Streamer's Viewers Encounter Old Man in the Empty House

As the viewers just entered the village, a thin mist rose around them.

The mist wasn't thick.

But in the darkness, the buildings on either side were reduced to hazy outlines, making the scene appear a bit more eerie.

"Why is there no signal in this village?"

The one live-streaming was a young man about twenty-five or twenty-six, named Zhang Ming, a small streamer on a certain platform.

How small?

Well, during his streams, he basically talked to himself to pass the time.

He had originally planned to ride a wave of popularity this time, but he hadn't expected there to be no internet!

"Forget it, I'll record it and edit it to upload to a video website."

Muttering a couple of sentences, Zhang Ming didn't pay it much mind and wandered behind the others, looking for that inn.

The bluestone-paved road was uneven, with weeds growing in the cracks.

Branches and broken clay pots were scattered everywhere along the roadside. Some pots still held water, and when the flashlight shone on them, they reflected a bright light.

The small path stretched straight ahead.

As they went deeper, the weeds grew thicker, and the houses they passed became increasingly dilapidated.

There were even some very old-fashioned propaganda slogans on the walls.

"Doesn't this place feel like it hasn't been lived in for a long time?" the heavily made-up girl asked, leaning against the blonde-haired youth.

"Hey, it's the countryside, it's all like this, run-down and shabby." The blonde-haired youth didn't care, his hand around the girl's waist unconsciously moving lower.

"Heh heh." The girl's eyes were languid, and she gave the blonde-haired youth a sidelong glance.

"I feel like something's not right."

The bespectacled man, who had been secretly watching the girl, suddenly stopped.

He lived nearby and was very familiar with Hujia Village. But this road felt somewhat unfamiliar to him now.

"What's not right? You're so jumpy. There are so many of us, what's going to jump out, a ghost?" The blonde-haired youth glanced at him disdainfully.

"This looks like Hujia Village, but Hujia Village doesn't have houses this dilapidated." The bespectacled man looked around, his expression uncertain.

"Pfft, you mean we time-traveled? What kind of web novel are you spouting here."

The blonde-haired youth scoffed, then a mocking look appeared on his face:

"You just want to attract attention, I was already over that in elementary school."

"Four-eyes, stop staring at my girlfriend, no matter how much you look, you'll just go home and play single-player games."

Hearing this, the girl beside him also giggled and puffed out her chest, smiling coquettishly.

"Heh heh, Glasses Gege, am I big?"

The bespectacled man's old face turned red, showing a hint of embarrassment. He immediately wanted to deny it.

Just then.

Suddenly, a strange cry came from the roof nearby.

Then a dark shadow darted down, flashing past in front of everyone.

"Ah!"

"Holy crap!"

"Oh my god!"

The sudden turn of events startled several people in the group, making them scream.

The blonde-haired youth, who was closest, was so scared he almost fell, his legs going weak.

"Damn, what was that?"

The viewer holding the flashlight quickly shone it in the direction the shadow had gone.

Could they have actually run into a ghost?

Everyone immediately tensed up, their eyes fixed on where the flashlight beam was pointing.

But the next moment, everyone suddenly relaxed.

There was nothing terrifying in the flashlight's beam, only a crow standing on the wall, staring intently at them.

"Damn, you scared me."

"It's just a crow."

"I thought we really saw a ghost."

Seeing that it was just a bird, the tense nerves of the crowd eased, and they cursed and laughed.

"Damn, you stupid bird, I'll kill you."

The blonde-haired youth, who was almost scared out of his wits and felt humiliated in front of everyone, became enraged. He picked up a stone from the ground and threw it.

"Caw—"

"Caw caw—"

"Caw caw caw—"

The startled crows flapped their wings and flew away immediately.

"Alright, alright, it's getting late. Let's just find that inn quickly. If we can't find it, everyone can just go home."

A bald man in his thirties yawned and rubbed his forehead.

After the initial excitement wore off, he was now feeling quite bored and regretted coming out to join the fun so late at night.

Wouldn't it be better to be at home sleeping with his wife?

"Let's go, let's go. If we don't find it soon, I'm going back too."

"That streamer is probably an actor, not even in Hujia Village. We came all this way for nothing."

"I heard a lot of livestreams are pre-recorded. I bet the footage of them entering Hujia Village was filmed beforehand."

The crowd chattered amongst themselves, most of them having lost interest.

"Oh right, bro, did you just notice something?"

Someone patted the glasses-wearing man on the back and asked curiously.

"Nothing, I saw wrong."

The glasses-wearing man glanced at the guy with dyed yellow hair. After being rebuffed earlier, he didn't feel like speaking up now.

After seeing off the person who asked, the glasses-wearing man subtly moved to the center of the group, avoiding the edges.

Hujia Village, in its entirety, wasn't small, but it wasn't large either.

The crowd soon arrived at the edge of the village.

Here lay an open space, with a solitary red-brick house standing in the middle.

Further ahead, there was only a forest path leading to an unknown destination.

Everyone looked around curiously and noticed that the brick house was very strange, having no windows at all.

Moreover, the doorway was extremely tall, about four meters high and three meters wide. It was now open like a gaping mouth, revealing only darkness within.

"That's it?"

"That's all?"

"Where's the inn you promised? Where are the ghosts you promised?"

"We came for nothing."

"I must have been out of my mind to come here so late at night."

The crowd reached the end without finding the inn and started complaining.

"Damn streamer, you dare to lie to me? I'm going to flame you in the livestream chat later." The yellow-haired guy cursed, picked up a stone, and hurled it fiercely at the brick house.

The stone traced an arc through the air and landed accurately inside the doorway.

"Forget it, forget it, let's go home and sleep."

"No more fun."

The streamer's viewers shook their heads and prepared to head back to flame the streamer.

Tonight was a complete waste of time!

Zhang Ming also shook his head and started thinking about how to edit the video he had filmed.

As he turned around with his phone, his expression suddenly froze.

"Holy crap!"

He yelled and jumped up, his selfie stick wobbling precariously, almost falling to the ground.

"What's wrong? What's wrong? What happened now?"

The others were startled by Zhang Ming's sudden movement, stopping in their tracks and looking at him.

Zhang Ming's face was now somewhat pale. He pointed at the house opposite and stammered:

"That house... there's someone in that house, an old man!"

Everyone looked doubtfully at the dark doorway.

"No way... there could be someone in this house?"

Late at night, a strange abandoned house, an open dark doorway.

An inexplicable unease began to creep into many hearts.

Despite their numbers, in this environment, associations inevitably began to form.

"I'll go take a look."

Just then, a young man wearing white casual shoes stepped out from the group.

He seemed quite brave, flashlight in hand, walking straight towards it and shining the light inside.

The entrance to the red brick house led into a main hall with a wooden chair and a square table.

On the table sat a photo frame containing a black and white portrait.

The young man turned back and said, "You must have seen wrong. There's no one here."

As he spoke, he stepped into the house and ran his hand across the table, his hand coming away covered in dust.

"You probably mistook the portrait for a person."

He lifted the portrait and shone his flashlight on it for everyone to see.

"Everyone, don't be so jumpy. It's just your imagination."

The young man chuckled lightly, a hint of arrogance in his tone.

"Lately, I've seen a lot of people online claiming to have seen ghosts, and this streamer even broadcasts himself seeing ghosts every day. I originally planned to expose him today."

"I majored in psychology in college and have never believed in ghosts."

However, just as the young man was speaking...

Everyone standing outside the house suddenly widened their eyes, their faces then showing extreme terror.

They saw, behind the young man, a hunched old man slowly emerge from the shadows and silently sit down on the chair in front of the table.

And that old man looked exactly like the portrait.

The air suddenly fell silent.

"Ah!"

"Oh my god!"

The next moment, screams erupted. Terrified out of their wits, the crowd turned and fled, wishing their parents had given them extra legs.

"Hey, you guys..."

Seeing this, the young man immediately sensed something was wrong.

Just as he was about to turn around, a stiff hand landed on his shoulder.

Creak

Creak

Bang--

With a soft sound.

The door, which had been wide open.

Closed.