Ch46 - Thunder and Lightning Strike

“No way, Zhe ge, how does the one surnamed Lai who was in the car accident have anything to do with Xu ge?” Seeing that Song Zhe was chasing Lu Xu around with questions of what he had done last night, Xu Haoming couldn’t bear it and opened his mouth to speak for him. “The people online who follow this obviously don’t have any brains. The car accident was due to lightning; how could it be planned?”

Song Zhe didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when he heard that and hurriedly gave an explanation. “No, I didn’t say the car accident has something to do with Lu Xu.” He of course didn’t think that Lu Xu had the ability to kill people, he just felt that this matter with Lai Chengshan was strange. “I just really want to know, why did Lai Chengshan suddenly come to the apartment. We’re all part of the production, you mean you’re all not curious?”

These words entered the hearts of the other two.

The more unknown things were, the more mysterious they became, and people would become even more curious.

Many people on the internet were conspiring, feeling that Lai Chengshan’s death had something to do with the show.

As a member of ‘Birth of an Idol’, the trainees wanted to know the truth more than anyone else.

“Xu ge, I’m actually quite curious as well. Yesterday, the disinfecting was a little baffling, in addition to Lai Chengshan also coming over, I feel like there’s some secret.” Han Tianyu came forward, making a pleading expression, obviously wanting to be in the loop.

Lu Xu shrugged, organising his words before saying, “Yesterday, it really wasn’t for disinfecting, and Lai Chengshan did indeed come over…”

Taking into account Lai Chengshan’s identity as an internet-famous metaphysical master, Song Zhe very naturally thought of the reason. “Don’t tell me, he came here to catch ghosts?”

There had been rumours of this apartment being haunted since the start, and when thinking about the strange crying sounds from last time, it was possible for the production team to invite someone to exorcise ghosts.

Lu Xu didn’t hide it and nodded his head sincerely. “Yes, it seemed like connections were used to get him here.”

“Then was a ghost captured?” When Han Tianyu heard that, he couldn’t help but urge Lu Xu to continue talking.

Lu Xu shook his head. “No, he just randomly chanted a bunch of spells, then stood up and said it had been exorcised…”

Xu Haoming raised his hand, and asked like a curious baby, “I’m curious as to how to tell if there are no ghosts.”

Lu Xu shrugged. “I don’t know whether there are or aren’t any, either. Anyway, after he said he sent them off, the lights in the corridor started flashing, and there were several strange things. When we asked him, he turned around and said he had sent a few of them off, and there were still a few remaining. He even said the ghost was summoned by Ba Mei and wanted Fan ge to throw the cat away…”

“Fuck! This scammer really doesn’t want any face!” Once he heard that Lai Chengshan had urged Fan Zeng to throw Ba Mei away, Xu Haoming felt that he couldn’t hold back anymore. “What about Fan ge, he wasn’t swayed right?”

“Of course.” Lu Xu spread his arms and pursed his lips as he said, “Fan ge isn’t a fool, he noticed immediately that he was a scammer.”

Han Tianyu also said, “For sure, Lai Chengshan was blowing his own trumpet way too much, even something about coming back from the dead. One look and you can tell it’s fake.”

When Lu Xu heard that, he suddenly remembered something and added, “Right, he even said that the grim reaper was his sworn brother or something and that he’d gone to the underworld several times…”

“Doesn’t he think before he lies? Then I might as well say I’m the grim reaper himself, and that I don’t have such trickster brothers!” Since knowing that Lai Chengshan wanted to toss Ba Mei away, it could be said that Xu Haoming basically hated him very much. Seeing that Lu Xu had returned on his own, he couldn’t help but ask, “Xu ge, where’s Ba Mei?”

“With Nian ge.” Lu Xu raised his brows and seemed a bit helpless. “Yesterday, I went out to chase Ba Mei, then walked around with Nian ge. When I came back, I discovered that the door had been locked. I sent a message but didn’t get a reply and figured that you were all asleep. I didn’t have a choice, so I brought Ba Mei along and had to trouble Nian ge.”

“So you were with Nian ge last night.” Song Zhe nodded as he listened. No wonder Lu Xu didn’t say so at the start, he probably didn’t want to be misunderstood as getting too close to the instructor.

Han Tianyu was shocked. “Nian ge actually let you stay for the whole night? Isn’t he especially not used to living with others? It’s like he can’t sleep in the bed with anyone other than himself.”

“Is that so?” Lu Xu just chuckled and didn’t say anything else.

Xu Haoming thought it was normal for two guys to stay together for a night, there wasn’t much to be discussed about it.

But Xu Haoming sighed and was worried. “Speaking of, Lai Chengshan was a scammer without a doubt, but it’s true that he came over to the show. Who knows how long the netizens will cause a ruckus, anyway it’s very troublesome.”

“There’s nothing to be troubled about.” Han Tianyu was quite positive. “Trending things on the internet won’t last more than three days. After a week, who would remember this?”

In the era of explosive news, all kinds of news overwhelmed everyone’s attention.

In the past, once a certain event was noticed, there would be many, many more events that would appear soon that were even more impactful and topical.

Even if the production team didn’t show themselves, after a while, everything would calm down.

With this thinking, Han Tianyu’s words were indeed right.

The four of them saw that it wasn’t early anymore, and wanted to hurry and eat, then practise for the show. However, once they walked out the door, they saw many trainees walking back and forth in the corridor, all of them quietly discussing something.

“What kind of master, he’s just a scammer…”

“Did you see the callout post, if it’s true then this person is too terrifying…”

“His heart is so black, one ghost amulet even costs several hundred thousands…”

Xu Haoming was confused. “What are they all talking about?”

Just as he wanted to pull someone over to ask them, he saw a person’s silhouette whoosh by, followed by Xu Lele’s joyous face appearing in his vision. “Xu ge Xu ge, did you hear?”

Lu Xu couldn’t answer that question, so he just smiled and asked, “About what?”

“Tsk, I knew you probably didn’t know.” When Xu Lele heard these words, he suddenly became excited and started to feed them information. “That Lai Chengshan who wanted to mess with you got into an accident…”

Xu Haoming pursed his lips. “We know he died in a car accident, it’s already trending…”

“No, the accident I’m referring to is his supposed identity as a master.”

Once Xu Lele said that, the BTT members unconsciously came closer, urging him to quickly go on.

Xu Lele was happy to share the gossip and immediately said, “Didn’t he get hyped up on the internet a lot? Saying that his passing was the metaphysical world’s loss, and saying that our production caused his death, blah blah. But it’s actually the reverse, like how the more these kinds of scammers are praised, the more they get exposed…”

There were many people who mourned the loss of Lai Chengshan, even sending him to the trending page.

Such a large amount of attention was sure to bring about a lot of discussion. Other than the people grieving for him, there were also a lot of people who came to expose their experiences of being deceived––

[@Ke Ke Milk Is Thoroughly Fragrant: I don’t understand why you guys mourn a scammer. He isn’t some master at all. He’s a complete fake!]

[@Loving Him For 10 Thousand Years At A Glance: There are tens of thousands of idiots who have been fooled by him here. Lai Chengshan really is a fake. I feel like this turnover is retribution. Payback comes to those who do evil things]

[@Little Expert At Planting Melons: Proof why well-known metaphysics master Lai Chengshan continued doing this work. How much bluffing was in this master’s title? This blogger has specifically edited some of his harsh experiences over the past years, hope it can reveal the true nature of this swindler…]

Within the group of enthusiastic netizens, Lai Chengshan’s image was far different than usual—

[Victim #1: I always have strange noises coming from my kitchen. I asked for Lai Chengshan to come over and take a look. He said there were ghosts. It cost me several tens of thousands of dollars for him to draw a charm. But when he left the sounds were still there. He said if evil ghosts came back I’d have to pay more. In the end, I found someone to look at the plumbing in my house and discovered there was a fish there. There were no evil ghosts whatsoever emmmm]

[Victim #2: I really hate this so-called great master. My friend introduced him to me for my marriage fortune and I went in a moment of hot-headedness. But he touched me all over and it was disgusting. I wanted to report him but he was too famous; he threatened to pour dirty water on me if I came out about it. I’ve hated him these past two years. He deserved to die and to the fullest!]

[Victim #3: Am I the only one who almost got killed? I coincidentally met this so-called master and he proactively gifted me a red amulet. The next day, I fell ill with all sorts of ailments. Good thing I have a friend who knew a little bit about this, and he told me he had given me a life-stealing red amulet. He told me to quickly burn it. I opened it up and discovered a coin inside. I still remember that scalp-numbing sensation to this day. After burning it my illness slowly got better. Anyways, he’s really evil…]

…

One victim after another came forward to talk about their own experiences. They even brought out chat records, payment transfer receipts, and such. The netizens were stunned—

[@Empress Loli: This person is too poisonous. He’s clearly a fake, and a life-threatening fake at that!]

[@Pesant Dog On Ground Chasing Planes: I’m absolutely struck with amazement. I feel like it’s a good thing he died, otherwise, who knows how many more people he’d harm]

[Shao Tang’s Lovely Wife: I’m really too angry. Before gege had his accident, he had once shown our fan group that red amulet and said it was something Master Lai had gifted him for a prosperous future. But only a few days later, gege met with an accident. Now that I think about it, it’s probably Master Lai who harmed him. I’m so angry and so miserable. So what if he’s dead, our family’s gege was only 23, he will never be able to come back…]

Lai Chengshan had used the prophecies of Shao Tang and Shi Hongye’s accidents in order to become popular. Now that it had been discovered that both people had received his life-stealing amulets, a stone had stirred up thousands of waves.

The two fan groups could not let this go and hounded Lai Chengshan’s studio for explanations.

As a result, the little assistant who had just been tearing into ‘Birth of an Idol’ and Lu Xu’s connection to this incident, suddenly pretended to have gone missing and played dead, and did not appear at all.

Some of the celebrities who had posted mourning messages for Lai Chengshan deleted their statuses one by one, clearly not wanting to have any connection to him.

At this moment, another explosion appeared online—

[@Little Expert At Planting Melons: I heard Lai Chengshan used the excuse that the ‘Birth of an Idol’ recording studio had ghosts in order to take a lot of the program staff’s money. After leaving, he was in a car accident on the highway. His driver said that there was something ghostly blocking their way; a fifteen minute drive took almost an hour. He also said there was a ghost car chasing them before the accident, but the surveillance shows that they were the only ones on that road. In such a serious car accident, the driver only suffered a few minor injuries, but not only did Lai Chengshan die on the spot, he was also struck by lightning—you decide, you decide the details (Video)]

After clicking on the video, one could see a Mercedes Benz driving along the highway on its own. The first few minutes were a smooth ride, then for some reason, the car suddenly flipped over. Not long after, there was the sound of thunder.

Although one couldn’t see Lai Chengshan being struck by lightning, the netizens agreed that this was suffering the heavens’ wrath—

What humans did, the heavens saw.

If one did too many evil things, karma would pay them back.

The netizens who had been chasing the program group with threats of suing suddenly acted like they had amnesia and immediately turned around to give points of sympathy. Lu Xu was made out to be even more innocent; he had obviously been used by that scammer to get onto the hot searches and was even questioned by conspiracy theories. The fans were all exceedingly heartbroken and crazily went to vote for him. The passersby also felt like this was unacceptable and also came over to give him consolation votes.

The Lu Xu who was already ranked first in votes went up even higher. His votes became several million more than second place.

He was originally the victim but became the biggest winner in the blink of an eye. Even ‘Birth of an Idol’ followed him onto the hot searches.

“I really didn’t think that Lai Chengshan was so vicious.” Fan Zeng felt frightened afterwards. When he saw the netizens talking about the red amulet, he immediately called Ji Xiunian. “Xiunian, didn’t that Lai Chengshan give you a red amulet? It’s life-stealing, hurry and burn it!”

At Fan Zeng’s urging, Ji Xiunian dug out that red amulet, but when he opened it he couldn’t help but be stunned—

According to the internet, it certainly was a life-stealing amulet, but it was empty inside, without a coin inside.

The image of Lu Xu passing the amulet to him flashed in his mind. Ji Xiunian unconsciously shook his head. He was probably overthinking it.

He burned the amulet and tossed it into the toilet, then flushed it. The ashes disappeared down with the currents of the whirlpool…

“Xu ge, you’re really very lucky!” After Xu Lele had told the story of Lai Chengshan’s dirty laundry, he couldn’t help but lament. “That Lai Chengshan probably never dreamed that he would get exposed because of you. He felt that you were the king of destiny, and wanted to take you away. In the end, he took the first step instead. If this isn’t retribution, what is?”

Lu Xu’s smile was hidden with meaning. In the end, Lai Chengshan had been his own client. There was no need for him to comment any more after sending him off.

Xu Haoming felt that it was quite mystical after listening, and scooted over to Lu Xu. “Xu ge, I want to rub off on some of that godly energy. I feel that this world is so scary, what if one day we meet someone like Lai Chengshan again, what to do?”

Lu Xu glanced at the Lan Gaojie coming over from the other side and the corners of his mouth lifted up slightly. “Just remember this. Evil will not dare to touch righteous energy. As long as you don’t walk a crooked path, bad luck will not sway you. But if you do something you know you shouldn’t do, then prepare yourself to face all the consequences.”