Meanwhile, to the west of the town, in the basement of a certain haunted house, two figures were walking forward in the dark. The other two members of the Paranormal Explorers team were unaware of the chaos outside. Kim Jung-han, who was walking in front, spoke to the camera beside him.
"As you can see, we have now made our way into the basement of this haunted house. We are getting closer and closer to the truth."
[: Oppa Kim Jung-han will be able to break the siren miracle very soon. He's so amazing.]
[: Oppa is truly handsome from every angle, no blind spots.]
Bullet comments flew across the curtain. The uniform praise made Kim Jung-han very satisfied. The current heat in the livestream was 2.3 million, and there were at least 40,000 people online simultaneously—astronomical figures he wouldn't have dared to dream of in the past.
The broadcast results for this episode of Paranormal Explorers would surely be excellent.
These viewers were all here specifically to see him, weren't they? He must be so outstanding that he had drawn so much traffic to this show.
A strange feeling welled up in Kim Jung-han's heart. Since he was so outstanding, why did that girl named Tang Xin dare to reject him?
You had to know that those popular starlets were all dying to get close to him to create some buzz. Kim Jung-han began to think in a malicious direction; was it just because that girl named Tang Xin wanted to maintain her innocent little flower persona?
He had seen many such people. They pretended to be pure on the surface, but who knew how promiscuous they were in private?
Kim Jung-han himself hadn't noticed that the malice in his heart was being infinitely amplified without him realizing it.
John, who was behind him, saw Kim Jung-han communicating with the curtain and frowned deeply. They had been trapped in the basement of this haunted house for half a day. Since they entered the basement, they had been lost in the winding turns.
All the haunted house staff and the program crew had vanished as if they had been erased from the world. They had completely lost contact with the outside and were spinning around in this underground labyrinth like headless flies.
Indeed, this was the third time John had seen the mark he had left on the wall.
John turned on his flashlight. The basement of the haunted house had been converted from an abandoned mine shaft. The stone paths were damp and narrow, with a musty smell mixed with the scent of earth floating through the air. The environment was complex, with rows of fixed wooden frames stabilizing the mine tunnels. Up ahead was a fork leading to two deep mine shafts.
Loose gravel rolled down the steep slope, hitting the stone walls back and forth, creating echoes of friction.
Kim Jung-han, who was in front, suddenly stopped and stood motionless.
The sound of dripping water echoed in the empty mine tunnel. The eerie silence caused unease to rise in John's heart, and he subconsciously called out to Kim Jung-han ahead of him.
"Hey, you! Why did you stop? Did you find something?"
Kim Jung-han did not answer him.
From Kim Jung-han's perspective, the number of people in the livestream had risen to 100,000. The speed at which the bullet comments refreshed was so fast he couldn't keep up. Every second, thousands or even tens of thousands of comments scrolled past. A trace of panic inexplicably arose in him as he realized something was wrong.
How was it possible? How could there be so many people?
How could the heat in the livestream rise so quickly?
[: Haven't you noticed? His changes?]
[: Oppa hasn't realized it yet.]
[: He still knows nothing even now, hahaha.]
[: Shh, he noticed.]
What were they talking about?
Who was this "he"? Was it himself? Had some change happened to his body?
The number of people in the livestream was still rising. 200,000, 500,000, 1 million!
In just a few seconds, the number of people in the livestream jumped to a staggering 10 million, and the heat even broke 100 million!
How could it possibly rise so fast?
Kim Jung-han swallowed hard. Did the entire Star of Art even have this many people?
Finally, he noticed something that made his scalp tingle. In the upper right corner of the curtain, there was clearly a "no signal" icon.
He should have noticed earlier. From the moment they entered the underground mine tunnel, the curtain's signal had been interrupted. They had lost contact with the outside world long ago.
Then what was the situation with these viewers in the livestream? Were they really human?
Goosebumps covered Kim Jung-han's entire body. At that moment, the rapidly scrolling bullet comments all changed into a single sentence, bright red as if they were about to bleed.
[: Look up at what's in front of you!]
[: Look up at what's in front of you!]
[: Look up at what's in front of you!]
Kim Jung-han looked up in a daze. In front of him was a bronze mirror, placed eerily at the junction of the two mine tunnels. In the mirror, his eyes were blood-red, and his skin was a sickly blue-green.
He reached out and wiped his face. A slimy feeling came from his hand. At some point, fleshy membranes had grown on his hand, and his five fingers were stuck together. Slimy liquid dripped down from them.
"How did it become like this?"
"What's happening to me? When did I become like this?"
Fear crawled across Kim Jung-han's face. The itchy sensation all over his body made him scratch his skin. His hand was cut by something sharp, and only then did he realize his body was covered in fish scales at some unknown point. White silk threads were growing out from between the fish scales, wrapping around his body bit by bit.
He wanted to call out to John behind him for help, but only a gurgling sound could come from his throat. The flesh on his neck peeled back, revealing stripe-like gill-like organs.
[: Become one of us!]
[: Become one of us!]
[: Become one of us!]
More than the various eerie occurrences, what terrified Kim Jung-han even more were the physical changes. He could not accept that his delicate and handsome face had turned into such an ugly form!
Suddenly, he heard something.
"Captain, save me!"
"I'm so scared, I'm all alone here..."
A girl's intermittent sobbing came from deep within the mine tunnel. Kim Jung-han heard it exceptionally clearly. This voice was made by that girl named Tang Xin. Was she in danger?
Kim Jung-han didn't even think about why she would appear in this place at this time. A fire of hope seemed to ignite in his heart. Ignoring his physical changes, he struggled to get up and ran after the sound.
John, further back, was dumbfounded. From his perspective, Kim Jung-han had suddenly seemed to go crazy, holding his head and screaming while making wet, strange noises, before running deep into the mine tunnel and vanishing.
Since that morning, he had noticed that Kim Jung-han's mental state was problematic. After entering the mine tunnel, he had been talking to himself constantly, as if chatting with a group of non-existent viewers.
The sudden situation, combined with the surrounding environment, gave John the creeps. Kim Jung-han had run too fast. His flashlight had only illuminated the other's back for a fleeting moment, and he wasn't sure if he had seen correctly, but the man's skin looked blue-green, almost like a monster.
John also noticed that the ground Kim Jung-han had passed over was full of slimy footprints, covered in dense white threads like spiderwebs.
The emergency didn't allow John to think too much. He couldn't let Kim Jung-han run around in that state.
After a moment's hesitation, John chased after him with his flashlight.
Rate on N.U.
