Oseus, the Stepping Stone
As soon as Burrlett uttered his opening remarks, the Live Broadcast Room exploded. Although viewers had witnessed just how lucky the streamer was, it was mostly due to "luck."
Now facing a formidable ghost that even ghost-hunting experts can kill, viewers will naturally begin to question whether this streamer's luck is truly sufficient.
As he watched the Live Broadcast Room filled with shouts of "Don't go!" and a few encouraging comments urging the streamer not to back down, Burrlett curled the corners of his mouth in a smile.
Or rather, this was his very purpose, and the true value of Oseus's death.
Why are people afraid of ghosts?
This is a very complex psychological issue, which combines various factors such as fear of the unknown, fear of death, education through words and deeds, and guidance from social customs, to form the perception that "ghosts are scary".
But this kind of "fear" is essentially very vague, because it is formed by the superposition of multiple factors. It is frightening because there are too many elements, but if you simply pick out one of them, it is not so frightening.
Therefore, once ghosts are given a "form" and a "definition," people's fear of them is peeled away layer by layer.
This is an irreversible problem. Once the veil of the unknown is removed, the sense of fear will decrease. Since Burrlett can move freely among the monsters, the strength of the monsters will inevitably decrease. This will naturally lead to a decrease in the strength of "Burrlett" in the eyes of the audience. At first, they might exclaim, "This guy is really lucky," but later, it will become, "Is that all?" or "I could do that too!"
So, how can this situation be avoided, and how can we improve the audience's understanding of Burrlett's strength?
The answer is simple: comparison.
In movies, games, or anime, how do you portray the power of a newly introduced character?
Naturally, they would arrange for him to use a familiar, powerful figure as a stepping stone.
Oseus, at this point, served as a stepping stone; his death greatly stimulated the audience's senses and redefined the intensity of ghosts.
At the same time, it also shifted the focus of ghost and monster horror from Japanese horror, which primarily targets psychological fear, to American horror, which primarily targets sensory stimulation.
The psychological fear of scaring oneself has transformed into a physiological fear of having one's life threatened.
Zone 33, now No Man's Land, has become a wasteland. If just a few days ago there was only one casino that dared not operate, then since Oseus's death, no one is willing to come here anymore.
Looking at the desolate former "gambling city," Burrlett's lips curled into a smile, exuding an air of domineering confidence as he said:
"Look, look, this is the downside of superstition. What a huge area! Even without casinos, turning it into a commercial street, tea houses, or something would have made a lot of money, right? Just because of a legend about a ghost killing people, it's all been abandoned. I have reason to suspect that this is a conspiracy orchestrated by someone to acquire this area at a low price!"
Seeing Burrlett adopt a "sane" attitude, the audience immediately erupted in chaos. Some explained to him that it really was a demon killing people, some mocked him with "hehe" and "oh right, right right," and others kept adding fuel to the fire by banging on their phones with messages like "If you're not afraid, why don't you go and do it yourself?"
Feeling a large amount of [consciousness] converging towards him, Burrlett adjusted his mindset, silently reviewed the script in his mind, and then followed the navigation to the casino where he had previously killed Oseus. He clicked his tongue in amazement and said:
"Tsk, such a huge casino, its daily turnover must be in the millions, right? To just shut it down like that is incredibly stupid. This kind of shady business has been around for hundreds or even thousands of years, and it's Year 2077 already, and people are still falling for it..."
[Streamer, you're already covered in flags, stop setting new ones!]
[Exactly! Even the old general on the stage doesn't have as many flags as you!]
[The betting odds at Will Betting opened. The anchor Tough Talk and emerged unscathed with odds of 1 to 5. The anchor got scared away and ran away with odds of 1 to 2. The anchor died with odds of 1 to 1.5.]
Upon seeing this comment, Burrlett suddenly stopped at the casino entrance. Only when a comedian asked him why he wasn't going in did he speak:
"I'm waiting for you to place your bets!"
As he spoke, he opened the visual terminal, bought 100,000 Credit Point at Will Betting without a scratch, and said in a righteous tone:
"I refuse to believe it! It's Year 2077 already, and there are still people who can be fooled by this kind of trick!"
[Damn, I was going to buy the Unscathed option, but the streamer's another flag-raising move, I guess I'll just buy the Hasty Escape option instead.]
[What?! It's better to buy something that dies than to buy something that scares you away!]
How do you know the streamer didn't secretly buy millions and run away?
[Damn! You're right!]
Seeing that more and more people were discussing betting, Feng Xue happily started walking. Don't underestimate such a small detail; you have to know that the attention people pay to someone with a stake in the deal is worlds apart from that of someone without.
Take football for example. Can you expect the same level of interest in a match between someone who bets a million dollars and someone who just watches without spending a penny?
With each of these bets, the audience's concern about Burrlett's life or death will soar to a new level.
Riding on such a wave of attention, Mr. Burrlett began directing and starring in his own supernatural comedy.
The casino was excessively dark. When Oseus came before, at least the surrounding buildings provided some light, but now, all the lights in the entire No Man's Land had been turned off. It was possible to rely on the light from distant beams outside, but once inside the casino, it was truly pitch black.
"It's pitch black... turn on the lights!" Burrlett snapped his fingers, and the lighting module immediately activated, casting a beam of light from the camera drone and illuminating the surrounding area.
Seeing the comments in the live chat telling him to turn on the lights, Burrlett calmly replied:
"Look, isn't this just a lack of common sense? How could a casino like this possibly have an easy-to-find switch? They either have to use a main power switch or integrate the switch into the central control room. Otherwise, if a gambler loses money, they can just flip the switch, and you think they'd lose a lot of money? Not to mention, this lousy place has already closed down. Do you think a closed casino will pay the power company, or that the power company will provide free electricity to a closed casino?"
Hearing Burrlett's somewhat reasonable words, many viewers who knew the power company's ways smiled knowingly. However, at that very moment, a fleeting shadow in their field of vision made them tense.
[Host! Something's weird!]
[Left!]
[Protect yourself with bullet hell!]
A barrage of comments flooded in, but Burrlett sighed:
"Calm down, okay? I didn't see any shadows."
Despite saying that, he still walked in the direction the audience pointed out, and a gambling table appeared in front of him where the lights were shining.
Don't immediately jump to the topic of historical fabrication and bring up pseudo-history theory, as if everyone who thinks Western history is fabricated supports pseudo-history theory.
You can't assume that the bizarre fabrications in the West are believable just because pseudo-historical theories are outrageous, okay?
It's like if I see a twenty-yuan bronze artifact at Shuyuanmen and say it's from last week, you can't say I'm denying Zhonghua Family's thousands of years of history because of that, right? That's an absurd accusation.
The parchment that has survived for over two thousand years—anyone who studies biology knows how outrageous this is.
Parchment is different from ordinary paper; it's reusable. Simply put, after you've written on it, you carefully scrape off the writing with a knife and then continue using it.
Of course, you could argue that it was written down for the purpose of preservation, but that raises another absurd issue: parchment is indeed made of sheepskin!
How do you preserve this thing so that it won't decay for two thousand years? And the writing on it won't oxidize. This is completely different from Bamboo Slip. Bamboo Slip are carved and made of plant fibers, while this thing is made of animal protein, and it's written on! Not to mention that there was no ink back then!
And then consider the climate. The humidity in that awful place is so bad, even a dried corpse would rot in there after a few years, let alone parchment!
The parchment with the signature from the Declaration of Independence is only a few years old, look at what it's become now—two thousand years old! Vacuum-sealed from the ancient past, right?
This thing has been around for two thousand years, and you can still reconstruct the original text? That's an insult to intelligence.
What started as a chance encounter with an idiot to amuse everyone turned out to be more than one... That's just magical reality, isn't it?