The Record of Unusual Creatures - Chapter 223

Chapter 223: First Ever Broadcast

 

Nangong Wuyue examined Lil Pea in her arms and came to a final conclusion: the little mermaid was as fit as a fiddle. She was even more vivacious than before, probably because she was happy to be at home.

“Did she have such strength in the past?” Hao Ren cuddled the fry in his arms and asked around. He had to take extra care with Lil Pea because her tail was always slippery. She liked to wriggle around and would easily slip out of his arms. Vivian shook his head. “No idea. Perhaps she was born with it. Just that we didn’t discover it before. You’re Lil Pea’s dad. You should know better, right?”

As Hao Ren was about to nod his head, he suddenly came to his senses. “B*llsh*t! How am I supposed to know that? I’m not a fish.”

Lil Pea’s extraordinary strength had not gotten much attention because her unusual strength was only relative to her body size. It was the visual impact of a half foot, little thing lifting a table—a feat that was not worth a fig when everyone in the house was superhuman. Only Becky had shown her curiosity towards Lil Pea as she rested her head on the table, staring into Lil Pea’s eyes. “What’s this? So many strange creatures in this world.”

Hao Ren had dumped her into the big tub in the washroom after he got home. Becky was in the living room playing with the high-tech gadgets so, she did not discover the little mermaid until now.

While Lil Pea crawled on the table, Hao Ren carried and placed her in his hand as he introduced her to Becky. “Her name’s Elizabeth, nicknamed Lil Pea. She’s originally from the other world. I’m her guardian. Actually, you’ve met her before—she was in a pot…”

Then Becky realized the strange pot Hao Ren was carrying around with him all the time in The Plane of Dreams. She was surprised. “That lil thing was in there? You lied to me, saying it was an alchemical tool. By the way, is it the culture of your world to raise children in a pot?”

Sweat began to rain down from his forehead as Becky’s misunderstanding of this world got from bad to worse…

While everyone was talking, Hilda was the only one who remained silent. She ate quietly by herself as though she did not have any opinion about the food. Sensing that Hilda was being inadvertently snubbed as a guest, Vivian approached her. “Hey, Hilda. Is the food okay? How is it compared to the food by your home chef?”

“Home chef? We don’t have such a thing back home,” said Hilda, shaking her head. “I was just like everyone else, receiving rations of synthetic food. It was a bland organic matter. A little salty if one insisted it had flavour. Our eco-dome could only provide a limited amount of organic matter as the dome mainly provided research samples and some compounds which could not be made using synthetic methods. Food for the people came from the synthesis of plants and were results of recycling engineering. These food…”

Hilda pointed at the food on the table, feeling awkward. “…are very refined. I don’t know how to describe their flavours as my tastebuds are having difficulty in analyzing them. Anyway, it was very pleasant and I’m very grateful for your generosity. If you don’t mind, I would like to bring some back home and let other people try them.”

Vivian felt awkward, like she had said something that was not supposed to be said—she thought as an elf queen, Hilda should have been enjoying life befitting a queen no matter how scarce the resources were in their world. But just like Hao Ren, she had underestimated the dire situation the elf queen was in.

Vivian’s poverty seemed like child’s play before the elf queen.

The topic of conversation was so awkward that it completely spoiled the mood. Needless to say, the lunch ended in a dull and boring atmosphere. Only two people still retained their exuberant appetite—the growing Lil Pea and the naive Lily. Hao Ren was envious of them from the bottom of his heart.

After the lunch, Hao Ren held Hilda by her hand and led her down to the basement. The MDT had prepared a dormant cabin in advance. Hao Ren brought Hilda before the coffin-like installation and said to her, “You just have to lie in it for a while so that I can upload your traverser identity to the database. The relevant authority will be able to find your home.”

Hilda had no comments about the coffin-like design of the dormant cabin. There was no taboo on this back in her homeland. The elf queen climbed inside the dormant cabin. Before the cabin closed, she looked at Hao Ren and said, “Make it quick. Everyday’s a torture, living in such a rich world.”

As the dormant cabin closed, Hao Ren was pinned to the spot for a while before he executed the next step.

He switched the MDT on. Then, he searched for the official bulletin’s interface in the local universe channel and hooray, he found his broadcast authorization. Before this, he had no idea how to use the broadcast module or had he ever joined any of the conversations. He felt that he could never keep up with those bigwigs in the local universe channel. But since becoming an agent and laying low for many months, a legend about a deep-sea mud monster lurking among the imperial commissioners began circulating around the channel and various broadcast stations—Today, he finally got his opportunity to say something in the local universe channel.

“Is there anything I should be aware of speaking in the official bulletin?” It was Hao Ren’s very first time. He felt a heavy sense of undertaking rising through him and as a precaution, he wanted to verify everything with the MDT—that nervous feeling brought him back to the time when he was reading manuscripts over the school radio station during his primary year three. The only difference was, back then he was just reading a message for the lost and found section during his school year whereas now, he was going to do a broadcast over the universe channel…

Nevertheless… it was still a lost and found case. Just that this time the subject was a lot bigger.

When he thought of that, he became less nervous.

The MDT explained everything about the various formats and channel operations in the official bulletin. The operation was greatly simplified to suit the various levels of civilization and cultural structures of the participants in the local universe channel. Not only did the receiving terminal have a translation module, the operation of the broadcast terminal was also simple. Very quickly, Hao Ren had finished writing his very first bulletin to broadcast to the universe from his small basement:

“Special announcement—local universe channel. Broadcast from the first galaxy—Kuiper Station to the entire universe. Agent Hao Ren has found a spacecraft wreckage without markings in The Plane of Dreams. It is believed that the spacecraft is originally from the Surface World. The crash is estimated to have happened two months ago (Kuiper Station provided the time conversion algorithm). The features of the spacecraft is hereby broadcasted. Any civilizations or individuals who receive this broadcast and know about the spacecraft, kindly contact the station master of Kuiper Station. Remarks: As this is a special incident that could probably affect the balance of the universe’ foundation, it is recommended as a Category Three event. Please find the attached file for features of spacecraft. Announcement ended.”

Earth was not yet a well-known civilization sphere in the universe and there were no other registered civilization systems nearby Earth so, it was natural for Hao Ren to use Kuiper Station as the place of origin for his announcement. The transit station which had a few crew but remained busy was his office in this region of the galaxy—at least that was what his ID card said.

He let out a long sigh as he finished broadcasting the message. He was not used to such a solemn announcement. He was tempted to say, “I spotted a six-hundred-meter spacecraft out there two days ago. I wonder whose thing that is.” However, considering it was his first time making an announcement and he had to leave a good impression, he did it the solemn way.

The MDT was loudmouthed again. “Oh, you just sounded like a retired, old cadre…”

Hao Ren did not have the time to argue with the MDT because he found that his announcement was automatically pinned to the front page of all channels by the datalink. It was being sent out to all networks of every civilization in the universe as top priority. The response in the form of short messages came in from all directions like a DDoS attack.

“Unencrypted message—directional reply, Dan-Dwyn Civilization Sphere acknowledged. Investigation will be initiated.”

“Unencrypted message—directional reply, Chattar Civilization Sphere acknowledged. Investigation will be initiated.”

“Unencrypted message—directional reply, Suharr Satellite Base acknowledged. Message was forwarded to all chambers of commerce. Investigation will be initiated.”

“…Kerbal Civilization Sphere acknowledged. Investigation will be initiated.”

Every civilization sphere that was qualified to stand on the galaxy’s stage would connect to the Empire’s datalink and only the Empire’s spokepersons were qualified to post announcements on the datalink. All these announcements were always important: without a doubt, they were life-and-death matters of civilizations or closely affecting the lifeline of the entire universe. Despite being in the picture, Hao Ren did not realize the meaning of everything he had experienced. All listeners on the datalink would not take his broadcasted message lightly.

These massive amount of solemn replies from all the civilizations in the galaxy had overwhelmed Hao Ren. He felt like he suddenly became a big shot and was a little flattered. But his other colleagues in the information exchange channel on the official bulletin gave him a quick reality check. He then realized he was still a rookie.

“Where’s the image? – Agent Tunalar, Dan-Dwyn Civilization Sphere.”

“Attachment not attached? – Agent Loken, Kelsen-Volf Civilization Sphere.”

“No image, no truth – Agent Ron, Kerbal Civilization Sphere.”

“Rookie, don’t freak out. We rookies don’t sink to the level of the old f*gs – Guam Fander Pothelm, Arcturus Civilization Sphere.”

Hao Ren was dumbstruck.

It was a hell of a working environment.

Chapter 224: Working Earnestly for the First Time

 

To be frank, using the local universe channel to post an announcement was pretty much the same as a school broadcast system. The channel was mostly about lost items anyway. Having that in mind, Hao Ren had managed to wade through the flood of messages without much issue and proceeded to upload the photos into the channel.

Luckily, Hao Ren came prepared to The Plane of Dreams. When he was in the ship, he had taken plenty of pictures both of the exterior and the interior of the ship. There was even a short clip of Lily swiping her claws at a crack on the ship. The information he had garnered would allow the civilization spheres to narrow down the origin of the craft.

By then, the channel had more and more participants, even including the agents and heralds from different areas and civilization spheres. Hao Ren found it rather easy to distinguish them apart. Not only because there were specialized suffixes at the back of their names, the way they spoke was vastly different from one another. Most civilization heralds spoke with a very proper, traditional and sometimes deadpan manner. This was expected as they were the representatives of their civilization spheres and most of them wre old pen pushers. Such was the way to communicate in their line of work especially when serving a gigantic trans-galatic empire like the Xiling Empire. The agents on the other hand, were a very casual lot. Thinking back, Hao Ren realized that there seemed to be a common theme behind those Raven 12345 picked for the job… it’s that all of them were bloody jokers on the same wavelength as her…

Such irony, that by criticizing his superior, Hao Ren had to acknowledge the fact that he was a bloody joker.

The MDT was busy helping out with vetting the messages that were going through the public channels. Some parts of the channels were administered by the Empire properly, some of them were under the local civilization sphere’s own data network. A small network probably covered a stellar system and a big one probably encompassed an entire galaxy. Each network was built from all sorts of different technology from hyper lightspeed communication satelites to magical telephatic spires and they were the pride of the civilization spheres that owned them.

More and more responses came from the data networks by then. They were replies from the various spheres to Hao Ren’s posting. Some of the more advanced or faster ones had already sent out search orders across their network to aid in the search. The horrible photographs that Hao Ren took had spread across the entire universe…

Among them was one of Lily’s propeller tail.

Hao Ren had a dream long ago. It was to publish a book. A way to let his writings spread across the masses and that would do his family proud. But, his language teacher had solemnly told him that two things impeded his dreams of being a prolific writer. They were his left and right hands, which were bereft of any writing skills. Hao Ren’s dream was shattered that very moment.

Nonetheless, he realized that his dreams came true in ways far more than what he could have previously imagined: His posting had not only disseminated to the public, it was to the whole universe and it was simultaneously translated into about 26,000 different languages. By the next day, his posting would have been disseminated even further. It would appear on print and posters across the universe.

“Looks like this won’t take too long?” Hao Ren looked at the raucous scene unfolding in the data network. He could scarcely believe that he had such an ability to draw so much attention and he had high hopes to settle the issue regarding the spaceship in a jiffy. Hell, if things went well enough, he could get it done before sending Hilda back.

The MDT pondered for a moment before pouring down on Hao Ren’s parade. “I suppose we will still need a few days. Don’t let the activity on the network fool you. The universe is a wide, wide place after all. And some civilization’s hyper lightspeed communication isn’t all that advanced. Sides, the ship twe ran into seems like a mass-produced workboat and may be used very widely in certain star systems. Not many races would be keeping records of such mass-produced ships. They may take a few days before they are able to gather information from every civilian starport, including those beyond the range of the communication relays. They will then need to sift through the information before sending it to you. That said, nine times out of ten, the stuff you get are worthless duds.”

Hao Ren simply nodded. He did not know how hyper lightspeed communication worked but, he knew that it was one of the most important basics for a civilization to enter the stars properly. For many races that were new to space travel, this was still very high end technology. At the same time, two messages marked as important popped up in front of Hao Ren. They were from the Dan-Dwyn and Kerbal Civilization Spheres. Both spheres had records in their database about spacecrafts that were very similiar to the one Hao Ren submitted. Dan-Dwyns’ herald left a comment that read “…Checked the purchase records and found that 300 of these ships were purchased through official channels 50 years ago. At the same time, there were larger models available. We have no records on the motive of purchase…”

The Kerbals had even bigger purchase records. They were a young race with an insatiable thirst for space travel as well as knowledge of the subject. They had a rather relaxed regulation regarding civilian space travel. One of the customs officers, after scouring their records, had reported that over a thousand odd ships of a similar looking model were purchased for civilian use. Perhaps even more.

The data network server had compared the various reports, which came from all corners and determined that only these two spheres had purchased this ship model in significant amounts. Thus, leaving them the most probable source of the ship.

And the waiting game started for further information.

Hao Ren had also uploaded the photos of the small greenlings in the ship. However, frankly, it was of limited use. An interstellar ship would have crews which consisted of races from all over the place. There was even a case of a local captain having almost a hundred crew members. As such, those greenlings would not actually tell very much.

It was simply a pity that the ship’s databank had been wrecked or else, it would have made the search of its origins much easier.

Hao Ren also pulled out the ‘Sea Urchin Combat Bot’ from his Dimensional Pocket. Yes, it was that tentacle-armed, metallic sphere. There was plenty of space left in the basement after all. He let the MDT circle the sphere to take some pictures to add to his posting, hoping to find out the creator of the object. It did not take long for the replies to come. “The ‘Sea Urchin Combat Bot’ is not a military grade item in any of the civilization spheres. It seems like a security bot made by a private security company. Finding its origins would be even more difficult.”

…. Such was the scene on a galatic stage. The noise and ruckus was like your local night market.

“Hur, hur. Lets go back up to wait. We won’t be getting any new updates any time soon.” The MDT made an almost human sigh as it finished compiling all the data they had gathered that day.

“Yeah. Do monitor the channels for me. Let me know if there’s anything important. That ship at the bottom of the Blood Lake just makes me uneasy.” Hao Ren said as he nodded. He then turned his sights to the ‘coffin’ beside him. “Say… when can Hilda get out of there? She’s been in there for almost…an hour already?”

“Two hours plus already,” the MDT replied. “We’ll have to wait regardless. Scanning an interloper is the most tedious. Not only do we need to scan her details, we have to keep matching with the records further up. Sometimes it’ll take a short while, sometimes it’ll take a few hours.”

Hao Ren was stunned. Time flew when he was so focused on his work.

Thus, both him and the MDT patiently waited beside Hilda’s ‘coffin’. In between, Y’zaks came down to check on them. Finally, just before Hao Ren was about to doze off, a loud ding came from the sleeping pod. Hilda was sound… uh.. no, wide awake.

The Elven Queen had gotten up from the sleeping pod and looked at Hao Ren curiously. “Is the scan complete?”

Before Hao Ren could say anything, the MDT started muttering. “Done, all done. Let’s go up. We’ve been waiting for you for a good part of the day.”

Hilda simply blinked. “That long? It felt just like a moment to me.”

“Almost three hours. Any longer and it would be dinner time already.” Hao Ren said as he spread open his hands.

Hilda voiced a curt “Oh!” and did not ask further. She knew that her knowledge of these advanced alien technology was next to zero. Adjusting her crumpled shirt as she went along, she asked, “When can I go home?”

Hao Ren nudged the MDT for it to check. The Space Administration already had Hilda’s name in their record and her status was marked as ‘Processing’ and a remark was left, saying a reply would be given in two business days (Imperial Standard Time). He passed on the information to give Hilda some sort of relief but, he did not know how relieved she would be from hearing that.

After three hours of busywork in the basement, it was almost dark when Hao Ren got out of there.

The daylight during winter was always short. It was barely 5.00pm and a golden ray of the setting sun was already visible in the living room. Wuyue had placed a basin on the tea table right where the sun was shining. In it was half a tub of water and a big rock. Lil Pea was lying lazily on the rock, sunbathing. Her already shiny tail glistened under the evening sun. Almost like a Bonsai.

Beside the tea table, Lily and Vivian were squabbling as usual.

Hao Ren still had plenty on his mind as he saw them at each other’s throats again. His anger rose. “What’s wrong with you two again?”

Lily quickly pulled out her twin claws. “Battie’s saying that she wants to name my weapons. The ice one, as Frostmourne.”

“Isn’t that nice?” Hao Ren did not even understand why they were fighting in the first place.

Lily’s ears shuddered all of a sudden. “But, she even called the fire one Flamejoy for whatever reason…”

“….”

Hao Ren only managed to gather his wits again after a while. “Bloody hell, just how free are you two?”

Vivian was still unhappy about the episode. “I was being serious. If she doesn’t like it she doesn’t have to use it. What’s with her claiming that I’m insulting her wolven ancestors…”

Hao Ren just waved his hands resignedly at the two, signalling that he had no mood to get into their arguments. After looking at Vivian for a while, something popped up in his mind. “Oh, right. Vivian, I have something to ask of you…”

Chapter 225: Contacting Old Friends

 

“You need my help? Vivian looked at Hao Ren quizzically. “Do you want to eat something nice for dinner? Or do you want desserts?”

Hao Ren was unsure on how to react. He muttered to himself that this super vampire had really assimilated as a home chef and housemaid. It really does seem like her thinking logic was being bound to the kitchen and it’s immediate surroundings. He simply waved his hand laughing. “No not that. I’m asking if you can get in touch with other supernaturals? Vampires, werewolves whoever. Hell, even spirits or zombies would work. Especially those that you had made an acquintance of.”

Vivian immediately frowned as she heard his request. “I don’t really keep in touch with my kin, most of them are screwed in the head anyway.. The others… I haven’t heard from them in a long long while. Only the recent visit by the Ebbens did they let me on a secret way to reach them.”

Vivian was known as a solitary vampire. From the time human carved the first iconographies on the rocks, she was already with them. In fact, the time she spent with humans far exceeded that of her kind. Her reason was simple. Those jokers are screwed in the head. It was pretty much conflict everywhere for the supernaturals. Vivian preferred the company of the younger, unpredictable and more peaceful (superlatively) humans. Her odd attitude brought her a lot of fame… well famed for being screwed in the head by the rest of her kin. This resulted in Vivian totally going out of touch with the happenings of the supernaturals. She don’t even know where the few remaining Blood Clans are hiding out.

“Totally no way to contact them at all?” Hao Ren looked a little disappointed. He had hoped the only person that he could had count on for the matter was this vampire lady. The idiotic husky, the wandering mistrel, and a demon from the otherworld wouldn’t have much contact with the supernaturals on Earth won’t they?

Vivian noticed the importance that Hao Ren had placed on the matter. After some head scratching she finally nodded. “…. If you insist…perhaps I can try to get in touch with some of those old coots. I know of their whereabouts about ten odd years back. Some of them, being the bums they are, won’t move unless they are targeted by the Demon Hunters. But why are you looking for them?”

“Mission, what else.” Hao Ren sighed. “Both Raven12345 and I feel that the ‘Day of Return’ the supernaturals are talking about have something to do with the crumbling balance in the Dream Plane. But given that we are unable to go into the deep blue, we can only rely of the other supernaturals for more information on the matter. I want to you try to restore contact with them. Forget the sensitive details for now. Just restore contact will do. After that, try to get some information on what are they up to. So that we have a rough idea on what’s going on.”

Vivian pondered for a moment before nodding. “Alright. I don’t really like having anything to do with those lot, but since you are the one asking.”

Hao Ren gave Vivian a grateful look. He knew that she really did not like mingling with other supernaturals. By then, Lily was already at the limit of her excitement and she bounced towards him and grabbed his arm. “Mr Landlord, Mr Landlord! How about me? Do I have a mission to? Let me do something!”

Apparently the dumb husky thought that going on a mission equates fun and was all excited about it. It took Hao Ren a while to figure out what she can do before grabbing a bottle of soda going, “Open your mouth, bite it, and don’t move-”

A loud clack rang and Hao Ren gave a satisfied nod. “Hmm. Yep. That’ll do.”

Indeed it was Lily’s natural talent to be a bottle opener.

Well, Lily subsequent violent protests and tantrums not withstanding, both Becky and Hilda became temporary guests of the house for the night. Thankfully Hao Ren’s place was huge, aside from Vivian occupying the basement, Hao Ren and Lily on the first floor, and Wuyue and Y’zaks on the second floor, there were still three empty rooms left. As time was rather tight, and the other two rooms were stuffed full of junk, Becky and Hilda had to share a room for the night. Surprisingly, both of them had little to say about it. While Hilda was royalty, she was from a place that knew suffering all too well and was already pleased that she had a comfortable room and hearty food to eat. A far better option sleeping in the open over at the Dream Plane. Becky was even more than happy. Her mercenary days had seen her sleeping on branches or in caves.

Becky was still overwhelmed by a sense of excitement and adventure. She was extremely curious about everything on Earth that her adventurous spirit was burning hot. She barely slept for the night and the next day appeared so red-eyed that Hao Ren got a shock. “….Do you have a habit of going berserk after waking up?”

“Oh shut up, I’m a Spellsword, not a Berserker.” Becky glared at Hao Ren for a bit before approaching the group excitedly. “Oh yeah, you’re bring me out today right? Nangong Wuyue said something about buying me some lawngeyray…..”

“Okay okay, sure. I remember. Please calm down, jeez.” Hao Ren avoided Becky’s fiery gaze as he recalled the various plans that were put on hold because of the events that had happened. He first went to Y’zaks who was feeding Rollie in a corner. (He looked more like he was torturing the cat from an untrained eye). “Big guy, follow me out today. We’ll get you some winter clothings.”

Y’zaks was still clad in his self-fitting outfit. While the clothes would last forever, Hao Ren felt that it was time for the big man to get some better clothes.

“Whether it’s cold or not, that’s secondary. You stick out too much like a sore thumb.” Hao Ren lamented as he looked at Y’zaks clothings. “If you were to go out wearing like this. Chances are the old folks by the street would take you for someone who had just broke out of prison.”

Y’zaks simply smiled. “Even when I’m dressed in a full suit I still look like a prison escapee. Oh.. that Nangong girl even said I looked the part of a prison breaker….”

“….”

Seems like the big dude does have some self-awareness. Then by jove why didn’t you change that look of yours when you morphed?

As Hao Ren’s blunt words were well-intentioned, plus all the cost incurred here could simply be claimed from Raven12345, Y’zaks simply just went with the idea. After thanking Hao Ren for the gesture he asked when they were leaving. Hao Ren then said that they will have to bring Vivian along. He wanted to get something for her too.

He then made his way to the basement where the vampire lived. As he opened the door he was accosted by a dozen of small bats and got a shock of his life. After composing himself, he saw that Vivian was sitted on her study casting some sort of spell: She had summoned plenty of bats, and had them lined up in front of her to be ‘annoited’. Floating around her was a few blood orbs made out of fresh blood, from it a crimson mist was drawn and imprinted on the wings of the bats. Hao Ren simply just grabbed one that fly past him (it was pretty easy, these creatures were not particularly adept at resisting or dodging) and noticed that Letta Runes and some other special symbols were etched on its wings.

“What are you doing?” Hao Ren asked.

“Weren’t you asking me to contact those supernaturals?” Vivian replied without even lifting her head as she continued imprinting the bats with runes. “Those old coots are pretty good at hiding. Especially after the purges the Demon Hunters had pulled off. They are pretty weary of outsiders and the way we communicate is rather different. These bats here are a specialty of a Blood Clan. They carry a small imprint of my will and message. No one else can replicate that. Even if they were to run into danger, they’ll simply disintegrate into mist. Pretty safe.”

Hao Ren then realised that Vivian had already started sending out her missives. While she may look reluctant on the surface, as long as she had promised someone something, the vampire would do her best to accomplish it. Her pride demanded it. But seeing the bats flying around the room had Hao Ren confused, “How are you getting them to those old friends? Can they fly across the globe?”

Vivian nodded matter-of-factly. “Of course they could. But I’m trying to contact those within the Eurasia region first. Then only try my luck on those accross the Pacific. I’m a rather famous person after all, if I were to go all out some of them might take it the wrong way.”

“Fly across? The whole Eurasia?” Hao Ren was dumbstruck.

He looked at the palm-sized bat in his hand. They looked almost indistinguishable from your normal bats. He really wondered how long would they take to even go across such wide a landmass. Vivian simply waved him off. “What do you expect then? This is the most convenient of methods. You can’t have me running all over the place can’t you?”

Well, truth be told, it was indeed convenient. But Hao Ren always felt that something better could be done. It took him a good while before it struck him like a eureka. “You ever heard of express delivery?”

By the time Vivian had managed to react to what Hao Ren said, her stunned look was all too apparent. “Wow… that’s rather ingenious…”

Chapter 226: Express Bat Delivery

 

Hao Ren actually thought he was rather creative too. Since the time vampires walked the earth and mail service was invented, guess no one actually thought of stuffing one’s own bats into a express delivery package.

He took a short while to discuss the knick-knacks with Vivian. The plan was like this: Stuff the bats in the express delivery packages, used human’s express delivery service to send them all across Eurasia, to anybody. Since the MDT could search for any locales on Earth in a jiffy, or at most to get it to hack into the delivery system… If the bats were to be delivered to somewhere without a person to receive it. It’ll be up to them to escape the packaging to look for their targets.

Of course, Vivian would try to write the names of her old friends as the receipient of the mail, but as to how many will actually reach them it was hard to tell. It had been ten years since she last heard of them. Even if those reclusive old coots had not moved it was not likely the old ways of communication would work.

Well… as long as the bats gets an express ride to where they need to be it’s fine.

They would of course need to hide the bats somewhat, or in something that would fit them. Luckily, they managed to get hold of some usable items rather quickly. Hao Ren had managed to find a whole stack of paper boxes and wide-mouthed bottles. They came from Lily’s endless junkfood binge, in cans and bottles of various shape and sizes. And oh chocolates too. While it has been told again and again that canines cannot eat chocolates, but Lily paid no heed to it and from the time till now, the amount of packaging was seemingly shocking. Hao Ren too was curious as to why the storeroom beside Vivian’s room was stuffed full with the junk. “What are you keeping these for? Didn’t throw them out with the rest of the garbage?”

Vivian nodded matter-of-factly again. “Waiting for the recyclers of course. All these could net me at least twenty yuan. That’s at least a dozen of eggs.”

Hao Ren was stunned. He said to himself that it was rare enough that people would keep old junk for recyclers, it really shows that Vivian was so used to the life of poverty that very cent counts. But yet Vivian still can’t save any money. If she doesn’t use it soon, chances are she’ll lose it somehow…

Seeing the poor vampire with pity, Hao Ren couldn’t help but to make a very manly statement. “Don’t worry. I will take care of you.”

Vivian was very touched by the gesture. “Then I will cook for you for the rest of your life!”

“….This is a bit too easy ain’t it?” Hao Ren thought.

The both of them laid out the bottle, boxes and cans on Vivian’s desk and starting filling them with the bats. Those wide-mouthed bottles were more than enough for the task and the bats is not cramped in it as well. Hao Ren lifted one of the bats and stared at it, the latter’s small black eyes too stared back at it. Feeling uncomfortable, Hao Ren tried to find a topic “Say… will the sealing kill the thing?”

“No, my bats are biologically ‘dead’ anyway. Vivian waved Hao Ren’s concern off. “It’ll pass as a corpse specimen easily.”

Hao Ren shook the bottles, “Ugh… it feels wrong sealing it in the bottle. Look! It’s staring at me.”

The bat in the bottle looked away embarassed. Vivian’s voice came from the side. “That’s me looking at you. I was curious how would the world look like from a glass bottle…”

Hao Ren then remembered that the bats were in fact Vivian’s avatars, putting them in a bottle simply gave Vivian an extra odd angle to look at. There was nothing to pity for these bats. These actions that are so common for the supernaturals always seemed to get overlooked by humans.

Stuffing the bats had used up almost all of the empty bottles. Compared to selling them to the recyclers, this was a much better use. At least Lily’s gluttonous habits had a positive effect for once. But as he sealed the bottles something popped up. “Wait… you sure these things would pass security checks? Especially living items, it’ll be problematic if it were to go overseas…”

Vivian had never used express delivery before. Such ‘luxury’ was beyond her and as such the thought had never occured to her. “What do we do now?”

Hao Ren pondered for a moment and suddenly clapped. “Didn’t you say the bats are dead? If we were to make them look like specimens, we could pass them off as craftworks….”

The idea sounded sensible to Vivian and she pulled out a bunch of cardboards and wires. After checking how a bat specimen would look like she fastened them up on the cardboard. These summoned creatures does not breathe nor have any heartbeat and could easily play the part of a dead animal. After some effort they really looked like your art specimens.”

Hao Ren was satisfied with the handiwork. “Good, when we send these out we can just part them as craftworks.”

Vivian looked at the bats that were held in a sprawling position and looked away with her face red. “This pose is pretty embarassing…”

“….”

It’s really hard to understand what’s going on in a non-human lady’s head.

“Will they run into any problems though?” Hao Ren was evidently still worried. “Especially if we were to mail them overseas. Human checks are one thing. Will the Demon Hunters monitor this sort of communication channel?”

“Hmmm… there is a risk indeed. But I had already cast a aura removal and diversion spell on each bottle. Unless a Demon Hunter strikes the jackpot and sees what’s in it, it will not be exposed.”

Hao Ren then only could breath a sigh of relief. After that, both him and Vivian brought two big boxes of bottles and cans up to the living room. Becky was all giddy from excitement by the wait, and she zipped right towards them as she saw the duo. “When are we…. Oh what’s here?”

“We’ll need to pay the delivery office a visit first to send these out.” Hao Ren placed one of the boxes on the tea table and pulled Rollie who can jumped up the table out of curiosity aside. “Oh yea, Hilda, want to come along?”

Hilda was in a stupor while sitted on the sofa. After hearing what Hao Ren said, she only belated shook her head. “No.. I don’t need anything.”

“Oh, you guys are going out? Shopping?” Vivian only then noticed that most of the group were dressed to go out. Hao Ren nodded at her. “Yes, come along to. Should get you some stuff too.”

Vivian did not know what Hao Ren had in mind and seeing that he did not plan to spell it out either, she simply nodded and said her thanks.

The vampire had shed her hesitation towards Hao Ren’s generosity, unlike when she just moved in. She knew that even she were to decline, she had no money to get the things herself…

Leaving Hilda who was still in her stupor and Lil Pea who obviously cannot go out at home. Hao Ren and the rest left the house rather noisily. The strongest of the lot, Y’zaks and Lily volunteered to carry the boxes and were in the front of the group. Hao Ren, whilst walking muttered to himself. “High time I get a proper car…. It’s a necessary tool anyway. Sides, I’ve also started learning how to pilot a spacecraft…. and we still need to jostle for public transport?”

While Hao Ren could teleport, he hated the nauseating feeling that came after each teleportation. Besides, teleporting into a big city would simply just spell trouble. As such, unless it is to travel somewhere really far, Hao Ren and the group had to rely on public transport.

Wuyue pondered for a while. “Having a car sure is convenient, but who can drive?”

Hao Ren puffed his chest up and gave it a slap. “Me of course, I can soon pilot a spaceship!”

“What’s on the right side then? The brake or the accelerator?”

“…”

“You know, it’s okay if you don’t know something.” Wuyue curled her lips. “I had learned how to drive a LONG time ago… but that time, internal combustion engines were a pretty new invention. You can imagine my driving skills then.”

Hao Ren tried to estimate, and was surprised to find that the the time Wuyue had learnt to drive was in the early 1900s. Her driving now would be a death knell for them. No, a death knell for everyone on the road.

Looking around, it does seem that none of them knew how to drive a car. Y’zaks and Becky were out of the question… Wuyue’s driving license… is over a century old. Lily… don’t have high hopes of her passing the driving exam. Vivian was even more unlikely, having a personal car an item she could only dream of. She was already struggling with the bus fares as it is…

Hao Ren finally proded the MDT, “Can the Administration do something about our short-haul transportation problem? It’ll be better if it’s self-driving…”

“Can you don’t act all goody-two-shoes, just say it if you want to take advantage of your benefits.” The MDT sneered as it vibrated. “But I can try to apply something for you. It’s just lucky that Mistress Raven had given you the assignment to monitor the supernaturals on Earth, this will serve as a valid reason.

Now Hao Ren could look forward as to what he will receive next month.

Chapter 227: People of the Otherworld on Earth

 

It took quite a while to send the two boxes of bottles and jars. First of all, many of them were to be sent to other countries, which was very frustrating. Second, those bottles were also cumbersome to pack. If you did not put in lots of bubble foam into the box when packing, you would not feel at ease. After all, they were fragile products. The lady who was filling the form was frightened when looking at such a large group of people coming to send the parcels to the entire Eurasian continent. If they were cautious enough, perhaps they would have to call the counter-terrorism department. Thanks to Hao Ren’s quick explanation, explained to them that they were working for an art studio, specializing in the production of handicrafts and these items were the handicraft sold by them, that the employee of the express company stopped asking. It was just that some of the labels were still on the bottles, which read peach/strawberry/taro / Wang Zhihe, which were quite puzzling…

Luckily, the employee trusted their lies. Nowadays, ‘for art purpose’ was a common excuse.

Then they rushed to the city center business district by car.

Becky never calmed down from the time she got on the bus. The moment the bus started to move, Hao Ren noticed the girl almost made the act of taking out her sword. It seemed that it was a smart move to keep her sword at home. Hao Ren asked her curiously and realized that when the engine was started, Becky sensed ‘a hot and uncontrollable force was rising at the foot’ and she thought the car was about to explode, so she was ready to break the window and run…

In this case, you could see the cultural differences between the two worlds. Although the alchemy technology of The Plane of Dreams was similar to that of the earth, they were more direct and tough on the use of energy, and they were accustomed to using the power of magic to fully control the energy. Although this led to the low power of most of their alchemy equipment, it had high controllability. The earth was a world of artillery. Humans were adept at mixing dangerous high-energy gadgets together and blowing them up, and then controlling them with a variety of indirect devices: controlling them at a delicate, barely secure equilibrium point. Therefore, Becky who was coming from the Plane of Dreams was scared of the technology products on Earth. As a swordsman who was dealing with traps and ruins all year round and sensitive to energy, she immediately found that the cylinder of the ‘car’ was a controllable bomb which was always circulating in two states, ‘detonating’ and ‘not exploding’.

Hao Ren had no way to explain the Earth engineer’s safety indicators and safety components of the cylinder to Becky. He could only stress that the car was safe, steady and won’t explode easily, although its air cylinder felt like a row of bombs in Becky’s sense.

And Becky finally calmed down after those shocks. She was amazed by the inventions of the people on Earth (especially the adventurous part of these creations), and it seemed to her that an ‘alchemy vehicle’ propelled by kept exploding would be unthinkable, and that only the craziest alchemists would study it in the Plane of Dream. However, on Earth, it had grown so pervasive and safe to use. She leaned over the window and stared curiously at every landscape that passed and kept asking questions, such as why the people on Earth hang clothes with a rope so high (in fact, it was the electric wire), why the roadside trees were not healthy enough, why the people on Earth made the road so wide, and why was it so far away to buy something: she was clearly not sufficiently aware of the population density and city size on Earth.

And finally, Becky pointed to the billboard outside the window and commented, “It’s not safe here?”

Lily was surprised and asked, “Why do you say that?”

“There are posters of order for arrest everywhere, and they’re so big,” Becky said seriously, “I saw two-thirds of the boards are the same person, what kind of sins has he committed that his portrait has to be printed on three meters wide banner and hanging on the roadside …”

Everyone became speechless, and Becky went along with her mercenary mentality and asked, “So if I kill him, will I get a lot of gratuities? Do you have mercenary here?”

Hao Ren hurriedly put out Becky’s idea and said, “Don’t! Those things are ads, that’s a movie star. If you ruin the billboard you’ll be jailed for at least 20 years.”

Becky was surprised and asked, “Those strange signs below it are not a reward?”

“… That’s the order number.”

Becky immediately got very disappointed and sat back and said, “Mercenary is difficult to survive in this place, can’t even get a job.”

There were not many people in the bus, just two or three passengers. When the driver heard their conversation, he asked curiously, “This girl is a foreigner? Come to China for the first time? She looks very excited, you can introduce what we have here, I heard that a lot of foreigners still have the outdated impression about us, some Americans even think we still keep braids… It’s all because of those half-baked directors in Hollywood.”

Hao Ren smiled awkwardly and replied perfunctorily, “Err, she’s an international student from the Budula Chaville in Europe…”

“What are you talking about? About me?” Becky looked curiously at Hao Ren and the driver while they were talking. “I don’t understand the Earth language but you guys know all the language, I really envy. Can I also get the blessing from your Goddess?”

Hao Ren rubbed away the cold sweat on his forehead and said, “You don’t bring me any trouble, fortunately, you can’t speak Mandarin!”

Becky was talking in the language of the Plane of Dreams with them all the way, so Hao Ren could rest assured and let her kept asking questions in public. If this girl could speak Earth language it could be very troublesome. If people heard those wild and peculiar questions, she could be sent to the psychiatric hospital on the spot, or Hao Ren and the gang would be caught due to the suspected of trafficking of a foreign woman, but in the end, Becky would still have to be sent to psychiatric hospital…

They finally got off the bus in the biggest shopping mall of the town where Hilda visited yesterday. Hao Ren was surprised to find that the comic con was not over. It seemed that this was a large-scale formal exhibition, hundreds of young people who were cosplaying still occupied the exhibition area which occupied two-thirds of the square with a yellow divider. Hao Ren stretched his neck and looked across the square, confirming that the exhibition base should be at the stadium- too bad he did not even have the tickets, and he had no chance to bring the abnormal creatures behind him to join in the exhibition.

Becky looked at the square in astonishment. The young people with the peculiar clothes did not match the scenery on earth that she saw along the way, but some of them made her feel like home. She stretched her neck to look around, and suddenly raised her hand excitedly and rubbed out a small fireball and said, “For the gold coins! The woman knight is worth a fight, I want to…”

Hao Ren was frightened when he saw it. He quickly patted her on the fireball and her head and said, “What are you doing? Her armor is made of plastic! It will melt when coming into contact with fire.”

“What the hell is this?” Becky looked around and stood there in a daze. Fortunately, Hao Ren reacted quickly, nobody noticed the small fireball on her palm. “Some of them looked like combat professionals,” she said.

“They are having fun, an occasion for them to have fun, do you understand?” Hao Ren was having a terrible headache as he noticed that Lily’s eyes also started shining and he could feel that there was an invisible tail wagging behind her like a propeller. “We’ll take about this later, now can we go and settle our to-do-list? Otherwise, after Lily enters the shopping mall, she definitely won’t come back until the sun goes down!”

Hao Ren finally persuaded the eager Becky and Lily and dragged them into the shopping mall. After they entered the shopping mall, Hao Ren finally did not have to worry about mercenary girl rushed into the middle of the ‘war-worthy warriors’ outside and caused a sword-blade storm, because obviously, the shopping mall had a bigger impact on Becky.

“This place…” Becky stared at the giant commercial square in front of her eyes (which was only a small fraction of what she could see), “Just to sell things?”

“Pretty big, huh?” Hao Ren this time could feel the pride of being a man of the Earth: comparing to the supermen in the Plane of Dreams, human’s physique was weak, the resistance was poor, the life was short, and they did not know magic, but there was one thing that seemed particularly powerful, that was, the development of society was going out of control…

However, Becky curled her lip and said, “I don’t think it’s really big, but there’re lots of people. I’ve never seen so many people.”

Hao Ren, “…”

He found himself making a mistake. He thought that only the people on earth would build large spectacle buildings, but forgot that the level of civilization in the Plane of Dreams was not too low. Moreover, a feudal totalitarian and powerful theocracy world was actually more prone to costly and large-scale construction, coupled with their small population, a variety of mega-buildings would be easier to appear thrilling. The Great Wall during the golden week and that of the normal days looked absolutely different. Therefore, Becky was not amazed at how magnificent this place was, and what she kept marvel at was the strange things on Earth.

Hao Ren also understood the statement in the work manual: Do not think that the people from the Otherworld are all the hicks. They are not in awe when they see what is on your planet, most of the time they just find the locals interesting.

This sentence was used to kill some of the agents’ sense of superiority. Hao Ren now began to understand the meaning of it.