The singing in the live room
Originally written in Chinese. Translated with AI, reviewed by Gary. Read the Chinese original →
It's a rare long weekend again, so let me tell you something fun.
Besides running our own brands, early this year we also started an MCN and an agency business. We moved office, and now we run twenty livestream rooms. Every night the lights are blazing and the atmosphere is as lively as a night market.
Late one night, a dozen or so people were still working overtime. One host was alone in her live room, selling.
She was introducing products and chatting with viewers. Suddenly a viewer commented:
"Your singing is so nice!"
The host froze.
She wasn't singing.
And she was the only person in the room.
The strange thing was, she couldn't hear anything herself, but the viewers' comments kept pouring in, one after another:
"Wow, you sing so well!"
"Who's singing with you?"
"Is someone behind you?"
In that moment the air went still. Only the live-stream lights flickered faintly, as if they were breathing.
The more she read the comments, the more her skin crawled. Then she screamed and ran out of the room.
The whole office was in uproar at once.
And the rumours slowly started... Some said they felt "something" follow them home after work. Others said they saw a baby stroller move by itself.
In my years in business I've seen plenty of storms: product problems, broken supply chains, cash-flow crunches, all solvable. But a haunting? This one really stumped me.
What scares me most isn't ghosts. It's people's minds in turmoil.
Calling in the Ustaz
Later a colleague suggested inviting a few friendly Ustaz to recite prayers and cleanse the place. The whole thing was solemn and warm, and the atmosphere finally settled.
But the story wasn't over.
Afterwards we went back through the recording of that night's stream, and found it was a technical problem.
The audio lines between the stream microphone and the control desk had been wired wrong. A host in another live room was singing, and her voice was leaking into this one.
The "haunting", perfectly solved.
Funding by day, ghost hunting by night
Sometimes a startup is like this: talking funding by day, chasing ghosts by night. It tests not just your business judgement but the strength of your heart.
Still, it's exactly these unexpected little episodes that add a bit more laughter, and a bit more warmth, to the journey.