area51novel Chapter 28 The Mad Provocateur... Part 2
Chapter 28 The Mad Provocateur... Part 2
Everyone in the live stream was stunned.
Wow! That's amazing!
"Holy shit!!!!"
"The killer is among them?! One in eight?!"
"A ritual?! A sacrifice?! What the hell kind of weird plot is this?!"
"Li Wan lives above 'that place'? Where is 'that place'? The second level of the secret room? How can this space have a second level?"
"The secret that Jin Dafu and Zhang Zhiqiang are trying to cover up... My God, it's terrifying to think about!"
"There's a 'little gift' buried in the building... Is it a bomb?! The police can't get up here yet?! Where are they?"
"This mastermind is too arrogant! They're playing a complete cat-and-mouse game!"
"He said 'tools'! In his eyes, the people in the room and us watching the live stream are just tools?!"
"Wow! That's amazing! How did this screenwriter even get into this?!"
"Damn it... the shadow behind me has appeared! Whose voice is that?"
"What he described...the ritual, the sacrifice...just thinking about it is terrifying and...disgusting! Li Wan is so pitiful..."
In the blink of an eye, the chat in the live stream room went completely crazy, and the server was on the verge of crashing.
The forum was a mix of cursing and brainstorming... various analyses, speculations, and deductions erupted like a volcano.
With red eyes, the night owl stared at the rapidly scrolling barrage of comments, scrolling through thousands of messages every second.
The top ten trending topics on forums, Weibo, and major social media platforms are almost entirely dominated by this topic:
#AnpingliLivestreamMystery#
#The killer is among you#
#Sacrifice from 13 years ago#
#Li Wan#
#Jincheng Demolition#...
Scroll down, and you'll find millions of discussions, speculations, anger, and fears under each topic.
Even media platforms urgently deployed ten times the number of technical personnel overnight to maintain their servers.
Police and media outlets were inundated with calls.
At the other end of the residential area, Cheng Jing and Chen Ming's car was parked two blocks away from Anpingli Street. The area in front of them was blocked off by police tape, and bomb disposal experts and special police were working intensively.
They were indeed hampered, just as the voice had said, a device suspected to be an explosive was found in the building; its structure was complex and dismantling would take time.
The entire internet is holding its breath, waiting for the next reaction from the eight people in the room.
At the critical moment—
Everyone feels that this time, things seem different again.
Because all the netizens who used headphones or speakers heard a laugh.
"Hahaha...hahaha..."
An extremely arrogant laugh. Then, that voice rang out again…
It wasn't directed at the people in the room, but rather...
"And you all—"
The voice dragged out its tone, each word like a poisoned needle.
"—A bunch of stupid, idiotic, uncultured, and ill-mannered...guys!"
God!
This madman! He's actually firing at all the viewers watching the live stream!
The live stream chat exploded instantly!
A torrent of highly insulting comments erupted, followed by expressions of utter bewilderment and disbelief. Had the mastermind behind this gone mad? Provoking not only the people in the room but also hundreds of thousands of netizens at the same time?
"Look at you all," the voice continued, the intense contempt palpable even through the screen, "like a swarm of flies drawn to rotting flesh, buzzing around this live stream, typing on your cheap keyboards, spouting your childish and laughable 'reasoning,' thinking you're some kind of 'cyber detective'? Pah!"
"What do you know? You know nothing! You're just pigs fed information! I show you a few fragments, and you excitedly piece them together; I throw out a name, and you search for it like dogs! I lead you to suspect someone, and you want to devour him alive!"
"Is it interesting? Is it fun? This reality show I've meticulously prepared for you, spanning thirteen years?"
"But do you deserve it? Do you deserve such a brilliant 'script'? You're only fit to drool behind the screen, waiting for me to give you the next 'feed'!"
The extreme insults and provocations have set the entire cyberspace ablaze!
Trembling fingertips... emitted angry denunciations that almost broke through the barrier of the virtual world.
A deeper chill also enveloped many people!
This mastermind is not only highly skilled and meticulous, but also... extremely psychologically twisted, viewing others as playthings and ants. He takes everyone's reactions into account, including the "sense of participation" of netizens.
Inside the room, the eight people looked at each other in bewilderment.
Cheng Tan couldn't help but let out a long sigh.
This time, for the first time, they felt the direct spotlight and were pulled to the center of the stage by this voice!
They are not just pawns, but actors being watched on stage, while the audience... is being wantonly insulted by the director.
This all-encompassing humiliation and sense of control is both laughable and pathetic.
"but……"
He's not done yet!!!
Still provoking netizens!
This could be considered the strongest challenger of the year!
This time, his words seemed to have a strange "gentleness": "Since this show was pretty good, I'll give you 'foolish audience members' a little extra 'perk'."
"Want to know why I chose 'live streaming' as my method?"
He asked himself the question and answered it, his voice smug:
"It's not just about expanding the impact, it's not just about forcing the police and certain people to confront the issue."
"More importantly—the audience is also part of the ceremony."
"Ancient rituals need witnesses. Modern rituals... need traffic and attention."
"The gaze, speculation, fear, and anger of hundreds of thousands, even millions of people... this convergence of 'attention,' this focused 'field'... is itself a power. A... sacrifice."
"Li Wan was the first sacrifice."
"Zhao Jianguo, Wang Bin, Liu Li... were the subsequent sacrifices."
"And all of your emotions and attention... are the final fuel that makes this 'sacrifice' complete."
"We're almost full of fuel now."
"The ceremony is almost complete."
"As for where the final 'altar' is?"
"hehe……"
"Right here, right now, right in front of all of you—in this room."
"Just watch, you ants."
"Watch how the 'tools' make their choices."
"Watch how the 'murderer' emerges."
"Watch...how the truth devours everyone."
"This will be the grandest performance you will ever see in your ordinary lives."
"But there aren't that many free movie tickets in the world."
Just as the entire internet fell silent, the voice shifted its tone again, the smugness and sense of control almost overflowing from the speaker:
"You are just like them—"
"They," he seemed to be referring to the eight people in the room.
"—Don't you like analyzing? Don't you think you can guess?"
"None of you found the last tool, nor the last person to die."
"I have a question for all of you—"
The voice suddenly rose in pitch, like a judge administering a trial:
"There's also a live-streaming studio in the room—"
"Who among you can find the correct answer?"
"If we can't find it..."
He deliberately dragged out his words, pausing for a second, then two seconds… before slowly saying:
"...Then, you will witness a disaster firsthand."