot-pot rinse water.

But Sang Yu loved it, so Xi Xingfa ordered a bowl too. Solidarity.

Xi Xingfa approached it with the energy of someone doing shots, nearly knocked it back in one go.

He was still being force-fed the aftertaste of hot-pot rinse water when Sang Yu suddenly said, 'Xi Xingfa, any investments going on lately?'

Xi Xingfa's eyes drifted as he thought back: 'Nothing major right now... oh wait, I put money into Yuanshang TV's Village Boys and City Boys.'

'It's been a few seasons, audiences are kind of fatigued — but the ratings are still the tallest midget in the room, so it works.'

'Sang Yu, have you seen this variety show? What do you think?'

The concept was simple: swap a rural kid and a city kid, let them live each other's lives for a month.

Sang Yu had watched it. That one, yeah. He'd seen it.

He didn't know about others, but his own take had shifted: at first it felt fresh and interesting, then it started to feel cruel.

Going from luxury to simplicity is hard. Going from simplicity to luxury is easy.

City and countryside aren't just different in price — there's the environment, education, access to resources.

You take a kid who grew up in a poor rural village, drop them into a city to experience all that beauty and abundance, then send them back.

That's basically giving something and then taking it away.

Sang Yu was an adult and even he wasn't sure he could stay emotionally stable going from rich to broke — especially without the divine-spender system.

Let alone a kid?

Maybe his take was too pessimistic, too biased — but that's genuinely how he felt.

Of course, the part about the divine-spender system, he kept to himself and didn't share with Xi Xingfa.

Xi Xingfa listened to Sang Yu's take and went quiet: 'That's... actually true...'

He hadn't expected Sang Yu to come at it from that angle. Sensitive.

Xi Xingfa zoned out a little, then accidentally took another sip of the soup.

...Ugh!

'Ahem — well, it's up to each person, I guess. There was one rural kid in the first season who was incredible — he's a pretty well-known singer now.'

Sang Yu got curious: 'Who?'

'I think his name was... Chen Junjie?'

Hm? Doesn't ring a bell...

Xi Xingfa smoothly changed the subject, leaning in a little: 'Sang Yu, which platform are you planning to release The Favored One on?'

Huajing's home projector bundled all the major platform channels, but that didn't stop Xi Xingfa from being curious enough to ask.

'Yuanshang.'

'Huh? I figured it'd be Hongming.' Sang Yu had picked the guy Hongming TV recommended for the male lead, after all.

'I did it on purpose.'

'...?'

Sang Yu: 'Xi Xingfa, do you remember why I started an entertainment company?'

Xi Xingfa's eyes went wide: 'Wait — huh?'

He'd almost forgotten. Then it clicked — oh right, because Golden Legend was so terrible?!

Back then, everyone in Xi Xingfa's circle assumed Sang Yu had gotten into some kind of trouble and abandoned the account — no way he'd come back, let alone come back posting a film review.

They thought it wasn't even him.

Took a while to confirm it was.

Sang Yu smiled — a little sly, a little smug: 'If nothing goes sideways, The Favored One is going to go head-to-head with a certain new release.'

Huang Yunwen's new drama, The Diary — also a female-audience romance.

The moment to prove 'I said I could do it, so I did' had come a little early.

He'd originally planned to use The Demolition Office for this — after all, both were male-lead dramas, so a direct matchup felt fair.

But it didn't matter. Better lucky than early.

The two shows' premiere dates were two days apart. A natural comparison.

So Sang Yu had deliberately gone with a platform other than Hongming — Yuanshang TV worked, Love to Watch TV was fine too — the point was to set up an Arena.

Earlier, after watching the first episode, Sang Yu had figured out its 'use.'

One drama, multiple purposes. Efficient.

Xi Xingfa slowly raised a thumbs-up: 'Sang Yu, you're ruthless — you're on another level —!'

Xi Xingfa even thought: if Sang Yu had started from nothing and gone into the internet industry, he'd absolutely be killing it.

Sang Yu: 'You're too kind.'

He thought for a second: 'Should I post something today as an appetizer?'

·

Y03 came online.

The internet swarmed.

This whole rotten internet — only Sang Yu could give people a different kind of rush.

Every other celebrity was either dressed up or fully made-up.

Or it was some fandom war between two stan armies, or drama promos for shows nobody cared enough to click on.

— Because if you don't even watch the show, you're definitely not clicking the related trending topics either.

But when Sang Yu made a move, that energy of his — the kind that didn't care who got caught in the blast — seemed to rub off on everyone around him. Like Yu Zhitao, Shu Mucheng, Chen Liqi — that chaotic love-triangle flame war.

Recently, the tea had been served by the actual people involved — not hiding behind their fans, full main-character energy. The kind of drama you actually wanted to watch!

So this account had an insane number of active followers!

But this time Sang Yu didn't post anything new on Weibo — he just retweeted someone else's post.

The original post: 'I said I could do it, let me try. Been prepping to launch an entertainment company — now taking name suggestions, paid.'

Y03: 'I said I could do it and I did — so isn't now the perfect time to let the public compare both sides' results?'