"Caroline, Jason. Come here." when Caroline and Jason came to the movie set of the Haunting Crescent, Stephanie, the assistant set supervisor, went straight up to them: "Come with me, I want you to meet someone."
"Okay, who is it?" Jason asked as he followed Stephanie.
"This is Lady Manzene. " Stephanie brought them to the side of the set and introduced them to a middle aged woman with beads around her neck and wearing a robe with flower patterns on it: "She's a friend of Madison, you know, our makeup artist. And she's a certified medium. She's gonna be the third paranormal consultant on our set."
"Wait... what?" Jason asked: "Since when? And why?"
"Let me answer that." Lady Manzene stepped forward and said to Caroline and Jason: "This movie set has had many instances of paranormal disturbances, and as a favor to my friend and the director, I offered to help. Are you the paranormal consultants before me?"
"Yes. And I don��t remember there having been other instances of paranormal activities?" Jason asked.
"That might be because you weren't checking the interior frequent enough." Lady Manzene said slightly braggingly: "And the director has gracefully allowed me to work on the interior of the set."
"Yeah. Benny said it's okay." Madison walked over and said, with kind of a smug smile on her face: "And she's the real, real deal. She used to do all kinds of house cleansing, movie set blessing and even exorcism for many celebrities. I heard you recently helped Madeline Bennette with some house poltergeist issue?"
"Yeah. And she was very grateful. She asked me to help bless her next house. She also vouched for me so I can work on the interior." Lady Manzene said.
"Say what? She did?" Madison appeared genuinely surprised, and it was not totally pleasant: "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Yeah, I just heard that from her. No worries." Lady Manzene patted Madison on the shoulder: "Now, shall we start? I know the shoot is ongoing, but let's go in and see how Madison is doing after my blessing."
"Alright, we really appreciate it, Lady Manzene." Stephanie smiled and sent Lady Manzene and Madison off, then she turned to Caroline and Jason: "I'm sorry guys, but turns out Benny also heard about her from a couple of his friends. Apparently brand recognition is also important in the medium business "
"Yeah I can tell." Caroline sighed then turned to Jason: "Let's just do what we've always do then."
"Oh, and don't worry. We are still gonna keep you on our payroll until the end of the movie." Stephanie told Caroline and Jason: "The shoot had so many paranormal issues before, we are just trying to keep all the help we can get."
"Sure. No worries." Caroline smiled and said.
Just this moment, one cat with black and white fur and another with brown fur walked by their side, and both looked at them with seemingly examining looks on their faces.
"Oh boy, there's a lot of them these few days." Stephanie frowned and looked at these two cats walking away, "Anyway, I'll try talking to Benny again about letting you inside the interior during the shoot - as long as you have a hefty NDA you should be fine."
"Thank you Stephanie." Caroline forced a smile.
As Caroline and Jason circled the exterior of the movie set, they also noticed that there were an increased amount of stray cats around the movie set. And from these cats' demeanor, it looked as if they were prying on what was going on with the movie set.
When both of them walked to the position of the garbage container - the same position where Jason found the severed hand and half a cat's head, they saw 5 bigger stray cats were strolling around in the area, with three of them sniffing around the ground and the garbage container. And in the middle, was the biggest cat with the black, brown, and white fur. The moment Caroline and Jason looked to the cats, the cats also looked back at them, with human-like serious facial expressions.
"Is it just me, or it is true that those cats are extra creepy?" Jason asked Caroline.
"No, it's definitely not just you." Caroline answered in a low voice: "I've never seen cats like that, they look so big and so… old!"
"Yeah. " Jason hesitated for a while: "And they don't seem normal to me. Do they feel normal to you?"
"I'm no expert on cats." Caroline took a few more looks at the cats, who were staring back at her and Jason, "But yeah, they don't look normal."
"Let's be careful. " Jason carefully avoided another cat sitting on the side of the road and staring at them: "This movie set is just riddled with dangerous unclean presence - first the ghost we beat, then the rose with a minor spirit inside, then the shadow and the hand. I am not sure what it is about this place."
"I was kinda expecting it to be a chance for some career advancement, since we are cultivators now capable of combating monsters and ghosts." Caroline sighed: "But from what I just learned, maybe I still need to hang around the Hollywood types some more and maybe chat up a hipster movie star who believes in crystals and cleansing auras with flowers."
"Yeah, sorry about the permanent paranormal consultant career opportunity. I am pretty sure if you want to you can just be an action star. " Jason laughed and said.
"Heh, you know we won't be able to do that, at least not until our promises are fulfilled. But that's definitely an option. Maybe I'll be the next Josephine Wong."
"OR, you can just be Caroline Baker, the fiery queen of explosive action."
"Hmm, have I offended your Josephine Wong fandom? What's so special about her?"
"Have you watched even one of her movies?"
"You know I don't like movies."
"Okay that's not gonna work. If you want to be an action movie star, maybe you should start with her!"