The taxi pulled up at the theme park entrance.
"Boss, what's in this thing? It's so heavy."
"Mannequin heads." Chen Ge didn't elaborate. "Don't open it and snoop around—you'll scare yourself."
"Oh, got it."
After setting the box down, Chen Ge sent Xu Wan to the makeup room to touch up her face, then stepped out of the haunted house to sell tickets.
"The Muyang High School scenario opens tomorrow. I need to figure out the staffing problem. If I really can't find anyone, I could ask
Before Chen Ge had even opened the barrier, a man in his early thirties approached him. "Mr. Chen? I've finally tracked you down."
Chen Ge rarely got addressed like that. He glanced at the man—he was wearing a casual blazer, carrying a black case, had neatly styled short hair, and wore a broad smile with very white teeth.
"You're looking for me?"
"I haven't missed a single one of your livestreams. They're truly spectacular." The man started with the flattery right away. Chen Ge knew perfectly well what the quality of his streams was like—the content might be novel, but the overall viewing experience was nothing to write home about, limited by his recording equipment.
"You're too kind." Chen Ge couldn't figure out the man's angle. "Are you one of my viewers?"
"I'm your die-hard fan. I started following you from the very first short video you posted—the one that hit the trending charts at midnight. Later, when Qin Guang plagiarized your livestream content, I was the one who went on the forums and uploaded your videos to show everyone he was copying you." The man claimed to be Chen Ge's biggest fan, but his demeanor was composed, his smile nothing more than a professional courtesy—there was no real excitement showing.
"Thanks for that." Chen Ge didn't entirely buy his story, but the guy seemed decent enough—at least he could tell right from wrong. "Since you're a fan, if you want to visit, I'll give you half off."
"I won't hold you up—go ahead and let the folks behind me in first." He gestured for the other visitors to enter the haunted house, then, spotting a gap in the queue, found Chen Ge again. "I heard Qin Guang's studio people came to cause trouble for you last time, but you gave them quite the beating?"
"All rumors." Chen Ge put on a righteous indignation. "Qin Guang's studio has absolutely no bottom line. They deliberately sent two mentally ill people into my haunted house to fake fainting. After framing me, they turned around and posed victims—absolutely shameless!"
The man beside him shifted his expression slightly, forcing out an awkward laugh. "I think so too—obviously they were framing you. It's just a haunted house visit. How could anyone get scared to the point of hospitalization and then be out of it for days? These people can't even come up with a decent excuse."
"Hospitalized from fear?"
"Yep. And they even threatened to retaliate—planned to cut off all your promotion channels. But another studio stepped in to block them." The man smiled at Chen Ge, looking rather like a fox swishing its tail. "After all, the platform belongs to everyone, not just Qin Guang alone."
By now, Chen Ge had figured the whole thing out. This man in front of him was almost certainly a representative sent by the other studio. They clearly had a grudge against Qin Guang's team—otherwise they wouldn't have gone out of their way to report him for plagiarism on the forums while the entire platform's resources were being funneled his way.
A platform's traffic and promotion channels were finite. If Qin Guang grew too big, he'd siphon away the heat that rightfully belonged to them. For livestreaming and short video, losing viewers was a slow death.
"You're here to discuss a partnership, aren't you? What should I call you?" Chen Ge eyed the black case in the man's hand, indulging in a brief fantasy that it was stuffed with cash.
"Actually, I'm a platform streamer myself. Just call me Liu Dao."
"Liu Dao?" Chen Ge nodded. "So what kind of partnership are you proposing?"
"Ghost-hunting livestreams have been blowing up lately, and of course we want a piece of the pie. The problem is, our studio can't find the right person for it. Even if we forced someone into the spotlight, there's no way they'd compete with Qin Guang's numbers. Fair is fair—Qin Guang may be a scumbag, but his streaming style is entertaining, and he's a charismatic guy in his own right."
"So you came to me? I don't think a grassroots nobody like me has more charisma than Qin Guang."
"You're wrong. I've watched your streams—and maybe even you don't realize this, but your livestreams are completely different from everyone else's." Liu Dao dropped his smile and thought carefully for a moment. "Everyone else's streams—you can tell they're fake the second you look at them, Qin Guang's included. They call themselves ghost-hunting streams, but really it's just the host telling stories in a different location. Yours is different. That feeling of sustained tension throughout, as if you're genuinely facing a life-or-death crisis—it makes your viewers' hearts race right along with you, fills them with real fear. Just for that alone, I have to tip my hat to you."
Because it's all real! Chen Ge figured that even if he told the truth, Liu Dao wouldn't believe it. "Maybe I'm just a good actor."
"You're being modest. That sense of dancing on the edge of life and death—I've never seen it in any professional actor." Liu Dao seemed to genuinely admire Chen Ge. "I believe only your streams can compete with Qin Guang for traffic and engagement. If you agree to work with us, we'll pour everything we have into securing promotion resources for you."
"And what would I need to do?" Chen Ge understood perfectly well that effort and reward were proportional.
"We'd scout locations that look desolate and eerie, set the scenes in advance, and design some truly terrifying props. All you'd have to do is go to the location and livestream—and the stream would feature ads that we provide." Afraid Chen Ge might refuse, Liu Dao pulled a folder from the black case. "Horror scenes need advance setup, scripts need to be written—roughly one ghost-hunting stream every ten days. That timeline lines up perfectly with Qin Guang's schedule. You can take a look at the locations we've scouted and the script outlines."
Chen Ge flipped through a few pages. The locations these people had chosen were far too conservative—some were practically next to residential complexes, where a slight turn of the camera would expose the surroundings and shatter the illusion.
"You don't think they work? Don't worry—safety is something we can absolutely guarantee. Every area has been inspected beforehand, and we'll even have drones following you during the stream."
"With setups like these, how do you expect to beat Qin Guang?" Chen Ge wore the expression of someone watching a hopeless cause. He handed the folder back to Liu Dao. "These locations are completely boring, and the scripts follow the same tired formulas. How about I recommend a place for you instead?"
"What place?"
"Have you ever heard of Third Ward?" Chen Ge opened his phone, typed the name into a search engine, and soon a string of creepy, brutal, and disturbing results filled the screen. "I'm planning to go there for my next livestream."
Liu Dao saw the search results on Chen Ge's phone. The horrifying, ghastly images registered in his eyes. His Adam's apple bobbed, and he quietly wiped the sweat from his forehead. "Are you sure about this? Isn't that a little... extreme?"