Er Niang stood in the center of the stage, dressed in red like fire.

The audience was pitch black, unable to distinguish where the hair was and where the shadow was. Er Niang was walking briskly on stage, with the microphone raised to her mouth: "The river flows eastward!" The voices of hundreds of people below were like exploding thunder: "Heaven! Up! Star! Star! Participate! North! Fight

Er Niang was jumping and shouting, with waves of noise overwhelming each other. In the crowd, some people were recording videos, some were screaming, and some were laughing and bending over. This is not a concert, this is an ordinary day in Kaifeng Wansui Mountain Wuxia City (hereinafter referred to as "Wansui Mountain").

In this artificial world covering nearly 400000 square meters, thousands of "second ladies" are scattered in every corner - matchmakers, street patrolmen, lantern sellers, and rappers. They are NPCs of the scenic area.

The full name of NPC is Non PlayerCharac-ter, originally a concept in games that refers to characters that are not controlled by players.

My second mother, who was originally a single mother, previously helped run a wedding company for our family. Her life came to a standstill due to fluctuations in the industry's peak and off seasons, as well as five years of illness treatment. Until she arrived at Wansui Mountain as a tourist and saw the enthusiastic interaction between the "Mr. Wang" who had also served as a wedding host on stage and the audience, a thought flashed through her mind: "Can I do this too

In May 2025, Er Niang recorded a video of shouting "Mai" and "Guan Kou", which was recommended to the person in charge of the scenic area. More than 20 days later, she joined the company.

There are many people like Er Niang who spontaneously gather in the martial arts world. 27 year old Wang Yinan is one of them. This young person with a background in performance has played 8 roles in "Celebrating the Year". After struggling on the path of acting for many years due to pressure from talent agencies and unpaid wages from the production team, Wang Yinan went to Gubei Water Town at the end of 2024 and put on ancient costumes for the first time, becoming an NPC who does not need to wait for lighting or company accompaniment.

And also Xiao Liu. His meniscus was severely worn after 82 times of climbing Mount Taishan Mountain as a companion, and it hurt like needles on rainy days. In the off-season when Mount Taishan was climbing with him, he came to Longevity Mountain and was caught by tourists to take photos because of his good bone.

Nowadays, Wansui Mountain has over 2000 cast members and performs and interacts over 2000 times a day. The reason why this scenic area, which used to focus on sightseeing and large-scale situational drama performances, requires a large number of NPCs is attributed to one person - Wang Po.

In the spring of 2024, a video with hundreds of millions of views, "Wang Po Talks Media" broke through the boundaries of Wansui Mountain and went nationwide. The number of fans of Zhao Mei, who played Wang Po, skyrocketed to 7 million. In the month of breaking the circle, the search popularity of Wansui Mountain increased by more than 700% month on month, and the ticket booking volume increased by more than 200% month on month. The operating revenue of Wansui Mountain will be 180 million yuan in 2023, 540 million yuan in 2024, and 1.27 billion yuan in 2025. Over 24 million visitors enter the park in one year.

An NPC set fire to a city. Since then, NPCs have swept across scenic spots across the country. Snow cake monkey, father-in-law, and countless unnamed characters have become the new top stream in short videos.

Young people with good looks, physical strength, and acting skills have flooded into these artificial rivers and lakes from all over the country and various industries. They interact with tourists, engage in poetry, dance on the wall, and dance on the street. They are not only the scenery in the Jianghu plot, but also the protagonists on their respective stages, and a light that illuminates the emotions of tourists.

This scene easily reminds people of the science fiction American TV series "Westworld" directed by Jonathan Nolan. In a high-tech theme park, as an NPC's eternal machine receptionist, their awakening begins with realizing that they are just a string of codes in a vast narrative.

But in China in 2026, thousands of real-life NPCs are soberly portraying another reality: they actively choose to run, smile, and be watched in pre-set scripts. When traffic suddenly hits, some people are pushed to the altar, some become the background, and some collapse due to "code" errors.

There are no immortal robots in these artificial rivers and lakes, but they have the real joys, sorrows, and dreams of ordinary people.

Jianghu Initial Makeup

In Westworld, each receptionist has their own 'core circuit', and the NPCs in the scenic area are no exception.

Er Niang plays Sun Er Niang in Wansui Mountain, and her core circuit is "interaction": she speaks popular phrases on stage, and almost everyone in the audience can connect. She brought Sun Erniang's boldness and grandeur to the extreme.

But when she first joined Wansui Mountain, Er Niang didn't even have a stage, so she had to find an empty space on Shuihu Street and shout on her own with a stereo. For this reason, she specifically sought advice from the old mischievous children in the East District on how to dance and shout on the microphone. From shouting by oneself, listening to tourists, to auditions PK、 She polished the entire process step by step, including issuing silver tickets and dancing.

In February 2026, a video taken by tourists made Er Niang popular. In the video, she is dressed in a red shirt and the microphone is raised to her mouth: "Joyful". Hundreds of people in the audience joined in and said, "Grey! Too! Wolf!" The video has been viewed millions of times. Since then, fans will occupy the first row position 2 hours in advance. Even without a sunshade and under the scorching sun, fans will still stand there waiting.

This kind of fanaticism, Sangmu has seen it before. This boy, who is 188 centimeters tall, has dark skin and full muscles, is surrounded by tourists on three levels inside and outside at Zhengzhou Fantawild Park in the summer of 2025.

The core circuit of Sangmu is to use a princess hug to help everyone relieve weight anxiety. This setting allowed him to bring 400 million topic traffic to Fantawild in a month. Sangmu's fans skyrocketed from 200000 to 2 million, ranking third in the new list of popular NPCs in the scenic area in November 2025, only behind Wang Po and Snow Cake Monkey.

After the explosion, fans will dress up and wait in line for two or three hours just to meet Sangmu and receive an encouraging princess hug. Someone held themselves and embroidered their name with a cross stitch, stitch by stitch; Some people cry when they see him, so excited that they can't say a word completely; Some people even worry that Princess Sangmu is too tired to hold, so they practice holding Princess Sangmu in reverse privately.

Wang Yinan's circuit is' Ba Zong Bi Dong '. He was wearing a red and black gradient long dress, with tassels hanging from the hem and long hair tied up. In the video, he leaned sideways against the wall, tilted slightly, and smiled at the tourists from a distance of one fist. The comment section is filled with messages saying 'Brother, I'm not good enough'.

In a fixed persona, NPCs construct the plot, and no one knows where the story will go next.

In Qingming Shanghe Garden, which is separated from Wansui Mountain by a street, the "Lamp Selling Girl" is a character who bravely ventures into the city of Tokyo. The actress Niu Niu designed a fierce persona for herself: if the light falls off, she wants to deceive someone, and if the prime minister runs away, she wants to catch a traitor.

Every day from 9:30 to 11:30 in the morning and 3:30 to 5:30 in the afternoon, the "Lamp Selling Girl" stands on this street and interacts with tourists according to the setting. "The plot outline remains the same, but the tourists encountered every day are different.

The cracks in human design

Just like the program in Westworld can make mistakes, Sangmu's system also crashed in January 2026.

There were a lot of people queuing up that day, and in order to allow everyone to see Sangmu, the scenic area compressed the interaction time to 30 seconds.

A girl who came from out of town and waited in line for several hours stood in front of Sangmu. The 30 second countdown started, but Sangmu distracted and responded to a booing from the audience. Before the girl could react, the staff began urging, "Next baby

The girl posted Wei Qu online, and the comment section first attacked the cheering fans. Sangmu was eager to stop the insults towards fans and ignored the feelings of the girl, which caused dissatisfaction among many people. As the situation escalated, major media outlets also paid attention to it, triggering a new public opinion storm. The hot search comment reads' Women's money is really easy to cheat '.

Afterwards, Sangmu repeatedly watched the video and found that the entire process lasted for 40 seconds. It took 5 seconds to respond to the audience, and there were more than 30 seconds left for the girl. But time is still too short, too short to say the words of longing, so short that even taking photos would make one panic. Later, it was discovered that this girl always traveled thousands of miles alone, and Sangmu felt so guilty that he wished he could slap himself.

The situation has reached an uncontrollable point, and Sangmu's phone backend is filled with accusations and insults. This matter has even been portrayed as an attack of gender opposition. The situation has also been distorted into another version: the 240 yuan amusement park pass is said to be a 30 second interactive fee of 240 yuan; The on-site interaction also turned into Sangmu completely ignoring the fans on stage, only focusing on chatting with the fans below.

Later, Sangmu apologized to the girl who posted the video. The girl also posted on Weibo, saying, "It's my own business not to forgive him. Please don't disturb him anymore." Since then, Sangmu has not publicly responded to this matter. But his life went down: from taking on 29 scenic spots in a month during peak hours, it plummeted to 2 during the May Day holiday.

Sangmu never thought that fan culture would happen to him as an NPC. "I have been conveying to my fans that 'this world is beautiful,' but I have become the person who makes the world not beautiful.

Wang Yinan's program has also encountered bugs. In order to provide fans with a better experience, he tried to remember their names. For this, he even memorized a 12 page PPT, taking screenshots of fans' faces from Vlog videos one by one, and noting their names. Some people are no longer coming, he also remembers.

But most of the time, he still can't call out. Hundreds of thousands of fans, everyone's makeup is different. Once, a fan who flew from another city lined up to see him, but in the end, he was called by the wrong name. The other person's mouth stiffened, their gaze gradually faded, and they turned around and left.

There was another time when Wang Yinan, who had been laughing all day, laughed a little stiff at night. Fans think he's a fake smile, so they sent him a private message and scolded him, saying, "You're not sincere at all. You're not as good as what's said online. A fake smile is perfunctory

Sometimes even if the name is correct, if fans continue to ask 'what did we do last time' or 'what clothes did we wear last time', Wang Yinan can only apologize, saying hundreds of 'sorry' words a day.

Anxiety

Not everyone can become the protagonist of a traffic center. Most people are more like receptionists in Westworld, and more like background boards in scenic spots.

Niu Niu, the girl who sells lanterns, is a sophomore majoring in music performance at Nanyang Normal University. During her internship this semester, she chose to become an NPC. Niuniu's Tiktok has only more than 1000 fans. She envies Zhan Zhao and Xiao Liu for having hundreds of thousands of fans. Although everyone is the protagonist in their own story, Niu Niu feels that she can be replaced at any time before she becomes popular.

Even those seemingly glamorous "stars" have unavoidable anxiety.

Before officially signing the scenic spot, Xiaoliu spontaneously put on makeup to attract traffic. Liu's method is to send a small card, with a makeup photo printed on the front and his Tiktok QR code on the back. This is a way to gain followers by hand rubbing: sending cards to attract traffic during the day, and playing PK live at night. But formal employees in the scenic area will occupy his position, and security guards will also come to drive him away. Your team is longer than theirs, they are uncomfortable, "Xiao Liu said.

Er Niang's discomfort stems more from a sense of crisis, 'The new NPC is better and more powerful, and I will definitely feel anxious.'. Now, Erniang's life and work have been integrated. Even during her break time, she will brush Tiktok to see what other NPCs are doing, what new ways of playing, and whether to take a new video.

Wang Yinan is still persevering. Now, he is alone in Shanghai and has not signed any contracts with any companies. He relies on NPC performances and live streaming income to make a living, and he has to spend half of his annual income on rent. Working offline, Wang Yinan dare not get sick, as being sick means having no income.

Live streaming tipping is the main source of income for most top NPCs, but Wang Yinan did not choose this path. He believes that live PK requires ticket sales, which can guide some people to make impulsive purchases, but most of his fans are students. "Being an NPC is meant to make oneself happy, make everyone happy, and earn money that one can earn. For a long time, Wang Yinan was actually a somewhat insecure person. Because a professional actor has a high starting point in his career and his friends around him have developed well one by one, he began to constantly deny himself. But after becoming an NPC, Wang Yinan said he became more outgoing, "These people who come to play with you come over and over again, and are encouraged time and time again. In their eyes, you are very good.

After encountering online rumors once, some fans flew in from other places to comfort him. At that moment, Wang Yinan felt that being an NPC had a new meaning. "NPCs are not one-way sacrifices, but more of a two-way journey between tourists and service providers.

I have to pick up one or two hundred mulberry trees every day, but my body has also suffered injuries. But when he discovers that he can bring encouragement and joy to others, that's the happiest time.

The next scene of life

Xiaoliu's knees are already old, he is only 20 years old this year. He goes to the gym every day not to shape himself, but to prevent further deterioration of his meniscus.

Xiaoliu's dream is to become an actor. But he has a very specific plan: to first change from a touring character to a fixed character in the Qingming Riverside Garden. The leaders of the scenic area want him to be the White Exhibition Hall, but it has not been decided yet. He has been communicating with the relevant person in charge. Xiaoliu also learned face changing in Sichuan opera at Hai Di Lao.

Xiaoliu hopes to have a fixed IP, just like Er Niang and Zhan Zhao, having a fixed role can make him more popular. Xiao Liu's ultimate goal is to go to Hengdian. "In two years, maybe when you interview me, I will have already entered the TV drama or entertainment industry.

Wang Yinan also wants to become an actor, and his priority for accepting orders is: a male lead in a short drama with a good script, followed by an NPC, and finally a regular short drama. For him, although NPCs are very healing, four years of studying performance cannot be in vain.

Sangmu doesn't consider himself a celebrity, he defines himself as a video blogger. After finishing the few tasks during the May Day holiday, he and two hired private tutors began to reply to fans' private messages one by one, providing free consultation to fans with body problems and helping colleagues with fatigue to repair their bodies. In the future, Sangmu is also preparing to release these videos to give everyone a better understanding of NPC's offline life.

Er Niang's goal is to become Wang Po. "Being able to reach the level of a godmother is really similar to being a celebrity. Er Niang also knows that she is still far from becoming the second Wangpo. She signed a three-year contract with the scenic spot. What about three years later? She doesn't know.

The lights in Shanghe Garden during Qingming Festival are still on sale. Even if it's just a scene, as long as the lights are on, someone must continue to perform.