Although Jin was at work, he was notified by the System via his phone when cultivators tried the extra stage in the Halloween Instance. Particularly because he would like to personally watch over the cultivators who entered that stage since that was one of the parts he had added into the first version of the Halloween Instance.
The scenario for the Halloween Instance was initially designed to be solely on the island of Halloween Candies with Pyro Jack as the main antagonist of the entire instance. However, Jin felt that what the System did was inadequate since candy was not the only thing representing Halloween.
Perhaps for the System, it might mean something more symbolic since it was statistically proven that one quarter of the annual candy sales in the world were from Halloween events. Hence, it was a no-brainer why the System decided to choose Candies as the main focus of the theme.
However, Jin wanted to show that this was not the case. He wanted to show his artistic expression on the festival of the dead spirits. Although the root concept of Halloween was similar to the Seventh Month Ghost Festival which most Chinese folks continued to participate in, Halloween had turned into something more superficial, which allowed Jin to experiment.
He hoped to create an instance to invoke life threatening situations to instil the fear of death which one took so lightly in this relaxed society. It was not just for the customers, but also for him to understand death itself, since he himself nearly took a person’s life once. He wanted to see the instance through the perspective of the System. He hoped that it could maybe allow Jin to find out, why the System wanted him to go through such a horrible experience.
Therefore, he eventually created the extra stage for the Halloween Instance. His main purpose for this extra stage was to see if the cultivators could overcome the fear of oneself, their own inner thoughts and the insecurities they had. In order to create this extra stage, he had employed both Milk and Peppers to consult on the topic of psionic magic so that he had a basic understanding of it. Jin could have asked Tiger Princess Yang Ling but he did not want to make his relationship with her any more complicated.
This was because to make things real for the cultivators, the instance could not use a one-for-all kind of template for the extra stage. For it to be believable, it had to be tailor made to the cultivators to a certain extent. However, in order to do that, it would need tens if not hundreds of ‘what if’ situations for Jin to design which was clearly inefficient. So, to make things simpler, Jin directly asked the System for help with the use of light psionic magic against those cultivators.
Fortunately, the System agreed to Jin’s request. Whether it did so to further mend their relationship or for its own benefit, one does not know. Thus, the System’s instance had modifications made by Jin and it was released to the cultivators to participate and play.
Of course, Jin was not stupid. He knew that people might develop traumas and such, so he specially asked Milk whether it was too dangerous for cultivators to enter this kind of instance. After a deep discussion with Milk, Jin figured it was safe enough to go through it, especially with Milk’s healing powers and the System’s amnesia ability to change the way one perceived the memory if needed. Such an ability was bestowed to Milk for her own discretion in assessing the patient when the cultivators finished the instance.
Aside from the warning that Jin had given his customers about resigning from the instance, he had also placed a disclaimer about the use of horror scenarios, which could even lead to traumas. Before being able to enter the Halloween Instance, the cultivators had to give their verbal consent (which was recorded) and acknowledge that they were aware of the risk before entering. It was a complicated process, similar to entering a surgery, but Jin created this to protect himself in case he got sued or anything. However most of the cultivators who entered and managed to pass the first stage, thought that the warnings were just part of the experience and that the worst part was over after escaping the sinking plane. No one could have predicted, how thoroughly tailor made the extra stage of Jin´s Halloween Instance would end up being.
“Ah, so the ones who joined the extra stage are Se Lang, Shi Hui and Jia Ying…” Jin took off his Pandula Head (Dracula with Panda Head) and briefly watched the scenes. “Looks like they are unable to make it.” Jin saw the three of them struggling to the best of their abilities but it was not exactly working out for them.
Se Lang did the most radical thing ever for his obstacle. He personally cut his own wrist and left a trail of blood to mark the route he was taking. He was not leaving the blood trail like Hansel and Gretel’s breadcrumbs but more like basic trail markers on the floor beside the mirror to indicate he came here before.
This way, he managed to know whether it was the same mirror that he stumbled upon again. It was a systematic and methodical way to tackle the problem but it was also eating his heart up. Because in some of the mirrors, he saw Shi Hui by herself fighting against the Gingerbread Knights, while Jia Ying was being tortured by some black silhouette figures. (Only Jia Ying perceived the illusion that the black silhouettes were Shi Hui and Se Lang.)
Se Lang was at a loss. Should he save Shi Hui who seemed to be outnumbered? Especially considering her status as his girlfriend? But unlike Jia Ying, she was able to fight back and he trusted her abilities to cope. However, he did not know, that Shi Hui was fighting both a physical and psychological battle against her enemies.
“Arrggh! Focus Se Lang! Focus! At this rate, you cannot help anybody at all!” Se Lang said to himself as he tried his best to get out of the hall of mirrors.
——–
“Who do you think you are?! Trying to cheat my boyfriend!” The black silhouette continued to kick the tied-up Jia Ying. However, instead of replying, she continued to suffer quietly under the torrent of blows. “Huh, I think she is scared of you.” The fake Se Lang laughed at her and even spit at her.
“Scared? She should grovel under my feet.” The fake Shi Hui continued to gloat and that was when Jia Ying realized what exactly was amiss. No matter how angry Shi Hui was, she would never talk to Jia Ying this way.
“Se Lang my dear~! Maybe you should go get the tools I prepared previously for this kind of situation!” The Black Silhouette continued to make lovey dovey sounds and Jia Ying did not care much, since she was in too much pain. No matter how strong she was, this was the first time she received repeated beatings.
“Shi Hui, what is Venus Four’s ultimate goal?” Jia Ying asked calmly after having spend a lot of time thinking about the situation she was in. She managed to keep her cool, despite the scare and physical punishment she was given. That also made the fake Se Lang stop in his tracks to get the tools that fake Shi Hui asked for.
“Why do I even need to answer that, traitor?” Shi Hui said which made Jia Ying start giggling, before it increased to extremely loud laugher to the point it annoyed the fake Shi Hui. “You are not Shi Hui at all.” Jia Ying shouted as she tried to struggle out of the ropes.
“Why you! How dare you accuse my girlfriend! I will make you suffer!” the Fake Se Lang roared as he lifted his leg to stomp on Jia Ying again.
“I dare you.” Jia Ying heard Se Lang’s voice again but its tone was different. It was tired, scared but angry.
“Se Lang!” Jia Ying shouted his name with relief in her voice. The real Se Lang rushed in and cut the two black silhouettes with the Icesteel Scythe and both disappeared in one swoop. Se Lang immediately dropped his scythe and began trying to untie Jia Ying from the chair.
“Wow, you sure are one tough girl.” Se Lang commented upon seeing the broken chair she was restrained to. The black silhouettes had punched and kicked Jia Ying to the point that one of the chair legs gave way yet she did not give in to the torture.
However, Jia Ying could not hold herself back as she hugged Se Lang and cried out loud. “It was painful!!!!”
