(Side Story) Journey to the West 01

Fang Zhiyi rested his chin in one hand, staring blankly at the screen before him.

Suddenly, the faint lights not far away began to flicker. The images projected onto the screen flickered along with them.

The movie, which had been playing normally, twisted into an unrecognizable mess as though the film reel had been interfered with. Fang Zhiyi showed little reaction. He merely rolled his eyes slowly and fixed his gaze on the screen.

At that moment, he was the only person in the rundown movie theater, while the horror film playing on-screen was terrifying in the extreme.

The comments flying across the phone beside him had already exploded.

“Streamer, you’re awesome!”

“Did anyone else see a woman’s shadow appear on the screen just now?”

“Streamer, stop while you still can. Something bad is going to happen.”

“Finish watching it, streamer! I’ll send you ten more luxury yachts!”

Watching the number of viewers in his livestream soar, Fang Zhiyi merely sighed. “Boring.”

The image on the old screen returned to normal. Apparently, it had only been a problem with the film.

“I just got here. Is this that abandoned movie theater with all the scary rumors?”

“Exactly! This streamer is incredibly brave. Yesterday, he livestreamed from that haunted apartment building all night and kicked open every single door!”

“Then I have to follow him.”

Fang Zhiyi glanced at the comments and smiled bitterly to himself. He had kicked the doors open, all right—but afterward, the night guard had caught him and fined him two hundred yuan.

Seeing that the movie had ended, Fang Zhiyi took a deep breath. “That’s all for today’s livestream. I’m signing off.”

The livestream cut off instantly, leaving behind a flood of question marks.

“This streamer has so much personality. He goes offline as soon as he’s done and doesn’t even ask for gifts?”

“He must be some kind of expert.”

“Maybe he’s a professional ghost hunter.”

“Don’t be superstitious. He does educational content, trying to prove that ghosts don’t exist.”

“Who says they don’t? I’ve seen one!”

“Exactly. Didn’t you all see the strange thing that happened in the movie just now? This streamer doesn’t know what he’s doing. That was clearly a warning telling him to leave!”

“Young people have no idea how serious these things are…”

Fang Zhiyi slipped his phone into his trouser pocket and turned to look at Little Hei.

Little Hei grew nervous under his stare and gave an awkward laugh. “I just thought modern times would be more convenient… Who could’ve known that all those gods, ghosts, demons, and monsters would have disappeared?”

“You brought me more than a thousand years into the future after the end of Journey to the West, and you expect me to find Sun Wukong? Where am I supposed to look?” Fang Zhiyi’s face was full of frustration.

Little Hei scratched his head. “But… I don’t know why this happened either. I’ve already asked the Bureau to investigate the records, but they couldn’t find anything. All we know is that those things gradually stopped appearing after the beginning of modern times.”

“And you even said we could find Sun Wukong and hire him as a bodyguard—a legendary fighter…” Fang Zhiyi put both hands on his head. “The deity-summoning talisman doesn’t work either. I can’t summon any heavenly generals. If it did work, finding one of them to ask would be enough… What on earth happened to this world?”

“The location is definitely correct. I guarantee it,” Little Hei said. “I’m always very careful.”

“Careful, my ass. Last time, you sent me a thousand years into the future too. And now you’ve done it again?”

“What else could I do? Send you back to the Tang dynasty so you could run into your younger self? That would cause the world to collapse!”

Fang Zhiyi stopped arguing and took out his phone to check how much he had earned that day. There was no helping it—he still had to eat.

“Why don’t we find another expert to ask? Maybe this one will know something.”

Fang Zhiyi rolled his eyes at him. “Since we arrived, we’ve already consulted three masters, two eminent monks, and a shaman. Not only did we get no answers, but they all thought I was mentally ill.”

“Maybe we should go back first…”

Fang Zhiyi suddenly thought of Liu Shishi and Yue Anyao from the Quick Transmigration Bureau. He shook his head like a rattle. “Forget it. Let’s think of another way. I refuse to believe that all the gods and Buddhas simply vanished.”

“That’s hard to say. Look at the temple we visited before. The monks there have all gotten rich, and no bodhisattva ever came down to punish them…”

Fang Zhiyi scratched his head. “No. We’ll just visit more places. Wherever the rumors are the worst, that’s where we’ll go.”

There was only one way to break through the barrier separating the mortal world from the other two realms: desperately search for the point where this world had gone wrong. For example, as long as they found a ghost, that would prove the underworld existed—and then things would become much simpler.

Fang Zhiyi’s reputation quickly began to rise in the outdoor-livestream category.

Other people were too afraid to play supernatural games; he played them. Other people wouldn’t dare visit certain places at night; he went there. As for the taboos in folk legends, Fang Zhiyi never missed a single one.

Little Hei sighed. “Judging by this, it looks like we’ll have a pretty comfortable time in this world too.”

Fang Zhiyi nodded in agreement. Looking at the amount of money his viewers had sent him, he even began to feel as if he were on his way to making a fortune.

It was rather ironic. A man desperately trying to find ghosts had become the poster boy for proving that ghosts did not exist.

“Streamer, I know a small mountain village where there’s a ghost.”

A comment flashed past. Fang Zhiyi paid it no attention. He saw hundreds of messages like that every day. Still, they had sent him running all over the country, and much of the money he earned went toward travel expenses.

“Address,” Fang Zhiyi replied automatically.

The other person paused for quite a while before sending a location pin.

Fang Zhiyi opened it and took a casual look. It marked a place deep in the mountains, with not even a road leading to it.

“Someone’s messing with you again,” Little Hei muttered. “The last person who sent us a place like that nearly turned you into a wild man.”

Fang Zhiyi, however, frowned and zoomed in on the map. When he enlarged it as far as it would go, several blurry houses appeared.

It seemed there really was a village there.

After filtering out the other allegedly haunted locations, Fang Zhiyi began planning his route.

Three days later, he stood with a pack on his back and looked up at the mountain before him. There was only one mountain path, but since he had come all this way, he could only silently start climbing.

He saw neither people nor animals along the way. The village was indeed extremely remote. To reach it, he had to cross two mountain ridges before following a steep cliff downward. Fang Zhiyi walked quickly, but it still took him an entire day to finally see the rooftops in the distance.

Just from the rooftops, Fang Zhiyi could tell that the village had a long history. The moss-covered tiles and earthen walls all seemed to speak of its age.

He took out his phone and opened his chat with the netizen who had sent him the location.

“I’m here. Are you in the village?”

The other person did not seem to be online and gave no reply for a long time.

Fang Zhiyi pursed his lips. Looking at the phone, which barely had any signal, he shook his head. “Forget it. Looks like I won’t be able to livestream this time either.”

An outsider carrying a backpack had arrived at Xia Niu Village. The villagers were startled, and some were even wary of him.

Fang Zhiyi could understand their caution. In the past, swindlers had gone from village to village, specifically targeting people in remote areas.

Fortunately, he was willing to spend money. That was how he finally convinced one household to let him stay.