6.
Kim So So kept bragging about who she was. I tried to put up with it, thinking only of my master’s warning: “Be humble when you’re out in the world. Don’t reveal your identity.”
But she really was bragging too much.
“My master is so good to me. Whenever he gets something new, he sends it right over. I almost feel bad.”
“Wow, does Dương Thiệu like you?”
“No, no, don’t say things like that.”
Kim So So blushed and tried to look shy. “We’re just… just…”
She stammered for a long time, and the more she said, the more obvious her attempt to cover things up became.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t let someone like her remain in my sect!
I cut her off. “I’m Dương Thiệu’s master, but I’ve never heard him mention you.”
All the guests fell silent. They looked at me as one, their expressions seeming to say, “Are you crazy?”
“Trần Tuyết Điềm, how old are you this year?”
I answered, “Twenty-two.”
“I remember Dương Thiệu is twenty-eight this year. You’re six years younger than him, yet you’re his master? Do you think we’re stupid?”
“Exactly.” Kim So So seemed to have just been enlightened, and sneered.
“You sure know how to flatter yourself. You couldn’t even touch a hair on my master’s head.”
I calmly said, “I joined the sect when I was seven, and by the time I was ten, I’d already taken Dương Thiệu as my disciple. He was sixteen when I accepted him. What’s the problem?”
No matter what I said, they didn’t believe me. Instead, they just laughed even louder.
At last, a question broke the tension: “Where’s Qi Meng? Has anyone seen her?”
“How did she disappear?”
7.
Just moments ago, Qi Meng had been here mocking me. But in the blink of an eye, she’d disappeared.
At the same time, the sun had set.
I suddenly remembered the time on the gravestone…
“Oh no, something may have happened to Qi Meng.”
“What?”
“The gravestone with Qi Meng’s name on it said she would die tonight!”
The guests shuddered.
Kim So So froze for a few seconds, then scolded me. “Trần Tuyết Điềm, could you stop being so cruel? Qi Meng is your teammate, after all. Do you really have to curse her like that?”
“That’s right, that’s right.”
The tense atmosphere suddenly eased. Everyone believed Kim So So.
We decided to split into two groups to look for Qi Meng. Kim So So led one group, while I went alone. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to take them with me; Kim So So insisted on not going with me. The other guests followed her, leaving me isolated again.
But I didn’t care. I might even be more effective on my own.
Twenty minutes later, I found Qi Meng. She was inside an abandoned clinic in the village.
Though it was still early evening, darkness had already enveloped everything. The little clinic was gloomy, with rusty medical equipment and strange bloodstains scattered across the floor.
Qi Meng was squatting inside, picking food up off the floor. Hearing my footsteps, she turned her head. Her body didn’t move; she was still facing away from me, but her head had turned 180 degrees to stare at me.
She grinned, her mouth stretching all the way to her ears. It was horrifying.
“Hey!”
I politely greeted her. “Do you know you’re really ugly?”
8.
“Qi Meng”: ?
It was taken aback for a moment. But it reacted quickly. Before I had time to think, “Qi Meng” suddenly lunged at me!
Her body, possessed by an evil spirit, had become completely deformed. She could only crawl along the ground on all fours, like a giant worm with a human head, moving incredibly fast.
In the blink of an eye, it was right in front of me. But at that very moment, I softly murmured, “You really are…”
“Incredibly ugly.”
“Qi Meng”: …
“You must be pretty insecure, huh? Have your own kind ever shunned you because of how you look?”
“No need to answer. I can guess. A demon like you, scavenging for food among corpses here, must be looked down on terribly.”
“Poor thing. Other demons absorb spiritual energy and eat the living, while you only eat rotten corpses.”
“Aw, sweetie, they’re bullying you.”
After a string of taunts.
“Qi Meng” was practically going mad, but it realized it couldn’t move.
It had somehow been immobilized by me.
Its ugly face showed three parts confusion, three parts shock, and four parts unwillingness to accept defeat.
It looked even more like a pie chart than an overbearing CEO.
I smiled and said, “My words are spells; everything I say carries spiritual power. Now do you know who I am?”
The expression on “Qi Meng’s” face vanished.
This demon wasn’t very powerful and didn’t know how to speak yet.
But its eyes and actions gave everything away. Its whole body trembled, and its pale face was filled with fear.
It was so frightened that it had even forgotten to fight back.
I raised my hand and gently clenched it from a distance. “Get out of here.”
It let out a miserable scream, then vanished from Qi Meng’s body.
The demonic aura filling the little clinic also dissipated.
I shrugged and grumbled, “That wasn’t interesting at all. I didn’t even get warmed up.”
But at that moment, I had no idea that filming had never stopped.
Everything was being livestreamed to the broadcast room through hidden cameras.
9.
While all the guests were unaware, the show continued broadcasting.
And it became the most-watched livestream in the world.
When the guests lost contact, their fans brought the video platform and social media to a complete standstill.
[Why are you still filming? Go rescue them already!]
The production team was at its wit’s end, too.
They couldn’t understand why they couldn’t contact us, while the broadcast was still going.
The production team went deeper into the abandoned village and reached the base camp.
There were only empty tents. Not a soul was in sight.
Yet on the other end of the broadcast, Kim So So and the others were clearly making fun of me in front of the tent!
The parallel-world theory immediately became a hot topic.
One prominent scholar even posted a lengthy analysis of the theory.
Quite a few people watched coldly and said, [This is definitely a publicity stunt by the show and its guests.]
But gradually, they realized something was wrong.
The guests, especially Kim So So and Qi Meng, had torn off the masks they’d worn to hide their true characters.
Bullying their teammates, acting selfishly, forming cliques, and all their other vile behavior had been exposed for everyone to see.
It was the complete opposite of the gentle, kind images they’d shown before.
But even now, some fans were still defending them:
[This is all Trần Tuyết Điềm’s fault! What the hell was she thinking, cursing people to die? Who else would they isolate if not her?]
[So So was just standing up for what’s right. The world needs more people like her!]
[Oh my god, my So So is Dương Thiệu’s disciple! That’s amazing!]
[A powerhouse in the occult world and a beautiful celebrity—this is exactly my kind of pairing.]
[I really like this future brother-in-law!]
However.
After I dealt with “Qi Meng” in just three minutes, the online comments exploded:
[Wait, weren’t we saying Trần Tuyết Điềm was a fraud???]
[She probably just got lucky…]
[I need to know—which great master in the occult world can make words into law?]
The speculation reached a second peak when Dương Thiệu posted on Weibo:
[Trần Tuyết Điềm is my master.]
[I don’t know Kim So So.]
Just two sentences, and the livestream room crashed all over again.
I only learned all this after I left the abandoned village.
10.
Right now, Qi Meng is unconscious.
I left her beneath a tree and went back to the clinic to investigate again.
Had something been wrong with this abandoned village all along, or had the problem only started after we arrived?
I tried to find some kind of clue.
When I returned to the tree, I was surprised to find that Qi Meng had vanished.
There was no demonic energy around.
I’d just saved her, and my spiritual energy was still protecting her body. No ghost could have gotten near her.
So she must have woken up on her own and left.
Still puzzled, I returned to the main camp.
Kim So So was back.
The other guests had gathered around her.
Everyone was looking at her with reverence.
“Trần Tuyết Điềm, get over here and apologize to Master Kim.”
“Apologize for what?”
“You insulted Master Kim this afternoon. Apologize now, and maybe she’ll forgive you.”
I didn’t understand.
Why were they suddenly calling her “Master Kim”?
Before long, I spotted Qi Meng lying behind them.
She was still unconscious.
“Qi Meng? Why is she…”
I hadn’t even finished speaking.
When someone beside me answered my question: “Master Kim is the one who saved Qi Meng!”