Chapter 8

Chapter 8

The camera cut to Chen Zhen.

Several people were sitting on the ground, pulling water and snacks from their backpacks, eating while they chatted.

At their feet, Ghost Mushrooms were in full bloom. The comedian Wang Qiang plucked one, made a goofy face, and stuffed it into his mouth. After chewing twice, he spat it out with a grimace.

“Friends in the audience, this mushroom tastes terrible. It has a rotten stench, ugh-”

Bullet Comments: “Haha, the other stream said these Nine Demon Mushrooms are poisonous and cause hallucinations.”

“I’m from Chuxiong City in Yunnan, and Nine Demon Mushrooms aren’t poisonous. They just don’t taste as good as Jianshouqing. But I don’t remember them having a stench; they’re like enoki mushrooms, pretty much tasteless.”

“Pfft, I really want to call Qiao Moyu over from the other stream to see what a real face-slapping looks like.”

The Bullet Comments flooded the screen as usual, but as Wang Qiang was laughing, his head suddenly slumped, and he went still.

After a moment of silence, he abruptly snapped his head up. With a distorted, savage expression, he lunged forward and locked his hands around the singer Zhou Zhou’s throat.

Sister Bai screamed in terror and scrambled to the side.

Bullet Comments: “Is Wang Qiang acting out a hallucination? My god, it looks so real, he gave me a heart attack.”

“As expected of a veteran actor, his acting skills are insane.”

Zhou Zhou’s eyes were already starting to roll back in his head. Realizing something was wrong, the Cameraman set his equipment aside and rushed in to help pull Wang Qiang off.

Wang Qiang spun around and began brawling with the Cameraman.

Zhou Zhou lay on the ground gasping for air. Sister Bai went over to help him up, but the moment she did, Zhou Zhou suddenly lunged at her and grabbed her by the throat.

Sister Bai shrieked, her eyes rolling back as she was strangled. Chen Zhen immediately rushed to help, and the scene descended into absolute chaos.

The Bullet Comments were uncharacteristically quiet.

It was a long time before someone tentatively posted:

“This… doesn’t look like acting?”

“Holy crap, Zhou Zhou picked up a rock to hit Sister Bai! Someone’s going to die! Someone get over there!”

“My god! Where are Lin Xin and the others? Hurry up and save them!”

“The person above, there’s no use worrying. Lin Xin and the others took a different path; there’s no way they’ll run into Sister Bai. It’s over, the production team is in deep trouble. Send someone now!”

On the screen, Zhou Zhou held Sister Bai in a firm grip with one hand while the other raised a sharp, triangular stone, aiming the jagged point right at her temple.

Everyone watching the screen held their breath, covering their mouths, too afraid to type or even blink.

At the critical moment, a backpack suddenly flew out of nowhere and slammed into Zhou Zhou.

The stone fell from his hand. He turned to glare at me, baring his teeth as he lunged toward me. I delivered a flying kick to his chest, but he seemed to feel nothing, opening his mouth to bite me.

Seeing that throat ‘kissed by an angel’ coming closer, I reached out in desperation and shoved Jiang Haoyan’s arm into his mouth.

Jiang Haoyan let out a pathetic wail. I took the opportunity to pin Zhou Zhou to the ground, then pulled a piece of Talisman Paper from my pocket and swiftly stuffed it into his mouth.

Nearby, Lin Xin had also brought Wang Qiang under control, pinning his arms behind his back while several girls cowered and screamed nearby.

I walked over and stuffed another piece of Talisman Paper into Wang Qiang’s mouth. Lin Xin frowned. “Qiao Moyu, they look like they have food poisoning. What are you feeding them?”

“A Clear Mind Talisman to suppress the dark poison of the Ghost Mushrooms.”

Lin Xin rolled his eyes in frustration. “What kind of time is this for you to be messing around?”

Just as he finished speaking, Wang Qiang suddenly gagged twice, and his expression gradually cleared.

“Zhou Xue? Why are you guys here?”

Zhou Zhou also shook his head, then pushed me away with a flushed face.

“Qiao Moyu, what do you think you’re doing in front of all these people?”

Everyone looked at the two of them in shock. “You’re okay? You’re back to normal?”

On the screen, the footage was completely buried by Bullet Comments.

“666, that actually worked? A Clear Mind Talisman? The production team is amazing.”

“I worried for nothing. This show is incredible; they must have spent a fortune. We clearly saw Qiao Moyu and the others take a different path, so how did they run into Lin Xin’s group? Was that path full of Ghost Mushrooms specially set up by the crew?”

“If you want to talk about the power of money, you have to look at Liu Xiong from Hong Kong.”

Lin Xin and the others clearly had similar thoughts to the audience-the path that suddenly sprouted Nine Demon Mushrooms, me conveniently finding Sister Bai and the others at the critical moment, and the ‘performances’ by Wang Qiang and Zhou Zhou.

Sister Bai had nearly been strangled unconscious. Now realizing that the two of them were supposedly cooperating with me for a scripted scene, she glared fiercely at Zhou Zhou while clutching her neck.

“How interesting. It seems some people have a different script than the rest of us. That must cost extra, right?”

The Bullet Comments erupted instantly.

“Look! Even Sister Bai admitted it-they have a script!”

“Sister Bai was almost strangled to death just now. Haha, she actually didn’t know? How can she stand being treated like that? Zhou Zhou is so young, he’ll really do anything for money.”

“What are you all talking about? Maybe Sister Bai is still acting right now. It’s a plot within a plot; the production team just wants to create conflict to boost the hype.”