Shaken by the fantastical reality, Li Xiang took quite a while to recover, recalling something his old captain had once told him.
One year, while on duty, his old captain had received a report from a funeral home employee claiming that a corpse had been stolen.
But when he arrived and checked the surveillance footage, he discovered that the corpse had sat up in its refrigerated coffin, pushed aside the lid, and walked out on its own.
Li Xiang had guessed that perhaps the person had only appeared dead and had now revived.
But his old captain had looked at him with an extremely complicated expression and said, word by word, "The person really was dead. The way it walked in the footage was different from a normal person. Its knees were completely straight, without bending in the slightest... that was a dead body, through and through!"
His old captain had been badly frightened at the time. After returning, he reported the incident to the bureau chief, who only said that they could not handle the case and needed to transfer it to another department.
That department was the Anomalous Events Management Bureau.
Li Xiang had always thought his old captain had deliberately made up a story to tease him. He had never imagined... that such a department actually existed, and now a living, breathing member of that department was standing right before him!
Looking at the dazed Li Xiang, Pubu Gesang said bluntly, "What are you staring at it for? Hurry up and give me back my credentials."
"I've just never seen anything like it before. It's a novelty," Li Xiang said sincerely.
"Then let's wait here. We'll go in once they come out." Pubu Gesang pointed at the tent.
He had only just arrived himself and had not yet had a chance to look at the camera feed.
Pubu Gesang had originally planned to show off his skills, but before he even reached the health center, his captain called to tell him about the situation at the Lotus Town Health Center. He said Pubu Gesang only needed to go through the motions and wrap things up, since another colleague was already handling things inside.
Pubu Gesang was astonished. He knew that the people in the other teams were either in Western Hunan or Yunnan, or stationed in the capital and unable to leave. By rights, he should have been the only one nearby with any fighting ability.
Yet now his captain said there was already a colleague inside?
Who could it be?
Filled with curiosity, Pubu Gesang hurried over to the monitor, his short little legs pumping.
Then he saw a familiar, pale, handsome face on the screen.
His first reaction was, What was the demon king doing here???!!!
His second reaction was, Thank goodness I didn't go straight in, or I'd definitely get criticized for not following procedure and have my pay docked.
Just thinking about it made the flesh on Pubu Gesang's cheeks ache with phantom pain.
Seeing the corners of Pubu Gesang's mouth twitch slightly as he stared at the screen, Li Xiang grew nervous too. "What is it, sir? Is this going to be difficult to resolve? Should I call in more people?"
Pubu Gesang took a deep drag on his cigarette-scratch that, lollipop. His little face was filled with solemnity and the pain every working stiff understood, while his voice was childish. "Just thought of my asshole boss. It's annoying."
Watching the boyish-faced Pubu Gesang suddenly utter such world-weary words, Li Xiang was speechless. "..."
It was just so utterly incongruous.
Qi Gu glanced at the talisman in Hua Yun's hand, then took it to examine it.
It was clearly drawn by a Taoist priest with extremely solid fundamentals and considerable cultivation... otherwise, it could not have maintained its seal for years in a place so thick with yin energy.
With a whoosh, a red flame with flickering tongues sprang up in Qi Gu's fair palm. His expression remained calm as he watched the flame burn the talisman away, reducing it to a pile of ash.
The next moment, nine transparent spirits appeared in the air.
Each was twisted in a different way. Clearly, they had all suffered a great deal of torment before death.
"Auntie Li, Auntie Wang, Uncle Gu... Taoist priest, you're all back!" Hua Yun hurriedly floated over, only to be pulled into the arms of several of her elders.
"Xiaoyun, what year is it now... have we been saved?" asked the Taoist priest, the first to react.
"It's been three years since you were sealed away. We've been saved now. This master was the one who released you. And Diao Huaqing-the master worked out his exact location, and the police have already gone to arrest him. This time, he won't get away!" At the mention of Diao Huaqing's name, blood began filling Hua Yun's eyes again.
"Really? That's... wonderful."
"Once Diao Huaqing is caught, we'll be able to reincarnate, won't we?"
"I wonder if we can say a few last words to our families before the underworld officers come to take us away for reincarnation. Sigh."
Ghosts and humans did not share a language. All their current conversation sounded to the livestream viewers like one strange cry after another.
Only those with sufficient cultivation, or those who had specifically studied the language of ghosts, could understand what they said.
[Ten ghosts. Ten whole lives! I hope the police catch Diao Huaqing soon and sentence that thing to death!]
[At times like this, I really miss all those ancient tortures. I don't want an evil person like that to get such a quick death.]
[I was just about to ask why Hua Yun kept making those strange sounds... now that I've seen her going back and forth with the other ghosts, I get it. Those strange sounds must be the language ghosts use with each other.]
[No wonder they say humans and ghosts walk different paths. So once people die and become ghosts, even their language changes.]
[Sigh... if only we could understand them. Then Hua Yun could say something to her grandma again on the livestream.]
[After all these years, they must all have so much they want to say to their families, right?]
[Qi Gu can understand ghost language, right? He didn't seem to have any trouble communicating with Hua Yun earlier. If he could just translate for them, wouldn't that work?]
Some of the victims' relatives had already come to wait in the livestream after friends and family alerted them that the ID cards seemed to belong to their missing loved ones. Now, seeing their loved ones appear in such tormented states, every one of them was sobbing in front of their screen.
If-if Qi Gu could let their loved ones say something to them...
They would give him anything he wanted!!!
With that thought in mind, one relative whose finances had since improved tapped the livestream's donation button and sent a message board worth ten thousand yuan, saying, "Qi Gu, do you have a way to let my mom say something to me again?"
The other victims' relatives followed suit with donations.
Colorful effects immediately burst across the livestream's previously dark, gloomy picture.
The livestream had originally been nearing its end, and the production team had only received a little over four hundred yuan in gifts altogether. After all, most viewers had initially come to watch the show to hurl abuse at Qi Gu. Why would they send gifts to the livestream?
With this wave of gifts from the families, the livestream's total donations exceeded a hundred thousand yuan, taking it straight to the top of the donation rankings on the streaming platform called Snowflake and onto the homepage leaderboard.
Huge numbers of new viewers flooded in.
[A paranormal livestream with a hundred thousand in donations? Did the streamer grit their teeth and go dancing on someone's grave?]
[Holy shit, what kind of effects are these? Why are there so many transparent ghost things floating around?]
[They don't look like special effects...]
The new viewers were so stunned by what they saw that they involuntarily stopped themselves from swiping away.
Then they glanced at the comments... why was everyone begging the streamer to let their loved ones say something to them?
Was it really this bizarre?
Normally, viewers might swipe straight past a bizarre livestream, but when it was this bizarre, they really wanted to get a taste.
Before you continue