"A friend of mine found a room you could rent, if you're looking for a place to stay." Said a surprise text from Wu Xiangyu with an address attached, his older brother who requested that he move out. Who also unfortunately knew Wu Xiaoming's secret.
"Thank you. But I am on a shoot, I can go check when I get back. It's probably going to be four days or so." Wu Xiaoming did a quick search on the address - it seemed like a pretty nice apartment complex in a gated community - some distance away from the Sproutlinger Hotel and away from the downtown. He definitely could not afford to live there alone, but if it was one room, he probably could make do - he had had roommates before, no reason he could not now.
A few minutes of silence later, "I'll tell them to hold it for a week."
"Thank you." Wu Xiaoming put the phone back in his pocket.
In the same shuttle, Tammy was checking some documents she had with her with the director. Jake the sound guy was taking a nap. He hesitated for a brief moment, then pulled out his phone again to get back to his "homework".
From everything he had learned about the house where they were going to shoot the new episode certainly had a lot of mystique around it. It had once belonged to a family of four, who had disappeared after half a decade of living there. It then had been sold to a single man, who had then disappeared from almost all public records and had been declared missing. What had made the place somewhat of an urban legend was that quite a few people who had visited the place had gone missing as well, including a few friends and relatives of the family, some visitors to the reclusive man, and even a land inspector to the estate.
If not for some devoted hobbyist "haunted house" investigators digging up the public records and case details about the house, the place would have remained under the radar for much longer. Right now, the place seemed to be getting more and more attention from people, and reasonably, the director would like to get a new episode before the studio to both ride the rising hype and show the studio that their project had potential to reach a wider audience.
He did not have the heart to ask how the first episode went with the studio - from everything he learned, it had not gone well.
Selfishly, if the show was cancelled, he would still get paid, though not as much, as his contract with the studio included residual pay. So money wise, he did not have to worry too much, what little bit of exposure he might get from this show, he actually had almost no expectations. Also, at least right now, the gig gave him plenty of reasonable excuses to visit haunted places and look into the paranormal and occult.
He checked the time, they still had maybe three hours to go. Out of pure curiosity, he closed his eyes and went into the ethereal realm. He had done this during the day before, and at the time things had been no different than when he entered during the night. The only difference was this time he did so while he was in a vehicle on a freeway. On his sides were residential areas and commerce areas, so he had somewhere to explore if it worked out.
Just as he expected, he awoke in the grim, shadowy world and right on the freeway. The freeway was weathered, with cracks everywhere. The rails and fences on both sides were rusty and falling apart. He ran to the right side and climbed over the rails - a residential area was just a small patch of downhill mountainous terrain away, he just needed to cross the area covered in grass and crooked looking trees.
With the soapberry wood staff and tempered steel baton in hands, he ran down the area. The trees were sparse, and the grass was only at his ankle's height. But before he could go down far, a giant, black bear with dark red stripes across its fur raised its head from a small hill in front of Wu Xiaoming. The size of its head alone was probably the size of an elephant head.
Wu Xiaoming stopped, then fixed his eyes on the head - so far only the head and a little bit of the neck and shoulders of the creature was revealed. Its head was rather disproportionate to the hill for it to be hiding. Maybe there was a hole or a sharp slop behind the small hill?
The eyes on the bear's eye appeared to be unfocused, and its mouth was open and drooling. Aside from the red stripes, there were some cuts and punctures here and there, though these wounds weren't bleeding at all.
Just as he approached the bear, while slightly going over the right side of the hill, the bear head actually turned away from him. At the next moment, a black, long, sharp arthropod-like leg with bristles extended over the hill and sunk its tip in the dirt.
As the head of the bear turned further away from Wu Xiaoming, another leg appeared and dragged it towards Wu Xiaoming. The next moment, a tentacle appeared, followed by a giant claw. Now it was clear, it was not a bear, but a hermit crab creature with a body the size of a large dog. Its tentacles whipped left and right in the air, and its two claws clicked-clacked repeatedly. One of its claws was much bigger, thicker and glistening like a polished shield; the other was only slightly shorter, but much thinner and had two dark red tips.
Wu Xiaoming hesitated, then fixed his eyes on the two claws. He was no expert in crustaceans, but he knew a few kinds of them that were able to deliver pretty devastating attacks with their claws - pistol shrimps for one, mantis shrimps for another. He had come a long way since he had first come to this world, it would be utterly embarrassing if he was beaten by a dog-sized hermit crab.
While Wu Xiaoming was still waiting, the giant hermit crab initiated its action. Its legs dug into the ground and pushed, launching itself right at Wu Xiaoming. This leap was not forceful enough for it to reach Wu Xiaoming, but right at the top of its trajectory, its bigger claw snapped, releasing a condensed stream of air right at him.
"Shit!" Wu Xiaoming tried to side step to avoid being hit straight and true, but was still swept off his feet and thrown into the ground by the wind around the stream.
Legs and exoskeletons clicked, the hermit crab wearing a bear head as its shell closed in on Wu Xiaoming with its thin front claw raised, ready to pick up its prey. Yet before this creature could move either its front claws, its human prey shot up and slammed one of its weapons at its bigger, more aggressive front claw.
The strike made an explosive bang up on contact, cracks glowing in dark green spread through its entire front claw. Dark smoke poured from these cracks as the hermit crab recoiled, hissing and screeching. Its thin front claw thrust at Wu Xiaoming, but just in time to collide with the metal baton in Wu Xiaoming's left hand.
"Boom!" Dark red energy exploded, without Wu Xiaoming having to yell a curse word. The thinner front claw was slapped away, losing its moving finger.
"Slash!" Wu Xiaoming barked, aiming at the hermit carb's back area. An energy slash landed right in the gap between the bear head shell and the soft tissue. Foul, dark green liquid splashed all over the place. Gravity pulled on the head and ripped it off the soft tail. After just one second, the head of the bear took off, rolling downhill.
The hermit crab rolled on the ground back and forth, screeching and hissing, swinging its legs and claws, scratching up the land and surrounding trees. Wu Xiaoming backed off and ran around the struggling crustacean, and barked "attack" aiming at the gruesome rip and tear on its body.
The energy blast landed on the wound, the ensuing explosion broke more of the hermit crab's internal organs and spread it around further. It finally stopped rolling, while its legs would not stop twitching.
Current Currencies: 38696 Spirit Fragments, 203 Vision Slivers. He gained 800 Spirit Fragments and 3 Vision Slivers - a surefire sign that the creature was dead.
He continued going down the hill just to check on the head of the bear. For an animal head - shaped object, it rolled surprisingly well - it was now in the middle of a concrete road in a residential area at the foot of the slope.