Chapter 30: A Family Should Be Neatly Together (Part 1)

The environment inside this house was honestly a little unsettling.

It was very dark. An energy-saving bulb of maybe fifteen watts hung from the yellowed ceiling, and the electrical wire dangling from it swayed slightly, cutting the ceiling into a mess of distorted shapes and forming twisted patches of light and shadow.

The room was old and cluttered. The bluish-green refrigerator, barely a meter tall, was even older than Dabao. The television was an old model too, the kind with a bulky box at the back. Wooden furniture of who knew how many years stood against the walls, and every gap was stuffed full of discarded trash bags and some parts no one knew the use of.

There was glass laid over a cupboard against the wall, and beneath the glass there seemed to be some photographs, though from this distance they could not be seen clearly. What did stand out was the cutting board and kitchen knife placed on top.

The cutting board was deeply sunken, hacked into so severely that the whole surface had taken on a faint red color, as though some liquid had soaked deep inside and could no longer be washed clean.

The blade edge of the kitchen knife had been polished silver-white and sharp, but the knife body itself was caked with a thick layer of grease, along with many reddish-brown specks embedded deep within it.

Dabao aimed the camera at the knife and cutting board, while he himself looked toward the person sitting on the long redwood sofa.

A voice was like its owner.

As a fellow man, even in Dabao’s eyes, this person counted as the very handsome type. His brows and eyes were refined, his nose bridge high and straight, and his lips, neither thin nor thick, were lightly pressed together. His whole person carried a young, scholarly air.

The young man only said, “Since you’re here, stay here for the night. Make do in the living room. After night falls, don’t go anywhere.”

Then he gathered up the takeout boxes on the tea table and prepared to leave the room to throw out the trash. Halfway there, the burly man who opened the door took the things from him. Dabao heard them talk.

“I’ll go.”

The young man handed over the meal boxes, then returned to his seat, picked up his phone, and started chatting about something.

Dabao exchanged a glance with his classmates, silently took the beef jerky from his backpack to stave off hunger, and split it among them. He even offered one to the young man, but the young man waved it away.

Dabao ate the beef jerky while wandering casually around the room. Seeing that the young man did not mind, he became bolder and once again aimed the camera at the cupboard, filming several scenes that looked rather frightening.

Sure enough, the effect came.

[This cutting board is so filthy. I wouldn’t even use something like this for my dog.]

[Is filth really the issue here? Why do I feel like the color of that cutting board is off? It’s so crimson. Has blood soaked all the way through it?]

[Are those bloodstains on the knife?]

[Aaaaah! What was that thing the camera just swept past? Was that a human head?]

[I saw it too. Scared me to death.]

[It’s a human head!! It really is, I saw it too!]

Dabao had barely warmed the little stool under him when he saw the comments in the livestream room go wild, along with gifts flooding the screen. Following everyone’s hints, he found that terrifying “human head.”

It was a doll wedged between one cupboard and another, a cheap plastic doll that seemed to be missing a leg. It had been twisted and stuffed into the gap, its head tilted upward at an angle, its neck looking as if it had snapped, while it stared straight through the crack at the ceiling.

What Dabao had seen when he carried his phone past the top of the table just now was the doll’s face head-on.

Its blue eyes, the kind that could open and close, had flashed into view in the camera, exciting the viewers in the livestream room.

[Aaaaah! So scary!]

[Full marks for this script. It’s got that flavor now.]

Dabao watched the gifts constantly refreshing, then pulled his two classmates close and whispered with them, his face practically glowing.

Anyone who dared to be a horror streamer definitely had guts, and they had already gone to quite a few “haunted houses.” They had clearly discovered that what everyone saw through the camera was not the same as what they felt in person. Things like eeriness simply did not exist. Most of it was the buildup of atmosphere and the influence of lighting, creating a sense of terror after everyone echoed each other.

In any case, they had livestreamed from quite a few places and not only walked out unharmed each time, but also figured out what viewers wanted to see.

For example, this broken-legged doll, the dim room, the mottled ceiling, and that old blood-colored kitchen knife and cutting board.

If these things were seen in daylight, they would be perfectly normal. But through camera movement, they could scare the people behind the screen half to death.

To build the atmosphere, the other two in the trio, Xiao Qiu and Big Fish, both played timid characters.

Off camera, the three of them were making faces at one another, but with their mouths they said, “Dabao, I’m a little scared.”

“Why don’t we go down the mountain?”

“Yeah. It’s already night, and this is the only house in the whole village with the lights on. That’s not right.”

“I’m scared…”

Dabao’s face entered the camera. Because he was handsome, he stood in the center position, and his persona was bold but careful.

He said, “Come on, it’s just a broken doll. Big bro, was this your toy when you were little?”

Dabao asked Chen Yi, who was sitting on the sofa.

Chen Yi was quietly searching for Dabao’s livestream room.

He lived for long periods in a space without signal, which kept him away from the poison of electronic information. He had no time to play games, much less listen to novels. The base was full of thriving energy, and everyone was cultivating and growing stronger. He had been passively infected by that atmosphere, and in order to complete his missions sooner, his recent life could be described as exceptionally pure and ascetic.

All of a sudden, he was out on duty, with nothing to pass the time. Now that he saw they were livestreaming, he thought he would use his phone to look through local livestream rooms and see whether he could find theirs to kill some time.

This was also the reason Chen Yi had not interrupted their muttering and sneaky little movements.

He wanted to see what they were doing from the livestream room.

Captain Sun had gone out to throw away the trash and had not returned. Clearly, he had gone on patrol.

Chen Yi also had not smelled the aberration’s strange odor, so he knew Captain Sun was very safe.

Before he had found the livestream room on his end, he was asked a question from the other side. Chen Yi did not think much of it and answered, “I didn’t play with dolls when I was little.”

What boy played with dolls when he was little? He would be laughed at.

Just then, as he swiped past one livestream room, he finally jumped into a livestream room with dark, gloomy colors.

Chen Yi focused his eyes and found it.

[Dabao Takes You to See the Night]

There were actually over twenty thousand people online in the livestream room.

Considering how niche and unusual the horror genre was, this Dabao should count as a decent popular streamer in this circle, right?

In the blink of an eye, his own figure appeared in the livestream camera.

I’m watching myself in a livestream room.

This young man is quite handsome.

Probably because of cultivation, Chen Yi, who had already been handsome to begin with, now had an additional trace of graceful, otherworldly bearing. It was actually somewhat out of place in this dim and sinister environment.

Just his casual sitting posture and the aura around his whole person, as if he were glowing, forcibly lowered the horror level of the entire space.

The female viewers screamed excitedly.

[So handsome.]

[Top-tier presence.]

[He looks like some celebrity. Film him more. I want a big close-up.]

The male viewers spoke up to stop it.

[Is Dabao taking bad money this time? What trash actor did he find? He doesn’t fit the atmosphere here at all. Don’t tell me he’s from some boy band being promoted right now?]

[One rat dropping spoils a whole pot of porridge. Can you stop filming that guy already?]

[This is just so ridiculous. What’s the point of arranging this person here?]

It was truly the first time the livestream room’s opinions were not unified.

Dabao made his choice almost without hesitation.

He had been bold since childhood, and facts had also proven that there were no ghosts in this world at all. He had gone to many places rumored to be haunted by ghosts, and it had all just been atmospheric buildup.

Otherwise, he would not be doing this type of livestream.

Smart people knew how to play to their strengths and avoid their weaknesses.

Since he was bold, he had to stick to the path of a horror streamer. As for the face of the young man on the sofa, he really did need to film it less.

The atmosphere he had finally managed to create was all gone.

Perhaps because Chen Yi did not speak up, the courage of Dabao and the other two gradually grew.

They filmed openly inside the house. During that time, Dabao even pushed the door open and went out once. When he came back, he asked Chen Yi, “Where’s that big bro from before?”

Chen Yi was leaning sideways on the sofa, watching the livestream and feeling drowsy.

He had set out to climb the mountain early this morning, then later dug out so many skeletons. It had been a challenge to both body and mind. Now night had just fallen, and the aberration still had not appeared, so Chen Yi was getting a little sleepy.

The key point was that the livestream footage kept swaying back and forth, making everything look blurry and indistinct. Clearly, if he simply lifted his eyes, he could see that there was nothing there, yet in the camera they insisted on creating a terrifying environment.

As the camera shook, the three exploring the courtyard quietly and stealthily slipped into the kitchen.

The kitchen was pitch-black. Under the phone light, they kept jumping at every little thing, frightening the viewers in the livestream room into screaming.

Chen Yi gave a long yawn and closed his eyes.

A voice suddenly sounded through his Bluetooth earbud.

“There’s still this much rice in the steamer?”

“A whole pot full of soup.”

“And two plates of stir-fried dishes. Feels like no one has eaten any of it.”

“Just now, I smelled hot pot in the room. They probably decided to eat hot pot at the last minute, so nobody ate the food they’d already made.”

“I want to eat. I only had a little beef jerky for dinner. I’m hungry.”

“You won’t starve to death. You dare eat things from anywhere? I say something’s off. Even if they decided to eat hot pot at the last minute, this food should have been put into the fridge. I don’t think this village is rich either, so they should be even more frugal. If this food sits out overnight, it might spoil by tomorrow.”

“Hiss… That’s true. It really feels like everything here is strange. This village is seriously unusual.”

“Should we go look in the other rooms?”

“Let’s go.”

“I’m scared. Let’s go back.”

“Scared my ass. I’m up front holding the line. You two just hold the phones and light things properly.”

The three of them were acting with great enthusiasm on the screen, and the viewers also watched tensely and excitedly.

Every livestream was like this. The atmosphere was eerie, there were countless suspicious points, and the speculations in their words, along with the buildup of environmental mood, were enough to make viewers who loved exploration but did not dare go themselves scream again and again in excitement.

When the three went to explore the storeroom, pigpen, chicken coop, and toilet, Chen Yi stayed in the room and watched them sway back and forth, half asleep.

They had not yet returned when Captain Sun came back first.

“Where are they?”

“Filming the toilet.”

“Huh?”

“Providing science education and livestream documentation to urban viewers on the village’s fully green, pollution-free organic fertilizer production center.”

“…”

Captain Sun fell silent for a few seconds, then finally spat, “Tui. People who don’t court death won’t die. Sometimes when I run into people like this, I really don’t want to bother with them. Is the world too small, with nothing fun in it? Or are they bored of being alive and wasting air? Thinking about how sometimes we charge ahead with our lives on the line, and the ones we’re protecting are things like these, just makes me angry.”

“But Captain Sun still went out to make a round because he was worried. At the very least, human threats should have been ruled out, and they’re right under our noses. When that thing comes, with us watching over them, nothing will happen. Don’t worry.”

Chen Yi smiled, knowing that Captain Sun was speaking out of anger.

Captain Sun’s face remained dark. After thinking for a moment, he got up and went to the window, gazing from afar at that stretch of woods, then lit a cigarette.

“The aberrations are evolving. Ancient bacteria have appeared too. Can people from other worlds still be far off?

“Our time is still too short.

“Most opinions in the team still say that we need to find true geniuses. Only then can combat power be produced in a shorter time.

“It’s just that when we can recruit talent globally still hasn’t been settled. First, we temporarily still haven’t found the correct method to judge aptitude. Second, the current corps still has to be cultivated internally to a certain strength and possess collective combat capability before we can take the next step.”

Chen Yi split his attention, partly watching Dabao and the others and partly listening to Captain Sun speak.

In fact, it was not as if there were no other methods. For example, the few professions opened by Chen Yi’s next mission were all ways to strengthen a person’s hard power. Especially pills. Barring accidents, they would definitely speed up a person’s cultivation.

It was just that the core requirement of the mission was Chen Yi’s cultivation level. That, on the contrary, was the one thing that could not be rushed the most. And they did not want to give Chen Yi too much pressure, so everyone avoided bringing it up in front of him.

As for methods of discovering talent, he always felt that the answer was also in the Foundation Establishment mission rewards, so there was no use being anxious now.

Being able to deal with the current aberration incidents was already very good progress.

Half an hour later, the three returned from exploring the pigpen. It was just about nine o’clock. Even in summer, the sky had already gone completely dark.

Although Chen Yi still had not smelled any stench, based on past experience, the aberration should be arriving soon.

The three had returned at just the right time.

The sooner it came, the sooner they could call it a day.

When the three saw that “fierce blue man” had returned, they kept a low profile and quieted down for a while.

Next Chapter >