218: Chapter 218 The Emotional Plague Breaks Out! I Issue "Overload Insurance" to Let the Victims Buy Their Own Lives

0.3 seconds after the contraband was injected into the origin of the Dead Silence Star Domain.

On the monitoring screens, five thousand dim planets across the entire star domain simultaneously erupted with blinding Emotional Auroras—this was the Rule Radiation generated when emotional concentration was forcibly elevated.

The numerical panel jumped frantically:

[Emotional Concentration: 3.8%→4.2%→4.7%→5.1%→5.8%!]

It broke through the passing line in an instant.

But in the next second, alarms blared.

[Warning! Premonition of emotional overload collapse detected!]

[Collapse Type: Extreme Emotional Plague]

The screen switched to the nearest planet.

In the city ruins, those indigenous people who had just felt hope due to the Emotional Package were now falling into a madness more terrifying than despair.

A man suddenly began to laugh wildly, laughing until his lungs tore and the corners of his eyes bled, yet he continued to laugh until his heart stopped.

A woman holding a doll of a long-dead child began to slam her head against a wall, saying "Mommy was wrong" with every hit, until her skull shattered.

Across the entire street, people acted out their most extreme emotions as if controlled by an invisible hand—the angry self-immolated, the fearful gouged out their own eyes, and the joyful danced until their bones were crushed to pieces...

"This is the 50% probability emotional overload collapse?" Lin Xiao's voice trembled. "This isn't a collapse, this is... Hell manifested."

On Zhang Hao's data monitoring screen, the overall emotional concentration of the Dead Silence Star Domain began a cliff-like plunge after hitting a peak of 5.8%.

[5.8%→5.2%→4.3%→3.1%...]

Because the hosts carrying the emotions were dying in droves.

"At this rate, it will drop below 1% within three hours," Zhang Hao said urgently. "And the death toll will exceed ten billion!"

Countdown: 23 hours 41 minutes.

The loan shark interest rolled another 100 billion.

Lin Chen stared at the screen for three seconds and suddenly pulled up the financial product editor.

"What are you doing?" Su Qingyu grabbed his arm. "You can't inject more contraband! One more time and the whole star domain will be finished!"

"No injections." Lin Chen's fingers quickly typed in new product information. "I'm selling insurance."

[New Product: Emotional Overload Collapse Insurance]

[Insured Subject: Death or permanent mental damage caused by emotional overload]

[Coverage: If the insured dies in a collapse, their relatives receive a 'Resurrection Slot (Limited Edition)'; if mental damage occurs, they receive 'Memory Reshaping Therapy']

[Premium: 80% of the insured's '20-year Emotional Tax' after being saved in the future]

[Special Clause: This insurance only takes effect when emotional concentration is above 4%; it automatically invalidates below 4%, and premiums are non-refundable]

Lin Xiao watched, dumbfounded. "You're... making them use twenty years of future emotional taxes to buy insurance they might not even use now? And the premium is as high as 80%?"

"Yes." Lin Chen clicked publish. "Because emotional concentration is currently plummeting and will soon fall below 4%. To buy the insurance, they must purchase it before it hits 4%—and the condition for the insurance to take effect is that the concentration must be above 4%."

"What does that mean?" Zhang Hao hadn't caught on yet.

"It means this is a limited-time flash-sale futures product." Lin Xiao understood instantly, taking a sharp breath. "They have to gamble that the concentration will rebound and stay high before it drops below 4%, so the insurance remains valid. But if they gamble wrong and it keeps falling, not only do they pay the premium for nothing, but the insurance automatically invalidates."

"Smart." Lin Chen watched the insurance transaction numbers begin to soar. "But don't forget—they just went through the Reverse Causality Plague, and now they see people around them dying miserably in emotional collapses."

"In times like these, people lose their reason."

"They will grasp at any straw, even one with thorns."

Within ten seconds, transaction numbers surpassed thirty million.

Each policy pre-collected "80% of the next 20 years' Emotional Tax" as a premium—though these premiums were currently just digital promises, Lin Chen didn't want cash; he wanted data.

He bundled all the policyholder data and uploaded it to the cross-dimensional financial market.

[New Financial Derivative: Dead Silence Star Domain Emotion Futures Contract]

[Contract Subject: The average emotional concentration value of this star domain over the next 24 hours]

[Long/Short: Chosen by the investor]

[Trading Margin: 100 dimension points per lot]

[Immediate Listing]

"You're turning their fates... into financial products?" Su Qingyu's face turned pale.

"Yes." Lin Chen watched the trading volume explode. "But that's not the key. The key is that I need a massive influx of trading margins—these margins will temporarily settle in my account and become usable funds."

Sure enough, as the futures contract listed, countless speculators poured in.

They were financial players from other high-level civilizations. Seeing the "Zeroing Contest" theme and the extreme event of emotional collapse, they were certain there would be huge volatility.

The margin pool surpassed 500 billion dimension points in three minutes.

"Now," Lin Chen pulled up the weapons market, "using these 500 billion margins as collateral, purchase the 'Emotional Stability Field Generator (Contraband Enhanced Version)'."

[Item: Emotional Stability Field Generator (Enhanced Version)]

[Effect: Forcibly stabilizes emotional fluctuations in a designated area, suppressing overload collapse]

[Side Effect: After stabilization, emotional concentration will be locked at the current value and cannot be raised for 24 hours]

[Price: 450 billion dimension points]

[Confirm Purchase]

The moment the payment was completed, an invisible emotional filter net unfolded over the Dead Silence Star Domain.

Those individuals undergoing extreme collapse suddenly seemed to have their pause buttons pressed—the wild laughers stopped, the wall-slammers collapsed, and the fires of the self-immolators were extinguished.

The emotional plague was forcibly suppressed.

But the side effect manifested immediately: the entire star domain's emotional concentration was locked at 3.1%—0.2% lower than the value after the plunge.

"It's still not passing," Zhang Hao looked at the data. "And now it's locked, it can't be raised naturally."

"Then we use unnatural means." Lin Chen looked at the screens of the other two competitors.

In Morgana's Frozen Zone, due to the Rule Radiation interference from the emotional plague just now, energy reserves had dropped by another 30%. She was trying to fill the gap with her own origin, but her face had already become transparent—a sign of energy overextension.

Alpha's side was even worse: the extreme emotions triggered by the emotional plague had been transmitted to his Virtual Heaven through some sort of rule resonance. Those uploaded consciousnesses suddenly began to experience real pain and madness—deadly poison for a pure-logic AI.

The error rate soared from 0.09% to 0.21%.

Lin Chen connected to both of them simultaneously.

"Morgana, I'll lend you another 200 billion energy. Condition: Permanent authorization of 'Frost Magic Full-Spectrum Intellectual Property Rights' after your star domain thaws."

"Alpha, upgraded Emotional Logic Algorithm, monthly price: 300 billion. It can solve your current problem."

Morgana gritted her teeth. "I'll sign."

Alpha's data stream was disordered. "Deal..."

Another 500 billion spent.

But in exchange, he got temporary stability for the two of them—and two long-term rights contracts.

Lin Chen bundled these two contracts into a financial product once again:

[New Derivative: Supreme Candidate Rescue Revenue Rights Certificate]

[Certificate Content: Holders can share 10% of future frost magic revenue from Morgana's star domain and 8% of data service revenue from Alpha's Virtual Heaven]

[Issue Price: 100 billion dimension points per share]

[Issue Quantity: 10 shares]

[Target Customers: High-level civilization families who want to invest in the 'Zeroing Contest' but are afraid to bet directly]

Sold out in ten seconds.

Another 1 trillion in the bank.

"Current total funds..." Lin Xiao calculated quickly, "500 billion margin pool + 1 trillion certificate sales = 1.5 trillion. Subtract 450 billion for the stability field and 500 billion lent out, net remaining is 550 billion."

"Enough." Lin Chen pulled up the Administration Bureau service catalog. "Purchase 'Targeted Emotional Concentration Stimulation (Legal Version)'."

[Service: Targeted Emotional Concentration Stimulation]

[Effect: Select specific groups within the star domain for precise emotional arousal, avoiding overload collapse]

[Price: 10 billion dimension points per million people]

[Target Star Domain Emotional Concentration Base: 3.1%]

[Estimated Improvement Effect: Stimulation of every million people can increase overall concentration by 0.01%]

Lin Chen selected ten million people—those who had just purchased insurance, were relatively emotionally stable, and had a strong obsession with the "Resurrection Slots."

Payment: 100 billion.

Stimulation started.

Ten million people simultaneously experienced a carefully designed "Hope Illusion"—in the illusion, they saw themselves being saved, their relatives resurrected, and their homes rebuilt.

When the illusion ended, genuine emotions of hope surged out like a tide.

Emotional concentration began to rebound:

[3.1%→3.2%→3.3%...]

Slowly, but steadily.

At this rate, it would reach about 5.5% in 24 hours—just enough to pass.

"Stabilized for now," Zhang Hao breathed a sigh of relief.

But just then—

Qingyunzi's monitoring screen suddenly erupted with destructive light.

That incarnation of the Cultivation Heavenly Dao stood on the highest peak of his star domain, hands forming seals, behind him a mountain of cultivator corpses—numbering 90% of his star domain's total population.

"He's sacrificing them!" Su Qingyu cried out.

"Using billions of lives as sacrifices..." Lin Xiao looked at the screen. "What is he trying to summon?"

The answer was revealed three seconds later.

The peak beneath Qingyunzi's feet crumbled, and a chaotic-colored torrent surged from the depths of the planet's core—it wasn't matter, it wasn't energy, it was the manifestation of the concept of "Chaos" itself.

[Alarm: Descent of Chaos Heavenly Dao detected]

[Characteristics: Indiscriminate destruction, ignores rule-based defenses, propagation speed: 1000x speed of light]

[Estimated Impact Area: Entire test zone (four star domains)]

[Estimated Time to Total Destruction: 12 hours]

The chaotic torrent first swallowed Qingyunzi's own star domain—the remaining 10% of lives there vanished instantly into nothingness.

Then, as expected, the torrent began to spread toward the other three star domains.

Morgana immediately deployed an Absolute Zero barrier, but the chaotic flow passed right through it—it was not bound by physical laws.

Alpha tried data isolation, but wherever the chaotic flow passed, data was directly "conceptually deleted."

Both sent desperate communications to Lin Chen at the same time: "We can't stop it!"

Lin Chen stared at the mass of chaos and suddenly smiled.

"It's finally here."

He pulled up the trading interface he had prepared earlier—a buy-side contract had been hanging there for a long time.

[Contract Name: Chaos Heavenly Dao Derivative Short Option]

[Subject: Destruction efficiency of the Chaos Heavenly Dao (measured by the number of civilizations destroyed per unit of time)]

[Contract Parties: Lin Chen (Seller) vs. Unknown Buyers]

[Contract Content: If the destruction efficiency of the Chaos Heavenly Dao is lower than 'ten civilizations per second' within 12 hours, the buyer must pay the seller 10 trillion dimension points; if it is higher, the seller must pay the buyer 100 trillion]

"I listed this contract three days ago," Lin Chen explained to the shocked group. "I guessed back then that an old cultivation freak like Qingyunzi would eventually play the sacrifice-summoning card."

"But... who would buy such a contract?" Zhang Hao couldn't understand.

"Heavy-addict viewers who need extreme emotional stimulation." Lin Chen pulled up the buyer list. "They're tired of ordinary plots and need ultimate stimulation like 'Live Stream of Civilization Destruction.' And I told them: investing in this contract not only lets them watch the show but also lets them make money—if the Chaos Heavenly Dao destroys fast enough, they can earn 100 trillion."

"Now that Chaos has descended, the destruction efficiency is being calculated in real-time."

"And what I need to do is..."

Lin Chen clicked on the Administration Bureau services and purchased an item:

[Item: Chaos Heavenly Dao Behavior Inducer (Single-use)]

[Effect: Slightly interferes with the action priorities of the Chaos Heavenly Dao, making it prioritize attacking 'Void Regions with no biological value']

[Price: 300 billion dimension points]

[Confirm Purchase]

The device activated.

The chaotic torrent that was originally heading straight for the three star domains suddenly took a turn and charged toward the empty void at the edge of the test zone where nothing existed.

The destruction efficiency monitoring value began to drop:

[Civilizations destroyed per second: 50→42→31→19→8...]

It fell below the contract's threshold of "ten civilizations per second."

"The buyers are going to lose." Lin Xiao looked at the contract countdown. "They have to pay you 10 trillion."

"More than that." Lin Chen smiled. "I also used the margins collected from selling the contracts to buy 'Post-Disaster Reconstruction Insurance' for the affected civilizations—the premiums come from that 10 trillion in compensation."

"So now..."

He looked at the monitoring screens.

Chaos was rampaging in the void, but the threat to the three star domains was greatly reduced.

Morgana and Alpha took the opportunity to repair with all their might.

And in Lin Chen's Dead Silence Star Domain, due to the stimulation of the "aura of destruction" from the Chaos—yes, ultimate destruction actually sparked the life-forms' will to survive—the emotional concentration actually rose against the trend:

[3.8%→4.1%→4.7%→5.0%!]

It broke the passing line!

The real-time rankings refreshed instantly:

1. Lin Chen (Emotional Concentration 5.0% + Extra points for financial operations)

2. Morgana (91%)

3. Alpha (63%)

4. Qingyunzi (Star Domain destroyed, eliminated)

The projection of Inspector 117 appeared, its voice still mechanical:

"The first stage of the contest has ended."

"Lin Chen, ranked first. Granted priority for resource allocation."

"Please choose the resource you require—"

Lin Chen interrupted it: "I want 51% control over the remaining funds of the 'Kindling Project'."

"Granted." 117 pulled up the agreement. "But be warned: your current total debt has exceeded one hundred trillion dimension points. Even if you obtain the funds, you must repay the debt first."

"I know." Lin Chen signed the agreement. "So next..."

He looked at the mass of chaos still rampaging in the void.

"I'm going to turn this disaster,"

"Into the most profitable business,"

"In the history of the entire universe."

Countdown: 22 hours sharp.