The Second Instance

Evening fell.

Less than a kilometer east of Lu Xiu's home stood a newly built residential complex, only a few years old.

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Grandma Wang lived there.

The neighborhood was far better than Lu Xiu's. Wang Baosheng had gritted his teeth and bought this apartment back then because he wanted his mother to live comfortably in her later years.

At that moment, Grandma Wang was sitting on the sofa watching TV. Hearing the lock turn, she did not even look back, though her voice carried obvious dissatisfaction. "Oh, so you still remembered to come home? I thought you'd forgotten this family."

Wang Baosheng changed into slippers and walked inside, his face covered in smiles. "Mom, I've been busy."

Wang Baosheng was around forty, neither tall nor short, neither fat nor thin. He had the kind of face that vanished into a crowd.

But his eyes were lively, giving him a somewhat shifty look.

"Busy, busy, busy. You're the only one who's busy."

Grandma Wang shot him a sidelong glance. "I think you just don't want to come see this old woman. And how old do you think you are? Still not married..."

"Okay, okay, okay. Starting tomorrow, I'll come back every day."

Wang Baosheng hurriedly interrupted his mother before she could continue casting her spell. Walking over, he began massaging the old woman's shoulders.

Grandma Wang turned around and saw the exhaustion on her son's face. Most of her anger faded, and she sighed. "It's time you started a family and made something of yourself... Have you eaten?"

Wang Baosheng chuckled. "Not yet. I was waiting to come home and eat Mom's cooking."

"Wait there."

Grandma Wang shook her head, got up, and went to heat up some food for her son.

Soon enough.

The two sat down at the dining table.

Watching her son wolf down his food, Grandma Wang hesitated for a moment before asking, "What exactly are you busy with? You're never home, and I don't even know whether you're doing honest work or going down some crooked path."

"Honest work, honest work."

Wang Baosheng gave a muffled assurance. "Don't worry, Mom. I definitely won't do anything illegal."

"Then what exactly does that Architect club of yours do?"

"..."

Wang Baosheng paused. In the end, he still did not tell the truth, only vaguely replying, "We study instances. It pays a lot of Survival Points, so don't worry about it, Mom."

"..."

Grandma Wang stared at him for several seconds. "That's good. Listen to me... Don't do evil or break the law. Look at the vouchers I get every month—they're all given by the government. They gave us old folks a way to survive. Without them, these old bones of mine would have starved to death long ago.

"Don't forget, two years ago, you went into some instance and ended up with only a few years left to live. Your mother doesn't have many Survival Points either. We're only getting by because of those vouchers. Never betray your conscience."

"..."

Wang Baosheng nodded, but inwardly, he gave a bitter laugh.

Mom, you're right. The vouchers did give us a way to survive.

But they only gave us a way to survive... to stay alive.

And being alive was not the same as truly living.

He did not want to muddle through the rest of his life like this.

He wanted to live with more dignity.

Even if he had to do some gray-area work, as long as he did not cross the line—

"Right."

Grandma Wang suddenly remembered something. "Do you remember Lu Xiu, the girl who used to live next door to us?"

Wang Baosheng froze.

Lu Xiu?!

The Architect behind the [Resident Evil] instance?!

How did the old lady know?!

No.

Wang Baosheng quickly came to his senses. His mother was not talking about the Architect behind the [Resident Evil] instance, but the granddaughter of the old woman who used to live next door... that timid little girl who had been exceptionally pretty.

After they moved away, he had never seen her again.

"I remember."

Wang Baosheng took two bites of rice and casually asked, "What happened to her?"

Grandma Wang sighed. "I ran into her on the street today. That child was all alone, so pitiful. It hurt my heart to see her that way. After her grandmother passed away, she was left all by herself."

"It can't be helped."

Wang Baosheng paused mid-bite. "With things the way they are now, life isn't easy for people at the bottom."

"I know, but I really feel for that child."

Grandma Wang looked at her son hopefully. "I was thinking, is that club of yours still hiring? Could you introduce her to a job? I watched that child grow up. She may look like a fairy, but she's honest and well-behaved. She's just had a hard life..."

Wang Baosheng gave a bitter smile. Bringing that little girl into the Construction Club?

What kind of way to survive was that?

"Mom, our group is pretty strict about recruitment."

He brushed her off casually. "It depends on ability. It's not up to me."

Grandma Wang was somewhat disappointed, but she could only nod.

Meanwhile, Wang Baosheng continued eating as he thought things over.

How could it be such a coincidence?

The Architect who had recently risen to fame, whom even the Builder Group's higher-ups and the Coordination Bureau were fighting over head-on, was named Lu Xiu.

And there was also a little girl named Lu Xiu on his side?

Could it be... she was that Architect?!

But soon.

Wang Baosheng came back to himself. Thinking of that pretty little girl, who had looked like a doll, he shook his head. It could not be that much of a coincidence.

How could a little girl like that create such a hellish instance?

That was right.

He had entered the Resident Evil instance too, only to die and return after half an hour, killed by Mia.

Most importantly, how could an Architect capable of creating an instance on the level of [Resident Evil] possibly live in some run-down old apartment complex? How could she need his mother to help introduce her to a job?

It had to be someone with the same name.

As Wang Baosheng pondered, a string of beeping alerts suddenly rang out.

He summoned his system panel, took one look, and immediately tossed down his bowl. "Mom, I have something urgent to deal with."

With that.

He ran into his room without looking back and locked the door behind him.

The old woman opened her mouth, but ultimately said nothing. She merely shook her head and began clearing the leftover food from the table.

Elsewhere.

After returning to his room, Wang Baosheng immediately opened the anonymous chat group.

[Everyone, the Coordination Bureau has made its move. A few of our brothers have been caught. Keep a low profile for a while. Try not to meet offline, and don't expose your IDs.]

[Also, there's an internal bounty. Lu Xiu, the Architect behind the [Resident Evil] instance, may be using her real name. Whether online or offline, if you encounter anyone named Lu Xiu, investigate them and see if their ID matches. If it does, and you confirm it's really her, the reward is fifty thousand Survival Points.]

[And whoever finds her will become a core member of the group from now on. Their cut will be doubled, and their instances will get priority release.]

"..."

Wang Baosheng stared at the message in utter shock. Then his eyes turned red.

Fifty thousand Survival Points!

That was more than a hundred years!

The club was really going all out!

But when he thought of the rewards from the [Resident Evil] instance, it made sense.

Those rewards... if they could find the Architect, pry a strategy guide out of her, and have her keep creating similar instances... the entire club might dare to challenge the Coordination Bureau head-on.

Wang Baosheng closed the window before him, lay down on the bed, and stared at the ceiling. He could not help thinking of the Lu Xiu his mother had mentioned.

What a shame.

It would have been great if she really were that Architect.

After all, that was fifty thousand Survival Points!

That was enough for him and his mother to live many more years.

That was enough for him and his mother to never need vouchers again.

That was enough for him...

As Wang Baosheng thought, an image of Lu Xiu as a child surfaced in his mind: a delicate little face like carved jade, as exquisite as a porcelain doll, with a timid glimmer always lingering in her eyes.

He laughed at himself and shook his head. "How could that be possible?"

There was no connection at all... That kind of contrast was practically absurd. Even if someone beat him to death, he would not believe a girl with that temperament could create something as hellish as [Resident Evil]!

Besides.

Even if by some one-in-a-hundred-billion chance he really struck gold, she was all alone and helpless... He could not turn into an animal.

At the same time, in the run-down old apartment complex a kilometer away.

Lu Xiu summoned her system panel. Her slender fingers slid across the virtual screen as she prepared to create her second instance.

At noon.

She had not immediately created an instance, mainly because she had hesitated.

There were too many choices, and for a while, she truly did not know what to make.

When she saw on the forum that she was being hunted by both sides as if she were wanted by the underworld and the authorities alike... her first instinct had been to create an instance immediately.

But after calming down, she realized she could not act blindly. There were too many possible genres.

Although clearing one herself should not be a problem.

It still had to be suitable, so she spent the entire afternoon sorting through her thoughts.

Now, she had finally made a decision.

Lu Xiu submitted her request to create a second instance.

Then.

The familiar window popped up—[Please enter the basic information for the instance first.]

Name, self-rating, ticket price, genre, and most importantly, the instance theme.

Lu Xiu summoned a virtual keyboard, moved the cursor to the instance theme field, and after pondering briefly, entered another five words—[Loser's Obsession].

Then she thought for a moment and began adding a description.

"Blades clash in but an instant.

"Even after falling into the Abyss, one may crawl back up from mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

"Players will take on the role of a ninja, tempering their blade and will in endless battles to the death.

"Every fall is not the end. Every death is another chance to gather strength.

"Obsession may be for protection, revenge, unwillingness to accept defeat, survival... or simply because one cannot win.

"It is this obsession that lets the defeated struggle back up from death time and time again, refusing to fall.

"Precise blocks, decisive counterattacks, calm Mikiri Counters—

"A true powerhouse is not someone who has never tasted defeat.

"It is the one who can still stand with blade in hand after countless losses, facing death and walking toward life."

Then.

Lu Xiu moved the virtual cursor to the first line and entered the game's name—Sekiro.