The Reason Cho-young's Chat Was Clean
Even though it was the middle of the day, the second floor of the abandoned house was pitch-black and dreadfully bleak.
Although it was a much tighter space than the ground floor, boasting only two doors, Cho-young could not summon the courage to turn the handle on either of them.
Cho-young’s drone camera remained locked in place, streaming only the broad panorama of the second floor hallway.
‘Huh?’
The situation made little sense to her.
Specifically, the uncanny cleanliness of her chat window.
‘Shouldn’t my stream be crawling with perverted trolls wrecking the chat right about now?’
Yet not a single person had demanded she point the camera back at herself.
It was downright bizarre, but a well-behaved chat was a blessing in disguise, so Cho-young quickly put it out of her mind. In truth, she lacked the mental bandwidth to care about chat dynamics anyway.
She stared apprehensively at the weathered wooden door, whose surface was scored with deep grooves that looked as though some monstrous beast had raked its claws across the timber.
Should she push it open? Or back out now?
The longer she hesitated, the louder the chat clamored, leaving her with virtually no choice.
Screeech—
The rusty hinges shrieked in protest as the door swung inward.
The interior of the room appeared largely indistinguishable from that of an ordinary family home. Against one wall sat an old, dust-coated mattress, beside which stood a built-in wardrobe with its door left ajar. Across from the bed sat a simple study desk.
Yet what truly sent ice water cascading down her spine lay elsewhere.
‘Ah, fuck me...’
It was the object dangling precariously from the ceiling rafters.
A thick loop of cord.
A hangman’s noose, undeniably tied with the intent to end a life.
Her imagination instantly ran wild, and Cho-young shuddered from head to toe.
Reading the text scrolling across her vision, Cho-young shivered once more.
“P-Please stop, seriously.”
“I-I just need to find that doll and get out of here...”
Cho-young stepped gingerly into the room.
Sunlight slanted through the cracked window, riding in on a draft of wind, but it did nothing to dispel the oppressive gloom. If anything, the partial illumination made the lingering shadows feel twice as sinister. It might have been better if the room were pitch-black; seeing the distorted silhouettes of the rotting furniture was driving her mad.
Treading lightly across the floorboards, Cho-young spotted the slightly open wardrobe door.
Could the doll be hidden inside?
Just as she reached out a slender hand toward the handle—
“Eeeek!”
The abrupt blast of the donation alert sent Cho-young leaping straight into the air.
“A-Agh! You nearly gave me a heart attack! Stop donating!”
“D-Don’t loop it! That makes it sound so much creepier!”
“Whew. Seriously. I’m not scared anymore, alright?”
Watching the viewers tease her, Cho-young forced her lips into a lopsided smile. Though the sudden noise had startled her at first, their antics made the whole ordeal feel like an affectionate prank, bleeding away a fraction of her terror. It was comforting to know she was not entirely alone in this desolate ruin.
“I’m opening it, okay?”
Screeech—!
The wardrobe door creaked wide.
Cho-young squeezed her eyes shut with all her might.
“...My eyes are closed right now. Is there anything inside?”
“R-Really? There’s truly nothing there? ParanormalPhenomenon, you scared the daylights out of me earlier, so I don’t really trust you.”
Only then did Cho-young pry one eyelid open, peering cautiously into the depths of the wardrobe.
“Phew... there really isn’t anything, is there?”
Cho-young let out a faint chuckle at the screen.
‘I didn’t spend years bingeing livestreams for nothing.’
Under normal circumstances, moral reservations would have kept her from pulling a stunt like this. But trapped in an unsettling environment, she felt emboldened to milk the moment. The tension of the derelict house was choking, and the viewers were clearly joking around to keep her spirits up. Developing a bit of playful rapport was only natural.
“Oh! Thank you so much for the ten stones!”
With no doll in the wardrobe, Cho-young turned her attention to the rest of the room.
Meanwhile, Shin Hye-yeon was perched upside down against the ceiling, training her camera directly down upon Cho-young from above.
Though Cho-young’s face remained obscured, her extraordinarily voluptuous bust was on full, glorious display from this angle. To the viewers on Hye-yeon’s channel, it felt as though they were spectating an isometric survival-horror game starring a drop-dead gorgeous heroine.
Right on cue, Cho-young pushed open the bedroom door and stepped across the threshold.
Screeech!
She began inching toward the half-open wardrobe.
Just then, a loud donation chime rang out through Cho-young’s feed.
“Eeeek!”
Cho-young jumped violently in shock, her entire body recoiling. In doing so, her astonishingly endowed chest surged in a mesmerizing, seismic ripple.
Down below, Cho-young turned cautiously toward the opposite side of the bed. Resting against the wall was a battered, splintered study desk that looked entirely derelict.
And right at that moment—
Unaware of the chaos above, Cho-young approached the crumbling study desk, looking it up and down.
“W-Where on earth could the doll be?”
Frightened by the silence, she muttered to herself to keep her nerves intact. Suddenly, her chat exploded into a frantic sprint.
Cho-young cocked her head, reading the messages with a bewildered frown.
“Why are you all shushing me?”
“Ah, is that what you meant? But I didn't think I was being that loud... Regardless, I’ll keep it down.”
“Underneath?”
Knitting her brows, Cho-young slowly lowered her body. Squeezing her eyes shut once more, she crawled down until she was prostrated on all fours before carefully peeking under the knee-hole.
‘T-There’s nothing there. Nothing at all.’
Repeating the mantra to steel her courage, she opened both eyes.
“Phew.”
She exhaled a long breath of relief. There was indeed nothing beneath the desk—save for a cracked wooden support strut hanging down at a diagonal angle.
Reassured, Cho-young reached beneath the desk and swept her hand across the dusty floor. Since she did not know the exact size of the doll, she figured it might be small enough to hide in a crevice.
“Mmm. Not here either.”
Baffled by why her viewers seemed in such remarkably high spirits, Cho-young pushed herself back up to her feet.
“W-Well, since I’ve searched this whole room, shall we move on to the next one?”
Meanwhile, during the exact moments Cho-young had approached the desk, Hye-yeon had been watching her with intrigued eyes.
Or rather, she was staring directly at Cho-young’s feet.
Just as the chat noted, huddled right under the desk was a spirit whose throat had been strangled into an unnaturally thin, withered stalk. It sat crouched on the floor, transfixed as it stared intently at Cho-young’s porcelain, shapely legs.
Cho-young, of course, was blissfully oblivious.
‘It’s not particularly dangerous anyway.’
Ghosts were fundamentally aggregates of spiritual energy. Before understanding the mechanics of cultivation, Hye-yeon had found ghosts terrifying. But once she attained enlightenment, that fear had evaporated entirely. At the end of the day, an apparition was merely a clump of spiritual energy drifting through the mortal realm in the form of a lost soul.
Rather than fear them, a cultivator ought to welcome them. Far better for a cultivator to refine and absorb their lingering essence than to leave them suffering, wandering the Netherworld in endless torment.
That liberation, after all, was the true purpose behind Hye-yeon’s haunted house broadcasts.
Regardless, watching the ghost’s crimson, glowing eyes shine beneath the desk, the viewers in Hye-yeon’s chat grew rowdier by the second.
Moments later, Cho-young’s voice drifted up from below:
“Why are you all shushing me?”
“Ah, is that what you meant? But I didn't think I was being that loud... Regardless, I’ll keep it down.”
“Underneath?”
The instant Cho-young prostrated herself on all fours—
The viewers’ euphoria was rooted in raw visual spectacle. As Cho-young arched downward to peer beneath the desk, her delightfully rounded hips curved outward in an impossibly voluptuous display, accented by her wasp-like waist and the magnificent bust pinned snugly against the dusty boards.
As the entire chat room marveled at Cho-young’s mind-numbing proportions, a new donation pinged across Hye-yeon’s screen.
Curious, Hye-yeon pivoted her ceiling lens slightly downward to zoom in on the desk.
Beneath the shattered wood, the emaciated ghost tilted its head upward toward Hye-yeon’s camera and proudly flashed a crisp thumbs-up.
A serene, satisfied smile spread across the spirit's spectral face. Slowly, its translucent silhouette dissolved into motes of pure light, effortlessly naturally drifting into Cho-young’s body to be absorbed by her Universal Resonant Dao Body.
‘...Well, that’s certainly a first for an exorcism.’
Watching the spectacle from the ceiling, Hye-yeon marveled silently. Cheon Cho-young truly was an extraordinary, fascinating creature.
Down below, Cho-young dusted off her knees and retraced her steps out into the hallway.
Next up was the adjacent second room.
Peering through the gloom, Hye-yeon shifted her gaze toward the doorframe, where a colossal, dense concentration of spiritual energy pulsed silently within.