FEG | Chapter 10

Chapter 10, Ghost Story Game

On a mountain morning, it was cool and quiet, making it very suitable for sleeping in.

Around eight o'clock, Sun Fangchi's phone rang. He picked it up and saw a video call request from He Baichang.

Sun Fangchi sighed. "You'd better have something serious to say."

"Ancestor, our show blew up! Get up and check the internet!"

"Blew up?" Sun Fangchi was half asleep, half awake.

"Yeah, since last night the view count has been climbing steadily. There are already a lot of related topics on Weibo, and the show has even made the headlines. This time, we're going to be huge!" He Baichang said excitedly.

"Oh, I haven't looked yet."

"My ancestor, are you even putting your heart into this?" He Baichang said helplessly. "Why didn't you livestream yesterday afternoon?"

"Yesterday afternoon? I was sleeping."

"Sleeping?" He Baichang roared furiously. "You slept during such a golden time, do you deserve the equipment I lent you? And that 50,000 yuan, you don't want it anymore?"

"He Baichang, whenever you mention the 50,000 yuan, I get unhappy." Sun Fangchi said coldly.

"That can... can be discussed later. Let's get this livestream thing done first. Today you absolutely have to do a livestream!" He Baichang instructed.

"Got it, I'll try my best."

"Also, although yesterday's program effect was explosive, the organizers mean we should still rein it in a little, so it doesn't seem too fake..."

After listening to He Baichang chatter for a long while, Sun Fangchi was no longer sleepy. After hanging up the video, Sun Fangchi searched on his phone and found that among the top ten hot searches, there was clearly a topic called "Shadiao Horror Livestream," and its popularity was very high.

He searched the show's official Weibo again and found that the topics inside were even more varied.

#Spirit Pen Immortal, A Night Without Dignity#

#I Livestreamed Ghost Hunting, I Played Spirit Pen Immortal, But I Know I'm a Materialist#

#I Don't Believe in Ghosts, So I Fear Nothing#

#Fake Livestreaming, Cheap Sensationalism#

What kind of shadiao topics were these? Sun Fangchi was very displeased. The netizens had a huge misunderstanding of him. It looked like there really was a need to start a livestream today and let everyone see his wise side.

Bu Xiling had been standing at the window, looking out. Sun Fangchi said good morning to her, then went downstairs, and at a glance he saw six pairs of panda eyes seated below, their black eye circles identical. Sun Fangchi was puzzled. "You had a group action yesterday, and you didn't call me?"

Fatty Master Zuiheng looked at him with grievance. "Brother Gui Chi, you didn't hear any noise yesterday?"

"What noise?"

"The sound of scratching the bed board under the bed!"

"No." Sun Fangchi had slept until broad daylight. "Did you dream it?"

"Six people having the same dream?" That would actually be even more terrifying.

Sun Fangchi's gaze swept over the six people's dark circles, and a sense of survivor's guilt suddenly rose in his heart. "Sorry, I sleep like a rock."

Everyone: "..."

After the seven had eaten breakfast and rested for a while, someone soon came up from the foot of the mountain, wearing a vest printed with the organizers' logo, and delivered task cards to the seven of them.

The heterochromia-eyed man drew a task card from the black envelope. It was still black text on a white background, and it read: At ten o'clock tonight, all seven of you will play a folklore game together.

To accommodate Sun Fangchi, a streamer who had never heard of the folklore game, the staff from the organizers explained the rules of the game: the folklore game originated from Japan's Hyakumonogatari game, with some modifications. The people playing sit in a dark room, each person lights a white candle, then begins telling ghost stories. The person who finishes their story blows out the candle in his own hand, leaving the last candle burning, and everyone sits around it until dawn.

So that pile of candles was game equipment. Sun Fangchi suddenly understood.

"No... I don't want to play, it's too scary. I forfeit, I want to go down the mountain right now!" Ning Xiaomeng cried.

The staff was very awkward. "I don't have the authority to deal with a streamer's stay or departure. You should still communicate with our superiors through your company."

As soon as Ning Xiaomeng heard this, she cried so hard that she kept hiccupping. "I really regret it... I shouldn't have come..."

Seeing this, the staff threw out a line, "You decide for yourselves," and ran off.

Ning Xiaomeng's communication with the company ended in failure. The company demanded that she stay no matter what for all three days, and threatened her with the contract. Ning Xiaomeng had tears in her eyes, and the heterochromia-eyed man and the others all comforted her with concern. Sun Fangchi saw that it had nothing to do with him, so he went upstairs, brought down the livestream equipment, and planned to go out.

Fatty Master Zuiheng widened his eyes. "What are you doing?"

"I'm going out for a walk, to let the netizens see the scenery of Shijing Village." Sun Fangchi said casually.

After Sun Fangchi got outside, he set up the professional image-stabilizing livestream equipment given by He Baichang and started his livestream. Bu Xiling floated down from upstairs and followed behind him.

"Hello, folks, one day apart feels like three autumns. You all must have missed me very much."

— Missing person returns

— Streamer, where the hell did you go? I almost called the police

— Why did the streamer suddenly switch to outdoor content?

— Didn't the streamer go **, and you guys didn't know?

Seeing that many people in the comments didn't know what was going on, Sun Fangchi briefly introduced his location. "Right now I'm in Shijing Village, participating in a three-day horror livestream event. To thank all the netizens for supporting me, today I'll take everyone to see the famous scenic spot, Shijing Village."

"Please look, the village buildings are still quite intact. Some houses can still be lived in. The climate is pleasant, it's very comfortable in summer, and there are no mosquitoes or insects. Personally, I think it's a good place to escape the heat, and brave netizens can come and experience it..."

Shijing Village only had a little over twenty houses in total, and Sun Fangchi quickly made a full circuit of it.

"Next, I'll take everyone to the woods nearby and see if we can pick some wild fruit to eat."

As soon as Sun Fangchi walked a little farther, he lost signal, so he had no choice but to circle around the outskirts of Shijing Village. "Very helpless, the internet signal isn't cooperating, so I'll just look around nearby..."

— Brothers, I just got here, is this a travel livestream?

— Obviously not, this is a mukbang livestream

— Truly a mudslide in the horror streamer circle

Sun Fangchi went around but found no wild fruit. He returned to Shijing Village disappointedly and ran into Ning Xiaomeng head-on, with Ling Gongzi following behind her.

"Brother Gui Chi, are you livestreaming?" Ning Xiaomeng's eyes were swollen and red, her eye sockets black, and she had lost yesterday's lively, pretty air.

— I hear a girl's voice

— I heard it too

Sun Fangchi had no choice but to turn the camera around. As soon as Ning Xiaomeng appeared in the frame, the livestream room instantly boiled over.

— Holy crap

— Could it be I've been fapping too much and now my eyesight is bad too

— Th-th-there's a girl

— A woman! Alive!

— Go, streamer, take your chance

Then Ling Gongzi also walked into the frame, and the livestream room immediately changed its style.

— No chance anymore

— Let's disperse, let's disperse

— The big orange has been decided

Sun Fangchi said righteously, "Am I that kind of person? I'm a person who has risen above low-level tastes. You people are far too thirsty, you'll contaminate me."

— Heh heh

— Heh heh

"Anyway, I have nothing to do, I'll chat with the netizens for a while. What about you?" Sun Fangchi said casually.

Ning Xiaomeng forced a smile. "I was too stuffy in the house, so I came out to get some air."

"Mm, then you take your time. I'm going back first." After saying goodbye, Sun Fangchi walked toward the house where they were staying.

Play? Ning Xiaomeng seriously suspected that this person's brain structure was abnormal.

Ling Gongzi stared gloomily at Sun Fangchi's back, not knowing what he was thinking.

Time passed quickly. Near ten o'clock at night, the seven gathered in the livestream room.

The heterochromia-eyed man's phone connected again, and the organizers informed them, "Next, please each light a candle, turn off the room lights, and the game begins!"

The seven sat in a circle in the dark room, each holding a white candle. The flickering candle flames cast each person's face into shifting light and shadow. The multiple light sources made the walls around them full of crisscrossing shadows. There was light in front of them and darkness behind them, and the surroundings made one's back turn cold.

"I'll go first." Fatty Master Zuiheng swallowed hard.

The seven had already agreed on the order in advance. Ning Xiaomeng would be skipped, and she would not need to tell a story, becoming the last person to keep the candle. The fat man was first, Ling Gongzi second, Tianshi Li third, the heterochromia-eyed man fourth, Gui Chi fifth, and Bald Brother sixth, because the previous day Bald Brother had caused trouble in the game.

Fatty Master Zuiheng gathered himself for a long time, then began to tell his story.

"When I was in elementary school, the school expanded and had to connect the two teaching buildings lined up front and back into an 'I' shape. The newly added section in the middle was as big as three classrooms. I heard that it had originally been planned as classrooms, but later for some reason it was all changed into toilets... I swear, except for the top floor, the three floors below were all toilets. Normally, that shouldn't be possible, right?"

Tianshi Li joined in, "In theory, building toilets into it would be too wasteful."

"Exactly!" Fatty Master Zuiheng slapped his thigh. "I was still young back then, I didn't think that much... Now that I think about it, there was absolutely something wrong!"

"After the toilets were built, my goodness, it was terrifying. One floor had half men's toilet and half women's toilet, with the doors at both ends. It was very narrow. Luckily, I was still thin then... Once you went in, there were sink-style urinals against the wall, and the squat toilets were arranged in rows, with stone slabs separating the stalls in the middle. There were so many of them. I had never seen such a big toilet when I was little..."

"The windows beside it were opened way up high, and they even had green glass installed. Wasn't that deliberately trying to scare people... Once, on a Sunday, I went to school to play ball with a few childhood friends. Halfway through, I got a stomachache, so I ran to the men's toilet on the first floor and found a squat stall near the door. I pulled down my pants and took a dump, cough cough, and then squatted down..."

"Halfway through, I saw a ball fly in from the toilet door, hit the wall directly opposite the door, and then bounce back the same way. I thought it had been kicked in by a classmate, so I ignored it. Who knew that ball would fly in again and bounce back out. I thought, damn, I'm taking a dump here, no matter how much you rush me, I won't pay you any attention."

"I just squatted there, watching that ball go back and forth, and I was so pissed off... So I shouted outside, 'What are you rushing for, it'll be done soon,' but no one outside paid me any mind either. The ball still kept flying back and forth. I got anxious and pulled up my pants to stand up, thinking I was going to beat them up. Just then, the ball flew in, and I stopped it dead with my chest, and ran out with the ball..."