Chapter 186: Spirit Exploration Live Room

The dark sky was crimson.

The strange light shone through the glass, making the gaps between the tiles on the first floor of the mall look like dark bloodstains.

Yuan Chi sat in the shopping cart holding a few empty bottles, stretching his head to look around, trying to find Xu Zhiyan among the messy shelves.

"boom--"

A fire started.

The human-shaped stand glared angrily at the front in the fire, but was soon swallowed up by the flames.

Xu Zhiyan clapped his hands, picked up the yellow duck backpack, and took away all the microwave ovens behind the sign, leaving only a row of empty shelves.

By the time he had looted almost everything that could be taken away from the entire first floor, it was already past eight in the morning.

The red light outside the glass door became increasingly brighter.

In the grain and oil area, Xu Zhiyan took out a folding bed from his bag and threw some bedding into the shopping cart: "Take out two sets, let's take a break."

Yuan Chi took the summer quilt wrapped in the bag honestly, looked at Xu Zhiyan carefully, and finally asked nervously.

"Boss Xu, do you want to charge for this quilt?"

"Why would you think that of me? Of course not! It's a free benefit for you as a customer."

Xu Zhiyan, who had just finished the search, was in a good mood and did not care about the inventory of one or two sets of bedding.

After some operations, he made a lot of money. Although most of the things in this supermarket were food, which had been moldy and spoiled, there were still a lot of usable things.

But Yuan Chi's condition is not very good.

His body kept dropping biscuit crumbs, and it seemed to be a condition that was spreading continuously. During this period, they tried it and found that drinking water could slow down the speed of biscuitization, but the effect was not too obvious.

Xu Zhiyan wasn't sure if Yuan Chi could hold on if things continued like this.

After setting up the bed, he helped Yuan Chi from the shopping cart onto the bed, took out a small gray pillow no bigger than a palm from his bag, and handed it to him.

Although the pillow was not moldy, Yuan Chi still smelled a gloomy musty smell when he took the pillow.

Unlike the musty smell in the copy, the musty smell of this pillow is not the smell of active mold, but more like it is tainted with some kind of decaying power.

But when the pillow's properties appeared in his hand, Yuan Chi's eyes suddenly widened.

"A pillow that smells terrible... but it seems to have magical effects. Resting on it can stop your wound from getting worse?! What?"

He read out the introduction to the terrible pillow, and at the end his voice suddenly rose a little.

After saying this, he seemed to react and quickly covered his mouth.

A few seconds later, Yuan Chi seemed to come back to life and looked at Xu Zhiyan with tears in his eyes.

"Boss Xu, how much is this?"

Ever since he was rejected for offering to meet someone in person, Yuan Chi realized that it would be difficult for him to make a living by relying on his looks in this life, so he decided to just pay the money honestly.

Seeing that the other party was so understanding, Xu Zhiyan scratched his hair and politely declined the reward.

"No need. The lighter prop you just gave me is very good and quite useful. We are even now."

Yuan Chi had mentioned before that he wanted to pay for one more prop, but considering that Xu Zhiyan would be going upstairs in a while and might come across those clothes, Yuan Chi reluctantly gave up his lighter to the other party.

[Name: Lighter (evil)]

[Level: A]

[Type: A lighter that stores the fire of sin. It can ignite the guilty. The innocent will not be burned and can be easily extinguished.]

[Introduction: The greater the sin, the more vigorous the fire, but it is suppressed by the level, and it is ineffective against monsters with higher levels than this item. ]

【Notes: Be careful not to burn yourself. 】

[Spiritual Threshold Limit: 60]

Very suitable for use in dark places with monsters around, but may not be suitable for wilderness survival.

Although Xu Zhiyan doesn't have much conscience, Yuan Chi has always been generous in paying, so he is willing to lend a hand and demonstrate the usefulness of the new safe house product.

"The injuries on your body are rather strange. If we calculate according to the city rules you have obtained, then you will probably have to return to the rental house to purify them."

Yuan Chi did try some treatment drugs, but they were all useless.

He was losing sensation, especially in his wrists and knees.

Now he just lay down, with his head resting on this lousy pillow, and he felt as if his body was still conscious and was not getting any worse.

"Wuwuwu Brother Xu, you are my real father."

Finally freed from the fear of his body being eroded, Yuan Chi wiped away his tears and lay there very obediently. If he didn't have to touch the pillow, he would even have remembered to kowtow to Xu Zhiyan.

Looking at Yuan Chi whose injuries had stopped worsening, Xu Zhiyan crossed his arms and listened to the other party's flattery for a while before he slowly opened his mouth to advertise the safe house.

"This is something from the safe house. Someone gave it to me. It doesn't seem to be expensive."

He feels like a live-streaming host.

However, the effect was very significant. With Yuan Chi's real-life demonstration, the barrage of comments in Xu Zhiyan's live broadcast room began to flash.

【??? What the hell?】

[Safe house? Is it the safe house in that dungeon? They actually started selling healing items there? ]

[What the hell! This pillow is great. I thought the safe house only sold soup and candy.]

[It was updated before. I saw someone used it in a dungeon. Maybe it’s a new product for sale? How much is it? ]

[Ahhh, I want to know how much it is! And it looks like it is produced in batches. ]

[This should be quite expensive, since it is a healing item.]

[Not necessarily. Other products in the safe house are cheaper than those sold in the system mall. I see someone is already selling them in the dungeon...]

Just as Xu Zhiyan expected.

This pillow, which can stop injuries from getting worse, immediately sparked the audience's desire to buy it.

Everyone kept saying that as long as it wasn't outrageously expensive, they would definitely buy one.

The low-priced supplies that he had worked so hard to develop before also successfully opened up sales and gradually developed in a good direction.

Yuan Chi lay there for a while, and when he saw Xu Zhiyan sitting on a cushion on the ground, he asked curiously, "Boss Xu, didn't you say you were going to the second floor to get some appliances?"

"Yes, but not now." Xu Zhiyan nodded.

Now that he knew that the most dangerous place in the building was the third floor and the first floor was the safest place, he decided to sweep the second floor before dark without planning to explore the third floor.

Even if something happens, we can leave here directly since the sun is setting soon.

But it's only morning now, so it's still early.

Seeing that the client's life was saved, the guaranteed profit from the first floor was in his pocket, and the location of the two was relatively safe, Xu Zhiyan finally relaxed a little, sat cross-legged on the cushion and began to play with his phone.

First up is Task 4.

[Main Quest [Part 1]: Start the live broadcast of ghost hunting. ]

[Task 4: Become a popular anchor in the Soul Tan live broadcast room]

[Progress: 100%]

[Note: Congratulations on completing your first round of live broadcasts. This proves that you have the basic qualifications for live broadcasts, but this alone is not enough! As a live broadcaster, how can you not pursue popularity? Please complete a live broadcast with a popularity value of more than 10,000 as soon as possible! ]

[Reward: 88888 points]

Xu Zhiyan was not surprised at all that he successfully received the highest level reward.

Every time a viewer enters the live broadcast room, one point of popularity will be accumulated. If the viewer watches the live broadcast for more than one hour, ten points of popularity will be awarded.

All it takes is a thousand viewers watching for one hour to accomplish the task.

Previously, only part of the content about ghost marriage was broadcast live. Although there were not many viewers, Xu Zhiyan had already gained a popularity score of over 2,000 and it was still rising.

After experiencing the Ghost School Bus, the number of viewers in his live broadcast room reached a terrifying level. Even if he divided it in half to Yu Xiu, the remaining number plus the previous ones would be enough to make his position as the most popular king unshakable.

Thinking of the side quest, Xu Zhiyan clicked on the popularity ranking.

[First place: Live broadcast room 02]

[Second place: Live broadcast room No. 16]

【Third place: Live broadcast room No. 05】

[Fourth place: Live broadcast room No. 13]

The top three were no surprise.

Chang Xingwei, who used unfair means to attract audiences, was targeted by the system but still won third place.

However, what shocked Xu Zhiyan was that Yuan Chi actually got fourth place.

"Of course. I was just wondering what you would do if you don't have money to compensate the system." Xu Zhiyan joked.

Yuan Chi scratched his head in embarrassment.

"Boss Xu, please don't laugh at me. I really worked from 10 o'clock to dawn to maintain this popularity. The level of weirdness in this mall seems to be quite high."

This shopping mall was a place he had carefully selected to ensure that there were enough rules.

However, what surprised the two was that after completing Task 4, the next task did not appear.

This is a bit abnormal.

In the past, after a mission was completed, the system would immediately issue a new mission to give players some time to prepare.

However, if the main system does not assign tasks, players can do nothing.

Xu Zhiyan clicked on the branch line.

【Congratulations on completing the second round of the popularity contest! 】

[First round of rewards: Popularity King (title) has been awarded]

[Second round of rewards: Popularity King (cloak) has been awarded]

[Third round reward: Popularity King (**)]

Xu Zhiyan frowned and brought up the system panel.

"Why are there asterisks? Is the game system stuck?" How else could this happen?

The game system's answer was somewhat unexpected.

[Because someone was detected cheating by bad means, the system has adjusted the release time of the next task. 】

"Adjustment? Chang Xingwei said half a month. You won't let us wait here for half a month, right?"

Having been targeted by the system many times, and even having the terrain forced to change by the system when the Night Diao Ren Dam was blown up, Xu Zhiyan immediately guessed that the main system was trying to cause trouble.

I don't know if Xu Zhiyan was more honest this time and was only concerned with making money without showing any aggressiveness, so the system that talked to him this time was relatively gentle and answered everything he said.

【Players, please rest assured that there is nothing unusual for you. 】

After answering, the panel disappears.

Xu Zhiyan sighed deeply.

Yuan Chi didn't understand.

"Boss Xu, why are you sighing?" He thought the system's answer was pretty good, didn't he? Anyway, he would just play the game the way the system arranged it.

"What a loss, what a loss." Xu Zhiyan looked sad.

Seeing Yuan Chi's curious expression, he patiently explained.

"Everyone should know what Chang Xingwei did. He used bad means to get the third place. The main system wants to punish him this time because other players can follow suit."

If everyone takes advantage of loopholes and paints a rosy picture for the audience, then who will do the real ghost hunting live broadcast?

"So the system will let players stay in this instance for at least two weeks, which means we may have to stay here for more than ten days."

However, judging from the reward mechanism of this live broadcast, the initial plan for this round of games cannot be extended beyond more than ten days.

"It's only the second day. Even if the players complete the live broadcast, as long as they don't reach the top popularity rankings, they will be deducted a lot of points." This is not cost-effective at all.

In the second round of live broadcast, everyone understood some of the rules, so the players who survived in the current round all reached a popularity value of 10,000, but the points that should be deducted were not reduced at all.

"This, but there's nothing wrong with this."

After listening to this, Yuan Chi still didn't understand why Xu Zhiyan was depressed.

Facing the confused expression of the cookie boy, Xu Zhiyan coughed lightly and simply and roughly expressed his regrets.

"The system doesn't arrange any missions that last more than ten days, but requires players to stay here for more than ten days. This is too dangerous for us! We need compensation!"

The young man who failed to get compensation looked regretful.

"But the system said it won't affect us, which means that in the next ten days, it will definitely adjust the copy flow rate instead of making us run around everywhere."

This is not a difficult task for the main game system.

"..." Yuan Chi stood there in a daze after hearing this.

What kind of logic is this?

Does not making any profit mean losing money?

The audience in the live broadcast room also shouted that it was shameless, and some of them almost fainted from laughing.

[Hahahahaha, Xiao Baiwan, you are really good. ]

[I think about taking some money from here and paying some money there every day. If I don’t get it, I will lose it hahahaha]

[Have you ever gone to see Chang Xingwei? He's quite interesting.]

[I've never heard of this person. He seems to be just an ordinary player. Or maybe he's too young. I guess he was rarely targeted by the system before? ]

[Hey, hey, he's not on the list of potential newcomers, nor is he on the ranking list. It seems that he doesn't even have any characteristics. Who knows who he is? ]

[That's true. I just went to Chang Xingwei's live broadcast room to check it out. He was about to collapse. It seemed that his attack power was not strong enough and he didn't want to enter the spirit exploration site again, so he gave himself such a bad trick.]

Xu Zhiyan looked at the time and found it was still early, so he simply asked Xiao Cuigu to take out the old newspapers and start reading.

Thinking of the production date on the snack bag, he asked Yuan Chi inconspicuously: "Did you get any information from the audience about how long this place has been closed?"

"That's what the audience said about half a year ago." Yuan Chi was also stuffed with a few newspapers to read.

Xu Zhiyan showed an expression that said "as expected" and said nothing more.

On the shelves of shopping malls, all the food has a production date of ten years ago, including those eye-catching bags of potato chips.

He sent another message to Yu Xiu, saying that he would wait until the sun sets before going back.

After putting away his phone, Xu Zhiyan couldn't sit still anymore, so he picked up his backpack and planned to go to the elevator to observe.

Near the elevator is the fresh food area, which has a lot of mold and a very pungent smell. There is also nothing to take, so I didn't explore it just now.

Just as expected, there was nothing around.

Looking at the escalator moving at a constant speed, Xu Zhiyan hesitated for a moment and still did not go up. Instead, he observed the sign for selling goods on the second floor.

"Washing machine, refrigerator, air conditioner, dishwasher, oven, radio..."

After looking around three times, he found a small problem: there were no products such as televisions, mobile phones, and computers.

He could understand that there were no mobile phones or computers, but why would a place that sold large appliances not have televisions? This was obviously unreasonable.

He had originally gone there for the TV, but now finding out there was no TV upstairs, Xu Zhiyan's heart felt as if it had been scratched by a cat, and he wished he could rush upstairs and take a look.

But for the sake of safety, he did not go up in the end. Instead, he turned around and found a relatively secluded place near the escalator. He quickly took out his mobile phone and started a live chat in the Tanling Live Room.

Yes, he calls this kind of live broadcast without camera and sound turned on a chat live broadcast.

[Host: Have you heard of Jiming Mall? Does it sell TVs?]

The audience appeared in a second and started to accuse.

[? ? Damn, anchor, you were already unprofessional enough not to show your face when you started the broadcast this morning, and now you don’t even turn on the sound! ? ]

[I laughed my ass off. I thought the anchor was going to work non-stop, but it turned out to be just a chat function.]

[Chatting is also possible! ]

[Jiming? The one that closed down half a year ago?]

Seeing that someone had brought up the topic, Xu Zhiyan quickly asked.

[Anchor: Yes, my friend said he bought his TV in this mall, but I don’t remember them selling TVs here.]

[Selling, selling, I remember that mall sold everything.]

[I also bought my TV there, on the second floor of the mall...]

Soon, Xu Zhiyan got the news he wanted.

After getting the answer, he seemed like a heartless scumbag and planned to shut down the live broadcast immediately.

But who knew that suddenly a strange red barrage would appear, mixed with a lot of dynamic special effects.

[(Rocket+500)X10(Green)]

[How much does it cost to meet offline? (green)]

It was clearly a red barrage, but there was a "green" word in brackets behind it.

“…”

Xu Zhiyan was dazzled by the ten rockets and had no time to think about what was going on with the barrage. He also hadn't checked the gift value.

[Gift value: 12701]

!!!

When did it change so much?

Without rushing to answer the rich audience's question, Xu Zhiyan quickly looked through the records and found that this audience with a different color barrage had already thrown him ten rockets last night.

Just when he was about to reply, his phone vibrated and a text message from his sister popped up in the upper pop-up window.

[Sister: Only green and black bullet screens are normal! ]

Xu Zhiyan lowered his eyes, holding the phone tightly in his palm until his knuckles turned slightly white.

Judging from what happened before, what my sister said is correct.

So this red message is…not normal?

What does abnormal mean?

Compared with the previous firm words "don't wait", the three words "abnormal" are not good words, but they don't seem to be completely bad.

Xu Zhiyan was a little unsure.

After checking the backstage records, he found that the audience who gave him the tip was the same guy who had previously reminded him that there was something wrong with the pedestrian on the road.

If the words turn green, it means it is safe and it will give you a prompt. It is a machine like a sister...

But it seems like it would be nice if it turned red?

These two red messages from this guy have already given him 10,000 gift points!

Regardless of whether the other party is a human or a ghost, the 10,000 gift points are definitely received. Xu Zhiyan tried it and found that it can indeed be exchanged according to the correct rules.

His profit-seeking nature made him purse his lips as he considered how to maximize the benefits of this abnormal Red Letter audience.

The other party looks very rich.

Last night he said he liked the gift, so this person gave him 5,000 yuan. Today, he paid enough money first before asking how much it would cost to meet offline.

Xu Zhiyan decisively clicked on the private chat of the audience with red words.

Considering security, he hesitated for a moment, clicked on the dialog box for exchanging the correct rules, and chose to ask questions.

[Red audience?]

If the gift value is high enough, he can get a recommended position. He plans to squeeze some gift value from this audience next, so whether this person is safe is particularly important.

But he only had one chance.

Whether asking the other person whether he is a human or a ghost, or asking whether the other person is safe, it seems very complicated.

So he wanted to try and see if he could find a bug in the rules.

But the result was unexpected.

Xu Zhiyan stood there in a daze, holding his phone.

【White Embers】

These two words, equally general, were not light in weight at all, and they set off huge waves in Xu Zhiyan's heart.

if……

If the person watching the live broadcast is Bai Jin, then who is the guy in his video tape?

Xu Zhiyan stood there, his brain spinning rapidly.

Thinking of the audience who were always there in the live broadcast room, and the unknown person in the videotape, he had a new guess.

Could it be that 'they' are the audience?

Or, what power was there in this city that existed ten years ago and divided humanity into two halves and two forms?

Half of them are the confused, unconscious and non-aggressive 'them', and the other half are the audience who are always online.

For several consecutive supernatural events, the time points given by the audience are mostly about half a year or a year ago, but when the players really enter, they can find out through various channels that this incident happened ten years ago.

The audience's consciousness is trapped in ten years ago.

They... no, they were contaminated along with the city.

No, it is not yet certain whether the viewers are watching the live broadcast in other places or their consciousness is trapped in the live broadcast room. Everything requires more detailed investigation.

The top priority right now is to get some gifts.

Xu Zhiyan typed something in the private chat dialog box.

[Calculated by minutes, depending on how long you want to see me. ]

If it's someone we know, it would be a big loss to just give him a flat price. Let's see if we can squeeze out more gifts.

When Xu Zhiyan learned that the person on the other side of the screen might be the other half of Xiao Touzi's body and also the sliced body of Party A, he did not feel any psychological pressure at all.

He is even more looking forward to meeting offline than the guy inside.

But before the other party could answer, Xu Zhiyan heard a crisp sound coming from the backpack behind him.

Thinking of a possibility, he turned around hastily, but bumped into a transparent and cold embrace.

A strange wet feeling came from the base of the ears.

Xu Zhiyan was locked up tightly, unable to move.

"...Little transparent?"

No, something's wrong.

The moist touch slid from the ears to the neck. The other party did not stop at all after hearing his voice.

Xu Zhiyan had to realize a very dangerous fact.

If the message is red, it means it is abnormal.

In other words, the current state of the slice is abnormal?

He thought of the previous messages and his heart tightened.

This abnormality may have started to appear last night, but at that time the other party only sent rockets and did not leave any further message, but today, he even asked questions.

The degree of abnormality is deepening.

What was even worse was that he discovered that there was more than one tongue licking him...

[It has only one tongue. If you discover it has two tongues when you are with it, please don't panic. Try to coax it to sleep. It will return to normal after you wake up.]

The transparent arms around his body were getting tighter and tighter. When Xu Zhiyan thought of the relevant rules, his eyes went dark and he almost passed out.

Shit! How can he get this guy to sleep now?