The Record of Unusual Creatures - Chapter 518

Chapter 518: Back to the Castle

 

Honestly, Hao Ren was not surprised by the First Born’s space combat capabilities.

This powerful primitive creature had already demonstrated a small part of its fighting ability. It could control gravity, produce shields, distort space, and know how to use anti-air firepower to destroy targets in the face of meteorite attacks. All signs indicated that the First Born knew what space was all about from the very beginning—at least it knew what ‘air combat’ was. Plus it had destroyed the lunar city of the Ancient Magic Empire. So of course this monster could take the war to space.

Only that Hao Ren did not expect that the ‘space ship’ it created could be so smart.

After confirming that the ‘seed’ had completely died, Lily cut through the skin of the seed with his claws, exposing the withered organs below. The shape of those organs was between animals and plants. Although they looked like organs, they were similar to wood fibres. Hao Ren also took a look at the annular structure at the core of the seed. It had a metallic lustre and seemed to contain a lot of minerals. Hao Ren reached out to touch it. It felt dead: its weight on the lunar surface was rather baffling, and was not known what kind of material it was constituted of.

“It’s a weapon, through-and-through,” said Vivian, scratching her chin. “It seems that it’s designed specifically to attack other planets.”

What Vivian said rang a bell as Hao Ren suddenly realized that the First Born was not a weapon when it hatched from the Seed of Origin. It was just a plant responsible for shaping the initial ecological environment. Although powerful, it did not have such meticulous weapon. This seed was obviously a well-designed weapon. It was not be the initial blueprint of the Seed of Origin.

No doubt that the First Born had designed this thing. It had been capable of designing this weapon despite of its madness. Or was it that some sort of logical thinking remained and was enough for it to complete this wonderful art of destruction despite its madness?

As Hao Ren spoke of his thoughts, the others were shocked and some began to contemplate. Lily had been wagging her tail for a long while in deep thoughts. She suddenly jabbed on Hao Ren’s stomach and said, “It seems that all civilisations of the universe have been wiped out, including those who had the ability to fly into space.”

Before Lily’s voice trailed off, Hao Ren instinctively bounced two metres backward with cold sweat trickling down his back. “Don’t poke me with this claw! We’re going to kill me!”

Nangong Wuyue reached out her hand giving the ‘seed’ a little push. She then stuck out her tongue and said, “You’ll surely die if you get marked by this thing. Anyway, is there really not a single survivor in this universe? The universe is so big yet it doesn’t even have someone strong enough to counter this thing?”

The survivors Wuyue mentioned were not like those in Holletta which had retrogressed but the ones who had succeeded in preserving their civilisation and even solved the First Born crisis themselves.

“The entire universe is dead. All of the channels have only our own reverberations, or broadcasts from the Imperial Data Link,” the MDT shook itself. “I don’t think there is any living interstellar civilisation left. The strength disparity between the Second Born and the First Born is too just obvious. The latter’s form of life has an absolute advantage. Unless a race had moved to another galaxy before the First Born went mad, completely cut off the connection with the parent star, and nothing associated with the First Born—not even a cell—could be taken, or they would surely get caught and then destroyed.”

Vivian hugs herself as she chimed in. “There is another possibility: there may be survivors. They are hiding and dare not respond to anyone.”

After seeing Hao Ren’s quizzical gaze, Vivian shrugged. “Don’t forget how otherworldlings on earth live under persecution by the demon hunters. They hide. They stay in shelters. They make no noise. They don’t not respond to any contact. But the First Born is even more terrible than the demon hunter, so the survivors will have to hide even deeper. There must be some civilisation still out there—alive. As Wuyue said, the universe is so big that there must always be someone who’s strong enough.”

Hao Ren felt a little emotional. He looked up at the stars in the night sky. Planet Holletta was hanging in the middle of the night sky, surrounded by endless glorious stars. A sense of inexplicable feelings came to mind as he thought of the few horrified eyes that might be hidden among the silent, icy planets. They were survivors of the catastrophe. They had a complete record of 10,000 years of history. They might have already demolished their communication equipment—obviously the First Born had the ability to track their signals—and locked themselves in a place that could completely blackout any sign of life. But the survivors would certainly leave some sort of window—unless they wanted to stay in the shelter until the time of the destruction of the universe, otherwise they would always leave a way to perceive the outside world.

It was like the pigeon that Noah released.

Hao Ren wanted to leave a broadcasting tower, sending out a ‘The catastrophic events have ended’ message to elicit those survivors, but he soon realized that this was very risky because he was completely unsure whether the catastrophe was really over!

The First Born went berserk at the same moment, but not necessarily died at the same time. At least Holletta’s First Born was just in deep sleep. Perhaps there were other First Borns which were still active in this universe. He could not afford to attract the attention of those ancient creatures.

So in the end he could only shake his head. “I’ll leave behind a proliferation-type passive radar station watching the universe, and capturing all communication signals. The radar station must be a little farther away to prevent attracting the First Born to Holletta.”

The MDT whistled and said, “Roger that!”

A hatch on the upper part of the Petrachelys opened. A silver-white rectangular equipment measuring several metres in length was raised from the garage, which was then turned into a beam of light and disappeared into the vast space. It would be monitoring the area in a long-term basis and continuing to replicate itself, setting up radar stations in more and more distant galaxies until the entire universe was under its observation. Hao Ren had no clue this would work out because he did not read the manual. But he felt that this thing looked pretty high-tech and might work.

He ordered the autonomous robots send the seed back to the lab on board the spacecraft. After collecting some more samples of tentacles and debris on the lunar surface, they left the place.

They returned to the Alamanda transit point in Tannagost. Hao Ren tucked away the ship, but leaving behind an autonomous robot. He let the little robot procure materials needed to build a series of protective walls, at least blocking the square, and if possible, reinforcing it into a fortress. The next time he came he would bring some weapons and beefed up the defence capability of Alamanda Transit Plaza.

The light purple film that connected The Plane of Dreams with Surface World was still emitting a regular glow. This space crack had completely stabilized. As they passed through the film, they immediately felt a cold wind blowing on their faces.

Before them was the dark and vast snowfield. In the blink of an eye, they were already back in Andrea Castle.

“I really didn’t expect to have so many things happened in this trip,” Lily tucked her ears and transformed back into the human form. She sounded very happy as she said, “I thought that it would be just a casual trip, little did I expect it took a little more than a week.”

Hao Ren also looked at the snow scene in front of him, his heart filled with emotion. Returning from The Plane of Dreams to the Surface World had always brought about an inexplicable sense of fragmentation. This time, crossing both worlds through the space cracks was no exception.

Nangong Wuyue was the first jumped off the stone platform. “Let’s go and spook the Andrea family.”

Hao Ren: “…..”

It was not known whether Nangong Wuyue had a premonition or it was a coincidence, the moment they pushed open the iron door down at the crypt they saw Igor out there. The old man was dusting those old portraits of his family when he heard a sound behind the iron door, thinking that the evil spirit had come back for revenge. As he turned around he saw the witch and the masters who had disappeared for a week. He clapped his hands in surprise. “Hey—”

Then he blacked out again.

The butler was beside him and Igor passed out and seemed to have got used to this rhythm as he held up his master and performed some acupuncture and the aromatherapy on Igor—as Igor’s condition was quite serious this time. Igor came back on and looked at Hao Ren and several others, dumbfounded. “You’ve been missing for a week…I thought something had happened to you guys!”

“We’ve gone to a faraway place,” Vivian smiled. “It was about magic. So please don’t ask.”

Chapter 519: Classes

 

It seemed that Anna had listened to their instruction, not to reveal to others that there was a space crack in the crypt, leading to gold treasure. Igor did not even know where Hao Ren and his gang had gone to. Now there was no worry that someone might cross that space crack; after Hao Ren returned from the other side, he had installed sensors and crack breakers near the space crack to prevent people from trespassing Tannagost.

Igor had asked why Becky had not come back. Hao Ren explained that she was visiting her relatives in The Plane of Dreams.

Instead of accepting Igor’s invitation to stay, they decided to go home. The first thing Hao Ren did was find his official car in the courtyard in front of the castle. The car had been parked there for a week. It was now covered with snow. He patted the roof of the car, thinking self-deprecatingly: in order not to cause a stir, when he came he did not tuck his car back into his dimensional pocket. He had instead parked it in the garden. But little did he expect the vengeful spirit phenomenon in Andrea Castle had become so bad that people were surprised by any supernatural phenomena no more. The fact that the Andrea family was the descendant of Vivian’s younger brother was out of his expectation too. If he had known it earlier, he would not have gone through all the trouble.

“The crypt,” Vivan instructed Igor. “Set up some guard points in different places in the crypt but don’t go too deep. Anna knows something about the dimension, let her decide the position of the sentry posts. We have laid a seal near the door of the vengeful spirit, but if there is still any anomaly, report it to me immediately.”

Igor bowed respectfully and nodded his head, and then carefully asked, “My lord, how can I contact you? Sorry … our family has lost our traditional occult skills.”

Vivian smacked herself on the forehead. “Oh yes, hold on a second.”

Then she reached her hand into the pocket. Igor suddenly became nervous and serious, wondering what magic prop Vivian was going to take out. It was normal for witch and her human minions to communicate through the black cat’s cry, crow’s shadow, Datura flowers ashes and stuff like that. However after a long while, Vivian had only taken out a small notebook. She tore off a piece of paper and wrote something on it. “Now I have a cell phone, this is my cell phone number; just remember to add prefix 0086.”

Igor asked flabbergastedly, “… isn’t it a magic prop? I remember the ancient books of my ancestors had mentioned about Drops of Blood Debris or something…”

Vivian’s brows knit together as she said, “It was a long time ago. One must keep up with the times, you know. Can Drops of Blood Debris send text messages?”

Igor: “…..”

A batswoman of 10,000 years old was teaching a modern person to keep up with the times. Only this could happen to him, Hao Ren thought.

After giving her instructions, they left Andrea Castle by teleporting back home. Y’zaks was sitting in the living room reading the paper. Sitting on a sofa reading the People’s Daily, he looked exactly like a prisoner in a hard labour camp. Sensing the air distortion around him, Y’zaks looked up with a mean smile. “I knew you’re going to come back. What take you so long, uh? Where’s Becky?”

“She has gone back to her hometown,” said Hao Ren. “You wouldn’t guess what we found in the lair of the vengeful spirit! It’s a pity that you didn’t go along this time. We’ve found a stable passageway connecting the real world and The Plane of Dreams.”

That was unexpected. Y’zaks was very surprised. “Really? Then tell me everything about it.

“Before that, mind you guys explain it to me,” said Nangong Sanba as he flung himself in the sofa and spread out his hands. “I don’t have clue and my mind is still left behind the other world. Can anyone tell me who you guys are? What organisation? What team? A lone wolf superhero, or a coalition of vengeance seekers? Looks like your team is unlike any forces of the Earth. Shall I join as a public servant or an independent contractor?”

Nangong Wuyue shot her brother a sideways glance. “Brother, you’re too inquisitive.”

“I think I should also explain it to you,” Hao Ren nodded. “Are you prepared to the truth? In the future, you’ll need to follow a gang of space-time agents dealing all kind of things all over the world, and in many cases, in the other worlds. Ours is a high risk job, but safety and security measures are aplenty. It’s very exciting, but also very rewarding. You can broaden your horizons, increase your knowledge, and often time get more than worldly return, such as…”

Hao Ren took out a golden apple from the dimensional pocket and continued. “Golden Apple, yes, the one in the story where Hercules had tricked Atlas into getting it. But this one’s genuine, with a trademark. I guarantee that it’s as authentic as the stolen peach that the monkey had stolen, 100% from the realm of God. If you are in, you will be able to get these things and to the top of your life.”

Lily blinked. “Why I’ve got the feeling that you talked like an MLMer?”

Nangong Sanba stared at the golden apple in Hao Ren’s hands, none the wiser. He asked instinctively, “What if I don’t join?”

“I don’t think a normal person can resist this. But if you insist not to join—yes, you can,” said Hao Ren, taking out a pen from his dimensional pocket again. “Then look at the little lamp here and wait for me to count to three and you will forget everything you see in the other worlds. But truth be told, I don’t know if this thing would work. When my boss handed it to me, it was said to come from Er Li Qiao Wholesale Market, the largest gathering place of fake celestial community. There is a bunch of guys who always uses counterfeit gadgets to make money. So this thing may make you forget a lot more things. It’s said that there is a ten-percent chance of causing gender identity disorder, but rest assured I’ll recommend you some gay website where you can embark on another journey of happiness. You will not remember the women you had loved… Lily, please don’t bite!”

Lily let off her bite and raised her head away from Hao Ren’s arm. “You’ve been talking load of nonsense!”

Cold sweat trickled down Nangong Sanba’s back. He quickly swore. “I solemnly declare that I’m in—by the way, how come I suddenly feel that you are like an illegal organisation…”

“You won’t be able to find a more legitimate team than us in the whole world,” said Nangong Wuyue, sticking out her tongue and giving Hao Ren a shit look. “It’s just that the captain is a little weird making you a little confused.”

“Fine, Wuyue will brief you about the situation of our Space Administration’s EN35 node at Bastard Barrio office. After that, I’ll take you reporting to my superior,” said Hao Ren, putting away the pen and letting the siren maiden handle the rest. “I’m going to find Big Beardy. As the door to The Plane of Dreams has now been opened. I have to ask if he wants to go home.”

“He has gone out to classes,” Y’zaks stopped Hao Ren. “He’ll be back in the evening.”

Hao Ren asked dumbfoundedly, “What classes?”

“He’s giving talk on health, environmental protection and low-carbon life to the backstreet gang of old folks and housewives who,” Y’zaks said. “The class that was opened a week ago is now booming… he is fast becoming a friend of women.”

Hao Ren was struck dumb. He could not imagine Big Beardy, the most rustic, boring ascetic had become a hit. But when he heard that the Big Beardy had gathered so many people and giving talk to them, he faintly felt something was not quite right. He quickly went out. “I’ll find him!”

When Hao Ren came to the back street wanting to find someone to ask where the lectures were at, he found that was not necessary: there was a crowd gathered under the big mandarin tree on the eastern side of the street. Eight out of ten were women. Without needing asking, it must be Big Beardy who was preaching there. He hurried over to the clearing where the crowd assembled and saw Big Beardy was sitting on a rock giving his lecture solemnly:

“…so the path of natural harmony is the way of long-term survival. Our predecessors taught us that everything in the world comes from the same place and will die and return to the same place as well. All things are equal and particles of this world. Whether they are rich or poor, what left of them will be just flesh and bones at the end, just like the plants and the tree. Such is the principle of life. Man is made of dust and will return to the earth, so one should be content with life and be happy with what one has. Eat sparingly and you will be fine; sleep soundly and you will be well; dress modestly as that’s all your body needs. If you would like to enjoy yourself, be self-sufficient…”

As Big Beardy talked, the housewives just kept nodding their heads. The low-carbon and environmentally-friendly topics were most suitable for their appetite though they understood none of them.

Suddenly there was a voice from the side. “Hao Ren? You come for the class too?”

Hao Ren turned his head and found the one speaking was an old neighbour, the fat boss who opened a supermarket at the end of the street. He shook his head and said, “I’m here to find someone. You come for the talk too?”

“Who in their right mind would want to listen to this? I’m here to drag my wife back home,” said the fat boss, almost crying. “It makes people’s life miserable… she has been bewitched and I’ve had no proper meal at home for days. She even told me that if I wanted to eat meat, I would have to go and catch rabbits in the wild myself.

Hao Ren: “…..”

Chapter 520: Team of Wonders

 

Big Beardy’s lectures had finally come to an end. The crowd of old ladies and housewives began a serious discussion session. A woman raised a small booklet and asked, “Master, I came late when you talked about the cycle of life yesterday, could you—”

Big Beardy saw Hao Ren standing behind the crowd. He quickly waved his hand. “Let me explain it tomorrow. When it comes, let it come; when it goes, let it go. Listen to whatever you’ve managed to hear—Hi, Mr. Landlord, you’re here!”

Every six out of ten old ladies and housewives in the crowd knew Hao Ren. In the small town of the Southern Suburbs, everyone knew everyone as they had been living in the same town for decades. So, it was normal that people came up to him to say hello. Hao Ren could only smile back at them. Mrs. Zhao, who had acquainted herself with Hao Ren stepped forward and grabbed Hao Ren’s hand. “Hao, you haven’t shown up for quite a while. Where have you been?”

The old lady liked to talk about such trifles.

Hao Ren smiled at her and said, “I’ve gone to work… My work requires me to travel often.”

“Well, it’s good for you to have found a good job,” said the old lady, nodding appreciatively. However, she soon became more serious. “But you’re always not at home all day… Don’t forget, you’ve rented out your house. Can you handle it?”

Hao Ren gave a hurried reply and quickly pulled himself away to get to Big Beardy. “How did you come about giving talks here?”

“I’ve actually never thought about it before,” Big Beardy said with his hand spread out. “I’ve been keeping your reminder at heart all this while, to not get noticed as best as I can. But a few days ago on the street, I met an old lady who had gastroenteritis. I started to treat her, and shared with her about life cultivation…”

“Oh, then word spread and you suddenly became a health practitioner in the Southern Suburbs.” Hao Ren smacked his head with the palm of his hand. “Those who crave fame never get it, while the one who shunned it became an instant celebrity after helping an old lady on the street.”

Big Beardy shrugged. He did not know what “fame” meant. Seeing his response, Hao Ren rolled his eyes at him. “Please think of a way to stop giving talks. No ordinary person can live like an ascetic, you know?”

Big Beardy smiled. “I know. In fact I’ve wanted to stop: truth be told, dealing with these people is much more difficult than studying the ancient scrolls. There are 20 to 30 housewives inviting me to give talks in their homes. I was really annoyed. I had to spend a good part of my energy just to decline them. But I felt that stopping the classes suddenly would be too irresponsible, so I’ve dragged the matter until today.”

Hao Ren looked at this new friend of women with a weird expression before he rushed back home, dragging Big Beardy along. “Let’s get the hell out of here before somebody reports you as a cult leader to the authorities.”

Only when the two of them arrived at front of the house, Hao Ren slowed down and said quietly, “We’ve found a stable passage leading to the Plane of Dreams. Becky had already gone back. Are you planning to go back with the other three masters?”

Big Beardy paused in his step but he caught up quickly. “A stable passage? It was discovered when you went to deal with evil spirit?”

Hao Ren nodded. Big Beardy thought for a while and shook his head slightly. “We do have plans to go home, but not in the near future. We have each found ourselves something to do in this world. We should peregrinate to learn as much as possible about this strange world. This will be of great help to our practice, and understanding of the goddess’ creation.”

It gave Hao Ren a headache when he heard what Big Beardy said. But he knew most believers were like this, so he could only try hard to get used to it. Curious of the situation of the other three ascetics, Hao Ren asked, “What are the other three masters doing now?”

Big Beardy squinted slightly, seemingly performing some kind telepathy. A moment later, he opened his eyes and replied, “One is currently in Africa, conquering the lions and the wild elephants, and are busily mediating the disputes between two local tribes these two days… He’s now the new chief of one of the tribes. One is in Antarctica; she is doing ice chiselling in search of the original land, and she has group of seals under her command. The last person is now in India where she seems to have found many like-minded people whom she can spread the gospel of the goddess to.”

Hao Ren: “…..”

It took a long time for Hao Ren to come to his sense that the three peregrinating ascetics were tougher than he had imagined. He looked at Big Beardy with horrified expression on his face. “What are you doing this for?”

Big Beardy replied flatly. “Peregrinating the world.”

Hao Ren’s expression was as clue as a dim bulb. “Peregrinating the world? Do you need to go to Africa and become a tribal chief, chiselling in the Antarctic, and go to India to… what the heck? It seems the one who goes to India is the most normal one.”

“Peregrinating around the world would of course include going through all the hardships and obstacles in this world.” Big Beardy had no clue why Hao Ren was so surprised. “How can faith be strengthened without challenging one’s survival limit?”

Hao Ren was speechless and practically took a long time to come up with a question. “Wait a second…. How did they go so far?! You guys don’t even have a passport!”

Big Beardy nodded and said, “They swam.”

Hao Ren was speechless.

Peregrinating was more like swimming to them.

“I feel that I can no longer stop you from conquering this world,” Hao Ren waved his hand listlessly, and suddenly felt it was easier to bombard the First Born in the other world than to deal with such ascetics. “As long as they don’t make a mess, I don’t care.”

Big Beardy nodded cheerfully. “We have confidence that we won’t”

To be honest, Hao Ren would be willing to believe in the promise of Big Beardy two months ago, but now he really doubted the credibility of their ‘confidence’. In such a short period of time, one had swum directly to Africa, unified the tribes in the savanna and became the leader of them—have you ever seen such ascetics appeared anywhere in any scripts? Hao Ren was now very keen to meet the ascetic who seemed to have acquired unusual ‘combat strength’—in every sense of the word—but at the same time was afraid that he would be injured by the African tribal chief’s aura of the ascetic. In the end, he could only laugh wryly and go home with Big Beardy.

“Oh, besides, I’ve also got the ‘lifeblood’,” said Hao Ren as something suddenly crossed his mind. “I’m eager to know whether we can get in touch with the goddess through it. What’s your opinion?”

“I know you don’t believe in the goddess of creation, so you’ll just have to remain respectful.” Big Beardy looked indifferent. He was very open-minded now. “But to be honest, I don’t think you will succeed: establishing contact with the goddess requires extreme piety. Even monks who had been trained for years would fail sometimes when trying to establish contact through a whole branding ritual, it would be almost impossible for a pagan who has never studied the Scriptures to obtain the consent of the lifeblood.”

Hao Ren did not say a word. He felt that Big Beardy might not agree to his method of studying the lifeblood. Therefore, he refrained from mentioning it at all.

Just when the two of them came to the front door of the house, a loud bang suddenly came from behind the house.

Hao Ren was shocked. He ran around to check out at back of his house. What he saw had him speechless.

The smoke behind the house had just cleared. Lots of mechanical stuff were strewn all over the place—old cylinders, bearings, gears, and springs. Obviously there had been an explosion of some sort of mechanical device. A little girl clad in a black Gothic dress sat in the middle of the pit created by the explosion, her body was smoked in black dust with a pipe in her hand. When she heard someone approaching, the little girl cleverly turned her head, revealing her two rows of small white teeth. “Whoa, that was exciting!”

Hao Ren had to hold on to the wall beside him to avoid falling. “Y’lisabet… can’t you do something to conquer the world, be a bully, or find some poor individuals and make them your slaves or something?”

The little demon princess thought for a moment and spat out a mouthful of black smoke. “My dad said I had to wait until I finish primary school then I can go conquer the world.”

Hao Ren could only look at her in silence.

Once again, he found it much easier to deal with the First Born in the other world than to deal with this wonderful bunch of aliens at home!

Chapter 521: Life on Earth for the Demon Princess

 

It seemed that the unusual creatures in Hao Ren’s house were very adaptable beings. After Becky arrived for the first time, she became a fashionable Earth girl through-and-through in less than two months. Y’lisabet on the other hand, knew every street in town in under two months. Some of the old electrical appliances she was toying with were salvaged from some remote corners of the town. Some were picked up from the refuse bins while some were thrown out by the locals.

The most abundant material in this old residential area was electrical waste. As long as one cared to search, old household appliances were basically thrown out every other day, and Y’lisabet would pester her papa to go out to collect some of these used appliances, which had been thrown away. Technically, Y’zaks had a job now. It was just a payless job.

Dust was all over the little girl’s face and body. She dropped the broken tube and lunged towards Hao Ren when she saw him. “Uncle Ren, you’ve gone to save the world again? I heard Sister Doggie bragging in the house.”

Before Hao Ren could react, the girl had wrapped her arms around him and transferred the dirt onto his new clothes. Helpless, he looked at Y’lisabet who was covered in oil and soot. Her extravagant gothic dress was smeared with soot as well upon taking a closer look. “Look at how dirty you are. Do you know how troublesome it is to do the laundry?”

“There’s always the washing machine!” Y’lisabet said happily. “I know how to tear down a washing machine!”

Hao Ren was flabbergasted. “What?!”

“Oh, I mean I know how to use a washing machine!”

It was only later that Hao Ren found out why Y’lisabet took apart and reassembled the appliances. It was to study them. That was how she learned to use the appliances.

At this time, the back door of the house was pushed open. It was Lily, who heard the explosion and came out to check what had happened. She saw Hao Ren and greeted him happily, “Mr. Landlord, you’re back! What shall we eat tonight? Can we take a walk outside after dinner?”

Hao Ren facepalmed and sighed, thinking that these people had immediately revealed their true selves as soon as they got home.

Well, actually they never bothered to be pretentious at all even when they were outside.

Hao Ren dragged Y’lisabet, who by now looked like a briquette, back into the living room. He swiftly handed her to Nangong Wuyue. “Clean her up! I can’t see her face at all. Y’zaks, why don’t you teach your daughter to behave a little?”

Sitting on the couch reading the People’s Daily, Y’zaks looked almost like he had just been released from jail. He turned and smiled helplessly at Hao Ren. “Can you stop Lil Pea from chewing up other people’s furniture when you go out?”

Hao Ren was speechless.

“Daughters are a father’s weakness.” The great demon spread his hands. “And to tell you the truth, my temper is still too good. You won’t believe how other demons teach their children: after the full moon, they would throw their children into the lava lake; the disobedient ones would be flung at the wall, so before the age of three, kids would be tame like a horse. But I didn’t have the heart to do that. Y’lisabet is too weak, she won’t stand for two hours, soaking in the lava…”

It sounded paltry when Y’zaks spoke of disciplining a child. Cold sweat was trickling down Hao Ren’s spine just from listening to him. Hao Ren suddenly felt a little fortunate that Y’zaks had not “disciplined” Y’lisabet that way. Were those not the same torturing methods used on their enemies?

He saw Nangong Sanba sitting not far away, burying himself in his thoughts. He raised his hand and said hello, “Did you hear all of that?”

Nangong Sanba looked up, confused. It seemed like he was still in the process of repairing his perception of things, having no mental threads to respond to Hao Ren. He stumbled for a while and finally said, “You’re back! So, what my sister said just now was true?”

Hao Ren smiled wryly as he sat down next to Nangong Sanba. “Of course it’s true.”

“You really had a baby fish with the pot, and the husky helped with the delivery?”

Before Hao Ren could sit down, he was shocked by the question. He stumbled to the ground and got up, glaring and looking for the mantis shrimp. Nangong Wuyue did not give him a chance; she quickly excused herself and went into the bathroom with Y’lisabet. “Let me clean her up!” she said.

Hao Ren eyeballed Nangong Sanba. “That. Is. Not. True!”

But before his voice trailed off, Lil Pea had jumped onto the coffee table. The first thing the mermaid did was give the pot (her mom) a hug just as she always did when she came home. “Mom, I’m back!” she said joyfully.

The way Nangong Sanba looked at Hao Ren was like… Hell, just let your imagination run wild, let it be as vicious as you can imagine.

“F*ck it… I’ll explain it later,” said Hao Ren, grabbing Nangong Sanba by the shoulders. “If you pursue this question now, I’ll take out the brainwashing lamp and flash it before your eyes until you forget everything about yourself.”

Nangong Sanba quickly flinched. “I was trying to be funny. After all, my mind is still a little confused. My sister told me about the whole thing. According to her… there’s a real god in this world? It’s not a myth, but the real thing? So, are you a civil servant who’s signed a contract with God?”

With his arms crossed, Hao Ren said, “I’ve mentioned it a long time ago. I’m a clergyman. Although I haven’t been burned on a pyre, I’m the sacred son and a prophet at the same time, at least within the radius of one million light years. I’ve checked—I’m the only inspector in this area so far…”

Nangong Sanba did not buy Hao Ren’s story—not because he did not believe in God, but after all their constant encounters with mysterious incidents, something like this was not a big deal anymore, even if a creator were to descend from heaven. What he really doubted was Hao Ren’s claim to be the right-hand man of God. And more importantly, Hao Ren did not look anything like the way he imagined himself.

Nangong Sanba could not help asking more questions, but Hao Ren just smiled and said, “That’s okay. I’ll make an appointment for you. I’ll bring you to the goddess the afternoon after tomorrow. I have a lot of things to report to her too. Anyway, just wait until you meet her.I wont be responsible of lying to you then.”

Nangong Sanba said nothing.

The bathroom door swung open as Y’lisabet came out clean and nice. Again, she darted into the living room and circled around Y’zaks, trying to get his attention. The latter just smiled and took out a black book. “Go and study this, Principle of Governance.”

Y’lisabet’s excitement immediately died down. It was replaced with a crying face before she even took the book from him. Y’zaks said to her, “You’ve been playing all day long. Now go and learn something!”

Seeing her reaction, Hao Ren immediately approached them and took the book in Y’zaks’ hand. “You’ve got to choose the right material that’s appropriate for a child. She’s still young. How can you expect her to understand such deep stuff?”

Y’lisabet was all smiles. She grabbed Hao Ren by his sleeve. “It’s very nice of you, Uncle Ren.”

Hao Ren nodded. He took out a thin book from his Dimensional Pocket and told her, “I have something for children. Here’s a set of Olympic Math—”

Y’lisabet suddenly cried. She grabbed the book from her papa’s hand and said, “I’ll take the Principle of Governance.”

After Y’lisabet went back to her room, Hao Ren looked down at the Olympic Math book in his hand and said, “This is what I used when I was in school. I’ve been preserving the book so well…”

Lily gave him a sideways look. “Yeah, it’s like new, as though you’re a real book lover.”

Hao Ren said nothing. He just laughed wryly. Meanwhile, Vivian came up and sat down beside Nangong Wuyue when she saw her sitting on the couch in a daze.

“It’ll be okay. We’ll find them.” Vivian patted Wuyue on the arm. Having a gentle temperament and a pair of observant eyes, she could see that something was bothering the Nangong siblings.

They were still worried for their parents.

They thought that the vengeful spirit in Andrea Castle could shed some light on the whereabouts of their parents. Vivian had even formulated an interrogation plan to “torture” information out of the vengeful spirit. They did not expect to come up with nothing after the unveiling of the truth behind the vengeful spirit.

Vengeful spirits were not evil or grieving spirits and it was impossible to communicate with them. They were only a mixture of electromagnetic waves and energy fields even though they contained a lot of fragmented as well as next-to-impossible-to-read-and-recover memories. Even if they could trace things back to the home of the vengeful spirit, they would only find a desolate planet with no energy response from the sirens on that planet.

If the Nangongs’ parents were really missing, then they must have been sent to a completely random place by a space anomaly caused by the vengeful spirit. There was fear that any available clues would be useless considering the illogical nature of the vengeful spirit.

The Nangongs were really disappointed.

Chapter 522: The Cat

 

Sitting on the sofa in a daze, the Nangong siblings were thinking of their parents. It seemed like it was impossible to get any lead from the vengeful spirit. The memory of the vengeful spirit was bound in an energy field in the form of chaotic debris, and after contacting it, only some vague, random memories could be read. Even a talented child like Anna could not read the details of the vengeful spirit’s memory. Probably nobody could find out where the Nangongs’ parents had been sent.

What was more, the vengeful spirit had already been smashed by Lil Pea’s voice. Only part of it remained.

Hao Ren had noticed that Vivian and the Nangong siblings were depressed. He came up and asked, “What happened?”

“It’s about my parents,” Nangong Wuyue sighed and continued. “I thought this time there would be some hope… never have I expected the vengeful spirit is just a chaotic natural phenomenon. There’s no lead now.”

Hao Ren thought for a moment, then he took out a small apple box from the dimensional pocket. The box was actually the container used to sealing in the vengeful spirit. It looked just like any other normal box and it was empty. But there were occasional tiny sparks inside which was a phenomenon caused by the rapid turbulence of the vengeful spirit.

“This is part of the sample… I don’t know if I can analyse anything out of it.” Hao Ren said.

“It’s only fragments,” Vivian sighed. “The memory of the vengeful spirit is already confusing enough, now you have here is only some debris… How much valuable information can there be?”

Hao Ren remained silent. The MDT suddenly floated up from the sofa armrest and said, “All of it.”

Hao Ren and Vivian spoke in unison, “What?”

“The whole memory of the vengeful spirit is stored in here,” the MDT hovered above the box. “You’re still not correctly understand the life form of vengeful spirit—you mustn’t think of energy field or spiritual creature as a ‘substance’ in the ordinary sense. Don’t assume that these fragments are really ‘fragments’ of the electromagnetic waves. As long as the critical frequencies are not destroyed, every piece of the vengeful spirit contains all of its entire information, just like the exponential repetition of a mathematical model, each component is a complete template, each detail stores the whole information that can be duplicated and expanded indefinitely—this is the key that enables the vengeful spirit to extend from a small group of white light to hundreds of square kilometres without loss of details. It is self-explanatory, there is no physical limit.”

The MDT’s explanation was very technical. But given Vivian’s long experience mingling with major mathematicians in history, she immediately understood what it was all about. “Ahh, it’s like Roman cauliflower where countless similar bodies make a complete body, isn’t it?”

Hao Ren: “…..” He marvelled at the vampire girl’s train of thoughts which seemed to have developed around the kitchen.

“Though the metaphor is a little weird, it’s apt,” the MDT gently landed on top the apple box. “The size of the fragment only affects the vengeful spirit’s strength, and the information it stores will become weak, but the volume of data will not be affected. As long as it’s given sufficient external energy, it can be completely restored to its peak level just like when it was under Andrea Castle. And if the energy environment on Earth is conducive, it can grow further. Of course we don’t need to do that. As soon as it’s slightly recharged, we can try to read its strange electromagnetic wave.”

After listening to all the technical jargons, The Nangong siblings were none the wiser. But when they heard the last sentence, they understood what it was and their eyes lit up. “Then let’s do it now!”

“It’s just an idea. But knowing how to read it is an entirely different matter,” the MDT poured cold water on the idea, trying to calm Nangong siblings down. “This is the most wonderful life form I’ve ever seen. Even the Encyclopaedia of Life Forms in the Imperial Database has no record of this spiritual body. The sublimation technique of Tannaeans and the spiritual field of the First Born together have produced such distorted, weird structure. We need to design a comprehensive reading process in the laboratory, and be careful not to let this thing escape.”

Hao Ren poked the MDT. “Is there a spare lab on the Petrachelys?” he asked.

“All labs are occupied and dedicated to studying and cloning of the Seed of Origin. But some workbenches could be vacated,” the MDT rolled up Hao Ren’s arm onto his shoulder. “You want to open a new research line?” it asked.

After obtaining the permission of Hao Ren, the MDT immediately issued an order to the Petrachelys which was parked in the Kuiper Station. Although Hao Ren could tuck the spacecraft in his dimensional pocket for long-term, there were many research projects going on on board the spacecraft. Besides, he often needed to send some autonomous robots to New Aerym or Tannagost, so he had sent the spacecraft to the Kuiper Station when he came back earlier.

The spacecraft carried out the instruction after receiving a new order. In the lab of the core compartment where analyses of the Seed of Origin group was conducted, agile robotic arms and precision scanners were busily at work. But after the new directives were issued, on some test benches, analysis equipment was transferred to somewhere else while containers that had developed prototypes of strange meat were temporarily sealed and stored by the autonomous robots into the safe. The research host began to simulate a decoding device based on the information on the characteristics of the vengeful spirit sent by the MDT. Very quickly, the on-board processing plant of the Petrachelys began to its works.

When Hao Ren stepped onto the spacecraft next time, there will be a new set of equipment waiting for him in the lab.

Now he and Nangong siblings could only wait.

“Let’s wait for two days. There is no readily available decoding device in the world that can communicate with the vengeful spirit, and the Petrachelys needs some time to perform the R&D.” While keeping everyone calm, the MDT had not forgotten to brag about. “Fortunately for you, the Imperial science and technology are warm-hearted. The R&D host on the inspector’s spaceship is absolutely more awesome than scientists in Tannagost. All thanks to my wisdom and command.”

“Oh yeah?” Hao Ren knocked on the outer shell of the MDT and asked, “What reward do you want?”

“I am a noble PDA. A pure PDA. I am not a PDA of poor taste. I am thinking of…”

Not waiting for the MDT to finish, Hao Ren took out a sticker from his pocket and stuck it on its shell. “This is for you. I picked it up from the street earlier.”

The MDT swiftly flew up. “What…what… what did you just stick on me?! Is it Pleasant Goat or SpongeBob?! Is it Pony? Ouch, you’re so cruel to your own PDA…”

Hao Ren held up a mirror in front of the MDT. “See for yourself.”

The MDT suddenly calmed down. “Oh, it’s ¥9.90 price tag. You should tell me earlier. Get this thing off me immediately!”

Amid the teasing and noise, suddenly Lily hurriedly down the stairs and said, “Mr. Landlord, Rollie is missing!”

For some reasons, Lily was currently the person in charge of feeding the cat.

Of course, for the sake of clarity, we have to clarify that Rollie is the one who is in charge of feeding the fish.

That’s how well-organised the ecological chain of this family is.

“Rollie is out?” Hao Ren lifted his eyebrows. “Maybe it has gone for a walk. I saw it watching TV in my room in the afternoon.”

Both Vivian and Nangong Wuyue looked at Hao Ren with strange expression on their faces. Vivian reminded him. “Don’t you think it’s weird that a cat would go into your room and turn on the TV and switch to pet channel on the dot every day?”

Hao Ren thought for a moment before he began to realise that. “Yeah… Cat’s claws are not quite suitable for operating remote controller.”

Vivian facepalmed and said, “This is not the key!”

She felt that the man beside him must have his worldview ruined as a result of mingling with the otherworldlings for too long.

Lily took the cat food stumbling down the stairs. “I don’t think it’s strolling outside. It usually will be home at this time waiting for its meal to be served.”

Hao Ren thought for a long time, recalling the strange behaviour of Rollie the other day. His normal ‘human awareness’ only began to come back. He now also thought that something was amiss about the cat.