Chapter 3: An Unexpected Turn of Events

Xie Sui’s stream exploded the moment the female ghost appeared.

Because of her appearance, the number of people in the stream rose at a bizarre speed. Xie Sui’s stream quickly shot to the top of the Newbie Streamer Rankings and was featured on the platform’s homepage.

Whether they were people jumping over from Old Zhao’s stream to join the fun or passersby who clicked in from the homepage’s Newbie Streamer Rankings, everyone was uniformly spamming exclamation marks.

The viewers in the stream had watched with their own eyes as the female ghost slowly manifested from transparent to solid. That was an effect that no amount of special effects makeup could achieve.

[Streamer, run! There is a ghost behind you!!!]

Xie Sui unhurriedly pulled a cigarette from his pack and lit it. “Don’t believe or spread rumors. It is your heart that is wavering¹. In modern society, there are no ghosts, only the swaying shadows of trees.”

[Streamer, with all those rhymes, are you trying to ace the grad school entrance exams!]

[Streamer, stay awake! The ghost’s hand is already on your shoulder, hey!]

“Don’t panic, they are all just illusions,” Xie Sui said, looking up at the camera lens to offer a soft word of comfort.

Although they had been watching the stream for a while, seeing that exquisite and handsome face suddenly fill the screen caused everyone watching to feel a momentary daze.

The pair of pitch-black eyes in the center of the screen was like a black hole that could absorb all emotions, possessing a soul-stealing magic that made people unconsciously follow his will. The constant stream of bullet chat actually stopped, and a few people who were about to report him instinctively moved their cursors away from the report button.

The white smoke produced by the burning cigarette seemed to have a life of its own as it swirled around Xie Sui. Under the shroud of the mist, the hideous figure of the fierce ghost behind him actually became somewhat unstable.

Xie Sui pressed down the cigarette that had burned out in an instant and spoke as if nothing was wrong. “Technology is so advanced nowadays. You should think in other directions. Maybe I intentionally set up a holographic projection to scare you for the sake of the stream’s entertainment value.”

[…]

[Oh, right.]

[Hahahaha, I thought there really was a ghost. Brother, just for these high-budget effects and your blunt personality, I’m following you.]

[QUQ oh my god, that scared me to death. Streamer, you should hurry up and turn off this holographic projection, it looks so terrifying.]

Just as Xie Sui said, as soon as he finished speaking, the female ghost that was behind him just a moment ago slowly vanished, looking exactly like a holographic projection he could control.

[‘Ganfan Huahua Shijie’ gifted Space Battleship x1]

[Ganfan Huahua Shijie: Thrilling! I like streamers who are fresh and unpretentious like you! Isn’t this more interesting than watching a horror movie?]

[Zhijiafeng Chuanzhen: This streamer is interesting, he even dares to expose the inner workings of the streaming industry. Tell us something else? Do you know the account Horror Old Liu? Can you help us see if those paranormal videos he films are real or fake?]

Horror Old Liu?

Noticing this comment, Xie Sui took out his phone and began to search.

As a qualified streamer, he should strive to meet the requests of his top donors. However, cross-dressing was excluded, as that was a bottom line that could not be crossed.

Horror Old Liu was a short-video creator on the Blue Sea Platform. His account content consisted of paranormal games and paranormal exploration videos. He was famous for his exaggerated expressions and the thrilling, terrifying atmosphere of his videos. Moreover, unlike other horror video creators, his content looked particularly real.

The other Water Friends in the stream were also very interested in this kind of paranormal debunking stream. They all asked Xie Sui to watch Old Liu’s videos and reveal his methods to them.

Xie Sui followed the requests of the Water Friends and began a reaction stream for the horror videos while standing in front of The Haunted House in the middle of nowhere.

A reaction stream involves a streamer watching a piece of video material and providing exaggerated reactions and commentary to entertain the audience.

This format easily evokes empathy from the audience and is a subject that can easily attract traffic.

[Watch the Bixian² one first! It’s the first one in Old Liu’s video list.]

[Yes, yes, yes! Watch that one! I’ve suspected it for a long time, that female ghost at the end is definitely not real.]

[I don’t think that female ghost looks fake. There was no place for a person to stand where she appeared, and a projection isn’t scientific either. The camera captured a panoramic view of the room, there was no place to put a projector.]

[By the way, streamer, what brand of projector do you use? Since you’ve researched this area, you’ll definitely be able to tell if that Bixian is real or fake, right?]

Noticing the comment asking about the projector, Xie Sui’s hand paused as he adjusted the tripod.

He had played himself a bit. He knew absolutely nothing about projectors… whatever, it wouldn’t be too late to search for information and make something up on the spot.

After adjusting the camera, while waiting for the stream’s screen-sharing to buffer in the background, Xie Sui took the opportunity to avoid the camera lens and typed several lines into the search engine on his phone: ‘How do projectors work?’, ‘Which brand of projector is the clearest?’, ‘Are there really projectors that can do holographic projections now? Waiting online, urgent.’

However, Xie Sui forgot that in addition to the camera on the tripod, he was also wearing an action camera around his neck.

Just now, when he was managing the stream’s backend, his lack of familiarity with the controls caused him to accidentally activate the action camera. A split screen appeared in Xie Sui’s stream: one was the third-person perspective from the tripod camera, and the other was a real-time broadcast of his main perspective as he searched for projectors.

[Hahahaha, you’re killing me, streamer. Did you forget you have an action camera on your neck?]

[I saw everything, searching for projector brands on the spot is just too much.]

[A comedian streamer exposing himself on the spot, love it, love it. I’m hitting that follow button right now.]

[?? Streamer is searching for holographic projectors? Wait, so that means the female ghost behind him just now wasn’t his doing, but real? Holy crap!!!]

That bullet chat questioning the female ghost was buried under a sea of ‘hahaha’ comments and didn’t cause any ripples.

By the time Xie Sui finished reading the information and prepared his mental script to reappear before the camera, he realized that his actions had already been seen by everyone in the stream.

This was quite awkward.

However, as a streamer, one had to be thick-skinned. Xie Sui cleared his throat, acting as if nothing had happened, and began watching the video of Horror Old Liu summoning a Bixian along with the Water Friends in the livestream.

The video was only five minutes long. Like all short horror videos, Horror Old Liu’s video had a very dark tone, and the entire footage was from a fixed overhead security camera perspective looking down at the room.

Just as the Water Friends in the livestream had said, every corner of the room was visible in the video. The room was very empty, with no place to hide a projector.

Old Liu was a middle-aged man in his thirties with the face of a frustrated uncle, looking decadent and weathered. The sense of exhaustion on him was almost tangible, nearly overflowing from the screen. Xie Sui would have believed it if someone said he might drop dead the next second.

In this video, Old Liu’s process for summoning the Bixian was similar to the standard procedure. He and two assistants held a pen together with their three hands, the tip of the pen perpendicular to a sheet of white paper.

However, there was one point that differed from other Bixian summoning rituals. After the three of them finished reciting the incantation, Old Liu saw that the pen tip had not moved for a long time, so he used his other hand to pull a crumpled piece of paper from his pants pocket.

After Old Liu took out that crumpled Talisman Paper³, the video changed.

The black-and-white footage first flickered a few times as if the signal was bad, and then the figure of a woman suddenly appeared above the white paper. Long hair obscured the woman’s face. She floated in mid-air, head bowed, looking down at the three people holding the pen. Suddenly, all sound vanished from the video, and the terrifying, oppressive atmosphere made one’s heart race.

Next was Old Liu’s terrified performance, his acting skills fully on display. However, even though the female ghost had appeared, the three people in the video did not let go of the pen. Instead, they followed the procedure and began asking questions before reciting the incantation to send the Bixian away.

Xie Sui did not watch Old Liu’s subsequent performance. His attention was entirely captured by that crumpled Talisman Paper on the ground.

In the black-and-white video footage, the contents of that paper were not clear, but Xie Sui still noticed something unusual.

He stared blankly at the talisman in Old Liu’s hand, his eyes filled with the joy of finding something long lost. That sincere and intense emotion was like a man stranded in the desert seeing an oasis, or a starving ghost⁴ seeing a lavish feast.

If he hadn’t misidentified it, this Horror Old Liu was very likely related to the group of people he had been searching for. Truly, there was always a way out. Why hadn’t he thought of looking at these bloggers who posted short horror videos before?

But it wasn’t too late now; there was still plenty of time.

Perhaps Xie Sui’s joy at finding an unexpected harvest was too obvious, because the Water Friends in the livestream, who were originally expecting to see the streamer’s frightened face, were somewhat dumbfounded.

(…???)

(Streamer, what kind of reaction is this? Did you fall in love with the ghost lady at first sight?)

(Help, the streamer’s expression is actually scarier than the ghost in the video. Which one of you is the ghost exactly…)

(Checking the streamer’s mental state online.)

Seeing the bullet chats in the livestream, Xie Sui finally snapped out of it and tried his best to regain control over his expression.

However, it was already too late. The livestream was once again flooded with “hahaha.”

The bullet chats were filled with a joyful atmosphere. Everyone’s focus was no longer on The Haunted House or supernatural photos, and they weren’t very interested in the debunking either. Instead, they wanted to see how else Xie Sui would mess up during the broadcast. A comedic streamer like this was a rare breed.

Just as Xie Sui was about to say something to distract the Water Friends, a muffled sound suddenly came from behind him. Someone was calling for help, and the location was inside The Haunted House behind him.

Before Xie Sui could react, the volume of the cry for help suddenly increased in a very smooth manner, as if an invisible hand were rapidly turning a volume knob, giving him absolutely no chance to hide it.

Xie Sui turned around expressionlessly and looked at the dilapidated Haunted House.

The dark, hollow porch of The Haunted House was like the wide-open mouth of the person calling for help.

The expression on Xie Sui’s face was quite terrifying now, completely devoid of the lightheartedness from the stream. The hostility in his dark, deep eyes was impossible to hide, his gaze as cold as a provoked beast, flickering with an exceptionally dangerous light.

The cries for help coming from The Haunted House behind him grew louder and louder, even being perfectly captured by the pickup on his microphone and transmitted in real-time to the livestream.

Xie Sui was so angry he laughed. He covered his lapel microphone and looked toward The Haunted House. “Do I look like an easy target? I already offered you a cigarette⁵, what more do you want? Do you want me to get down on my knees and beg?”

Translator’s Notes