Let's give space a touch of Chinese horror!

Chapter 34 The Strange Video

"Hey, have you guys received any private messages?"

"What private message?"

"It's that game '囍' that someone paid us to make a walkthrough for, the creator of that game, they sent us a private message asking us to delete the walkthrough videos, didn't you receive it?"

In a private group chat among gaming bloggers, several bloggers were having a casual conversation.

"Oh, that one, I received it."

"I received it too, but I'm pretending I didn't see it, hehe..."

"Me too, but that game developer is really persistent. After I ignored their private message, they started leaving comments in the comment section. Luckily, I was keeping an eye on the backend and quickly deleted all their comments, otherwise my fans would have seen them..."

"Me too... I was worried that if my haters saw these comments, they might use them to attack me, so I just blocked them~"

"Wow, you reminded me! I'll go block that account right now!"

"Huh? So the one who paid us to make the guide before wasn't that game developer? I always thought it was the game developer who asked us to make the guide... I was wondering why they paid us to make videos before, and now they're using a different account and a different tone to ask us to delete the videos..."

"It's definitely not the game's original creator who paid us to do this..."

The other members of the group explained to the puzzled blogger with some amusement: "Haven't we all played the 'Double Happiness' game? It's clearly the kind of one-time game that you won't want to play again once you've finished it."

"Now that we've put the walkthroughs online, many people who watch our videos are essentially playing the game and won't download it anymore, which will definitely have a big impact on the game. What's more, the creator is participating in a holographic horror game competition, and that competition ranks games based on downloads."

"Huh? Who was it that contacted us earlier...?"

"They're the creators of other games...maybe even the creators who participated in the holographic horror game competition. But it's normal that you don't know these things, little Yo. You've only been in this industry for a short time. Don't be fooled by how these game creators seem to be completely focused on their games; they have a lot of 'little tricks' up their sleeves behind the scenes..."

"The author of this '囍' character is quite pitiful..." The blogger called "Xiao Yo" sighed.

Other bloggers are used to it: "There's nothing we can do; these games aren't just something you can create and then leave it at that."

"Little Yo, don't let your sympathy get the better of you and actually delete the video as the game developer requested."

"Yes, yes, we signed a contract when we received the money. The videos have to be kept until after the holographic horror game competition ends before they can be deleted. Breaching the contract will result in a penalty!"

"Exactly, and besides, when the creator of '囍' contacted us to delete the video, they weren't planning to pay..."

As they were talking, one of the bloggers suddenly said, "I have to leave for a bit, my former boss is looking for me..."

As the blogger spoke, he left the group chat and opened his boss's message. However, the message his boss sent... left him somewhat confused.

What does it mean that "all the strategy-related content is missing from the '囍' video"?

He uploaded the video and hasn't touched it since... The upload date is still visible on the website; he didn't modify it at all!

"Boss, are you sure you're not mistaken?" the blogger asked cautiously.

The boss on the other end didn't say anything, but simply sent me a video link: "See for yourself..."

"In my chat history, I still have the original video you sent me for inspection before you posted it. The video is 17 minutes and 28 seconds long."

"You can check this link to see how long the video you posted is."

"Only 11 minutes and 53 seconds!"

"It's lost more than 5 minutes of playtime, and all the missing content consists of walkthrough tips and strategies!"

Without the strategy guides and spoilers, wouldn't the game videos just become promotional videos for "囍"?

Enraged, the shop owner across the street directly questioned, "Did you take money from '囍' (double happiness)?"

"I'm innocent, boss!"

The blogger, while protesting their innocence, opened the private message they had received earlier, took a screenshot, and sent it to their boss: "The '囍' group did contact me, but look, boss, I didn't reply or agree at all!"

He even found the deleted comments in the backend to show his loyalty: "Boss, look, I deleted all the comments over there, and I even blocked the account..." He's so loyal, boss! Besides, "囍" didn't even pay him, so why would he risk breaching his contract by deleting the video?

He is not stupid!

The boss seemed surprised by this situation and was less aggressive than before: "Let me take another look and see where the problem lies..."

"Okay, boss."

After getting rid of the boss, the blogger finally breathed a sigh of relief, reopened the group chat, and began to complain: "Brothers, you have no idea what I just encountered..."

"My former boss actually accused me of taking money from '囍' (a gaming platform) and deleted all the strategy content from the videos!"

"This is outrageous! If I really took the money, I would have just deleted the video. Why would I go through the trouble of editing it into a new version?"

"Hey bro, you ran into them too?"

"What?"

"The video! My boss just came to see me, saying the part in my video that spoiled the game is gone? He asked if I deleted it..."

"Me too... I denied it outright, but the boss asked me why the videos I uploaded before were shorter than they were if I hadn't deleted them..."

"What did you say in response...?"

"What the hell should I answer?! I have absolutely no idea how to answer this! I haven't touched that video since I uploaded it, and the posting time is the same as the last upload time, but the video length is inexplicably several minutes shorter!"

"I checked, and all the spoilers are gone!"

"What?! You guys are all like that?! Mine are the same!"

"Me too!"

……

A flood of "Me too" comments started appearing on social media, and these gaming bloggers finally realized something was wrong.

"If it were a website bug, the video should have disappeared entirely, or it shouldn't be able to be opened... How could it be so precise, cutting out all the spoilers from a video?"

"I also checked my other videos, and the lengths of those videos didn't change. The only ones that changed were the videos related to 'double happiness'."

"...Brothers, I feel like something's not right."

"I feel the same way...it gives me the creeps..."

"To be honest, the hair on the back of my neck is standing on end... but it's 30 degrees Celsius here right now."

"Ugh... my boss is asking me again! I also want to know why my uploaded video is like this! It's so annoying!"

"Forget it, if we don't understand it, we don't understand it. Let's just re-upload the video."

"That's right, who cares how it turned out this way, just replace the video and be done with it!"

"Remember to record a video and send it to the boss, so he doesn't think we secretly edited the video again!"

"That makes sense! Thanks for the reminder, bro!"

The game bloggers left the group chat, retrieved the original video files from their personal computers, and then pressed the record button.

Once the video upload progress bar on the website's backend reached 100% and displayed a successful replacement message, the blogger was satisfied and closed the record button, then began to check the recorded video.

Yes, the video clearly shows that the original video is 17 minutes and 28 seconds long.

Next, open the video website's backend, find the video with the character "囍", click "replace", and re-upload the video.

The video overwrite was successful, and the upload time has been updated to the current time. The backend shows the current video duration as 11 minutes and 53 seconds. OK, you can send this video to the boss now.

and many more!

The blogger abruptly pulled the progress bar back, staring blankly at the "11 minutes and 53 seconds" game duration displayed in the website's backend for the newly uploaded video, completely stunned.