Half a year later.
City A.
“Ahhhh! What the hell! What the hell is this!”
“What the hell is that!”
“Don’t come here!”
An expressionless young man was live-streaming a game in front of a computer screen, calmly breaking out in screams from time to time.
This young man was naturally Xiao Tangqiu. Since he was discharged from the hospital half a year ago and rested for more than a month, he had picked up his old job and resumed his old business. He resumed his work as a horror game streamer again.
Although he was missing for nearly two months and lost a lot of fans, new fans replaced the old. Soon, he relied on his mouth and “100% flag capture” to attract a batch of new fans and his status quickly stabilized.
He was back on his original path and everything seemed to be back to normal.
On this day, Xiao Tangqiu live-streamed a horror game as always. Just as the game’s atmosphere became scarier and scarier and the plot was about to enter its climax, the phone he had put on the table and had been muted suddenly lighted up. A text message notification popped out.
“I’ve already arrived at the cafe downstairs from your house, come down quickly.”
Xiao Tangqiu raised his eyebrows, screamed a few more times into the mic, then said in a frightened tone, “I can’t! Too scary! I need to calm down! Today’s “Love in the Mortuary” live stream ends here! Tomorrow I will continue the live stream! See you tomorrow!”
A bunch of protesting barrages suddenly appeared in the live stream room.
“How can you stop here! Host, you are so mean!”
“The plot is exciting! Host, come back soon!”
“Don’t stop! Continue! Don’t stop~~~”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
“Stopping right before the climax! Are you a man!”
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He pretended to bargain a bit with the barrage, “I didn’t plan to live stream “Love in the Crematorium” at all. After all, “Love in the Mortuary” is scary enough… OK, let’s add another “Life and Death, Love in the Underworld”, I’ll live stream all the three stories together, okay?”
He coaxed for a while and finally parted with the reluctant live stream audience.
In fact, Xiao Tangqiu originally planned to stream the most popular ghost husband trilogy, “Love in the Mortuary”, “Love in the Crematorium”, and “Life and Death, Love in the Underworld”, one after another. It was said to have scared off a lot of streamers, but Xiao Tangqiu was someone who had seen the big world. How could a few horror games scare him?
After he exited the live stream room, he didn’t have time to close the game as he quickly changed his clothes and rushed to the cafe below his house.
When Xiao Tangqiu arrived at the cafe, there were not many people there. He immediately found Tang Mianmian in the corner wearing sunglasses and a mask and wrapped up tightly.
He walked over and patted Tang Mianmian on the shoulder, then took a seat across from Tang Mianmian.
Tang Mianmian didn’t dare to take off his sunglasses. He lowered his voice and said to Xiao Tangqiu, “Help me see if there are any suspicious paparazzi in this cafe…”
Xiao Tangqiu looked around, then smiled, “Don’t worry, there aren’t.”
Tang Mianmian breathed a sigh of relief, took off the sunglasses on the bridge of his nose, and complained to Xiao Tangqiu, “A lot of paparazzi have been following me recently. It’s 360-degrees of pictures with no dead angles. Even if I went to a public toilet on the side of the road, they must come in and sneak pictures! They don’t even care that public toilets smell so bad, it’s so perverted!”
Xiao Tangqiu smiled, “Doesn’t that prove that you are popular?”
“On the one hand, it’s true that I’m hot,” Tang Mianmian proudly puffed his chest, but he sighed again, “On the other hand, it’s all my fault, I shouldn’t have helped Xu Xiaoman at that time… My fault for being cheap, my fault for being cheap!”
“Xu Xiaoman? That actress?” Xiao Tangqiu raised his eyebrows.
“Yes, it’s the actress who married actor Lu Xiaobo,” Tang Mianmian sighed, “They are considered a well-known couple in the entertainment industry. One is a powerful actor and the other is a powerful actress and they’ve been married for 20 years. Their relationship has a lot of eyes and respect, but now there is a divorce.”
Xiao Tangqiu, “What’s the matter? Is it related to you?”
“Have you not watched the news lately?” Tang Mianmian glared at Xiao Tangqiu before continuing reluctantly, “Bullshit it has something to do with me, I’m just an innocent passerby. They have a divorce scandal. That day, I happened to be returning to the hotel from the crew with Xu Xiaoman, and Xu Xiaoman suddenly tripped, so I helped her up… and was photographed by the paparazzi.”
Xiao Tangqiu smiled, “Are you really not together?”
“Bullshit together! Xu Xiaoman is in her fifties!” Tang Mianmian’s mouth twitched, “That’s only a few years younger than my mother! I don’t know what’s going on but somehow I got caught up in this turmoil! I am just a little actor with a little fame. I am really embarrassed to be involved in this kind of divorce scandal between the best actor and best actress! It’s too scary!”
When Tang Mianmian starred as the third male lead in that drama half a year ago, he really suppressed the male lead and second male lead in the show. Plus that script which was already a big deal, he had received nonstop script offers over the past half-year, representing one work after another. Now, he could be considered a small celebrity.
Xiao Tangqiu patted Tang Mianmian on the shoulder, “The sky will bring great responsibility to people, you know what comes next.”
Tang Mianmian sighed, “Being an actor is very tiring. If you make a mistake, people will ridicule and smear you. It’s still easier to be an online game streamer.”
Xiao Tangqiu smiled, “You can come back occasionally. Many fans are waiting for you to come back… People often ask me where you have been.”
Tang Mianmian suddenly showed a moved expression, “So there are still people waiting for me… Then how did you respond?”
Xiao Tangqiu, “I said you went back to your hometown to get married.”
Tang Mianmian, “Hey, hey, don’t just set up this kind of FLAG for me!”
They chatted for a while and Tang Mianmian suddenly laughed, “Actually, I’m here to tell you good news. The drama that I became a hit on is going to release a season two. The director wants to change me from the third male lead to the main male lead!”
Xiao Tangqiu raised his eyebrows, “That’s amazing. Not only did you kill the second male lead, but also the first male lead. Didn’t you succeed in ascending?”
Tang Mianmian smiled, paused, and suddenly asked Xiao Tangqiu, “By the way… about the kidnapping case before, do you remember anything now?”
Xiao Tangqiu’s heartbeat suddenly missed a beat, but he still pretended to be calm and asked Tang Mianmian, “Do you remember something?”
Tang Mianmian shook his head, “I still don’t remember anything, but the director wanted to dig out more details about the kidnapping case, so he often comes to ask me. He seems to be interviewing other victims, and even used his relationship with the police and learned some things that cannot be made public.”
Xiao Tangqiu’s heart was racing but he said casually, “Your director is quite serious and responsible…”
He paused and asked casually, “So did he tell you about the things that can’t be made public?”
Tang Mianmian nodded and said unguardedly, “He said that the suspect caught by the police was actually a scientist who signed a non-disclosure agreement. The scientist was in charge of a confidential experiment previously… Later that experiment seemed to fail, but the scientist refused to give up and secretly did the experiment without telling anyone.”
Xiao Tangqiu’s heart was beating wildly, but he still tried to stay calm, “And then?”
“After the scientist was arrested, she was put in prison. It seems that she continued to study the original experiment in prison. Later, I don’t know whether it was successful or not, but it seems that she has made a contribution against her sentencing.”
Xiao Tangqiu stared at Tang Mianmian, “…What do you mean?”
Tang Mianmian looked around and whispered in Xiao Tangqiu’s ear, “I’m only telling you, you must not spread it! I heard that this scientist’s research project is how to wake up a brain-dead vegetative person who seems to be about to wake up. It’s been successful so far, and if this project can be successful to the end, it will surely shake the entire medical community!”
Xiao Tangqiu stared at Tang Mianmian, his mind went blank. After a while, he grabbed Tang Mianmian’s collar and asked, “Awakening a brain-dead vegetative person? Did it succeed? Did it succeed!”
Tang Mianmian was startled by Xiao Tangqiu and quickly pressed on Xiao Tangqiu’s shoulder to calm him down, “You calm down first, I heard that it is on the verge of success. But you know that this kind of major experiment in the medical world is not a matter of wishing for success. If it is successful, even if it is really successful, you have to do trials, first on mice, and then on humans. It will take several years to say the least!”
“Several years? Several years…” Xiao Tangqiu was stunned for a moment, “Several years is too long, I can’t wait, I can’t wait at all…”
Tang Mianmian looked puzzled, “Can’t wait? What do you mean? Do you have friends or relatives who urgently need this technology?”
Xiao Tangqiu rubbed his face and suddenly calmed down, “…Nothing, I just remembered a friend of mine.”
What if the technology succeeds a few years later? Meng Xinghe couldn’t wait, he couldn’t wait, it was too late. It was too late for anything.
But when he remembered that the police didn’t find Meng Xinghe’s body, he couldn’t help but hope. What if? There was always hope, even when it was one in a million chance.
Xiao Tangqiu suddenly looked up at Tang Mianmian, “Do you know why Meng… why that scientist turned herself in?”
He always thought that Meng Qingqiu surrendered because Meng Xinghe was dead, and her experiment failed completely. So she surrendered in despair.
But now that he thought about it, was there another possibility?
Thank you for the chapter!
HOLY HOLY HOLY S**T!!!! COULD HE STILL BE ALIVE??!!! ━┻ミ＼(≧ﾛ≦＼)
Perhaps it was to use death row criminals in her experiment?
If she made a contribution, wouldn’t she have to have already succeeded once, as proof of concept? Did she get him out and didn’t want him chased down, or did she only succeed after being caught…
Thank you so much for translating! <3
Wow, I feel HE…
Thank you for new chapter
Thank you for the chapter!
🥺