Chapter 4. First Episode
Jiang Yan stood in front of the bus.
At this moment, a boy in a white shirt was standing outside, introducing himself as the person sent to pick her up. After handing her suitcase to him, Jiang Yan took back her black umbrella, and raindrops fell from the umbrella, quickly pooling into a small puddle at her feet.
“Please get on the bus first,” the boy said. “You can sit wherever you like; just choose a seat.”
“Okay.”
Once on the bus, Jiang Yan looked around and sat in an empty seat in the second row.
This bus was a small-sized one; excluding the driver's seat, there were only six rows of seats, each accommodating two people. Six or seven people were scattered throughout, and aside from a pair of twin sisters quietly chatting, everyone else remained silent.
Soon, the bus doors closed, and the boy from earlier got on, sitting down next to Jiang Yan on her left.
On this rainy day, the road was slippery and visibility was poor, so the bus was moving slowly. At that moment, a woman sitting in the front row stood up. “My name is Jiang Yuqing, and I am the person in charge and host of this episode. Now that all the contestants have arrived, I will collect everyone’s agreements.”
She was a woman in her thirties, looking very capable in both appearance and voice. The woman walked over to Jiang Yan, took her agreement, and then turned to collect the one from the boy in white.
Jiang Yan raised an eyebrow slightly.
The boy, who had been paying attention to Jiang Yan, quickly explained in a low voice, “Hello, my name is Cheng Guang, and my master’s surname is He.”
Jiang Yan nodded in understanding. “Please send my regards to your master. I will do my best to clear this program.”
Cheng Guang smiled widely, but just as he was about to say something else, he noticed that Jiang Yan had already turned her gaze to the window, showing no intention of chatting with him.
Cheng Guang: “……….” He fidgeted nervously, “Um…”
Jiang Yan looked back at Cheng Guang.
Cheng Guang hurriedly grabbed a backpack next to him. “This is the clothing and shoes my master asked me to prepare for you. The silkworm village is surrounded by mountains, and there’s a mountain path to walk. You’re still wearing high heels…”
“Oh, alright.” Jiang Yan readily accepted the backpack.
Her swift movements caught Cheng Guang off guard; he had thought Jiang Yan would be very particular about her personal aesthetics and attire.
Seeing the boy lost in thought again, Jiang Yan politely asked, “Is there anything else?”
For the sake of her benefactor’s request, she would do her best to accommodate.
Cheng Guang quickly nodded.
“Just say it.” Jiang Yan said.
“Master hopes you won’t reveal your identity if possible. The surveillance from the night you took form has already been erased by my master. Although some of his close friends have guessed what happened, they helped cover it up after arguing with him, so it shouldn’t be a big issue.”
“In short, only a few people know your identity, and then there’s…”
“Uh,” Cheng Guang bit his lip, “To hide your background, my master hopes you can temporarily act as my senior sister.”
“—Do you think that’s alright?”
After asking this question, Cheng Guang felt a surge of anxiety.
Just now, he had watched Jiang Yan calmly step over a stranger’s flower wreath and board the bus as if nothing had happened. Demons truly are creatures without empathy; they can commit such a taboo and disrespectful act without a second thought.
So if Jiang Yan found the title of "senior sister" offensive, it would be entirely reasonable for her to take action against him...
“Sure.”
With his thoughts racing, Cheng Guang let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. “Thank you!”
Jiang Yan looked at Cheng Guang for a moment and suddenly asked, “Can you perform Daoist techniques?”
Cheng Guang, now a bit more confident about his life being spared, nodded eagerly. “Of course!”
A slight smile appeared on Jiang Yan's lips. Since the Daoist man was so powerful, his disciple should be competent as well.
Jiang Yan understood clearly that since she was participating in the program to repay a debt of gratitude, she could not afford to perform poorly. However, her abilities were evident; even distinguishing between humans and ghosts was difficult, let alone catching ghosts.
It was truly a case of having the will but lacking the power.
In such circumstances, survival and finding help were the long-term solutions.
“Many kinds?” she asked again.
“Yeah!”
Jiang Yan nodded. “Since we are fellow disciples, I would appreciate your guidance.”
“Sure, sure!!”
Getting the response he wanted, Jiang Yan turned her head back to gaze out at the rain that was falling at an inopportune time.
Cheng Guang: “……….”
“………??!”
Cheng Guang pondered what Jiang Yan was planning to do to him.
**
The silkworm village was quite remote, and as it approached midnight, the bus finally stopped at a mountain peak.
Due to the low temperature in the mountains, the heating in the bus had been turned on long ago. Jiang Yan sat with her head down, the window fogged up, and when she looked outside, it was a white blur.
Feeling quite bored, Jiang Yan propped herself up and huffed on the window, then wiped it with her hand.
But the whiteness didn’t disappear.
At this moment, the outside was also filled with thick fog, with blurred tree shadows surrounding them, resembling a giant lurking in the dark, watching everyone.
Jiang Yan slowly withdrew her gaze and lowered her head again.
At that moment, Jiang Yuqing, the program's person in charge, stood up and looked out the window. “The fog is really thick…”
“Everyone, when we get off the bus, please watch your step. If you fall here, they'll probably only find a frozen corpse at the foot of the mountain by tomorrow.""
Jiang Yuqing's expression was exceptionally serious.
She wasn’t exaggerating; given the current terrain and the thick fog, a moment of inattention could easily result in someone disappearing from view.
The fuel in the bus was running low, and Jiang Yuqing and the driver needed to return to Jiangcheng before dawn, so they couldn’t afford any more delays. She stood up and reiterated what she had said several times on the bus.
“Out of compassion and humanitarian spirit, during the recording of the program, I hope all psychics will carefully distinguish between good and evil spirits and prioritize their emotional purification. Of course, if they pose a serious threat to your life, your safety comes first.”
After saying this, she took out six miniature cameras and distributed them to the psychics. “These cameras use the most advanced technology available; they won’t emit any light or sound and have a very strong stabilization function. You can put them on now.”
“The power button is the small red dot on top. The 'Red Pillow' program does not require continuous live streaming; you can turn off the cameras when sleeping or in special circumstances.”
To facilitate concealment, the cameras were designed to be very small and delicate, resembling a peach blossom. If it weren’t explicitly mentioned beforehand, no one would think of it as a camera.
There was a small hole at the top of the camera. Jiang Yan thought for a moment, hooked it onto her earring, and then pressed it against her earlobe.
Once the six of them were ready, Jiang Yuqing opened the bus door.
The evening breeze from the mountains rushed into the bus, causing the temperature inside to drop rapidly. In no time, everyone except the driver had stepped outside.
As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but thick fog, with no trace of the village.
Jiang Yuqing swiped her phone and smiled wryly. “The fog is so thick that it doesn’t really matter whether we stream live or not, but there are still many fans staying up waiting for us. Let’s all turn on the live stream in a bit.”
“Is anyone still waiting for us at this late hour?” a clear female voice asked.
Jiang Yan looked down at the girl who had spoken.
She had noticed this girl when she got on the bus, not for any significant reason, just out of curiosity.
This was Jiang Yan’s first time seeing a person who was entirely snow-white; she looked like a snowflake, with her entire body white except for her lips and light brown pupils, as if she would melt into water upon contact.
Jiang Yan’s fingers twitched, curious to see if she would indeed melt, but before she could act, the girl ran over to another girl who looked exactly like her.
“Of course!” Jiang Yuqing affirmed the girl’s statement. “Everyone is very concerned about your progress and safety.”
“Don’t worry, we’re really strong!”
Shen Xiaoxiao laughed as she linked arms with her sister, Shen Huanhuan, who looked at her sister with a hint of exasperation and corrected her, “It’s that everyone else is strong, okay? If you keep showing off, I’ll throw you out.”
The two sisters were twins, currently ranked outside the top one thousand in the Supernatural Management Bureau, their performance not particularly impressive.
They had been introduced to spiritual communication three years ago, and after their master discovered their talent, they began learning the techniques of binding ghosts and subduing evil. Following their master’s request, they successfully registered with the Supernatural Management Bureau and logged into the Red Pillow website to learn how other psychics captured ghosts.
A year ago, the two created their own live streaming room and have since occasionally streamed on the site. Although they often failed, since both were still sixteen-year-old high school students, they had plenty of room for growth, so everyone held high expectations for their future.
Shen Xiaoxiao nodded eagerly like a chick pecking at rice.
Jiang Yuqing shook her head with a smile and looked at everyone. “Now, let’s all turn on the cameras. First, say hello to the live stream, and then I’ll introduce the situation for this episode.”
Jiang Yan pressed her hand against her ear.
With a faint “beep,” her camera officially connected to the official live stream of "Red Pillow."
...
At this moment, a triangular "play" sign appeared in the blank space on the homepage of the only spiritual live streaming website in Huaguo.
As an internal live streaming site, "Red Pillow" only allowed official psychics to log in. Every day, there were hundreds of live streams on the site, ranging from fortune-telling to ghost-catching; as long as it was related to spiritual communication, it could be broadcasted.
This model had been in place for over a decade, and now, "Red Pillow" had finally welcomed its namesake spiritual variety show.
Hundreds of hands pressed the play button simultaneously; they were all psychics who had stayed up late waiting for "Red Pillow" to air. Among them were nameless newcomers who had just registered with the Supernatural Management Bureau and made it onto "Red Pillow," as well as seasoned psychics who had their own dedicated streaming rooms on the platform.
As everyone clicked to enter, bold red letters appeared before them.
[Welcome to the "Red Pillow Live Stream"]
This was the live stream room named after the website, and it was the only one that could carry the website's name. The central screen of the live stream was now divided into seven sections: six from the participating psychics and one from the host.
At this moment, the seven screens displayed a uniform cold white.
The comments began to scroll rapidly:
[Why is it white?]
[It feels like fog; where is this?]
[It must be in the mountains; I vaguely see trees.]
[Is there a case of a lost hiker?]
[Is the first episode an outdoor shoot?]
[This is going to be difficult.]
Jiang Yuqing glanced at the comment section and turned off her phone.
She didn’t waste any time and directly got to the point: “Hello everyone, welcome to the first episode of 'Red Pillow.' I am your host, Jiang Yuqing.”
“Two months ago, instruments detected energy disturbances in this area, indicating a high probability of ghostly activity. However, due to a lack of manpower, it has not been resolved. After learning about this, the program team took on this task.”
“This is a place that can hardly be found on most maps. After confirming the location, we gathered a lot of information and discovered that there is an ancient village here, which is the site of the energy disturbance.”
“It’s called Silkworm Village.”
“Two weeks ago, Silkworm Village issued a recruitment notice, stating they wanted to hire experts in silkworm breeding to investigate the frequent deaths of silkworms this year.”
“The program team took on this task.”
“So the psychics for this episode are entering the village under the identity of a professor from the biology department of A University and his student.”
Cheng Guang raised his hand. “The student part is fine... but won’t it be too difficult to play the role of a biology professor?”
Jiang Yuqing looked behind Cheng Guang.
There stood a burly man in his forties, grinning as he rubbed his buzz cut. “My name is Xiong An. My family has been in the silkworm business for decades, so it should be no problem.”
Cheng Guang gave him a thumbs up. “Big brother is impressive; catching ghosts and raising silkworms at the same time!”
The burly man clearly wasn’t used to such compliments and quickly waved his hands. “I can’t catch ghosts. If I weren’t good at raising silkworms, I wouldn’t be here for the program.”
Jiang Yuqing had finished saying what she needed to say and summarized:
“To avoid disrupting the villagers' lives, I hope all psychics will do their best to play their roles and not reveal their true identities.”
“The best scenario is for everyone to quietly complete the task and return safely.”
Everyone responded in unison, agreeing.
After Jiang Yuqing turned off her camera, she glanced at the thick fog surrounding them. It was officially past midnight, and if it weren’t for the village chief’s request for them to enter the village before five in the morning, they wouldn’t have chosen this time to head into the mountains.
“Let’s hurry up and set off.” With that, she shone her flashlight on the mountain path.
However, it was very strange; the beam of light that should have penetrated through the layers of fog stopped just a few steps ahead.
Jiang Yuqing frowned and looked ahead, her wrist suddenly shaking violently.
A man was standing directly in front of her.
His gaze was eerie, or rather, unsettling. Jiang Yuqing didn’t know how long he had been standing there or how much he had heard. She opened her mouth, but before she could organize her words, the man interrupted her with a strained voice.
“What are you talking about?”
