Chapter 199: Don't Take Selfies Late at Night

"The brakes failed for no reason?" Hearing Balding Uncle say this, I immediately unbuckled my seatbelt. "Brother, if you still want to catch my next livestream, let me out of the car."

My attitude was perfectly sincere; I had no choice at a time like this. Sitting in the taxi, I felt like my life was in danger at any second. It was better to leave as soon as possible.

"What are you afraid of? Uncle just gave it a full inspection yesterday, there's no problem at all!" Balding Uncle showed absolutely no intention of stopping the car. "Streamer, in Uncle's heart, you've never been someone who cowers!"

"This has nothing to do with cowering. Just slow the car down first. I have some questions for you." I hadn't expected Balding Uncle to actually be one of the livestream viewers who watched my broadcast. His appearance was an unexpected, pleasant surprise.

I had never interacted with my livestream viewers outside of the broadcast. Perhaps through him, I could figure out the fundamental purpose behind the creation of the Underworld Live Show.

"Why be so polite with Uncle? Ask away."

"You need to think carefully before you answer," I cautioned him uneasily before I finally began my questioning. "That night, what livestreaming platform and what app did you use to watch my broadcast?"

Noticing my solemn tone, Balding Uncle stopped referring to himself in the third person and answered honestly, "I was just searching the web on my phone. An ad popped up out of nowhere, and I just casually clicked on it without looking closely. That's how I entered your stream."

"Could you let me see your phone?"

Balding Uncle handed me his phone. It was a very ordinary domestic brand without any plug-ins installed. While swiping through his home screen, I suddenly spotted a peculiar icon. The background of the icon was a black-and-white photo of Balding Uncle himself.

"Underworld Live Show?" I lowered my voice, pointing at the icon as I asked Balding Uncle, "Where did this icon come from?"

"The first time I watched your stream, an option popped up asking if I wanted to permanently follow it. I tapped yes, and later this icon automatically appeared on my phone." Balding Uncle hummed a little tune as he drove, completely unaware of the dangerous situation he was in. "Speaking of which, your stream is pretty strange. You can only get in when you're alone late at night; tapping it during the day gets absolutely no reaction. And the thing I can't understand the most is, I bought a new phone yesterday, and after just leaving it sitting for one night, that same black-and-white photo icon appeared on the new phone, too. It looks pretty creepy, actually."

Even if he changed phones, the Underworld Live Show icon still appeared on the new one. I frowned, pondering carefully, 'Once you choose to permanently follow, there is no way to escape no matter what method you use. But why would the Underworld Live Show do this? Why does it need a steady stream of living people to watch?'

I couldn't come up with an answer. Handing the phone back to Balding Uncle, I continued asking questions. "That night you watched my stream, were there any unusual noises or abnormal situations in or around the car?"

Balding Uncle recalled for a moment before speaking. "The last passengers I picked up that day were a young couple. The guy was only around twenty, and the girl looked like a student. Her lower abdomen was slightly swollen, though, and she kept resting her hand on her belly. I figured the two of them were going to get an abortion."

"Not bad. That's some careful observation."

Hearing my praise, Balding Uncle looked incredibly smug. "Naturally. After all, the destination they gave me before getting in was an illegal clinic famous for abortions."

"Pretend I didn't say anything. Carry on."

"After dropping those two off, I waited for fares by the side of the road. Later on—and I don't know if it was a hallucination—I kept hearing a little baby's cry coming from inside the car."

"It came in intermittent bursts, so I didn't take it to heart. That is, until half an hour later, when a drunk got in. Before he even sat down, he pointed at the back row and asked why there was a baby in my car."

"I panicked a bit then, too, but I checked inside and out and didn't find anything. So I just assumed the guy was drunk and talking nonsense. He didn't dare get in, and I wasn't happy to drive him anyway. I didn't want him throwing up all over my car."

"After that, I couldn't pick up any more customers. I was bored and scrolling on my phone when I happened to see you streaming."

After listening to Balding Uncle's story, I took out the Underworld Live Show Phone and turned on the camera. I swept it across every corner of the car, but didn't find any ghostly figures or traces of a baby.

"The young couple went to get an abortion and you gave them a ride. That essentially means you added fuel to the fire and indirectly killed the baby, so it makes sense that it would stick around your car." I took out a Suppression Talisman and held it in my palm. Having seen so much, I didn't even bat an eye at these unborn Little Ghosts.

The balding driver's situation was different from Officer Huang and the others. He hadn't died after watching the livestream; he was merely being pestered by a yin soul.

From this, I could infer that not all the livestream viewers in my channel were people about to die. A portion of them might be there because they had unintentionally offended ghosts and gods, or perhaps a wandering spirit had happened to pass by at that exact moment.

Figuring out that my livestream viewers wouldn't lose their lives just for watching the broadcast was good news for me. I no longer felt any guilt.

"Streamer, speaking of which, special things have happened to other livestream viewers, too." As he drove, the balding driver brought up the bizarre chat messages he'd seen in the stream. "A lot of times you aren't looking at the chat, so there are some things you might not know. During your last stream, one of the viewers sent a message saying that his girlfriend had come back."

"That message didn't attract much attention at first. But since your stream was just a black screen, some busybodies started asking about it. The viewer ended up explaining that his ex-girlfriend had committed suicide by jumping off a building a few days prior."

"Once he said that, even more people started chiming in, and then the viewer explained the whole sequence of events."

"At first he was just bored. He couldn't sleep late at night, so he started playing on his phone. He accidentally clicked on a short video, and it took him to your live broadcast."

"He had never seen such a thrilling livestream and was immediately drawn in. But as he watched, he suddenly heard footsteps in his room, pacing back and forth between the bathroom and the kitchen. It sounded exactly like his deceased ex-girlfriend, who had bustled about the bathroom doing his laundry and hurried to the kitchen to cook for him every day after work."

"He was badly frightened when he heard the sounds, so he used his phone to shine some light outside the bedroom. But there was nothing around the kitchen or the bathroom."

"Just when he thought he was being paranoid, those footsteps suddenly rang out again—and this time, they were heading straight for the bedroom!"

"He yelled as he turned on the lights, but no one came into the bedroom."

"After he shared all this with everyone in the stream, some viewers immediately pointed out that the guy must have a guilty conscience. They speculated that his ex-girlfriend might not have committed suicide at all; rather, he had killed her with his own hands, and now she was back for revenge."

"The guy vehemently denied it and started swearing back and forth with the other viewers. Finally, they hashed out a rather terrifying way to settle it."

"Legend has it that at midnight, when the yin energy is the heaviest, if you lie in bed with all the lights off and take a selfie on your phone, you can capture things that are normally invisible to the naked eye."

"Based on this legend, they demanded the guy use his phone to take a picture to confirm whether or not his ex-girlfriend's soul had returned for vengeance."

I realized that Balding Uncle was quite gifted at telling ghost stories. He had successfully piqued my curiosity. "What happened to that viewer in the end?"

"I paid special attention to that viewer's ID, but he never posted another message after that. I don't know if it was a deliberate prank on his part, or if he really went and tried taking a midnight selfie." Balding Uncle shivered. "Just thinking about taking a picture of yourself in the dead of night and finding a dead person in the photo terrifies me."

"Looks like there are plenty of masterminds in the chat." I hadn't known such a thing had occurred in my stream. It seemed that sometimes, horror and terror didn't just exist in gloomy, abandoned places; they could also be right beside us, close at hand.

Chatting with Balding Uncle along the way, the time passed without me noticing. Looking out the window, I realized we had left the embrace of the high-rise buildings at some point. Both sides of the street were now entirely lined with low, single-story houses and dilapidated small buildings.

"We're almost at No-Lights Road." My heart pounded loudly, and my hand slowly tightened its grip on the car window.

The first time I left No-Lights Road, I had taken Balding Uncle's car. Was it destined by heaven for me to return to No-Lights Road this time?