Visual Mindscape

The blinding white light gradually softened.

Lu Xiu blinked and found herself standing in a pure white space.

There was no sky, no horizon, no shadows.

Above her was bright as day. Beneath her was bright as day. Emptiness stretched in every direction, with no end in sight.

It was like an infinite photography studio.

[Welcome to the Construction Space.]

[Architect level: Level 1 Architect]

[Maximum Constructed Instances: 1]

[Survival Points currently available to invest: 23]

[Beginner tutorial loaded.]

The next instant.

Countless pale blue lines of light wove through the air, and a simplified instance model gradually appeared before her.

It was a two-story house.

A wireframe.

Like a 3D model without textures.

At the same time, instructions explaining the rules for constructing an instance appeared.

They were incredibly complicated.

The table of contents alone went on and on, covering everything from scene structure and hostile units to event mechanics, emotional nodes, completion conditions, and more...

Lu Xiu skimmed the contents, and her vision nearly went dark.

Wait... was this really something she could finish in twenty-three days?

What made her scalp prickle even more was the final note: [Once instance construction is complete, Survival Points must be spent as a "Rule Stabilization Cost," depending on the scene structure and the scale of the instance.]

She was done for.

All that frantic work, only to collapse before she was even halfway there.

The moment she saw that note.

That was the only thought left in Lu Xiu's head. She couldn't take it anymore. Covering her face, she squatted where she stood and let out a wail.

I'm completely broke!

Where am I supposed to get Survival Points to pay the Rule Stabilization Cost?!

Wait, there are costs too?!

I...

Lu Xiu launched into a tirade in her head, and it was not pretty.

Only after cursing for quite a while.

Did she lower her hands from her face. Leaning forward slightly, she half-hugged her slender legs and looked at the note again... but she was still furious.

Right now, she felt like a girl who had been sold into a remote mountain village. Just when she had lost all hope, she discovered her buyer was a woman... and that woman claimed she had come looking for family.

Are you kidding me?!

Leaning forward, Lu Xiu reached out with a slender finger and scrolled the window back and forth, rereading the note about the fee as though she could make it disappear.

Obviously, she couldn't.

All she could do was frantically comb through the original Lu Xiu's memories, searching for a solution.

But just as an idea began to form... one tutorial entry caught her eye.

"...Visual Mental Imagery Construction Method?"

Lu Xiu's scrolling finger stopped. Temporarily setting aside the fact that being an Architect cost money, she opened the tutorial entry to read its details.

[Visual Mental Imagery Construction Method: In addition to conventional methods, an Architect may recreate or generate visual information in her mind. By using memory or imagination to picture specific objects, scenes, or images, she can then project them into an instance. Both remembered and imagined mental images are acceptable.]

[Advantage: Saves time assembling assets. Allows the mind to see or experience things that do not currently exist, relying solely on individual memory or creative imagination.]

[Disadvantage: The gap between imagination and reality may be enormous. Not recommended unless the Architect knows every detail of the imagined scene.]

[Recommendation: Architects may use this function to build an instance's initial framework.]

As she read the explanation of the Visual Mental Imagery Construction Method.

Lu Xiu briefly shook off her dejection.

The thing was... this feature seemed tailor-made for her.

The original Lu Xiu would never have had a use for it. After all, she had never played games from another world.

But Lu Xiu had. She loved this particular game so much that she had played it once on PS5 and once in VR. She knew it inside and out.

So.

Lu Xiu said almost without thinking, "Activate the Visual Mental Imagery Construction Method."

As soon as she spoke.

The sprawling rules window shrank and moved to the upper left corner of her vision.

A new prompt appeared.

[Activating... Architect, please prepare to envision an instance scene using visual mental imagery.]

When Lu Xiu saw the prompt, she forgot her dejection, hurried to her feet, and closed her eyes.

She didn't try to envision the entire game at once.

Instead, she chose its most iconic scene, the one that had shocked her most, to test it out: that masterpiece of a scene, the Baker Family "dinner."

That famous dining table...

That loving family...

Lu Xiu calmed herself and began forcing herself to recall the game's details.

But she soon realized she didn't need to force anything. The moment she closed her eyes, images flowed out like water, terrifyingly clear.

Even details she hadn't noticed while playing were vivid now.

Why?

Lu Xiu found it strange. Was this a benefit of crossing worlds?

No.

This wasn't the time to think about that.

Lu Xiu hurriedly cut off the wandering thought and focused on the scenes from Resident Evil 7.

Dim candlelight.

Rotting food.

The irritating buzz of flies.

The deranged, bizarre members of the Baker Family.

Ethan, the protagonist, bound to a chair and helpless as he was nearly forced to eat something unspeakable.

Lu Xiu's breathing gradually slowed.

At the same time, the pure white space began to change. Ripples spread across the floor like water.

Then.

Behind Lu Xiu, a wall suddenly rose from the ground. Its wooden boards were weathered, covered in scratches and spreading mold.

Immediately after came—

A second wall.

A third.

A fourth.

Then.

A ceiling pressed down overhead, sealing the space with Lu Xiu inside.

The pure white glow gave way to dim lighting.

The enclosed space gradually became an old dining room. Its wallpaper had long since yellowed and blistered, peeling up at the edges to expose damp wooden boards beneath. An outdated chandelier hung from the ceiling, its shade coated in grease and dust. The room was dim.

A round wooden dining table stood in the center, candles burning on top. Knife marks and dark stains covered its surface, while its edges bore the wear of years.

The table was piled high with unspeakable food.

Iron platters, ceramic bowls, and glass jars were heaped together in a mess...

Then Lu Xiu caught a powerful stench of decay.

She snapped her eyes open and found herself standing inside the game scene.

The round table was right before her, its surface sticky and piled with intestines and other unspeakable food. Cockroaches crawled between the dishes, while flies circled above the revolting heap.

Her breath caught.

Lu Xiu looked around, then closed her eyes again and continued adding details.

Soon, she heard chairs scraping.

Next came the sound of fingers scraping plates, followed by chewing, swallowing, and voices.

Blurry human outlines gradually appeared in the chairs.

The deranged family sat around the round table.

"...Rise and shine, sleepyhead. It's time for dinner."

The mother's voice rang out, delivering the line Lu Xiu remembered.

Lu Xiu opened her eyes again and saw a scene almost identical to the one from her previous life.

The father-in-law.

The mother-in-law.

The brother-in-law.

The three members of the Baker Family whom players in her previous life had jokingly called the father-in-law, mother-in-law, and brother-in-law sat around the table.

And Lu Xiu stood where Ethan Winters, the original game's protagonist, had sat.

It was exactly the same!

...Her heart nearly stopped.

It was even more immersive than she had imagined.

For a moment, she even forgot this was the Construction Space and thought she had crossed into the world of Resident Evil 7.

[Evaluating... Architect has completed a scene. Set this scene as one of the core emotional nodes?]

Lu Xiu took a deep breath and steadied her pounding heart.

"Yes."

[Node marked: Extreme Oppressive Dinner Scene]

[Scene stabilized.]

[Entering manual editing mode.]

With the prompt, everything in the scene froze, including the buzzing flies.

Only then did Lu Xiu slowly breathe a sigh of relief. She couldn't help it; memories she had thought dead were attacking her... She had never seen this scene like this. It was far more immersive than VR.

It was so real that a little panic was only natural.

But once everything stopped, she finally felt like she was actually making an instance.

"So... I can just imagine it into existence."

Lu Xiu studied the scene, which was identical to the original but far more realistic. Resting a hand beneath her chin, she fell into thought.

This was so much more efficient than assembling everything by hand. Maybe constructing an instance wasn't that hard after all.

Honestly, it was even kind of fun...

With a shortcut like this, making the instance in a short time shouldn't be a problem.

But would an instance like this qualify for an Architect reward?

And could an instance she made really grant skills or items to players who cleared it?

Hmm... I'm not sure.

Then there was the Rule Stabilization Cost.

Lu Xiu furrowed her brows. She had the beginnings of an idea...