I created the myth of the Great Old Ones.

Right.

As Qin Tiantian thought this, she also recalled what happened at Lu Ban's house.

The cold, eerie atmosphere, and the mention of Ah Zhen and Ah Qiang by Lu Ban, made her suddenly realize that Lu Ban might actually be the kind of person who could do such a thing.

"Wait a moment……"

Qin Tiantian suddenly remembered the photo Lu Ban had taken when she sent him a WeChat message.

Four sets of bowls and chopsticks were placed around the table.

Lu Ban, the burly man, the middle-aged woman, the young man, and the driver who was filming.

It seems just right.

So he was having dinner with these actors at that time?

You can't possibly eat with ghosts, can you?

Qin Tiantian convinced herself.

It was already very late at night. Although she was a little scared, the final scene was so extraordinary that Qin Tiantian was not as terrified as she had been the last time.

Just like horror movies, once you've seen them, you've seen them. No one is really going to be so scared by watching a horror movie that they can't sleep.

However, Qin Tiantian still forwarded the video to the group to repay the group members who helped her on a regular basis.

She noticed that when she shared the video, the number of likes and coins had already started to increase.

"Are there really people who want to see what happens next?"

Qin Tiantian spoke while tossing coins and giving likes.

She didn't want to see any more videos, but rather wanted to push this video to the top to benefit society.

"go to bed!"

Banishing the images of plants, fish, and monsters from the video from her mind, Qin Tiantian wrapped herself in two blankets, curled up in a ball, clutched her shark-shaped pillow, and struggled to fall asleep.

……

A police station in a community in Jiangcheng.

He Youwu, who was on duty, was scrolling through videos on his phone.

Jiangcheng has a good public security situation, with basically no crimes at night. He just checks to see if there are any drunk college students or reckless teenagers riding electric bikes. Most of the time, it's quite easy for him.

After watching a video about a serial killer case that occurred in the last century, He Youwu thought of the mental patient he had met some time ago, whose name seemed to be... Lu Ban?

Yes, Lu Ban.

Although this man gave the illusion of being refined, polite, elegant, cheerful, sunny, handsome, and kind, the house he lived in and his behavior made He Youwu feel uneasy, as if he were raising some kind of monster.

He Youwu still remembered this person's medical records. He not only had schizophrenia, but also delusions and paranoia. He thought that this was the general understanding of what a mental illness was like.

If Lu Ban were insane, that would be one thing, but he seems perfectly normal, logical, and polite in his interactions with others, which makes him even more terrifying.

When a madman acts normally, it means he has learned to hide himself!

However, they didn't arrest people randomly. Lu Ban hadn't committed any crimes or offenses; he was simply sick and hadn't bothered the neighbors, so He Youwu naturally wouldn't arrest him.

"Hopefully he's just mentally unstable and won't do anything strange."

As He Youwu muttered to himself, he saw that someone had forwarded a video in his high school classmates' group chat.

[Tasting prairie voles: They were quite large and tasted great!]

"What is this, a mukbang? A late-night revenge on society?"

He Youwu dismissed the video title with disdain until he saw the video cover.

He stopped breathing instantly, felt a ringing in his ears, and all other sounds faded away.

After a moment, He Youwu took a deep breath and carefully examined the person on it.

Without a doubt, it's Lu Ban!

This mentally ill patient is also a video content creator?

What kind of videos can he shoot?

With doubts in his heart, He Youwu clicked on the video.

Twelve minutes later, He Youwu saw the end of the video.

When he saw the young man's sinister and eerie smile, suddenly, a head popped out of the window in front of the duty room.

"grass!"

He Youwu was so frightened that he threw his phone away. He trembled as if he had been electrocuted, and he was just about to pull out his baton and hit the person who was peeking out.

"You got caught slacking off, didn't you?"

The man grinned; it was Chen Danshen, He Youwu's partner, who had visited Lu Ban's house before. Today it wasn't his turn to be on duty, so he came over to have some drinks with his friends and catch a glimpse of the situation, and also to check up on things.

"What are you looking at?"

Chen Danshen glanced at He Youwu's phone, and the smile on her face instantly froze.

"This is not..."

He saw He Youwu nod.

"Take a look at this video."

He Youwu pointed to his phone.

Chen Danshen felt something was strange and didn't understand why, but she still clicked the replay button.

A dozen minutes later, after watching the video, Chen Danshen felt that she was completely sober.

"Is the video this person filmed really using special effects...?"

"We learned about human anatomy and basic injury identification at police academy. You can't replicate this effect with props, can you?"

"Stop, stop, stop! There can't be fish that can fly in the sky in this world, and those monsters and bushes are obviously special effects."

"I don't think I've ever seen the other people in this video before."

"With such good acting skills, they must be very famous?"

The two of them chatted back and forth, discussing matters concerning Lu Ban.

Suddenly, He Youwu felt something wriggling by the window.

bang-

The moment he noticed it, a loud noise echoed through the night.

"Grass!"

The two men shouted curses at the same time. Looking up, they saw only a cat running past with a mouse in its mouth.

Chapter 055 Applying Knowledge

"It'll be quick."

Lu Ban refreshed the page again and saw that his number of likes had exceeded 400,000.

It's only the afternoon of the fifth day, less than a week, and Lu Ban thinks 400,000 likes is a great number.

As for the coins, there are about 80,000, which is a rather small number.

But it's not a big problem.

The ranking and recommendation mechanisms of the old video website support new works. Simply put, videos released within a week are more likely to go viral, thereby attracting more people.

According to the website's algorithm, the number of views is only one reference dimension for ranking the list; the video's subject matter, likes, and coins are other dimensions.

Some videos have a high number of views, but the content is actually very homogeneous and they are just following trends and trying to gain popularity. In that case, there will be fewer likes and coins, and the ranking may not be high.

Some videos, however, have relatively niche and hardcore content and are of very high quality. So even if they don't have a high number of views, they can still make it onto the charts because of the number of likes and coins.

Just like on novel websites, some books have many readers and rank highly, while others have fewer readers but receive many recommendation votes and monthly votes because of their good quality, thus also achieving a high ranking.

This is also one of the ways to motivate creators to continue creating.

Therefore, although Lu Ban's system did not limit the time, he still gave the audience a condition of adding more chapters based on the number of likes and coins given within a week.

Because people are impulsive. For example, after watching Lu Ban's video, some people are in high spirits and it's easy for them to ask for likes and coins. They just do it on impulse.

If we wait a few days, I estimate that many people, even if they have coins, will be too lazy to toss them.

It seems that even if we can't reach the target of 500,000 likes and 100,000 coins within a week, we should be able to in a few days.

It's a bit strange, I don't know if Song Yunyan gave the go-ahead, or if those self-media outlets sensed something and acted on their own initiative, but after Lu Ban's video was released, the same kind of marketing campaign as last time struck again, causing Lu Ban's data to soar.

Good things are all good things.

three days later.

As August arrives, the intense sunshine and humid summer heat in Wuhan completely dampen everyone's desire to go out, leaving them wanting only to spend the rest of their lives in air-conditioned rooms.

But this kind of weather is perfect for Lu Ban, with water, sunshine, and warmth.

He sat on the balcony, basking in the sun and photosynthesizing, while scrolling through his phone.

His phone vibrated; he saw it was a notification from "Did you understand?"

Normally, these websites push out gossip topics like "How beautiful can an ordinary person be?", "How to tell a ghost story starting with a salted fish", "What is it like to have comic book legs?", and "What to do if your boyfriend's family won't let you keep a cat".

However, this time it is related to Lu Ban.

How would you rate the latest special effects video from the old video website UP master "Still Motion"?

"That's impressive."

Lu Ban clicked on it.

He first saw the answer with the most likes.

"...Regarding the special effects, as someone who works in video special effects, I can only say that they're fine for fooling the average viewer, but to true industry insiders, they're too crude. For example, in this scene, a monster with sharp teeth bites through a throat. You can clearly see the traces of special effects here. If a real human's throat were bitten open, the blood and muscle should show different characteristics, like this..."

The person who answered this question is named "Pin," and their profile says they are a "film and television professional," which makes them seem quite professional.

He provided a detailed analysis of the special effects used in Lu Ban's video, including pictures and text, explaining clearly what effects were used in which places and how they were done, making him a true expert.