After getting their hands on the materials, the ghost managers were thrilled. Soon, the underworld was swept up in a frenzy of immersive murder mystery games.
At first, it was just the regular card players in Yinshui Alley enjoying it. But before long, the trend had spread to the entire upper-class ghost circle in Fengdu.
Three months later, when Song Miaozhu returned to the Liang estate to deliver their custom-made Yin Paper Horses, she found the place completely transformed. It had become a full-fledged, live-action murder mystery experience hall.
All the props and décor inside had been crafted by the ghost managers themselves. They even hired wandering spirits to play the NPCs.
The scripts were no longer the ones Song Miaozhu had provided. Instead, they had been adapted from the tales of the "storytelling ghosts."
Storytelling ghosts were one of the most common professions in the underworld, with a high turnover rate. While ghosts lacked the ability to learn or create new things, their memories and life experiences remained intact.
Any ghost who had lived a rich life could become a storyteller, sharing their stories with others. And sometimes, reality was even more bizarre than fiction. These ghostly tales, when adapted into murder mystery scripts, felt far more authentic.
Inside the Liang estate, several scenes had already been used to death. There was no more space to build new sets. Since everything had been crafted with care, no one wanted to throw anything away. That was when the ghost managers had an idea: what if they pooled their resources and opened a professional, immersive murder mystery and board game parlor in Fengdu?
"It'll be profitable and also give us our own place to play," said Liang Fuyi. "What do you think? Want in?"
Song Miaozhu's interest was piqued.
She had considered the idea before, but running such a venue was far more complicated than managing a paper crafting shop, so she had shelved it.
Even though Ansou Hall had expanded over time, it was still fairly straightforward. The first floor housed a supermarket with goods from the living world and a consultation counter, while the second floor displayed Yin Paper Clothes and traditional paper crafts. Despite the shop's growth, the business model was simple—customers picked what they wanted and checked out at the counter.
Only a few ghost staff were needed, and supervision was easy. Mao Jinxia and Xu Jingsi now served as supervisors, each managing three staff and handling an entire floor with no problem.
Running an immersive venue, though, was a different beast. Not only did it demand precise interior design and atmosphere, it required continuous script development, NPC actor training, and regular updates to both content and décor.
It was labor-intensive, high-investment, and hard to manage. The returns weren't nearly as good as crafting paper goods.
Items made from the Secret Art of Paper Crafting, especially Yin Paper items, were all one-of-a-kind luxury goods in the underworld. It wasn't an exaggeration to call them top-tier limited-edition spiritual luxury items.
Were it not for the living-world goods being restocked online by her little paper servants, Song Miaozhu might have given up on that part of her business too. She could earn far more just making a single Grade-Four paper robe than by selling physical merchandise.
But working with Liang Fuyi and the others was different.
"I can invest with hell coins and materials like murder mystery scripts and tabletop game manuals from the living world," said Song Miaozhu. "But I won't be involved in day-to-day management."
She had plenty of idle hell coins, and investing was a smart way to make that money grow. As for the materials, she could simply hire people in the living world to collect them.
For her, it was the perfect setup—passive income with minimal effort.
"Deal!" the ghost managers replied in unison.
They had come to her precisely because she was the one who introduced them to the game in the first place. Fengdu did have these kinds of games, but mostly among newly arrived ghosts. They didn't have the funds to create elaborate sets, nor would they mix with old ghosts like them.
Just like her predecessors at Ansou Hall, Song Miaozhu always brought something new from the world of the living.
That night, they finalized the investment amounts and profit-sharing model. Even the venue was chosen: No. 499 Yinshui Alley.
The location was prime, sitting right beside the archway that marked the entrance to the residential quarter of the underworld.
The original owner of the shop had once been one of their own. She had stayed in the underworld longer than most of them, but eventually left to reincarnate and chase the spiritual revival happening in the living world.
With the store now vacant, Liang Fuyi had bought it, intending to open a branch of her clothing shop, Fortune Garment Atelier. But with this new plan, the place would become the Nether Maze Pavilion.
Just as she promised, Song Miaozhu invested only hell coins and sent people in the living world to collect an array of tabletop and murder mystery materials.
She still kept tabs on the "Mahjong Family of Yinshui Alley" group messages during her nightly lessons in the underworld and occasionally offered suggestions for the venue's progress.
The entire old guard of Yinshui Alley's paper crafting shops got involved. For them, building the Nether Maze Pavilion became a fun way to pass the time, which made progress incredibly fast.
That same day, Song Miaozhu finished all her orders for repairing Yin Paper Horses and decided to make one new Yin Paper Horse each month to sell at Ansou Hall. Before she even completed that month's horse, the first room of the Nether Maze Pavilion had officially opened.
It featured the very first game she had introduced: Blood Moon and Bone Mirror.
On opening night, Song Miaozhu only scheduled two and a half study sessions for herself and left half a session free to go have fun.
Yes, fun.
The ghost managers insisted that on the first day of business, while guests were exploring the venue, they themselves had to celebrate. Each hall of the Nether Maze Pavilion had a strict capacity and came with a hefty ticket price. Not every ghost could afford the experience.
Even so, reservations for Blood Moon and Bone Mirror were already booked solid through next year.
Several other halls were still under construction, but hundreds of ghosts had already preordered tickets for those too. The deposits from those reservations alone had already paid back the initial investment.
Besides the pricey immersive venues, they also opened a variety of more affordable tabletop game rooms. These only required a table fee and let ghosts play all night.
Each type of game came with its own VIP party room, and that night, the ghost managers gathered to try out the new board games Song Miaozhu had imported from the living world.
Once they were familiar with the rules, they planned to train ghost employees and open the rooms to the public. Though lower in cost, the volume of customers at the tabletop game rooms made them highly profitable.
In the first month alone, Song Miaozhu received ten million hell coins in dividends, which could be exchanged for ten top-grade spirit stones. It wasn't as much as her earnings from Ansou Hall, but it was still a sizable sum.
Most importantly, she barely had to lift a finger. To her, it was practically free money.