...
...
“The Physician class... has boundless prospects. What a pity.”
Another veteran police officer shook his head with regret. “She's only sixteen, a minor, emotionally unstable, and yet she holds this kind of power in her hands. This time she hurt her parents, but what about next time? If she isn't guided properly, the consequences will be unimaginable.”
“You can't look at it that way,” Chen Xi immediately countered. “I believe there was a cause for this.”
“According to our investigation, Kang Xiaojia was subjected to school bullying for an entire year. She was cornered, beaten, and suffered from depression for a long time. The Special Investigation Bureau had already intervened previously; the bullies were ordered to suspend their schooling and sent to a special correction facility, and they publicly apologized and paid compensation to Kang Xiaojia.”
“But how did her parents react? They refused to communicate with the Special Investigation Bureau, ignored the immense pressure their daughter faced from being forced into Instances, and instead verbally abused her daily, forcing her to return to her original school.”
“Now, they were even planning to send her to one of those closed-off special education institutions... Anyone pushed to this point would have broken. She was only acting in self-preservation. At most, it was excessive self-defense.”
Chen Xi's tone was somewhat urgent, clearly genuinely angered.
“Xiao Chen, I know you sympathize with her.” Sun Zhao sighed. “But the law is the law. It doesn't change because the perpetrator's circumstances do. Right now, regardless of the reason, it is a fact that Kang Xiaojia used player abilities to harm ordinary people.”
“This is the first violent player assault case since the spiritual energy recovery. Both our superiors and the public are watching closely. We cannot afford to be careless.”
“I know.” Chen Xi nodded, her tone resolute. “But she is a victim. She may have done wrong, but her crime does not warrant such extreme punishment. We certainly shouldn't punish her more harshly just because she awakened an ability.”
She paused, looking directly at Sun Zhao. “Director, I request that I personally take charge of Kang Xiaojia. She is a minor and a player. Her situation is unique, making her a perfect fit for the Special Investigation Bureau's minor player guardianship system, where we can supervise her personally.”
“Additionally, I request that the organization intervene to initiate legal proceedings to strip Kang Xiaojia's parents of their guardianship. Their actions as guardians have severely damaged the child's physical and mental health. They are no longer fit to raise her.”
A murmur of whispers rippled through the meeting room again. Stripping guardianship was no small matter, especially since they were the biological parents. It could easily spark controversy in the court of public opinion.
“Do you think I'm some kind of unfeeling old fossil?” Sun Zhao looked at her and huffed in annoyance. “I've already had them follow up on the guardianship issue. The chain of evidence is nearly complete, and we can submit the application within the next couple of days.”
“I've read the interrogation records. Given the parents' behavior, they truly don't deserve to be parents. She will be assigned to your team later. Keep a close eye on her. If no one guides this child, she'll be completely ruined.”
Chen Xi was stunned for a moment. She had thought it would take a massive effort to push for this, but she hadn't expected Sun Zhao to have already arranged everything.
“Don't celebrate too early.” Sun Zhao tapped the table. “The problem right now isn't just Kang Xiaojia. Once this precedent is set, the trouble down the line will only multiply.”
“This is the first player assault case, but it absolutely won't be the last.”
“Awakening an ability is like holding a knife in your hand. Some people can maintain their moral boundaries, while others will get carried away, inflate their own egos, and feel they are superior to others, above the law. In the future, cases of players harming ordinary people and players killing each other will only increase.”
Speaking of this, she pointed out the window. “Do you hear that?”
The crowd froze for a moment, straining their ears to listen.
In the distant sky, the faint, muffled roar of a helicopter drifted in, so quiet that one wouldn't notice it without paying close attention.
“This morning, another two private helicopters applied for flight routes and circled our bureau three times.” Sun Zhao's tone was mocking. “Do I really need to explain what that means?”
An officer's expression turned grim. “Are they trying to pull strings to enter an Instance again?”
“What else?” Sun Zhao sneered. “Lately, there have been at least eighty to a hundred people knocking on our door. They either want to secure a slot for an Instance or buy items.”
“Parasites.” Chen Xi spat out the word in disdain. “Everyone is risking their lives in the Instances. The abilities and items we trade our lives for aren't meant to serve their private interests.”
“That may be true, but we can't stop them.” Sun Zhao sighed. “Once Instances are fully opened to the public, if people apply through official channels and meet the criteria, you can't just bar them from entering. In short, the player community will only become more complex. All kinds of characters will emerge.”
No one spoke in the meeting room. Everyone knew that Sun Zhao was not being alarmist.
When one segment of the population possesses supernatural powers while the rest remain ordinary people, the emergence of divides, suspicion, and fear is inevitable. If handled poorly, it would lead to sharp social conflicts.
...
...
“Therefore, we still have a lot of work to do.” Sun Zhao rubbed her temples, pulled a thick stack of documents from beneath the table, and handed it to Chen Xi.
“Relying solely on our current personnel is definitely not enough. The bureau has discussed this and plans to expand to thirteen official teams, recruiting a batch of players with suitable abilities and good character to be integrated into the Special Investigation Bureau's auxiliary system.”
“I've already had the list compiled. Take a look at them and focus your evaluation on them. If you find anyone suitable, recruit them into your Operations Department.”
Chen Xi picked up the top file. On the first page was a one-inch photo.
【Name: Song Mo.
Age: 24.
Class: Spirit Medium (Rare Support).
Instance Experience: Taiping Cemetery (Cleared).
Background Check: No criminal record, no bad habits, simple social relations, keeps to herself.】
Chen Xi tapped her finger on the words “Spirit Medium.”
She seemed to have some impression of this Song Mo.
...
...
...
...
“Achoo!!”
Song Mo, who had been eating noodles in Jiangcheng in the morning and had already teleported to Hong Kong via the fairy ring by noon, sneezed loudly.
She was no longer “Song Mo” at this moment.
She wore a red velvet gown. Although it lacked a hoop skirt, the style was clearly reminiscent of medieval Europe.
Her short black hair had turned into long, brownish hair tied up with a hairband. She had a pair of very Russian-style blue eyes, and her face was rounded, carrying distinct racial features.
【Bloody Mary's Gown (Once equipped, completely conceals one's own yin energy and spiritual energy fluctuations, transforming appearance and physical form...)】
Song Mo didn't quite understand how an item rewarded from a Great Britain Instance could transform her into a female figure with Russian features.
But she quickly abandoned that train of thought and got to business.
...
“First, let me look at the locations for deploying the Instances.”
Song Mo spread out the Map Ghost. On the paper page, over a dozen Instance locations eagerly “jumped” out:
【Yuen Long Ping Shan Tat Tak Institute: Overwhelming yin energy, wandering spirits. Explorers once found a locked stall door in the girls' restroom. Red embroidered shoes were visible under the door. Using a mirror reflection, they saw a long-haired woman in red inside.】
【(Creating this Instance requires 500 Screenwriter Points. Instance Difficulty: High.)】
...
【Kowloon Walled City Park: ...Rebuilt after the walled city was demolished, but the ghosts have not dispersed... Patrol officers late at night hear the sounds of mahjong games, dentist equipment, and dogs barking coming from the narrow alleys, but the park is completely empty, with only the sound of the wind echoing.】
【(Creating this Instance requires 1,800 Screenwriter Points. Instance Difficulty: Extremely High.)】
...
【New Territories Lam Tsuen: People frequently commit suicide in the Wishing Trees area. If riding a bicycle past at late night, one can see a row of “people” dressed in white standing by the roadside.】
【(Creating this Instance requires 300 Screenwriter Points. Instance Difficulty: Low.)】
...
【Mong Kok Unfinished Building (【Ghosts in the Hong Kong Building】): ...Construction halted due to an accident. Rumor has it that a construction worker, failing to collect his unpaid wages, leapt to his death from the building. Later, gangsters burned a corpse here... The building was never completed, leaving the dead and the living to reside together, with yin and yang inverted.】
【Writing this Instance requires 0 Screenwriter Points. Instance Difficulty: High. (Screenwriter Points will be deducted based on script content and invested Materials.)】
...
...
Song Mo precisely locked onto the Limited Instance 《Ghosts in the Hong Kong Building》 from among the various Instance locations—it was situated right in the middle of a cluster of unfinished buildings.
And that piece of land belonged to the Lu Group.
The alleys of Mong Kok were always narrower than anywhere else.
The Shing King Building was squeezed between two narrow alleys. The thirty-two-story concrete building was like a giant missing limbs, curled up among the dense thicket of old buildings—terribly out of place, yet inexplicably harmonious.
Looking from a distance, the exterior walls of the building were covered in a dense, airtight web of crawling electrical wires.
Black, red, blue, and aged, ash-gray wires were tangled together in massive clumps. They stretched out from the electrical boxes at the alley entrances, crawling up the concrete walls.
Some hung less than half a foot above the heads of passersby, swaying whenever the wind blew.
The billboards and signboards were also in a state of chaos.
They came in all sizes and from all eras.
A red sign with white letters reading “Cha Chaan Teng Delivery” had faded to a light pink. The character for “meal” was missing half its strokes, looking like both “meal” and “crippled.”
A blue sign with yellow letters reading “Bone-Setting Clinic Orthopedics” had curling corners, bloated from rainwater, hanging crookedly on the second floor.
A long vertical plastic advertisement reading “Subdivided Flat for Rent, Immediate Occupancy” had been torn into shreds by the wind, fluttering listlessly in mid-air.
The bases of the walls were covered in dark green mold.
The ground was perpetually wet, though whether it was from water splashed from upstairs or leaking rainwater was anyone's guess.
It felt sticky to step on, seemingly mixed with the stench of fish ball soup, newspaper ink, and rotten cabbage leaves.
Yet, despite everything, such a building was fully occupied.
...
...
【Beginning Instance Editing.】
With a gentle wave of Song Mo's hands, text poured out along with her movements. Her entire body sank into the ground, and in the next second, the entire space compressed and folded.
In a dimension invisible to ordinary people above Mong Kok, a scene that was almost like a projection manifested.
The signboards, wires, unfinished buildings, cramped alleys, and roads—even the moss and sewage by the walls—were replicated in a perfect one-to-one ratio.
Except, left and right were inverted.
One was the living world, where living people walked about, and the other was the underworld, where countless attracted wandering souls drifted.
“Time to work.”
Song Mo stepped onto the ground of the Instance. The text in her hands converged into the shape of a pen, and as she made her edits, the entire space continuously shifted—
...
...
Somewhere inside a building within the Instance, Chen Shulan, who had only recently regained consciousness, was trembling all over. She was pressed down by an invisible, formless pressure that made her feel as if she were on the verge of dissipating.
She curled herself into a tight ball, squeezing into a broken clay pot.
Just a little smaller, a little less noticeable.
Unlike the mindless wandering spirits around her, Chen Shulan was different.
She could clearly sense that in this realm, some indescribable, ineffable, terrifying existence had emerged:
If I am seen, my soul will be scattered!
If I am found, I will die!
I definitely will!
And on the player interface belonging to her, a red notification sat in stark, silent contrast:
【■■ has descended upon this place.】
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