The Villain's Mom Becomes Famous for Fortune-Telling and Gossip Ch. 81

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"Master Yu," the round-faced girl pointed to a line in the document, "the director asked me to highlight this part. Originally, the show was going to draw from old Tulip Forum posts, but since a lot of the contacts can't be reached anymore, we're now only picking from the hottest trending posts of the day."

She scratched her cheek and smiled a little sheepishly. "Also, since the masters on our show are skilled in more than just fortune-telling and face-reading, we'll probably start including non-divination-related cases too."

That part was a bit different from what they'd been told before.

Yu Yuan nodded. "Got it."

The girl smiled. "I'll step away then. If you have any questions, just call me."

"Okay."

As the girl walked off, Hua Nan sat down beside Yu Yuan, brows deeply furrowed. "This isn't what we were originally briefed on."

He flipped to one of the freshly added clauses, his expression turning grim. "They actually split everyone into three groups."

The grouping was, of course: the four from Celestial Master Hall in one team, the four demon race representatives in another, and Yu Yuan—being a government employee from the Underworld—was placed in a team by herself.

Hua Nan sneered. He'd dealt with his fair share of political games over the years, but the blatant exclusion here still got under his skin. "They're really not even trying to hide the favoritism."

Yu Yuan quickly flipped through the rest of the document and calmly responded, "It's fine. One person is one person. No one to mess things up—I think it's great."

As for the newly added "beyond fortune-telling and face-reading" clause, she said, "Even if the show was proposed by Celestial Master Hall, it's not like they can run it alone. The demons are naturally better at handling supernatural incidents. It's only fair everyone gets to play to their strengths."

If the entire show were just fortune-telling, the demons probably wouldn't have agreed to join in the first place.

Now that the format included dealing with real supernatural events, it gave her more leverage to balance the powers between Celestial Master Hall and the demons.

At exactly 9:20 AM, Yu Qingqing, who had been waiting at her computer all morning, finally saw the "Strange and Mysterious Tales of the Demon World" livestream begin.

She poured lemon water for herself and her manager and the two of them sat quietly, watching the show's logo—an image of a protective talisman—appear on screen.

"Program rundown: Before the show officially begins, we ask that viewers vote via the show's official Weibo," said the livestream host. "Among the ten hottest Tulip Emotion Forum posts right now, choose one for our guests to tackle today."

The screen cut to a Weibo interface displaying the titles and summaries of ten different posts. Beside each title, vote counts began ticking up from zero.

Voting only lasted five minutes. Yu Qingqing bit her lip as she scrolled through the show's Weibo page.

"We've got to pick something that'll work in Master Yu's favor..."

"Exactly. This kind of voting system gives Fang Junyan a huge advantage," her manager muttered while skimming the post descriptions, clearly worried for Master Yu.

Fang Junyan's fanbase was in the hundreds of millions.

Even though he lost to Master Yu the night before, his fans were pros at denial. In their minds, even in defeat, Fang Junyan remained invincible.

Just as the manager had predicted, Fang Junyan's fan groups were already in action. One after another, they rallied behind the case that played to his biggest strength—the sixth most popular post among the ten: "The CEO's Cursed Ancestral Tomb Dug Up."

Feng shui and ancestral tombs were Fang Junyan's specialties.

On the show's Weibo, post rankings shuffled rapidly, but with the combined power of his diehard fans and curious onlookers, the tomb-digging case quickly shot to and locked down the #1 spot.

Meanwhile, at the Lu family mansion in the mountain city, Lu Yan watched helplessly as "Haunted Rental House", his preferred post, slipped out of the lead. Frustrated, he hurled his phone to the floor—just as Grandma Lu walked in with a fresh apple pie.

Seeing her grandson brooding, her face twisted with worry. She walked over and affectionately ruffled his hair.

"What's wrong with our precious Yan Yan? Who made you this upset?"

She set the pie down and glanced up at the TV—Lu Yan had cast the livestream onto the big screen for easier viewing.

"Eh? Isn't that the eldest of the Celestial Master Hall's Fang family?" Grandma Lu's eyes lit up with surprise. She pointed at Fang Junyan's fleeting appearance on screen. "What's this show?"

"It's some metaphysics reality show the Celestial Master Hall is doing," Lu Yan replied listlessly. "Looks kinda lame."

"Hey now, Yan Yan, don't talk like that," Grandma Lu chided, sitting beside him. "The Celestial Masters are all good folks. If they're doing a show, I'm sure there's a reason behind it. You shouldn't talk nonsense online either."

Lu Yan just hugged a pillow and gave a noncommittal grunt.

He stared blankly at the screen for a moment, then said quietly, "Grandma... Yu Yuan's on the show too."

"Who? Yu Yuan?" Grandma blinked, the name ringing a distant bell. She wrinkled her brow, trying to recall. "Another one of the Celestial Masters?"

Lu Yan: "......"

He opened his mouth to explain but saw her earnest expression and suddenly lost all interest.

"Never mind. Show's starting. You watch."

Back at the filming location, the nine guests were each followed by a dedicated cameraman. Yu Yuan's sharp eyes caught a detail on every single camera—each had a golden talisman stickered onto it.

She recognized the design right away. It was a specialized sigil used to stabilize yin energy. In other words, those cameras could film things the naked eye couldn't see without the usual spiritual interference messing up the footage.

The talismans were simple in function but not easy to make. Compared to common protective charms, these were far more advanced—proof that the Celestial Master Hall had really splurged.

"Welcome, everyone, to the very first episode of the first season of Strange and Mysterious Tales of the Demon World! I'll now explain the rules of the competition!"

"This season has a total of eight episodes, with nine guests divided into three groups based on their personal preferences. In each episode, the teams will go head-to-head."

All credit goes to the original author
Feel free to pinpoint us if there are any grammar error or typos
Please don't use Guazi's translations to re-translate in other languages

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