FEG | Chapter 7

Chapter 7, Livestream Event

As soon as Sun Fangchi got out of the car, a girl holding a selfie stick turned around beside him. She was wearing a candy-colored short top and ripped jeans, and the white uppers of her sneakers were spotless. Her expression was sweet and coquettish, and she kept talking to the phone on the selfie stick.

“Everyone, look, the last streamer has fina~~lly arrived! Let’s see who he is?”

The girl leaned in next to Sun Fangchi and brought him into the livestream frame as well. “Little brother, I’m the streamer Ning Xiaomeng, say hello, give us a self-introduction?”

“Uh...” Sun Fangchi looked at the dense barrage of comments on the phone screen. “Hello everyone, I’m Gui Chi.”

“Gui Chi little brother, are you also doing horror game livestreams?” Ning Xiaomeng asked.

Sun Fangchi nodded.

“Sou ga, nara more, I’ll be counting on you to take good care of me for the next three days, see you later then.” Ning Xiaomeng held up her selfie stick and went to the other side.

He Baichang walked over, handed the travel bag to Sun Fangchi, and introduced Ning Xiaomeng to him. “She’s one of Xinghui’s main streamers, and also the one with the most fans among the streamers participating this time. Viewers just love hearing a little girl scream.”

Sun Fangchi looked around. There was also a fat man holding a selfie stick, probably weighing at least 250 jin, and a man and a woman using high-tech equipment, with drones following beside them.

As he walked, He Baichang told Sun Fangchi, “Xinghui has two slots. Besides Ning Xiaomeng, the other streamer is Pangye Zuiheng.”

“That one wearing a Tang suit is Li Tianshi. He often livestreams feng shui readings. He’s from Huadian. Those two using drones, the man is Anisocoria, the woman is Spirit Young Master. They’re from Feiyang livestream...”

“That name is nice.” Sun Fangchi looked at Spirit Young Master and commented.

“Nice?”

“Spirit Young Master, meaning ‘to receive wages,’ see? It’s both straightforward and grand.”

He Baichang: “...”

He Baichang sighed. “You should think more about the livestream. These people all have their own fan groups. If you make even a small mistake, you might get cursed at.”

Sun Fangchi said, “If I get cursed at, do I get extra pay?”

He Baichang: “...”

“If there’s no extra pay, forget it. I don’t like getting cursed at.” Sun Fangchi yawned. “I’ll talk less.”

“Forget it, I’m not even asking you to be the best. Just pay attention to your limits. The organizers will definitely rig things for the sake of the show. Don’t panic, but don’t look too relaxed either. Get the timing of being scared right, understand? That kind of in-between state, between being scared and not being scared, understand?”

Sun Fangchi thought for a long time. “That complicated... extra pay?”

He Baichang was completely helpless.

The organizers quickly made their move. They gathered the seven streamers together. Besides the people Sun Fangchi had seen, there was also a big man with a bald, shiny head, and his streamer name was also shamelessly called Bald Guy.

“Since all seven are here, our event officially begins. You need to walk to Shijing Village and stay there for three full days. Every night at nine, you need to gather in the livestream room and complete the requirements on that day’s task card. Today’s task card...” The organizer handed a black envelope to Anisocoria. “We’ll trouble Anisocoria to keep it for us. You can look at the content of the task card in advance and prepare. Based on how well you complete the three tasks, the streamer who performs the best will have a chance to win a 50,000 yuan bonus!”

Have a chance to win?

Fuck, he’d been tricked!

“Damn it, He Baichang...” Sun Fangchi stared coldly at He Baichang, who was hiding in the crowd and didn’t dare show his face. What counted as doing well? There was no baseline at all. Wasn’t it just fan economy? The fifty thousand he promised was basically nothing!

The organizer had the seven streamers introduce themselves one by one, get acquainted, and also announced their fan counts. “If more than one person successfully completes all three tasks, we will also consider the growth rate of your fans and fan ratings. Everyone, please do your best~~”

Do your best, my ass.

Sun Fangchi’s expression was blank. It was obvious they weren’t being given any real chance. The fifty thousand was already spreading its wings and flying farther and farther away.

Once preparations were finished, the seven set off on the path up the mountain. The path led straight to the old site of Shijing Village, so they didn’t need a guide.

A livestream later called the most suicidal in history officially began.

Sun Fangchi carried the livestream equipment He Baichang had lent him, but he didn’t take it out to use. Unlike the others, he didn’t plan to livestream on the way up the mountain.

A mountain path was not like flat ground. The higher they went, the harder it became. Besides, this path wasn’t paved with stone steps like a scenic area. It was purely something hacked out by hand, barely even qualifying as a road.

There was less vegetation at the foot of the mountain, and the path was still wide and flat. The others were walking and livestreaming, interacting noisily and lively. Only Sun Fangchi lagged behind at the very end, ignored by everyone, faintly isolated.

Sun Fangchi was not surprised at all. Before they had set off, when the organizers announced the fan counts, he had already keenly sensed the others’ varying degrees of contempt. Some showed it clearly, like Anisocoria and Bald Guy. Some hid it better, like Li Tianshi, Pangye Zuiheng, and Ning Xiaomeng.

There was also an exception, Spirit Young Master looked at everyone with the same expression.

The fake harmony lasted less than an hour. As the signal disappeared, the others’ true faces also showed.

“Damn! I’m exhausted to death...” Pangye Zuiheng packed up his livestream equipment and leaned against a tree to rest.

Anisocoria moved closer to Ning Xiaomeng and handed her a bottle of water attentively. “Mengmeng, thirsty?”

Ning Xiaomeng took it with apparent surprise. “How do you know what my fans call me?”

“I’m one of your fans too. I started following you a long time ago.” Anisocoria was dressed in a Korean pretty-boy style. His features were only average, but clothes make the man. Altogether, he looked the best among the men.

Bald Guy walked into the woods to the side. “I’m going to take a piss.”

Li Tianshi stood in place, posing like some exalted master and gazing into the distance.

Sun Fangchi didn’t feel tired. He took out his phone to look, and there wasn’t even a little signal. Bu Xiling had been beside him the whole time, and at this moment she couldn’t help saying with some worry, “I feel like this mountain isn’t right. There may be danger.”

“Ghosts?” Sun Fangchi frowned.

“I can’t tell. I just keep feeling like there’s something terrifying.”

Hearing that, Sun Fangchi’s expression grew solemn. Bu Xiling’s fear of ghosts was, in essence, fear of the ghost’s appearance, similar to the feelings ordinary people had when they were afraid of seeing flesh and blood all mangled, or severed limbs and broken arms. Situations where she showed fear without seeing a ghost’s true form had never happened before.

“If we go back now, we might get blocked by the platform...” Sun Fangchi decided to still give it a try. “Let’s go up and take a look. If things seem bad, we’ll leave immediately.”

“Mm...” Bu Xiling understood Sun Fangchi’s concerns.

After the few of them rested for more than ten minutes, they started climbing again. The higher they went, the denser the mountain forest became, the lower the temperature also became, and the path got harder to walk. On both sides of the path grew weeds as tall as a shin, leaving room for only one person to pass through.

As they moved along, the differences in stamina between them gradually became apparent. Sun Fangchi deliberately walked at the back. In front of him was Pangye Zuiheng, looking half-dead, as if he had to breathe three times for every step he took. In front of the fat man was Li Tianshi. His expression did not look as bad as Pangye Zuiheng’s, but his trembling legs could not hide it. Ahead of them were Anisocoria and Ning Xiaomeng, and Anisocoria kept reaching out to help her at times. Second was Bald Guy. He looked like he still had plenty of stamina. Leading the way was Spirit Young Master, which was beyond Sun Fangchi’s expectations. Spirit Young Master was a girl in her early twenties, with neat short hair and a three-piece tracksuit. Her body had no obvious curves, and her legs were long and slender. He hadn’t expected her stamina to be this good, not red in the face and not out of breath.

“Huff... huff...” Pangye Zuiheng panted hard. “Who found this... fucking nowhere... really... making things hard for me... Pangye...”

Sun Fangchi looked at the trembling fat on his whole body and did not answer.

“Brother Gui Chi, you tired? Let’s... take a break?”

Sun Fangchi looked at the figure in front, already almost out of sight. “Pangye, let’s keep going a little longer. I think we’re almost there.”

“Really?” Pangye Zuiheng stretched his neck to look. “If we’re almost there, that’s good, that’s good.”

After walking a bit farther, they could already vaguely see the old buildings of Shijing Village. It was a cluster of apartment buildings and brick houses, and because of the terrain, there were great differences in their heights. Because they had not been repaired for a long time, the outer walls of the buildings all showed a dull gray-white color. The roof tiles were also covered in dust, making their original color impossible to see, and some even had dead shrubs standing on them.

The empty window openings all stood open, dark and deep.

The overall scene did not look like a place that existed in modern society. It looked more like an old yellowed photograph from decades ago.

So quiet.

There was not a sound nearby. They could not hear birds or insects, not even the wind. The whole world seemed frozen.

The vitality of the lush mountain forest could not infect these old buildings at all. It was as if, with the village’s edge as the boundary, it had been cut off from the outside world, with dead silence inside.

This place looked horrifying.

The people in front hesitated and stopped. By the time all seven had gathered, everyone was somewhat uncertain.

In order to show off his manly spirit, Anisocoria said to Ning Xiaomeng, “The atmosphere here is built pretty well.”

“...Mm, yeah.” Ning Xiaomeng forced a smile in agreement.

“Then let’s go quickly. It seems like someone is waiting for us.” Pangye Zuiheng’s fatigue overrode his fear. He pointed at the tallest building. “Is that the staff member picking us up?”

The others followed his finger and looked. In the highest window of that building, the upper half of a person’s body was exposed, watching them from far away.

“Is that a villager?” Ning Xiaomeng hesitated. “He doesn’t look like staff...”

The distance was simply too far to see whether the other side was male or female. It was only that the style of the clothes on him was the kind with a crossed front, something modern people almost never wore.

“After all, this is a horror livestream. The staff must be doing it for the show effect...” Anisocoria gave the reason.

“That makes sense, let’s hurry up then.” The few of them started toward the buildings.

Sun Fangchi stared fixedly at that window. “That’s not a person.”

Bu Xiling said, “Indeed, this village doesn’t have any living aura at all.”

“Then it’s a ghost?”

“I don’t know. It’s not quite like the ones we ran into before.”

“Like the ones in the game?”

“No, compared to the ghosts in the game, this thing is alive.”