From ancient times to the present, there have always been legends of ghosts, perhaps appearing in dark cemeteries, remote villages, or even in some eerie schools. But people have never thought that the most real paranormal events would occur near the International Space Station.
That night, the official website of NASA released a complete video recording of the docking of the space station on the internet platform. Shortly after, a video titled "Space Ghost" was posted on the mytube website.
This video was edited from the recording and was only 30 seconds long. In the video, after a brief flash, an indescribable "creature" appeared in the void. It floated in the void, struggling and contorting, looking very painful.
As if being subjected to tremendous external force, after 7 seconds, it rapidly disintegrated and finally turned into black dots, merging with the void.
After "Space Ghost" was released, within a few hours, it gained millions of views. A day later, this video was reposted on major websites worldwide.
The number of views on mytube exceeded 10 million after 24 hours, setting a record for the fastest growing view count.
Guster became incredibly popular.
The comments section was ablaze with discussions from netizens all over the world, and their imaginations ran wild.
...
Comment #8637: "I guess this is a natural phenomenon with unknown principles. It occurred at the edge of the atmosphere and does not have any special meaning."
Comment #8638: "Clearly, this is a ghost observed by humans, and it looks cool."
Comment #8639: "My friends and I believe this is a sign of an alien civilization invasion. We should not take this as an ordinary natural phenomenon. If the government is not prepared, humanity will face a serious crisis."
Comment #8640: "No, you are all mistaken. Relax, my friends. I think this should simply be a colossal coincidence. Do you know about Boltzmann's Brain Hypothesis? The low-entropy world we observe stems from random fluctuations in the high-entropy universe. These fluctuations could even produce a brain. In other words, all sorts of monsters and even precise organs like the brain can be encapsulated within the laws of probability. So, it's not strange at all to have a strange phantom—of course, I do not deny that this phantom lacks self-awareness. On the contrary, I believe it is alive, but it cannot survive in an environment of minus two hundred degrees Celsius, and it eventually dies. From birth to death, it is extremely painful, so it tries to struggle."
The response from comment #8640 quickly became the top comment, with many people agreeing. However, more speculations quickly emerged.
The netizens' speculations can be roughly divided into three categories:
First category: Ghosts truly exist, but this is a minority opinion.
Second category: Scientifically unexplained natural phenomena, including but not limited to "Boltzmann's Brain Hypothesis," "Unknown Celestial Body Theory," "Quantum Speculation," etc.
Third category: Conspiracy theories, including "extraterrestrial communication," "summoning of evil gods," "conspiracy of the U.S. government," "actions of terrorist organizations," etc.
Netizens heatedly debated, but officials from various countries took a cautious stance and did not offer any answers or speculations.
As for Guster, its "corpse" was permanently recorded in human videos and was repeatedly watched by audiences every day. Its final appearance in the video became a strange tale in the history of human technology.
...
In a room in Boston.
Josea silently downloaded the video of the "Space Ghost" and watched it repeatedly at 0.1x speed. In the end, he sighed deeply and furrowed his brow.
Guster was dead.
Before dying, a spherical core disintegrated along with Guster, and that core was the seed of destruction.
The seed of destruction amplified Guster's soul strength hundreds of times, making it fearless of sunlight and minimal attention. But facing millions of viewers, not even ten seeds of destruction could save it.
Josea felt a deep heartache. There was only one seed of destruction, and once Guster died, it could never be replicated unless the leader helped. But he couldn't possibly tell the leader about this.
Guster's death was unexpected yet within reason.
Josea was glad he did not become an enemy of the author, but in reality, he had not collaborated with Xu Fang either. He stood in a "neutral" position—regardless of whether Guster won or lost, Josea would not bear any risks.Originally, Josiah planned to stand on Gaston's side, but since he confirmed that Xu Fang was the author, he changed his mind. He intended to "cooperate" with Xu Fang and play a game.
As for how he connected with Xu Fang, let's rewind to the end of October in City S.
Xu Fang and Luo Bing left Juchuan Corporation in the morning and drove into the city.
During this time, Josiah had been monitoring their every move on Gaston's behalf. However, just as Luo Bing drove the car under a certain surveillance camera, Gu Xi, who was sitting in the passenger seat, "randomly" stuck his phone slightly out of the window for a few seconds.
Josiah clearly saw that the page inside Gu Xi's phone was the draft folder of Horror Novel Web!
The text on it read:
[Hello, unknown author.
After I arrive in Boston, please lure that ghost over. At that time, I will be in a strange event.
Then, you just need to watch quietly.
If you don't do this, we will consider you an enemy and eliminate you.]
As if afraid that Josiah wouldn't understand, Xu Fang thoughtfully included an English version below.
Of course, Josiah could fully understand Chinese as well. After reading it, he couldn't help but break out in cold sweat.
The tone of the other party was very arrogant, extremely arrogant. For Gu Xi, killing another author seemed like a trivial matter.
Xu Fang deliberately brought the phone under surveillance because he knew that Gaston couldn't see Horror Novel Web, only Josiah could.
Horror Novel Web hid many hidden rules that customer service wouldn't tell the authors, they could only explore them on their own.
One of the hidden rules was that only authors could see Horror Novel Web, and authors could see the webpages of other authors.
Gu Xi knew about this hidden rule, which meant there were only two possibilities. First, he was a high-level author who had killed many other authors and learned about it from them. Second, his level wasn't high, but he attached himself to other high-level authors, even forming an organization with many authors.
Josiah noticed that Gu Xi mentioned "we" in the message, which likely represented the latter, the so-called organization. Regardless of which one it was, Gu Xi couldn't be an ignorant newcomer.
Fighting against him would be extremely dangerous!
Sigh, if only he knew the pen name of this author, he could find out if it was that organization, Josiah heaved a sigh.
There was a possibility that the other party was bluffing, but Josiah didn't dare to take that risk.
Out of caution, Josiah watched the video that Gaston had sent him again. He wanted to confirm whether Gu Xi was really the author or not.
To avoid being seen by ordinary people, Horror Novel Web didn't save or display screenshots or videos on the screen. If the video still showed the page of Horror Novel Web, it meant Gu Xi wasn't the author, he might just be a pawn of other authors.
But the video confirmed that Gu Xi was indeed the author.
From that moment on, Josiah changed his mind. He couldn't go against Gu Xi. But he also couldn't break ties with Gaston, after all, Gaston was an important card for him.
So, Josiah stood in a neutral position and watched the situation unfold. In order to avoid being deemed "a battle between authors" by Horror Novel Web, he even helped Gu Xi a little by luring Gaston over. Other than that, he didn't do anything.
...
"What should we do with his money?"
Before parting ways, Gaston, who was attached to Luo Qingyuan's body, asked.
If they accepted Luo Qingyuan's wealth, it would be easy for vigilant authors to find out where the money went. Even if they tried to launder it, it wouldn't be safe, so Josiah decided not to take it.
"Do whatever you want with it." Josiah walked towards the door, with his back to Gaston.
"Well then, my partner, let the hunt begin!" Excited voices came from behind him.
Hunt? Who was hunting whom was still uncertain.Josiah fell silent for a moment, then simply said, "Good luck to you."
