Forced into a romantic relationship

Chapter 303 Falsehood and Truth

"As you can see, we have now arrived inside the unfinished building. Everything around us looks normal. Next, we will explore every corner of the building to see if it is really haunted as rumored. — Thank you for the fireworks from 'What's the name of my new husband?'"

Inside the unfinished building, Zhang Tao surveyed his surroundings with a flashlight while interacting with viewers in his live stream.

"Why do I feel so much colder inside than outside..." Beside him, Bai Suya tightened her coat and asked uncertainly, "Do you guys feel the same way?"

Sun Fei shrugged, unconcerned, and said, "That's how this place is. The hospital and the underground parking garage are the same. I've been to the crematorium twice before. It's even colder there at night. Every time I go in, it's chilly."

"Is it cold in the crematorium?" Bai Suya asked, her face showing surprise.

"Yes, if you're interested, I can take you inside to experience it."

Wang Qingqing shrank back uneasily, her expression tense, and said, "These...these all sound like places where paranormal events are frequent..."

"Perhaps this is the legendary Yin energy," Sun Fei said mysteriously.

"Don't scare them."

Zhang Tao glanced back at him and said calmly, "This place is quite big. Let's wander around. Everyone, watch your step and be careful not to get hurt."

Seeing this, Sun Fei shook his head inwardly. Tao Ge may be bold, but unfortunately he has no idea how to create a good show. No wonder he has a lot of fans, but his popularity during live streams is so low.

In his view, if you're going to do a ghost-hunting live stream, you should create a scary atmosphere for the audience as much as possible. How can you just act like you're casually strolling around?
Putting everything else aside, couldn't you at least add some eerie and unsettling music to your live stream?

Watching a ghost-hunting livestream is like playing a horror game. First, the audience needs to feel immersed in the experience. If even the character being controlled doesn't seem scared at all, how can the audience possibly feel scared?

Most of these viewers are looking for thrills, like watching a horror movie. If they don't feel scared, why would they stay to watch something boring?
Why are the number of viewers in the live stream gradually decreasing? This is the reason.

No.

Sun Fei felt that things couldn't continue like this.

If he had that many fans, he would probably have already made his live stream a huge success. The reason he came to participate in the live stream this time was to let Brother Tao know what real traffic is.

Therefore, he had already made preparations—

There will definitely be ghosts in tonight's live stream.

Meanwhile, on the ninth floor of the unfinished building.

Two masked boys were talking quietly.

"Sun Fei said they've already come in and told us to leave through the stairwell on the right so we wouldn't be discovered."

"Aren't you going to stay and scare them? I worked as an NPC in a haunted house during the summer vacation, so I have a lot of experience scaring people."

"Are you stupid? Do you think we could scare Brother Tao? If he catches us in front of the live stream audience, the whole plan will be ruined."

"That projector..."

"Sun Fei will handle this. Let's go, let's go quickly. Be discreet and don't get caught."

The two boys stood up, used a blue cloth to shield their flashlights to prevent too much light from escaping, and then tiptoed toward the stairwell not far away.

"You know what, the longer I stay here, the more creeped out I feel. There might really be something evil here. It's probably pointless for us to come here and pretend to be ghosts. When we get back, we have to make sure Sun Fei treats us to a few more meals."

"Stop talking nonsense and hurry up!"

"No, are you scared, kid?"

"You suddenly started accusing me of something, how could I not be afraid? Enough talk, get out of here."

Before the abandoned building was put into use, there was no time to install railings on the stairs, so the two walked slowly to avoid accidentally falling down the steps.

This is the ninth floor; falling down here is no joke.

As an unfinished building where not even the rooms have been built yet, the layout of each floor is basically the same. The two of them went down several steps in a row. If it weren't for the obvious differences in the details, they might have thought they were still on the ninth floor.

Just as we arrived at the next floor, something strange happened.

They heard faint footsteps, which sounded like they were coming from downstairs.

The two men's expressions changed drastically. They quickly left the stairs and hid behind a load-bearing wall, asking in surprise and doubt, "The bottom should be the sixth floor, right? How did Brother Tao and the others get up here so quickly?"

They suspected that the footsteps downstairs were coming from Zhang Tao and his group, who were live-streaming.

After a moment of silence, one of the boys said in bewilderment, "Impossible... It's only been a few minutes. Even if they ran, they couldn't possibly have gotten to the sixth floor. And what's the point of watching a live stream like this?"

This unfinished building only has a dozen or so floors. It's been less than five minutes and it's already on the sixth floor. Does that mean the live stream will end in ten minutes?

This isn't Tao Ge's style.

Although Brother Tao doesn't believe in ghosts and isn't afraid of them, he usually investigates every part of the live broadcast location beforehand, so it's impossible for him to have run up to the sixth floor so quickly.

Could it be someone else?

The two exchanged a glance, both seeing the seriousness in each other's eyes.

"Send a message and ask."

One of them took out his phone and sent a message to Sun Fei.

"Which floor are you on now?"

Sun Fei took quite a while to reply.

"First floor, we're about to go to the second floor. Remember to take the stairs on the right, so you don't get seen."

The two looked at each other, a sense of unease rising within them. They asked, "You didn't split up, did you?"

"I would like to split up, but Brother Tao disagrees. Okay, I'm still live streaming, so I'll stop here for now."

"Wait, are you sure it's not really you guys on the sixth floor right now?"

"You're not trying to scare us, are you?"

Seeing that Sun Fei hadn't replied for a long time, the two boys stared at each other, about to speak, when they suddenly realized that the footsteps downstairs had disappeared at some point, as if they had never been there.

But the more they did this, the less they dared to go downstairs.

They arrived before dark to prepare, and while going upstairs, they paid attention to the situation on each floor, but they didn't find anyone else in this unfinished building.

But since Sun Fei and his group were still on the first floor, who made that footstep sound just now? An uncontrollable, terrifying guess surfaced in their minds.

...Could it be a ghost?

They looked surprised and suspicious, but they still didn't believe that ghosts existed in this world. On the contrary, they thought it was more likely that Sun Fei was taking the opportunity to play a trick on them. Who knows, this might be the main content of the live broadcast.

With this thought in mind, one person opened their phone and entered Zhang Tao's live stream, only to witness an incredibly horrifying scene.

In the video, Zhang Tao and the others are leisurely exploring the first floor. Apart from Wang Qingqing, the others seem to be strolling around at a leisurely pace, especially a very handsome boy and a short girl.

The two stood a little distance from the camera. The former had a slight smile on his face, while the latter yawned lazily, looking bored and occasionally muttering a few words. They showed no signs of the tension of entering the haunted place.

However, the live stream suddenly blurred for a moment, and then everyone's flashlights started flashing wildly. It took almost ten seconds for the image to return to normal.

The two boys weren't frightened by the scene itself. What truly terrified them was that, as the flashlights in the hands of the people in the scene flickered, their phones also started flashing wildly, eventually going black and turning off at the same frequency.

This... what is going on?
A boy looked at his companion and said in a trembling voice, "Aren't you afraid of breaking the phone by repeatedly pressing the power button like that?"

Another boy swallowed hard and pointed to his hand holding the phone: "Do you want to see where my hand is? How do I press the power button?"

After the words were spoken, the two looked at each other for a moment, and then their eyes simultaneously revealed fear.

Is this...is this a ghost?
Rewind two minutes.

On the first floor of the unfinished building, Han Zhou and Xiao Xiaoxiao silently followed behind Zhang Tao and the others, observing the surroundings with great interest.

"I said, this place doesn't seem like it's haunted."

Xiao Xiaoxiao yawned and muttered to herself. It wasn't that she was showing off, but compared to the scenes in the movie, this unfinished building really didn't look scary.

Just a bit cold.

"It doesn't seem like it at all." Han Zhou glanced at her and asked softly, "Are you sleepy already?"

"A little." Xiao Xiaoxiao didn't deny it. She pulled the zipper down to her collar and nodded. "I'm already sleep-deprived, and I didn't sleep well last night, so I am a little sleepy, but only a little bit."

Han Zhou asked thoughtfully, "If you didn't have sleeping pills, would you still be unable to sleep even when you're exhausted?"

"Yeah, that's why I can't sleep."

Xiao Xiaoxiao lowered her voice, "Speaking of which, I've wanted to ask you for a long time, where did you buy those sleeping pills from, and why are they so effective?"

"It's a secret that can't be revealed. Even if I told you, you still wouldn't be able to buy it. Anyway, this stuff has no side effects."

"Tch, all he does is play mysterious."

Xiao Xiao rolled her eyes at him, then sighed and said with a troubled expression, "This is troublesome."

"What trouble?"

"nothing."

Xiao Xiaoxiao shook her head, her mind filled with complicated thoughts. She didn't know if her insomnia could be cured, and she couldn't keep waiting for this guy to give her sleeping pills forever, could she?

Just as Han Zhou was about to speak, all the electronic devices in the hands of everyone present suddenly went dark. Cell phones and flashlights all went out, plunging the corridor into complete darkness.

"what!"

A gasp suddenly rang out from ahead; it must have been Wang Qingqing, the senior student.

The lights quickly came back on, but before anyone could figure out what had just happened, all the light sources in the hallway began to flicker rapidly for a full ten seconds before returning to normal.

"Fuck, what's going on?"

Sun Fei was shocked, but secretly delighted. Although he had asked his two roommates to come and set up the scare scenes in advance, the nearest scare point was on the third floor. At this time, most of the viewers in the live broadcast room had already left. He was thinking about whether to urge everyone to go up to the third floor and use the ghost clues set up in advance to retain popularity. Who knew that such an unexpected scene would happen.

The powerful flashlight was prepared by his two roommates. He didn't expect them to be so clever as to tamper with the flashlight beforehand. No wonder he messaged him earlier asking where they were. They probably observed the situation in the live stream through their phones and noticed the decline in viewership, so they took action in advance.

The others were also quite shocked, even Zhang Tao looked surprised. This sudden scene immediately attracted the attention of the viewers in the live stream, with comments like "Holy crap!", "Awesome!", and "Is there really something dirty?" flooding the screen.

Some people questioned whether the group had staged the whole thing, but fans quickly offered an explanation, saying that Zhang Tao's live streams never faked anything.

Some people were skeptical, while others scoffed at the idea.

But there is no denying that the number of people in the live stream room has grown quite rapidly.

Sun Fei was secretly overjoyed, but on the surface he remained calm, putting on a feigned panicked expression, and asked in bewilderment, "Wh...what's going on? Is there something wrong with the flashlight?"

Bai Suya, who had been eagerly anticipating seeing a ghost, started to panic: "How could all the flashlights malfunction at the same time? And my phone was also flashing..."

Wang Qingqing nodded in alarm and echoed, "Mine too, maybe...maybe we should go back?"

As soon as these words were spoken, before anyone else could speak, the viewers in the live stream immediately became restless, urging them to continue exploring and not give up.

Zhang Tao pondered for a moment, then suddenly turned to Han Zhou and asked, "Junior, what do you think?"

This was a live stream broadcast to the internet, so he didn't call Han Zhou by his real name.

As for why he asked Han Zhou for his opinion, it was because he felt that only Han Zhou had the same courage as him. If even Han Zhou backed down, then he would have no choice but to send the others back and explore on his own.

At this moment, Han Zhou was deep in thought, until Xiao Xiaoxiao nudged him and he realized that everyone was looking at him.

"The tall senior asked what you think," Xiao Xiao whispered a reminder.

What do you mean by "how I see it"...?

Han Zhou was taken aback for a moment, then smiled and said, "I'll listen to you, senior."

Seeing this, Sun Fei quickly chimed in, "I'll listen to Brother Tao too."

What a joke! The popularity of the live stream has only just begun to increase. If he leaves now, wouldn't all his preparations have been for nothing?
Seeing that the three boys seemed to want to stay, and the other three girls had no intention of leaving, the group quickly went up to the second floor at the urging of the viewers in the live stream.

As Han Zhou went upstairs, he still looked thoughtful when he suddenly heard Xiao Xiaoxiao whisper, "Do you also think that what just happened was related to me?"

He paused, looked down at the back of the other person's head, and said in a low voice, "It's just a possibility."

The electronic devices suddenly started flashing wildly, just like the strange phenomenon Wang Runxue had witnessed the previous night.

(End of this chapter)