MFELY CH58

Edited—

As midnight approached, the street was completely empty—not a single passing car in sight.

The group surrounded that bowl of rice at the crossroads, quietly waiting for the incense to burn completely to ash. This process took about ten-odd minutes. During this time, Xiaomi kept enthusiastically interacting with the livestream audience. The viewers asked if Xiaomi was scared. Xiaomi put on a pitiful expression and said she was a little scared, but she didn’t really believe in these things. She told everyone to just treat it as her debunking superstition. Of course, during this process, the audience’s gifts never stopped. It was almost deep into the night now, yet the livestream room’s popularity kept climbing. Zhou Jiayu looked at the three-million popularity value and felt somewhat unnerved: “Are there really this many people watching?”

“Did the livestream backend change the data?” Shen Yiqiong asked.

Zhou Jiayu shook his head: “There’s no need, right? Whether they change the data or not, she’s still number one.”

At this time, most streamers had already gone to rest. Tomorrow was a workday. Under normal circumstances, having a few hundred thousand in popularity value was already quite high. But Xiaomi’s livestream room’s popularity was still rising, climbing from two million straight toward three million.

“How interesting.” Lin Jue said coldly, “I think this data might actually be real. It’s just that I don’t know whether those watching are humans or ghosts.”

Everyone’s expressions didn’t look good; they could even be described as grave.

Xiaomi’s incense had burned to the end. She smiled, bent down to pick up the bowl, then simply used chopsticks to mix the incense ash and rice together, letting the two things completely blend. She said: “It’s ready. We’re going to start eating.”

She divided the rice in the bowl into several portions, then handed them to the companions beside her.

The companions took the bowls and began stuffing white rice into their mouths one after another. Among them, a girl with relatively less courage showed a somewhat hesitant expression. But Xiaomi said softly: “If you can’t accept it, then you can’t stream with us next time. After all, we promised the audience too. We have to be responsible to the viewers.”

As she said this, the audience in the livestream room also began making a fuss, telling that girl to hurry up and swallow the rice.

Left with no choice, the girl still swallowed a few mouthfuls of rice mixed with incense ash. But she was the one who ate the least among them.

Xiaomi finished all the remaining rice, then casually threw the bowl into a nearby trash can. She said: “Oh, it doesn’t seem to have any effect.”

The street was extremely quiet. Besides them, not a single pedestrian could be seen, nor a single vehicle. But the wind was strong, blowing with hoo hoo sounds, messing up Xiaomi’s hair.

The few of them looked around in all directions, as if they really wanted to see some dirty thing. But judging from their unchanged expressions, this idea seemed to have failed.

“Really nothing.” Xiaomi said. “I told you this is feudal superstition. Everyone mustn’t believe in it casually. In this world, there are no ghosts…”

When she uttered the last word, someone suddenly let out a miserable scream.

Xiaomi was so frightened her whole body shuddered, her expression even becoming somewhat ferocious: “Are you sick? Why are you screaming so miserably?”

The girl who let out the scream was the one who had eaten the least rice. She was covering her eyes with her hands, her whole body crouched on the ground, shouting like she was mad: “Shadows—the shadows—our shadows—”

Xiaomi frowned and cursed: “Psycho!” However, when she lowered her head and looked at the shadow the girl was talking about, her expression completely froze.

Zhou Jiayu saw thick fear in her eyes. At this time, the camera hadn’t turned to the shadows yet. They still didn’t know what had happened when they heard Xiaomi let out an equally miserable scream from her mouth.

“Fuck, what is this, where are our shadows—” The screen suddenly shook violently. Zhou Jiayu could only vaguely make out the general content from the terrified screams of the few people. Shadows, what happened to the shadows?

Equally puzzled alongside Zhou Jiayu were the viewers in the livestream room. But Xiaomi, who had always valued audience reactions and her own image, had no time to attend to them now. Judging from the camera angle, they seemed to be desperately running in one direction. The camera directly dropped from her chest. The footage was extremely chaotic; it was impossible to see the surrounding situation clearly.

“Where are we, where are we—” Hoarse screams. Then Zhou Jiayu heard the sound of heavy braking and a collision. The screen went directly black. The stream cut off.

The moment the stream cut off, Zhou Jiayu noticed that the number in the upper right corner of the livestream page paused for a moment at 44.44 million, then almost instantly dropped back to around a million or so.

Undoubtedly, this Xiaomi and her friends had really encountered a dirty thing.

The room was quite quiet. No one spoke for a time. Finally, Shen Yiqiong broke the silence: “Are they alright? I think I heard the sound of a car at the end.”

“Forget it, go back and rest.” Lin Jue said. “Worrying is useless now. Tomorrow when it’s light out, I’ll have someone look into it.”

It seemed they could only do this. It was almost one in the morning now. Being anxious was no use.

After discussing briefly, everyone went back to their rooms to rest.

Before sleeping, Zhou Jiayu checked the forum again and discovered that indeed, everyone on the forum was talking about this matter. Xu Ruwang had also sent him a private message asking if he had watched the stream tonight.

Zhou Jiayu said he had watched the stream.

Xu Ruwang didn’t reply on the other end. It was unknown whether he had fallen asleep or was away from his computer. Zhou Jiayu waited a while. When he didn’t get a response, he went to sleep first.

His sleep quality this night was alright. At least he didn’t have any strange dreams. He slept until the next day.

The next morning, Zhou Jiayu went downstairs to make breakfast. Probably because they had slept a bit late yesterday, when everyone got up this morning it was almost nine. For convenience, Zhou Jiayu used the remaining chicken soup from yesterday to cook some noodles and fried a few poached eggs. They made do with that.

Although he had made the food casually, the people in the house were still especially supportive. The noodles were finished and not even the soup was left. Lin Zhushui had gone out on business yesterday, but today he ate breakfast with them.

So taking advantage of this time, Lin Jue briefly told Lin Zhushui about what happened last night.

“I’ve never saved people who seek their own death.” After hearing this, Lin Zhushui’s tone was very cold. “I’m not a Bodhisattva who saves all living beings. How could I save so many?”

Although Lin Jue showed a helpless expression, she didn’t seem surprised by Lin Zhushui’s answer. She said: “What you said does make some sense.” In their line of work, there were many people who needed saving. Most of them encountered these things unintentionally. But there were rarely those who deliberately used their lives to play games and make jokes about ghosts and gods. Even someone with her good temper was furious looking at this. Not to mention Lin Zhushui, whose temper wasn’t as good as hers.

“But she seems to be fine.” Shen Yiqiong said, eating a fried egg in one bite. After finishing, he looked at his phone. “She even posted on Weibo explaining today.”

“Explaining?” Zhou Jiayu was a bit curious.

Shen Yiqiong handed over his phone and said: “Here, see for yourselves.”

Zhou Jiayu took Shen Yiqiong’s phone and discovered that Xiaomi really had posted a Weibo, the content being an explanation about last night’s accident.

“We didn’t encounter a ghost. It’s just that a car suddenly drove through the crossroads at that time and startled us, so we ran away. But while running, the phone dedicated to streaming accidentally fell on the ground and broke, so the stream suddenly cut off. Don’t worry everyone, we’re doing great.” Below this Weibo post was a group photo of the few of them. Judging from the background of the photo, it seemed to have been taken after dawn. The number of people also matched those who appeared in last night’s stream.

Strange, Zhou Jiayu thought with suspicion, and handed the phone to the others.

After taking the phone, Lin Jue directly read the Weibo post aloud. She said: “So they’re really fine?”

The photo looked very normal; nothing suspicious could be seen.

“I don’t know.” Shen Yiqiong said. “But I saw them say they still plan to continue streaming in a few days.”

“Still streaming?” Shen Erbai shook his head. “Are they doing this to debunk feudal superstition, or just to earn that gift money?”

Zhou Jiayu sighed: “Probably both.”

Just from last night alone, he had roughly looked at the gifts the viewers sent. A rough estimate put it at a five-digit number. With profits this high, for some people the risk was worth it.

“And they didn’t die?” A hint of suspicion showed in Lin Jue’s expression. But thinking carefully, if several living people had really had an accident, the police station would definitely have received news. Since she could still calmly post on Weibo at this moment, it should mean that they were fine—at least it wasn’t a life-threatening matter.

Lin Zhushui wasn’t very interested in this matter. From beginning to end, he was very indifferent. One could tell from his attitude that he was very disdainful of people who asked for trouble, to the point where he couldn’t even be bothered to pay attention.

No accident happened. They were all still alive. So their worry seemed to have become excessive.

Zhou Jiayu looked at the comments under the Weibo post and discovered that most people were still relatively worried about the streamer’s safety. Some were advising the streamer not to continue. Of course, there were also those who weren’t afraid of making things worse, even providing some even more terrifying methods, wanting the streamer to try them next time.

Looking at the comments, Zhou Jiayu suddenly noticed one user. This user’s profile picture looked somewhat familiar. He clicked to enlarge it and discovered that this Weibo belonged to that girl who had been so frightened she ran downstairs last time—the one Xiaomi called Xiao Shu. Driven by curiosity, Zhou Jiayu clicked into her Weibo.

This girl’s Weibo was very clean. Most of it was daily life stuff. Judging from the photos, her living conditions should be quite good.

But what attracted Zhou Jiayu’s attention the most was her pinned Weibo. It was a recruitment notice saying that if there were others willing to participate in the stream, they could contact her. The requirements were very low: first, be brave; second, must be from this city.

Zhou Jiayu said: “Just how many people are in this organization?” Seeing this Weibo, he thought carefully and realized that the faces beside Xiaomi during the two streams seemed to be different. But at the time they had all been focused on Xiao Shu, so they hadn’t paid attention to the others for a moment.

“I don’t know.” Shen Yiqiong said. “They seem to have fan groups. I’ll join one and take a look.”

This Xiaomi was indeed very popular. There were over twenty fan groups with a thousand people each. Shen Yiqiong randomly joined the newest one and discovered that the group was quite lively. Most group members were chatting about things related to the paranormal.

Zhou Jiayu sat beside Shen Yiqiong, looking at his phone screen. He said: “Huh? Look at their group announcement. It seems to write how to join this organization.”

After Shen Yiqiong clicked in, he saw that the group announcement really did have it, written in quite some detail. The conditions were a bit more than what was on Weibo, saying that you had to fill out information, and after preliminary and secondary review, you could join the internal group.

Shen Yiqiong said: “This much trouble? But it looks like there should be quite a lot of people…”

Zhou Jiayu quite agreed with Shen Yiqiong’s words. These several dozen groups added up to at least ten thousand people. Even if the organization’s numbers were small, there had to be at least a few hundred.

“How about we fake an identity and go in to take a look?” Shen Yiqiong proposed.

“Up to you.” Lin Jue’s interest had also cooled down. She didn’t seem to have a good impression of this group or the streamer. And rightly so—they were in this line of work themselves. Watching someone like Xiaomi disregard her own life to pander to the crowd, it was normal to be somewhat unhappy. And since no one had died now, why should they stick their foot in?

Zhou Jiayu said: “Sure, let’s take a look.”

So he and Shen Yiqiong discussed creating a fake identity to sneak in and look around. The information review was quite strict; they even needed a photo of an ID card. Shen Yiqiong thought about it, downloaded Meitu Xiuxiu, then casually used his own photo to hard-edit an ID card…

Zhou Jiayu watched with his eyes wide, thinking to himself that there was actually this kind of operation. Hearing this, Shen Yiqiong sighed deeply: “Before I came here at fourteen, I was an internet-addicted teenager. Later… later I quit.”

Combined with what Shen Yiqiong had said before, Zhou Jiayu thought that Shen Yiqiong’s life at fourteen must have been quite colorful.

The two of them were fiddling with the computer. The others had dispersed to do their own things. In a few days, Shen Musi and Shen Erbai seemed to be going out to buy some special jade. This was a task Lin Zhushui had assigned, so they naturally did it with all their heart.

After learning that no one had died, Lin Jue completely lost interest in this streamer Xiaomi. According to her, since nothing happened, she couldn’t be bothered to get involved. As for whether they would have bad luck or whatever, it was all self-inflicted. She couldn’t be bothered to care.

Zhou Jiayu and Shen Yiqiong were simply curious. Lin Zhushui also had no intention of interfering, showing an attitude of letting them do as they pleased.

The review process in this group was a bit slow. But during this time, Zhou Jiayu discovered that most of the time, people in the group were chatting about paranormal games. It was even more lively at night. Some group members even actively did text livestreams of playing paranormal games. Among them, games like Pen Immortal were the most popular because the venue and tools required were relatively simple.

The message Zhou Jiayu sent Xu Ruwang last night got a reply. Xu Ruwang sent Zhou Jiayu a private message saying that something had happened.

Zhou Jiayu was a bit puzzled: “Something happened? You mean the stream? But that streamer is still posting on Weibo today. She should be fine.”

Xu Ruwang didn’t reply in text. He sent Zhou Jiayu a picture. Zhou Jiayu clicked on the picture. After seeing the scene clearly, he sucked in a cold breath. It was a horrific car crash scene. A truck had crashed into the wall across the road. The wall was nearly half-collapsed from the impact. Beside it, several pedestrians could be seen lying on the ground covered in blood.

After looking carefully, Zhou Jiayu discovered that he had seen the place where this truck had its accident before. That’s right—this was the location where Xiaomi streamed last night.

“Five dead, one injured. The injured person is still in the hospital. The truck driver is also gone. After preliminary inspection, they said it was caused by brake failure.” Xu Ruwang sent another message.

Zhou Jiayu: “…When did the car crash happen?”

Xu Ruwang said: “Last night.”

Zhou Jiayu’s expression looking at the picture was a bit stiff. Shen Yiqiong leaned his head over upon seeing this and said: “Huh, what’s this?” He also saw the picture open on the desktop. “This is… a car crash photo?”

Zhou Jiayu nodded: “Yes, this car crash happened last night.”

Shen Yiqiong said: “Last night? Weren’t they streaming? Or was this something that happened in the middle of the night?”

Zhou Jiayu didn’t make a sound. He asked Xu Ruwang about the identities of the people who had the accident.

“All young people.” Xu Ruwang said. “But these six people never appeared in the stream.”

Zhou Jiayu said: “None of the six appeared? You mean they had nothing to do with the stream?”

Xu Ruwang said: “I don’t know. The remaining person is in a coma. The specific situation probably won’t be known until he wakes up.”

Seeing so much information, Zhou Jiayu also clearly felt something was wrong. Xu Ruwang casually comforted him a few sentences, saying not to worry too much. His master had already taken on this matter and begun investigating in detail.

Since Xu Ruwang said this, Zhou Jiayu didn’t worry too much. After all, since Xu Ruwang’s master could be a competition judge alongside Lin Zhushui, his strength definitely couldn’t be lacking.

In the following few days, Xiaomi still appeared on the streaming platform, streaming all kinds of strange paranormal methods. And because of that night’s accident, her popularity grew higher and higher. Many people stayed up all night waiting to watch her stream.

Zhou Jiayu also told Lin Jue the information Xu Ruwang had told him.

After hearing this, Lin Jue pondered for a moment and made a judgment similar to Zhou Jiayu’s. Since Xu Ruwang’s master, Xu Jian, had taken on this matter, they didn’t need to worry too much.

However, after knowing that Zhou Jiayu and Xu Ruwang were in contact, Lin Jue asked a few seemingly casual questions about the relationship between Zhou Jiayu and Xu Ruwang. Of course, she asked quite tactfully, and Zhou Jiayu didn’t feel there was anything wrong.

“I participated in the competition with him back then.” Zhou Jiayu answered very honestly. “Later he used the name Wangnü to post on the forum, deliberately tricking that group into not using phones…”

Lin Jue: “…” So Xu Ruwang was that mischievous alternate account.

Although Lin Jue meant that they didn’t need to worry about this matter anymore, Shen Yiqiong’s fabricated fake identity still proceeded according to the original plan and infiltrated the internal group of Xiaomi’s paranormal organization.

After getting in, Shen Yiqiong discovered that the number of people in the internal group was actually much larger than they had guessed—it had already exceeded a thousand.

The person doing the review seemed to prefer younger people and was quite lenient toward Shen Yiqiong, who was still a few months from adulthood. And after learning about the left-behind children’s family background that Shen Yiqiong had fabricated, their attitude became even more enthusiastic.

Zhou Jiayu said: “This group actually has this many people?”

Shen Yiqiong said: “Right, and most of them are quite young.”

Zhou Jiayu thought about the new faces that appeared in the stream last night. Previously he hadn’t paid attention. Now thinking carefully, those people all looked quite young. It must be that the newborn calf isn’t afraid of the tiger. Was Xiaomi and company targeting this type of young and fearless person?

Shen Yiqiong had experienced so much following Lin Zhushui and had long since lost the naive idea that ghosts didn’t exist in this world. Asking him to go out and play paranormal games was impossible—absolutely impossible in this lifetime. So when he saw the large-scale death-seeking scene in the group, he curled up on the sofa, wrapped himself in a small blanket, and cowered like a dog: “These people really have guts.”

Zhou Jiayu quite agreed.

Shen Yiqiong said: “Today there are still over ten people running out to play this kind of game. If it were me…” He looked at the dark sky outside the window and said very seriously, “I’d have long since lain down in bed and gone to sleep.”

Zhou Jiayu said: “They didn’t play with Xiaomi?”

Shen Yiqiong said: “No. There are actually more organizers than just Xiaomi. It’s just that Xiaomi is the one streaming, so she can attract quite a lot of fans. After attracting them in, there are other people who lead them to play.”

Zhou Jiayu couldn’t quite understand: “So what exactly are they after?”

Shen Yiqiong said: “Probably after thrills?”

Their gazes met, both remembering that night when certain things came knocking on their door. The thrill was real thrill—it was just that their fragile hearts couldn’t take it.

Zhou Jiayu quickly petted the yellow weasel a few times to calm his inner turmoil.

Shen Yiqiong didn’t have a yellow weasel to pet, so he wrapped his small blanket even tighter and muttered: “Isn’t it easy to see dirty things? Just go out with you for a midnight snack, and that takes care of it…”

Zhou Jiayu: “…Hei-zai, if you talk like that, it’s very easy to lose me.”

Shen Yiqiong said: “Isn’t it though?”

Zhou Jiayu: “…” Recalling past events, he felt he had no way to refute Shen Yiqiong.

“But they’re not very far from us.” Shen Yiqiong said. “They’re in the neighboring city. Once I’ve infiltrated the inner circle, maybe we can even appear on a stream with that Xiaomi.”

Zhou Jiayu looked at Shen Yiqiong’s eager expression and immediately stated that even so, he wouldn’t go.

Shen Yiqiong said: “Ah, then I’m going alone?”

Zhou Jiayu said: “With my constitution, playing those things isn’t just courting death?” Even without playing, he attracted so many. If he played once, he probably wouldn’t even come back as a corpse.

Shen Yiqiong said: “That does make sense…”

Then Shen Yiqiong decided to observe for a few more days to see what these people’s ultimate goal was.

But before Shen Yiqiong could observe any results, another accident happened on Xiaomi’s side. This time, it was a group of them playing Bloody Mary in an old building. During the stream, the audience heard loud noises and the miserable screams of several people. Then the stream cut off.

The next day, a piece of news made the papers. It said that an old building scheduled for demolition suddenly collapsed, and several young people’s corpses were discovered in the rubble…

But what people found most unbelievable was that Xiaomi, who should have been buried in the rubble, was still completely unharmed. She posted a Weibo saying that she and her companions weren’t injured and had escaped before the old building collapsed. As for those few dead young people, they had nothing to do with her whatsoever.

And below the Weibo post reporting her safety, there was still a group photo of several people smiling.

The background of this group photo was a scene of the morning sun appearing. But this time, Zhou Jiayu discovered something wrong. He pointed at the photo and said with difficulty: “Shen Yiqiong, look at this photo.”

Shen Yiqiong said: “What is it?”

Zhou Jiayu said: “Why do I feel like this isn’t a sunrise, but… a sunset?”

Shen Yiqiong’s expression also froze.

__

Author’s Note:

Zhou Jiayu: Sir, why aren’t you eating?

Lin Zhushui: I’m full.

Zhou Jiayu: What did you eat to get full?

Lin Zhushui: Vinegar.

Zhou Jiayu: …(:з」∠)