Xia Tian was crossing all the moral limits!
Luo Jian was forced to kneel as she was hiding her body from the various gazes on her.
She was panicked, anxious, and feared yet she did not move.
Her body trembled, and shook, she nearly cried, a woman who was centuries old was forced into this state, yet she dared not to move.
She knew this was the only way to save her child.
Time has stopped outside.
Xia Tian did not move from his place, instead, his gaze wandered across the crowd with a faint smile.
His face has a faint melancholic expression.
It isn't the first time he is seeing this.
People caring for people.
Empathy...
The ability to feel and share others' feelings.
The previous cheers and excited expression has been turned into one of sadness, anger, and fear.
Everyone was waiting, for Xia to move.
The women pretended not to see, while many men were angered by the current state of Luo Jian.
But why?
Why were people feeling empathy for her? It's not them who are suffering?
There are thousands of children being massacred somewhere else in the world.
There are thousands of women being ra*Ed somewhere else in the world.
There are thousands of people being murdered somewhere else in the world.
Everyone is aware of these facts... But no one feels sad or angry... So why do they react, when it happens in front of them?
Shouldn't humans continue to pretend nothing is happening?
Shouldn't they keep ignoring as they are used to?
So why not ignore it now?
The answer lies in our cognitive bias...
We see, hear and feel what we want to feel and not what we actually feel.
Our mind is too biased... It filters out the unneeded things.
It generalizes the things which are repetitive in nature...
We can go to a party, and the loud music will immediately make us frown, and we will close our ears due to the loud music.
But then, a few hours passed... And the loud music doesn't bother you anymore... Your mind filters it out.
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇtYou may go to your workplace daily, and on the way, there might be a big advertisement board displaying a large hoarding.
You pass through the hoarding every day, nothing seems out of ordinary.
One day your wife reminds you, 'Hey, Karen we haven't gone on vacation from many days... How about this holiday?'
Hearing your wife, you nod your head and again go to your office.
You again pass through that large hoarding but this time you don't ignore it, instead, your eyes are swept across the advertisement being displayed.
Surprisingly it's a tour package.
Immediately your eyes light up, and your mutter. 'Hey, that advertisement was never there, was it just placed today?... Is it the god giving me the signs?'
The next moment you decide to take your wife on a tour.
But you know what... The same advertisement was there for a whole week.
You just ignored it and walked passed through it...
We see what we want to see...
We hear what we want to hear...
A lot of information is processed daily in our brain, and it is too much to handle, so we discard much information which is not needed, we generalize things that are recurring and common, and sometimes we even distort reality to fit our thoughts.
This is why the same people who were used to ignoring, can't ignore it anymore as it is happening in front of them.
As for why people have different reactions to the same event?
Why some are angry while some are sad?
Why do some have fearful gazes while looking at Xia Tian?
It's all because they see what they want to see...
Some men as feeling angry at their helplessness, they are relating Luo Jian to Xia Bao to themselves and their mothers...
While the women which have children are feeling sad at Luo Jian's miserable state...
The fearful are the ones who choose to focus on Xia Tian instead of Xia Bao or Luo Jian.
Same scene ... Same time... But the different reactions from different people...
This is our perception of reality and our cognitive bias.
Everyone has different thoughts in their mind but all are accepting the thought which seems more accurate to them.
Their thoughts are the ones that let them produce a certain emotion which leads them to act in a certain manner.
The thoughts are different as everyone has a different perception of reality.
Everyone has gone through different experiences in the past... And formed their own set of moral rules.
For some people, Xia Tian's act of torturing his own family was too cruel.
While for some, it was him humiliating a woman which was cruel.
For some, what Xia Tian was doing was not cruel but rather justified...
Now, this scene will also be engraved in their mind and added to their list of past experiences.
Next time when they look at a similar scene again, their mind will filter out the needless information and they will only focus on the things which they earlier not focused on... Or they might look at it from a different perspective.
The experiences of the past and their interpretations will keep piling up, leading to the thought generation process.
Xia Tian was not finished... When everyone thought that he will leave the woman after publicly humiliating the mother and son, he moved yet again.
"Crawl here!"
He spoke with a grin while pointing to his feet.
The women trembled hearing his voice.
Her cultivation was only at earth profound realm. She would have died in the next few centuries. Yet her body was truly ripped, and Xia Tian was unable to think how an idiot like Xia Liang can get a wife like this.
He peeked at Xia Bao who was angrily glaring at him, the latter was angry seeing his mother getting humiliated yet he was helpless.
With great difficulty, Xia Bao spoke breaking the silence in the arena.
"D-Don't do i-argh!"
The next moment, Xia Tian placed his feet on his mouth again shutting him up.
"Who told you to bark?" Xia Tian glared at him which made Xia Bao subconsciously shrink in fear.
Tears swelled up in Xia Bao's eyes.
He felt pathetic!
It is said men don't cry until they face great despair...
Xia Bao was facing despair right now!
Facing despair there are various stages one goes through.
The stage first is denial, we deny that we are facing despair.
Stage two is anger... We get angry and point fingers, Xia Bao was angry at Xia Tian, that all his happening because of him!
Stage three is negotiation or rationalization, where we chose to negotiate with ourselves like Xia Bao was doing a few moments ago. He was thinking. 'Nothing would have happened if I wasn't this arrogant. Nothing would have happened if I never accepted this fight.'
Stage four comes the stage of depression where a person breaks down... It was the current stage Xia Bao was in ...
Stage five is acceptance and moving on... That there are things which we can't control... Though, Xia Bao will not live to see this day.
Xia Tian wasn't killing him because of his arrogance but rather to insist fear upon people.
The woman ignored Xia Bao's words, all she saw was the despair-filled face of his son.
She moved...
She placed her hands on the ground...
She kneeled...
She crawled...
In all four, she crawled as she stopped her tears from falling down...
Her breasts swayed in the air, as she crawled in the direction of Xia Tian.
The distance was only about a meter, but to the people watching them it felt like an eternity.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏmXia Liang stopped screaming as his eyes were fixated on his wife's back which was going further and further away.
All the areas of Luo Jian's body were exposed as she crawled, and the children were forced to close their eyes so as not to see this disturbing scene.
Xia Tian was indifferently standing in the middle.
The fairy found the scene too resembling to what happened in her fairy realm.
She was unable to watch silently anymore.
[Master, What will you do with her?]
She asked with a hint of concern.
Xia Tian secretly laughed, only gasping noises of horror can be heard in the arena but he was truly enjoying this.
What he loved most is the faces of greed and fear among the people...
'What do you think I should do? Or do you want to replace her?' Xia Tian answered Luo Xue.
The latter was forced to shut her mouth. Although she wanted to say that Xia Tian can't materialize her with his current strength but she dared not.
She felt he was too unfathomable.
What if he actually drags her out?
"Please leave him..."
Luo Jian crawled up to Xia Tian's legs, she caught his legs as she begged.
The latter only glanced at her, the smile on his face got wider by seeing the woman crawling near his legs.
"Sure."
He softly spoke.
The woman's eyes opened up in surprise, and a relieved look flashed on her face.
The next moment, the transparent dome started being filled with Fog.
It wasn't fog, but the barrier was getting dense as
other people won't be able to see what was transpiring inside the dome.
"What is happening?" Long Ping uttered as he looked around for clues.
But his vision was blocked.
Not just him, everyone's vision was blocked.
Only one person was able to see what was going on inside...
It was Xia Liang...
His eyes were upturned in horror.
Xia Tian's real target was Xia Liang and not his wife or son.
They were just a medium to make that man go insane.
.........
A/N: First I thought Xia Tian should publicly smash her, though, later I decided to add fog as only Xia Liang would be able to look inside the dome.