Unlike during the first episode, when no one knew what Qi Gu could do, this time, before Sha Chuan could speak again, director Song An said to him first, "Sha Chuan, since Master Qi has said so, perhaps you should..."
He did not want anything to happen to Sha Chuan on his show, either.
Mu Xingchen also said, "Exactly, staying alive matters more. My master-my future master is really capable. Since even he said that, you should give it some thought."
Sha Chuan had not expected the production team and guests to trust Qi Gu to such an extent. His face darkened, but he still felt that Qi Gu must have said that to get back at him, so he forced a pale smile. "I'm fine. I really can keep going. Besides, filming is about to start. I wouldn't want to leave the production team short of a guest."
He looked thoroughly dedicated to his work, unwilling to cause trouble for the production team.
[Aw, Sha Chuan looks kind of pitiful. Just one word from Qi Gu, and everyone's trying to get him to quit the show.]
[Even the best masters can make mistakes, right? The production team really doesn't need to put Qi Gu on such a pedestal.]
[Sha Chuan really is so dedicated. He looks awful, but he's still worrying about the production team's work.]
Some new fans had not watched the first episode. Seeing Sha Chuan like this, they could not help feeling sorry for him.
When Sha Chuan insisted, the others stopped trying to persuade him and instead followed the schedule, introducing themselves to the camera.
After introducing himself, Mu Xingchen hovered around Qi Gu. "Master, when will the renovations at Floating Mist Temple be finished? Can you give us a spoiler?"
As Qi Gu's chief prospective disciple, he naturally had to be there on the first day his master's temple opened, so he needed to clear his schedule in advance.
Qi Gu said, "Another week."
Renovating a wooden house was much faster than renovating a concrete one.
"Great! I'll definitely come to support you!" Mu Xingchen's eyes were full of anticipation.
"We have no formal master-disciple relationship. Just call me Qi Gu," Qi Gu reminded him.
"Yes, Master. Whatever you say!"
[LMAO, you can tell he absolutely adores him.]
[It'll open in just one more week?! Quietly opening my app to snap up tickets to Floating Mist Temple.]
[Me too.]
[Sneaky! I'm buying some too!]
Pubu Gesang wore a little suit with shorts, looking adorable with his short arms and legs. He gave a cool, formal introduction. "Hello, everyone. My name is Pubu Gesang. I'm a para... a metaphysics enthusiast."
His little face was expressionless, but his chubby cheeks made him look just like Crayon Shin-chan, pushing the viewers' urge to squish the child to its peak.
[Oh my god, those cheeks are so round and chubby. I want to take a bite!]
[LMAO, he's so funny introducing himself all seriously.]
[A metaphysics enthusiast? A kid this young already practices metaphysics?]
[The despair of not being able to reach through the screen and pinch his cheeks.]
[Ah, but still, if something scary shows up later, it wouldn't be good for such a little kid to see it, right?]
[Quietly seconding that.]
[What was the production team thinking? His parents actually agreed to this?]
[His name sounds Tibetan. Maybe the adults there don't mind this sort of thing as much?]
Discussions about Pubu Gesang flew across the live comments, most of them expressing concern for him.
But Qi Gu could see the golden radiance enveloping Pubu Gesang and knew that this child might have seen more of the world than all the viewers in front of their screens combined.
But why had the broadcasting authority agreed to let a child take part in a paranormal reality show?
The question flashed through Qi Gu's mind.
Once everyone had finished introducing themselves in turn, Mu Xingchen said, "Director, let's check in and put our things away first. It's inconvenient to keep carrying them."
Only then did Qi Gu notice that the luggage of the guests who had arrived earlier was still sitting on a luggage rack at one side of the hotel, rather than having been taken to their rooms.
Song An said, "Who said we were staying here?"
The guests: ???
You'd been filming on the ground floor of their hotel for ages. What did you think?
Song An said, "Oh, I forgot to tell you. I rented this floor for half a day to film everyone gathering, but we're not actually staying here."
[? I have a feeling the production team is about to stir things up.]
[Why did this suddenly go from a paranormal show to a prank show? Hahahahaha.]
[Wait, why are you only telling them now? Qi Gu's eyes have been lingering on the hotel's fruit platter for ages. LMAO.]
[I noticed too. Ten times in three minutes.]
In the end, the unscrupulous production team herded all the guests onto the bus they had planned to use all along.
Seated on the bus, Mu Xingchen asked in confusion, "We still have to take a bus to get there? On my way here, that guesthouse hotel seemed to be the only one nearby."
"I didn't see any others, either."
"Strange..."
Song An said ominously, "Of course you didn't. I never said we'd have a hotel to stay in."
"This time, we'll be filming a nighttime climb up Qingji Mountain," Song An said. "Not long ago, a hiker posted on a hiking forum about an eerie incident he encountered while climbing Qingji Mountain at night. But because his descriptions and wording were so exaggerated, hardly anyone believed him. Some even chose to climb Qingji Mountain at night to prove he was lying... The group quickly assembled and began posting live updates of their entire climb on the forum. Other users enthusiastically left comments, and the group was very active in replying. But late that night, the thread took an eerie turn."
The control crew displayed several screenshots from the forum on the screen.
[Hiker123: Almost at the summit. There's been nothing along the way. Sure enough, it was all made up to fool people.]
[Hiker124: Exactly. And this mountain is pretty quick to climb. We reached the summit in just four hours. That's even faster than my previous record.]
[User111: Huh? But given Qingji Mountain's height, how could you possibly reach the summit in four hours? Come on, stop joking. (Screenshot of Qingji Mountain's elevation)]
[Hiker124: But we really did reach the summit.]
As Hiker124 said this, he also posted a photo of their shadows taken while they stood at the summit.
User111 casually clicked it open and cried out in shock.
[User111: Didn't five of you go together? Why are there six shadows on the ground?!]
The other users also noticed this discrepancy, and it sent chills down their spines in the middle of the night.
After User111 pointed this out, however, those five hikers never posted another word, as though they had vanished into thin air.
For a time, theories abounded on the forum. Some said that the first hiker who claimed there had been a paranormal incident on Qingji Mountain was not actually human, but a ghost in the mountain. It had deliberately said this to lure curious people onto Qingji Mountain. The extra shadow belonged to that first hiker, who had slipped unnoticed into the group and attacked the five-person team.
Others said it was a staged prank, something internet users with too much time on their hands had cooked up.
Speculation abounded, but there was never any solid evidence to support it. Gradually, fewer people discussed it, until five days ago, when the police announced that five bodies had been found at the foot of Qingji Mountain.
The police gave the cause of death as follows: the five had no experience hiking at night, had taken the wrong path, and had tried to pull one another to safety, ultimately falling off a cliff to their deaths.
But this conclusion failed to convince the hikers who had been on the forum at the time-the forum was small, and most members knew one another well. They knew perfectly well that all five people who had climbed Qingji Mountain that night were experienced mountaineers. There was no way all five could have made such a basic mistake together!
Before you continue