This chapter, without this little author notes is a whooping 5,000 length words. The longest chapter I have written for this story to date.
I swear, you all need to appreciate the hard work I have placed in this. It's been on the works since early October and was supposed to go up on Halloween... Things happened.
Also, my birthday is in a week so consider yourselves lucky that I have chosen to post it up today because if it was up to me, I probably wouldn't have updated until forever later because I wanted to add a little bit more.
No matter where I said, "okay, the chappie will end up right around this part." I just keep going past it as my fingers kept typing.
Now enjoy this chapter and I am going to go take a nap because trust me, a lot of thought went into it and I've been straining my brain trying to find grammatical errors and mistaken typos that my phone just loves to make.
I hope the length of this chapter makes up for my disappearance. But hey, it's quality that counts, right?
[-]
XX University, like every other facility in the town, had gotten into the spirit of celebrating Halloween by decorating early. Since the beginning of October, many buildings throughout the campus had already set up their little spook-fest, only leaving very few places untouched which would surely be full of decorations by the week that Halloween landed on.
The first week of October, the new students were quite surprised to see their campus in a more lively environment than what they were used to. They even thought that the staff and teachers went all out trying to get them scared.
{Yang Ming: Yeah... They really don't go all out.}
The ones that had been there longer, had simply tried their best to act scared, but they shrugged at the attempts and looked uninterested the next few days.
{Yang Ming: Well, yeah, it never works on people who are expecting the same thing to happen and I don't think it ever will.}
Some older students did attempt to humor the teachers and faculty by going all, "Ah, take a picture of me by this straw looking witch." Or, "I can't believe the lights this year actually glow in a orange color." And even, "I love this school for being soooo innovative every year." When the teachers passed by them as they were walking to/from the different buildings.
When they were in the clear they just went all, "I will hashtag this #SameAsEveryYear." And, "I wonder if the people following my blog and forums will get a kick out of this story." And even, "Well, I will hashtag this as; #TheFacultyHasNoClueWeAreFakingOurEnthusiam, #TiredOfTheSameThing."
They all laughed and bonded over how over-the-top their school was. After all, friendships in school usually start with something like that.
{Yang Ming: it just goes to show that people who already expect what's going to happen don't really care after a while.}
Those that hadn't gotten the gossip that the entire campus was a haunted place, not literally of course, got frightened in the most frequent visited places like the library, the bookstore and the cafeteria.
{Yang Ming: those poor freshman. I kind of feel sorry for them.}
Since the library was a place where no loud noise was allowed, they had opted in getting silly looking jack-o-lanterns that lit up with fake candles. They had also placed objects at random places, all throughout the three floors. Even the bookshelves weren't spared and had gotten a few spiders with cobwebs or oozing green slime, all fake, of course, but no one had to know that now, did they?
All the new students fell for it, some of the older students did as well, but most took the pranks of the staff in a pretty cheerful manner.
If one thought about it, it was kind of funny to see a place that was meant to treat books as if they were valuable artifacts, faking that the books were covered in things that could potentially damage them.
In fact, to the students, it was kind of nice to have other things to think about besides what book you have to photocopy or what kind of snack you will buy, and even what table you would choose to sit by. Those small moments they spent laughing and trying to keep the scare noises at a minimum, had gotten most of them in a pretty good mood from the previous stressed state they were in.
The next place to be decorated was the bookstore, who following the library's example, had also placed fake spiders in random shelves and even went as far as to place them on the floor, the register counter, in the sweater aisle, and the information booth. Scarecrows with missing eyes, or dressed in orange or black jumpers were in every corner of the store as well.
However, there was one thing the bookstore could do that the library couldn't. They placed a cloaked skeleton with a witch's hat and broom that could be seen as people opened the doors and went through the sensors. As soon as they crossed it, the skeleton started glowing with red eyes, cackling and saying other weird things. That skeleton has been the talk of the campus ever since they got it a couple years back.
Our dear Feng Lan, however, was one of the few who just wanted to roll her eyes and didn't get scared. She had gone to the bookstore to get herself some paper and a few more pens and had simply sighed at the attempt.
"Again?" She couldn't help but utter to herself after she bought what she needed and went to class.
{Yang Ming: let me explain here... Lan and I have been students here for a bit. After experiencing even one Halloween at campus, it's pretty easy to tell they always pull the same stunts.}
Last but certainly not least, both of the cafeterias in the campus had also taken advantage of Halloween. No one really mentions the smaller one, so let us talk about the big one... Okay, okay, we will talk about both.
The smaller cafeteria was conveniently placed in the first floor of the main building used for classes. The quick access to it was what made the students happy because it's the place they went to in between classes or when they had a ten to fifteen minute break, due to it being easier accessible to them than the other cafeteria. They also chose it when they wanted to have a study break and didn't want to go to their clubs and the like. It's not that it was small per say, but the food and beverage options were quite limited at the counter, {Yang Ming; Don't forget expensive!} and if one not opted for the high prices, the only other choice were the vending machines placed right one after another in the back wall.
Due to the cafeteria being small, they had little to nothing going on for them and working in their favor. All they could really do was decorate the walls, the vending machine's candy replaced by Halloween themed ones, the drinks exchanged for orange flavored ones as well. The coffee options had been changed, and now they offered their limited offer pumpkin spice flavors, and the food all had some kind of pumpkin derived ingredient in them.
Right across from the library, beneath the music building, stood the university's main cafeteria. Yeah... Everyone wondered why the largest cafeteria of the campus would be placed right underneath a music building, out of all possible places. Yet no one really complained about it because when it came to winter days, they could easily access it via the underground tunnels.
{Yang Ming; one good thing has to come from a place where we almost have to sell our souls to get a education...}
Both cafeterias had stocked up on many more candy than usual, along with treats shaped in what was commonly used for the holiday. They took advantage that they had a lot more going for them (visually wise,) to work with than most of the other places.
{Yang Ming: food is just food! If it smells delicious and tasty, I don't really care how it looks. Stop trying to impress, we're simply hungry!}
{-}
On Friday morning, the students who went to Gui's literature class early were greeted by quite a surprise. They had thought that the entire campus went all out for Halloween, but they had yet to see a classroom decorated to such extreme measures.
What surprised them was not that the room was entirely covered in orange wallpapers, or those yellow caution signs crossed in the windows in a X pattern, not that a pumpkin was decorating every table and corner of the room and definitely not the skeleton draped in a royal red robe with a crown that had mini pumpkins as charms.
What surprised them, was that the floor was entirely floored with leaves. Not a single spot left barren. Whether those were real or fake... They really didn't want to know.
What they did want to know, however, is how their professor got all this approved by the school, and how in the world he got those leaves to the class in the first place.
"Do you think he has a fall-ready stash full of props and things for these kinds of situations?" One of the girls who was always on time with her little group of friends asked as she walked behind the rest of them. She was wearing heels and she really didn't want to fall. Then again, the other three were also wearing heels.
"This totally feels like real leaves!" Another one piped in.
The one behind all of them, told them to move aside and to let her pass. As she felt the crunchiness beneath her feet she just wanted to scream. "My poor heels are going to get crushed!"
"Our seats are to the back..." The third one said glancing to where she pointed her hand at. From where they were, it seemed like it would take them forever to get to their seats.
They were just being overly dramatic, of course.
Gu Yun Fei and Lu Jing arrived just a few minutes after the group of girls had finally reached their seats and were inspecting their beloved shoes.
Of course they had noticed the state of the classroom, and of course they had noticed that they were the first to arrive of their little group as usual. They had just stood there and stared from the classroom's front door for a while, simply wondering if it was even to their best interest to wait inside the classroom with those divas.
Their classmates had made the trek to their respective seats alive and without any injuries so they deemed it safe. At least Gu Yun Fei did.
"I don't know..." Lu Jing stared, mouth agape. "I'm afraid I would slip."
Gu Yun Fei simply had shrugged. "If the others made it, then it doesn't seem to be a problem. It's not like it's snow or something it's just leaves."
Lu Jing sat down to the left of the door as if stating her point. She leaned her back against the wall and placed her bag to the side. "I'm not moving." She said as she checked the time on her phone. "Class is about to start so whoever isn't here should be here soon. I think I'll just wait until Feng Lan and Yang Ming get here."
Gu Yun Fei shook his head and sat down next to her, his back towards the wall as well. He took out his tablet and connecting to the free internet given to all the students enrolled, opened up the web browser and after arduous work in being able to log in, went to Second Life's homepage and signed into his account, Kekkaishi.
Lu Jing glanced towards him, leaned closer and peered curiously from his shoulder at the screen. "What are you doing?" She asked.
"Oh, this?" Gu Yun Fei stated back, while going to the search field. "I'm just going to glance at the forums for a bit then place up for bid some items I don't really need. We could use the extra coins anyways."
Lu Jing shrugged. Being a Taoist herself, she wouldn't even be able to use most of the stuff her friend had. Besides, she already knew what it was he had in the inventory. "Hmmm?" She asked, "what are you thinking of selling?"
"I'm not sure yet, probably some weak staff I no longer use." Was his response.
Lu Jing was now thinking carefully to what it was Gu Yun Fei had. "The one that gave you that extra +100 MP?"
"Most likely," he nodded. "I mean, the extra points were handy but at the same time the item was dropped, I also learned that new attack that can help me hold up the barrier even longer. So I don't need the weapon."
Flashback Starts
Yeah, Lu Jing had been with him at the time he was talking about. Her avatar Doishi, and Gu Yun Fei's Kekkaishi, were at one of the least used training areas in the Central Continent, and were killing some minor beasts, which were destroyed easily with her using just a few attacks of her True Thrice Concealed Flames. However, she had not seen the boss coming at her, and by the time she had noticed, Kekkaishi was lunging himself towards her, throwing her to the ground and placing up one of his most effective barriers. She glanced up towards him and offered her thanks.
Moments later they were both trying to defeat the boss by working together, she by using her fus, and he by using barriers to protect them. By the next fifteen minutes, Kekkaishi's barriers weren't holding up anymore and he had sighed, wondering just where he had gone wrong. His MP was dropping quickly and he felt they had run out of options. They were high leveled already, in terms that they could even keep up with Odd Squad without them holding the group back if needed but they clearly needed more training and how to use their attacks effortless and precisely.
Miraculously, or what they would probably call convenience or a lucky break, once his MP hit zero, the barrier master started glowing. He got a status screen stating he had unlocked a new skill. One where his MP went up back to full in under ten seconds, and if used and timed correctly, the other side of the skill went to effect right away, making a barrier that held up for about ten minutes, where his previous ones only lasted about three or less.
When they had finally defeated the boss, it had dropped more coins than the earlier defeated monsters and an item, which had been the before-mentioned staff.
Flashback End
"What do you think about my suggestion, Lu Jing?" Gu Yun Fei's voice was heard. "Hey! Lu Jing!?"
The blonde haired girl was taken out of her flashback when she heard Gu Yun Fei mentioning her name. She took a breath and looked around, noticing that her head was leaning at Gu Yun Fei's shoulder and her eyes showed shock. She quickly apologized and leaned back to the wall.
"What were you saying?" She asked embarrassed. She couldn't recall if something like this had ever happened to her. "... I kind of zoned out." Was her explanation.
"I noticed," Gu Yun Fei teased her. "You weren't yapping your mouth off and giving me weird suggestions." He laughed. "Anyways, I was thinking that if we sell the staff for 500 Bronze coins, it should be about enough."
"500 Bronze? That's too little!" She yelled at him.
"What better ideas do you have then?"
"Give the item to You-Know-Who and persuade her to sell it forward." Lu Jing instantly replied.
"Worst idea ever." Gu Yun Fei stated.
"Exactly." Feng Lan agreed as she and Yang Ming stopped in front of them. "Besides, I'm not doing it."
"Lan! They both said in unison. "When did you get here?"
"Long enough to know that you guys want to exploit my fame... Just like everyone else." Feng Lan said and sighed.
"We didn't mean it like that!" Lu Jing said just as Gu Yun Fei said, "Don't mind the stupid things this girl says."
"Hello?" Yang Ming said as he crossed his arms. "Glad to know I'm chopped liver."
"Gross!" Lu Jing and Gu Yun Fei said. "Thanks for the mental image." and Fen Lan simply shrugged.
Compared to what she has dealt with in Second Life, liver actually seemed the simplest thing she ever would chop.
"So, it's not that I don't want you to continue your little chat," the voice of one person they all knew too well broke into their little chatter and idle fighting, saying, "but I believe class starts in a few minutes and being that my most punctual, ('sometimes,' his mind echoed,) and overall good students, ('when you want to be,')" At that, Gui glanced towards Yang Ming who was munching on toast.
"Ehm hungreeee..." Yang Ming mumbled when he felt his professor's eyes on him.
Gui could only stare at the lack of manners the younger twin was showing. And here he thought he was used to it already, (guess I thought wrong.) "Are out here instead of the classroom is kind of unnerving." He finished as if he hadn't been interrupted.
"Right, professor." Lu Jing said as she stood up from the floor and stretched her arms a little to remove the numbness from her body.
Gu Yun Fei also stood up after putting away his tablet and securing his bag. Like Lu Jing, was stretching his equally as numb limbs.
Feng Lan glanced to her brother, who was still eating the pieces of toast she had given him half a hour prior to arriving at the campus. Due to neither of them hearing the alarm that morning, all thanks to Yang Ming pulling that prank of him turning her's off the previous night! They had little time to get ready and had to go without breakfast. Until Yang Ming had stubbornly complained he wouldn't set a foot outside of the house without any food in his belly.
It had been all his damn fault to begin with but Feng Lan couldn't and didn't want to argue so early when they were already behind schedule and had quickly put some bread to toast and cut it into thin slices. She then packed it in a ziplock bag, threw it to him and pushed him out the door.
They had barely made it to the campus with little time to spare. Yang Ming had thought to himself that Lan's driving was still as crazy, (yet not considered completely unsafe for the law... Somehow,) as ever.
{Yang Ming: At least I... we... we made it out alive!}
{-}
Gui was a popular professor and his literature class always gets good praises. His students love his class and are usually not that late to get to class. Which is not surprising that his class was full capacity by the next ten minutes after it had started.
Everyone was now whispering things to one another about the setup they had encountered when they had entered.
In the end, everyone had agreed that if this wasn't taking taking Halloween to a maximum level, they didn't know what was then. Their professor was always doing things over the top regardless so they didn't know why they were even surprised by now.
"I can hear you, you know that right?" Gui said bemusedly as he was writing things in the blackboard.
One of the girls in the back raised her hand. "Professor Gui?"
Gui stopped writing in the board and acknowledged her. "Yes?"
"Can you tell us why the classroom looks like this? I know it's Halloween and all but..."
"But you might be taking this a little too far, professor Gui." Another girl said.
Gui shrugged. "Well, I kind of just wanted to do this, and I went with it. I had to come early to class to assemble all this. But it was certainly worth it."
"Did you even get permission you idiotic bard..." Feng Lan muttered under her breath.
He had heard her. "No I didn't get permission. I just got the idea to do it last night and I went with it. Call it going with the waves, a once in a lifetime experience." He was looking for the right words to use. "Ah... How do you kids say it? You Only Live Once? ... Well, technically we have a Second Life..."
They all just groaned. "You're only a few years older professor."
Yang Ming came to the rescue. "You just wanted to say 'YOLO!' But you rephrased it."
"If you're done eating that bread, mister Feng Yang Ming," Gui said, "we can start class."
Yang Ming had thought that he had finally learned the way to go through class eating his food inconspicuously but when he had been singled out, yet again, all he did was sigh and placed his ziplock bag away. He'd try again tomorrow.
"And put that tablet away, Gu Yun Fei, I'm not blind." At that, Feng Lan had glanced to her male best friend in confusion. She expected nothing less from her brother, it was nothing new by now but for Gu Yun Fei to not pay attention this early in the class was kind of weird.
Gui sat down in his table and swiveled the chair, placing his hands together. He was the authority figure here. "If it's not something it's another thing with you all." and he sighed. "Is my class that boring?"
Everyone shuffled in their seats. "No professor." They all chorused together as they quickly began to copy down what was written in the board.
They were still learning about the Quing dynasty, one of the first Chinese emperors to ever rule their beloved country. They also were learning about the revolt in the 1720's and the saying; "every three years an uprising; every five years a rebellion."
Feng Lan was snickering to herself quietly. The word 'revolt' always made her think to the NPC rebellion and she had wondered if her idiotic professor chose topics somehow related to Second Life just to annoy her. Of course, these kind of lessons made it simpler for her to get a easy A+ and she was kind of grateful for it.
"I'm sure you all are wondering why we are taking about the early part of China's ruling over us," Gui's voice brought her out of her thoughts. "And I believe that you're also curious as to why we're not talking about any of the other's, like the Spanish, the Dutch, or the Japanese take over."
They were indeed wondering that, but they didn't want to voice their opinions out loud. At least some of them. Yang Ming had raised his hand.
"My guess would be since we're still under their influence," he said once he was acknowledged to speak, "that we have to know how much their reign has affected us over time more so than the rest. History can repeat itself after all and to know the past is to know the future."
Feng Lan, Lu Jing, Gu Yun Fei and even Gui himself had gaped at the younger twin's explanation.
"Well, I wouldn't say that's wrong. You have a point, history can teach us a lot of things." Gui said, coughing a bit. He was actually impressed. "Yet, I hope I don't have to remind you that is a literature class and as much as I would've liked to give you all a history lesson, that's just not my area of expertise."
The whole class started laughing now and Yang Ming slouched in his seat, wanting to disappear. The first time he voluntarily offers a insight to the class and he got told off. Maybe it had been wrong to actually want to do some effort for himself instead of relying in his sister's own work. As soon as he got home, he was going to go back to his lazy way of living.
Feng Lan glanced to her brother, still choosing not to believe that he had not only done the reading, but had participated in class. If miracles happened, today had been the day. Then she recalled how he had pulled the prank of turning off her alarm, thus she woke up late and they had to get ready to leave in a hurry. Habits wouldn't change.
The rest of the class had finished without any other incident and by the time they had noticed, the hour and fifteen minutes were up and everyone was piling out of the classroom one by one. The fear of the scattered leaves were long forgotten and they had all gone out with their individual group of friends.
{-}
After their day at the university, Feng Lan and Yang Ming were now both at home.
Lan was cooking some stir fry with rice and soy sauce, while Yang Ming was at the living room and Lan had assumed he was playing some kind of racing game by the whoosh andvrooom noises he was making.
The phone rang and Lan yelled to her brother to answer it because she was busy flipping the pan.
"I'm busy too!" He yelled back, letting the phone keep ringing until the annoying noise stopped. He then cursed after his car apparently fell off the cliff when he wasn't paying attention.
Lan bit back a smile and a thought about karma. "You never know, it could be Lolidragon." She said once the phone rang once again.
At that point, her brother was heard scuffling and standing up in a hurry as he ran the little distance to the phone.
Gets him every time she snickered. Then went back to her cooking.
A couple minutes later he came to the kitchen and laid his hands at the counter. "That had indeed been Long Shui Han." He said.
Feng Lan chose not to utter anything about him using her name instead of her game character's and focused on chopping more vegetables to add to the stir fry that was now in low heat in the stovetop. She had asked what Lolidragon had wanted so urgently that she called them personally and not waited until her brother dived to the game after dinner.
"Oh nothing," he said with a smirk. "Just wanted me to drag you into the game for the pumpkin picking event and then the rendezvous of Odd Squad with the citizens of your beloved city."
The knife fell from her hands to the floor. "What!?" Was all she managed to utter.
Yang Ming flinched but then composed himself. "I agree with her." He said. "Don't you think it's about time you came back to the game, tranny?"
Feng Lan took a deep breath to compose herself from the shock then had raised her fists to her brother.
"What did you say, idiot?"
"Tranny." He said with a shrug. "You know, the thing you are in-game."
Oh now he had done it.
Knowing he wouldn't be allowed to eat until his sister calmed down he reached to the basket placed on the island and took a few fruits then bolted out the kitchen.
"Get back here!" Feng Lan yelled chasing after him.
Yang Ming went up the stairs at a rapid pace and at the safety of his room breathed a sigh of relief and locked the door.
"I'll see you in Second Life." He said, knowing that she was listening to him. "Oh dear lord of the trannies." He added for the laughs.
As his hands went to the diving helmet he kept hearing the curses his sister kept uttering.
{-}
After going back downstairs to ensure their house wouldn't burn due to the food being left unattended, Feng Lan grabbed a plate, turned off the stove and ate her share of the stir fry.
Once she had her fill she placed the dishes in the sink and went back upstairs to her room, yelling and uttering curses to her brother, Lolidragon and the game in general.
Closing her door, she couldn't believe she was even considering this. Her loud steps echoed through her room as she stopped by her night table. Her hands cautiously touched the helmet long forgotten for nearly a month and just gathering dust.
She lifted it up and stared at it long enough that she felt it would either break or it would magically wield itself to go to her head where it was supposed to go.
She heaved a sigh and placed it down, looking for a wet wipe or a cloth. After she procured one of those lime scented ones she had gotten from one of those restaurants Gui had guilted her into going with him, she opened the packet and started wiping the helmet carefully.
If she was being involuntarily forced to log back into the game, it wouldn't be with a grimy looking helmet touching her head for god knew how long, that was for sure.
After the wiping and drying of it and the helmet sparkling she sighed and went to her bed.
Holding it back in her hands she once again uttered; "why me?" And placed it at her head. She sighed and said those two accursed words she thought she wouldn't say until the last day of the game.
Link Start!