Sha Chuan

Biodata

Background

Sha Chuan used his girlfriend Xu Xue’s stolen Q University student ID in photographs to cultivate a prestigious academic image. When she confronted him, he deceived her; his subsequent attentiveness also persuaded her roommates to stop urging her to break up with him 45 46.

During their relationship, Sha Chuan psychologically manipulated Xu Xue. When he felt his control weakening, he arranged for his agency boss to sexually assault her in exchange for a top-tier S-class contract. He then persuaded her not to report the assault. The circumstances surrounding the assault and his manipulation were exposed after her death by suicide 49 50.

After Xu Xue’s death, Sha Chuan built an online persona as a grieving, devoted boyfriend. He used that image to attract wealthy women, secretly dating Lili, Xiao Mo, and Xinxin simultaneously while receiving money and luxury gifts from them 41.

Appearance

• Hair: Long, black, and smooth as silk 2.
• Face: Handsome, though less striking in person than in his heavily retouched photographs 2.
• Height: 1.8 meters 37.
• Deteriorating condition: By the second episode, he has a pale face, dark circles, and little yang energy. Qi Gu perceives thick black energy between his brows and dense yin energy surrounding him 33.

Personality

Sha Chuan carefully stages his behavior for an audience. He volunteers to scout dangerous locations to appear dependable, performs grief to gain followers, and presents his continued participation despite poor health as professional dedication. His ambitions extend beyond his existing financial backers: he plans to discard his three girlfriends once fame gives him access to greater wealth and status 5 34 42.

His outward confidence contrasts with intense fear of ghosts. He initially dismisses Qi Gu’s protective methods rather than ask for instruction, but begs to learn them after encountering a spirit. He also redirects blame: he resents Qi Gu for identifying a dummy after his frightened reaction and later accuses him of stealing a sachet that actually floated downstream 5 6 9 56.

Sha Chuan prioritizes his own safety over others’. When he believes a ghost is following him upstairs, he deliberately rushes ahead so it will bother the people behind him instead 8.

Abilities & Skills

Protective Hand Seal and Incantation

Sha Chuan learns Qi Gu’s protective hand seal and sixteen-character incantation from Mu Xingchen after initially refusing instruction 7 9.

• Learning difficulty: He spends more than ten minutes struggling to memorize the short incantation 9.
• Initial effect: Reciting it produces warmth throughout his body 14.
• Limits: Its relief diminishes amid the health center’s denser yin energy. His contact with blood containing baleful energy further worsens his condition 14.

Online Image Management

• Romantic manipulation: Assigns his girlfriends separate video-call times, keeps each relationship secret, and adapts one woman’s affectionate messages for use with the others 41.
• Gift redistribution: Resells luxury gifts or passes them between girlfriends 41.
• Audience performance: Uses calculated expressions, statements, and microphone placement to make staged grief appear spontaneous 42 46.

Equipment / Items

• Qi Gu’s protective sachet: Emits golden light and destroys the ghostly hand drowning him in a stream. It then floats downstream unnoticed by Sha Chuan, who mistakenly believes he escaped through his own strength 37.
• Recording of Wei Cai: Keeps evidence of Wei Cai instructing him to target Qi Gu and uses it to demand a Shengshi Media contract 33.
• Designer clothing: Receives expensive clothes from his girlfriends. He retains his soaked outfit after the stream incident because it is too valuable to discard 56.

Relationships

• Qi Gu — Target of his attempts at sabotage. Despite Sha Chuan’s hostility, Qi Gu drives away a ghost following him and later warns him to withdraw from filming to preserve his life 8 33.
• Wei Cai — Offers him a chance to join Shengshi Media in exchange for discrediting Qi Gu. When Sha Chuan attempts blackmail, Wei Cai instead demands that he continue the scheme 4 33.
• Xu Xue — Deceased girlfriend whom he manipulated and betrayed. Her summoned spirit exposes the circumstances surrounding her death 49 50.
• Lili, Xiao Mo, and Xinxin — Simultaneous girlfriends and financial backers. After comparing evidence, they organize a livestream exposing his cheating 41 45.
• Jiang Huaguo — Xu Xue’s close friend and former roommate. Reveals his academic fraud and challenges his account of their relationship 45 46 47.
• Xu Xue’s parents — Remain in contact with him after their daughter’s death. Her father calls the police after hearing his confession 47 50.
• Mu Xingchen — Fellow guest who teaches him the protective incantation and later urges him to heed Qi Gu’s warning 9 34.
• Vivian — Wealthy fellow guest whose favor he tries to win by pressuring Lin Hanzhi to lend her his coat; she rejects the gesture 5.

Story Role / Major Arcs

Lotus Town Health Center

Sha Chuan joins Investigating the Strange with a private incentive to undermine Qi Gu: Wei Cai has promised him an opportunity at Shengshi Media. His attempt to establish a brave, reliable persona immediately falters when he screams at a registration-window dummy that Qi Gu calmly identifies as plastic 4 5.

Ignoring Qi Gu’s warning, he catches and sniffs a drop of sinister blood. A ghost subsequently follows him on the staircase until Qi Gu secretly repels it with spiritual light. Frightened into accepting protective instruction, Sha Chuan nevertheless continues blaming Qi Gu for his predicament 7 8 9.

His fear delays his consultation-room search even though no ghost attacks him there. After filming ends, he declines the group meal and leaves with black energy still coiling around him 14 19.

Return to Qingji Mountain

Sha Chuan returns for the second episode in visibly worse health after Wei Cai pressures him to continue targeting Qi Gu. Qi Gu warns that further exposure to yin-heavy locations could endanger his life, but Sha Chuan treats the advice as hostility and refuses to withdraw 33 34.

During the mountain climb, he spots an apparently valuable jadeite bangle in a stream. Suspecting Qi Gu wants it for himself, he ignores the warning to avoid the water and secretly retrieves it. The bangle becomes a ghostly hand and forces him underwater; Qi Gu’s sachet destroys it, saving him without his realizing what happened 36 37.

When viewers speculate that he entered the stream after seeing his deceased girlfriend, Sha Chuan accepts the opportunity to reinforce his devoted-boyfriend image 37 38 42.

Livestream Exposure and Confession

Qi Gu’s observation that Sha Chuan is unfaithful prompts Lili to investigate. She, Xiao Mo, and Xinxin compare their relationships, then launch a promoted exposé while Sha Chuan is receiving increased attention. Jiang Huaguo joins them and reveals his false Q University identity 38 41 45.

As accusations mount, Qi Gu identifies a karmic debt connected to a human life and offers to summon Xu Xue. Sha Chuan initially refuses to host her spirit, then agrees to avoid destroying his devoted-partner image. Speaking through his body, Xu Xue recounts the assault and his efforts to stop her from reporting it 47 48 49.

Xu Xue swallows the Judge of the Underworld’s Iron Pellet while possessing him. Its truth-compelling effect forces Sha Chuan to confess his arrangement with his boss and his intention to tighten his control over her. Xu Xue’s father reports him to the police 50.

Escape and Death

After Qi Gu removes the Iron Pellet, Song An has Sha Chuan restrained for delivery to the police. Sha Chuan knocks down the staff member holding his rope and flees into the forest rather than face imprisonment 52.

Alone, he discovers that his protective sachet is missing. Terrified of continuing down the mountain, he declares that he will pay any price to reach its foot safely. The Wish Ghost lifts him into the air, his body rapidly ages, and it drops him to his death—fulfilling only the destination of his request 56.

Song An later discovers his bloodied body at the mountain’s foot and calls the police. Although the Wish Ghost’s defeat reverses some surviving victims’ losses, it cannot restore Sha Chuan to life 61 64.