The Demon-Expelling Livestream

After deciding to initiate the "Night Watcher Project" ahead of schedule, Tang Yu began searching for targets.

One day, while browsing news online, a livestream post caught his attention.

[Dragon Tiger Mountain Taoist Master, live-streaming exorcisms, taking you to experience a different kind of dark world! (Live)]

Viewer count: 282,341

Opening the stream, a man wearing white Taoist robes and holding a peach-wood sword was speaking directly into the camera.

"The situation I've encountered today is quite special. I was invited by a family that has long been troubled by evil spirits to perform an exorcism. Next, I will demonstrate my exorcism techniques for everyone. If you like me, please remember to double-tap to like and send gifts!"

Watching the white-haired, white-bearded man in the video talk about "sending gifts," Tang Yu wore a stunned expression, feeling that it was incredibly discordant.

Could someone in reality actually possess the ability to combat evil spirits?

Just as Tang Yu was feeling skeptical, he saw the comments in the chat and was immediately amused.

"Does the old master still need extras? I only charge a hundred a day, and I act really hard!"

"Add me as an extra too, Old Master! You tell me to cry, I cry; you tell me to laugh, I laugh. My prices are fair and honest."

"The Old Master's videos are great for watching while eating; I can always find something funny in your stream!"

"I'm dying of laughter. Here's six bucks for you, just for the sake of watching a comedy show."

Looking at the comments in the stream, the white-haired old man smiled indifferently.

"How can you say I'm acting? My techniques aren't special effects, and the targets of my exorcisms are truly possessed."

Although the white-haired old man said this, the comment section was filled with jeers.

The netizens clearly didn't believe a single punctuation mark of what he said.

Seeing this, Tang Yu's interest was piqued.

He could see now that this old guy didn't possess any special abilities at all; he was just a charlatan, completely riding the wave of recent frequent horror incidents to set up an exorcism livestream.

However, Tang Yu was quite curious to see how his upcoming exorcism performance would play out.

As for tipping, that was out of the question; he was just there for a free show.

My name is Jiang Su, and I am 53 years old this year.

I grew up in a Taoist hall since I was a child. According to the hall master, he found me on a rainy night.

Immersed in that environment, I was exposed to many Taoist texts from a young age.

Zhou Yi, Daozang, Baopuzi, and so on...

But after I grew up, this knowledge didn't seem that important anymore.

After all, I had to make a living.

After reaching adulthood, I left the hall and worked as a restaurant waiter, a car salesman, a taxi driver, and more... but even now, I haven't saved enough to buy a house in the city.

The day-to-day grind left me physically and mentally exhausted.

But I had to grit my teeth and keep going because I hadn't yet attained the life I wanted.

After the exhaustion of each day, during my rest time at night, I would always open my streaming app to watch the exciting lives of others.

Especially the pretty young ladies who could sing and dance, and who liked to secretly provide "benefits" in the dead of night at the risk of getting their accounts banned...

My hobbies are just that shallow; I don't have any high-end tastes. As long as it makes me feel happy during my rest time after a tiring day, I like it.

In fact, I really envy those big streamers, especially the ones I witnessed growing from nobodies into big streamers with monthly incomes of millions.

They started from zero, and now they buy luxury homes and cars, living the life I can only dream of.

So, I often had the thought of becoming a streamer myself to make money.

However, I knew I wasn't cut out for it. I had no looks, no talent, and my age couldn't keep up with the trends. It was completely impossible to carve out a path to wealth among the army of streamers.

But I still held onto the dream of being a big streamer.

An accidental discovery finally set me on the path to becoming one.

Recently, discussions about various supernatural and mysterious events have become popular online, with a large number of netizens talking about this content every day. Netizens often ask online if anyone is from a special department and can leak some inside information.

This showed me a business opportunity.

If I took advantage of this trend to set up an exorcism stream, it would definitely be profitable.

And this type of content was exactly what I was good at.

No sooner said than done, I took out my savings to buy a series of streaming equipment and prepared to start my first broadcast.

As someone who watches streams often, I knew very well that for streaming, a persona is very important.

After spending three months searching, organizing, and memorizing a large amount of exorcism material online, I decided to present myself to netizens as an exorcist Taoist. This way, I could ride the trend while satisfying the netizens' curiosity about mysterious supernatural events, allowing me to accumulate fans quickly.

My first livestream took place in a deserted graveyard.

I donned my Taoist robe, grabbed the soul-snatching bell, peach-wood sword, and exorcism talismans I'd bought online, and began to put on a show of exorcising ghosts.

It was my first time on camera, and although only a handful of netizens were watching, I was incredibly nervous and kept making mistakes.

My first exorcism adventure performance ended in failure, and the few comments in the chat were all mocking me for being fake.

But I didn't give up.

I was sick of the day-to-day monotony; I wanted to make big money and live a good life.

In subsequent exorcism livestreams, my popularity grew slowly, but I had already learned to face the camera with ease and interact with the viewers, showing clear improvement.

However, my livestreaming soon hit a bottleneck.

Although I had a steady audience of several hundred people every time I went live, the comments in the chat were always saying that I was putting on an act, that the content was boring, and that I was deliberately manufacturing scares—it didn't feel real at all.

To solve this, I began to think about how to improve the quality of my streams, give the audience more sense of participation, and make the content feel authentic.

After asking a few big streamers for advice, I found a solution.

Every previous stream had been a one-man show; naturally, the viewers got bored after watching it too many times. Moreover, there were no "evil spirits" in the exorcism streams that they actually wanted to see, making the content hollow and fake.

Therefore, how to make "evil spirits" appear in the stream was the urgent problem I needed to solve.

Naturally, I couldn't go out and find real evil spirits—I wasn't even sure if they existed—so I thought of hiring extras to cooperate with me in an exorcism performance.

A stream like that would definitely have something worth watching!

As it turned out, my decision was correct.

The first stream of this new format began after I and three extras had memorized the script.

There were three extras in total, whom I had hired for one hundred yuan a day to play the family members.

One extra played the possessed son, the other two played his family, and I, naturally, played the Taoist priest specifically invited to perform the exorcism.

Throughout the exorcism, I waved my peach-wood sword and shouted exorcism chants from time to time, while the extra playing the possessed person reacted to my performance, alternating between ferocious shouting and calm. In the end, the evil spirit was naturally dispelled, he returned to normal, and then he pretended to be unaware of what had happened. After being filled in, he and his family were tearfully grateful to me.

My popularity soared during this stream. Although the vast majority of comments questioned the authenticity of the content, that didn't matter—I wanted the traffic.

Having tasted success, I completely changed my streaming style, and every subsequent stream followed a script.

My popularity surged with each broadcast. Many forums often had users discussing my content, and some even edited clips of our streams and posted them on various short-video websites.

I accumulated a massive following in a short amount of time.

As of now, my channel has nearly a million followers, and the number of concurrent viewers per stream is stable at around 200,000.

I am one step closer to my dream.

With one more high-quality stream, I will become a streamer with a million followers, and my market value will increase significantly once I cross that threshold. The future looks bright.

To ensure everything went perfectly for this stream, I chose the exorcism script I was most skilled at.

After finishing the new script with the extras, I prepared a series of props to use for the stream.

Exorcism talismans, a peach-wood sword, cinnabar, a bronze mirror, black dog blood, and so on...

I chose to stream at night.

That evening, I arrived at the rented house and opened the streaming app before stepping through the door.

The viewer count in the top right corner rose at a visible rate as soon as the stream started.

I glanced at the rapidly increasing chat, greeted the audience with a smile, explained the content for the day, and turned to knock on the door.

A moment later, the door opened. Extra Number One greeted me politely and invited me inside.

After the scripted round of questioning, I followed Extra Number One into the bedroom. The "possessed" Extra Number Two was lying flat on the bed, his hands chained to the headboard. Despite the sweltering heat, he was covered in a thick quilt, his face deathly pale, his body trembling.

Good acting, I thought with a knowing smile, then set down my bag and took out the exorcism props one by one.

At this moment, Extra Number One asked nervously:

"Daoist, what exactly is wrong with my son? The hospital couldn't find anything wrong!"

I listened, fixed my gaze on Extra Number Two, observed him for a moment with a feigned air of expertise, and then mused:

"It is indeed possession, but do not worry—I can handle it!"

"Daoist, you must save my son..."

Following the scripted dialogue, I gave my assurances, Extra Number One thanked me repeatedly, and then stepped aside.

Next came the exorcism, the part the viewers were most looking forward to.