I Am Your Natural Enemy

Wen Yan downloaded the short video and turned off his phone.

He didn’t rush to do anything; after all, it was just his own gut feeling.

And on short video platforms, these kinds of awkward copycat videos are everywhere.

If you show it to someone else, they probably wouldn’t think there’s anything wrong with it either.

Now that he had this sense of déjà vu, it was either do nothing or do it properly.

Putting away his phone, Wen Yan didn’t plan to pursue the brewing house situation any further.

The old brewer had said it several times—no one’s out to get him, and it’s probably hard to ever figure out what really happened.

Since the Water Monarch liked spiked wine, it worked out perfectly; give the old man a new headache, something to keep him busy.

Anyway, Ghosts’ biggest fear is having nothing to do. Get bored, and they’ll start overthinking—so if there’s something they enjoy, at least nothing big will go wrong.

Back home, Wen Yan took out his phone and continued checking into that company over at Central Plains County.

This time, he didn’t just look at the creators, streamers, and influencers already signed with the company, but also dug into those who’d terminated contracts or collaborated in the past.

After hours of digging, Wen Yan didn’t find anything useful at all.

All he got was a sense that this company was basically the poster child for playing by the rules—they didn’t even owe labor fees, not once.

No lawsuits, no disputes, no arbitration, not a single negative thing in sight.

They didn’t make money by signing rookie streamers and gouging them with breach penalties. If someone wanted out when their contract ended, no hard feelings—whatever money was owed always got paid.

The employees’ personal social accounts had nothing to complain about either. When it came to holidays, they’d even post about their vacation lives.

All of this, taken one by one, really wouldn’t show any problems if looked at separately.

None of it would trigger any of the Scorching Sun Department’s monitoring standards.

To someone who doesn’t know the industry, nothing would seem off at all.

But Wen Yan felt something was off, because he actually did know people in the field and understood some of it.

If you’re really that upstanding, what are you doing running an MCN?

At most companies, if there’s finally a decent-looking little streamer, they rope in a rich fan, set up a drinking party, and bring three other talents along.

It’s all about toasting, hanging out at karaoke, pretty much like acting as a pimp—the end result, after costs, you make like three thousand bucks. What the hell?

Honestly, actual pimping might be easier—you wouldn’t even have to show up in person.

As for assistant employees, posting about vacations and food trips during holidays? Total bullshit.

When everyone else is off, that’s when these employees are busiest.

Shooting a video means tagging along with streamers to tourist spots during vacation, getting content for their live streams and recorded videos.

At the very least, they’ve got a photographer with them; if the influencer has some followers, three or four people tagging along for field shoots is normal.

So, to Wen Yan, this company was definitely hiding something; everything on the surface, broken down one by one, looked way too squeaky clean.

So clean it’s actually suspicious.

Because that’s just the ”requirement”—in reality, no other company in the field manages to cover every base with no complaints at all.

Compared to the official standards, if everyone else is ”abnormal” and you’re completely ”normal,” then you’re definitely ”abnormal.”

The more Wen Yan saw, the more unsettled he felt—but with just this, there really wasn’t a good way to act.

And he figured if the Scorching Sun Department stepped in and sent the usual agents to check, odds were they’d find nothing wrong, just that everything’s compliant and legal.

From taxes to fire safety, guaranteed—no issues at all.

Of course, if you want to nitpick, sure, you could drag out a few trivial minor issues.

But tactics like that are only for emergencies, and from what Wen Yan had gathered, this definitely wasn’t some minor thing.

After thinking it through, Wen Yan decided to play it safe for now—like, say, infiltrate them first.

He needed to clarify a few things, like whether short videos were being used as an entry point for the Water Ghost Domain.

He’d always felt there was something odd about this, but Wang Xueqi’s domain was never a normal Water Ghost Domain—the way in was weird, so oddities made sense.

But if that short video wasn’t spawned naturally by domain power, then this was something else entirely.

He pulled out his Scorching Sun Department phone and called Feng Yao.

”Get me a SIM card and a phone. While I’m using them, no one can trace who I am, and no one knows where I’m using this phone either. Is that doable?”

Feng Yao didn’t ask what Wen Yan was up to; he just thought for a moment and said,

”Making sure no one knows who you are? Easy. Making sure no one knows where you use the phone? That’s a bit trickier. The best I can do is narrow it down to the commandery. Is that good enough?”

”That works. But besides you, no one else can know about this.”

”No problem. I’ll bring it over myself.”

”Calling you now won’t get monitored or logged, right?”

”The Scorching Sun Department will have a record that you called me, but that’s it—nothing else.”

”Good.”

Feng Yao didn’t ask anything else. By noon, he drove up to Wen Yan’s house.

He handed Wen Yan a phone.

”This one’s got a couple of extra tricks. The SIM card is registered to some eighty-year-old grandma who immigrated a long time ago. The number’s based in Nanwu County. No matter who checks, that’s all they’ll find.”