The Record of Unusual Creatures

Hao Ren saw Lily’s woozy face and knew that the maiden knew nothing about the situation earlier. “Raven 12345 just projected herself through the breach that you opened when you ‘sneaked’ in here. She possessed you to say a few words to me.”

Lily could not care less if Raven 12345 had possessed her. “Arf Arf? What did the goddess say?”

“We may have more helpers in the future,” said Hao Ren. “Each time we go back in time, the degree of isolation of the distorted space and time will lessen. If we encounter other acquaintances during our journey, they’ll be able to ‘sneak in’ just like you. But since only your consciousness can come in, you can’t bring equipment and acquired skills. Your strength will be what it is during that time in history.

Lily quickly understood what Hao Ren meant. She looked down at her hands and realized something. “No wonder I feel weak, and I can’t summon my Frostfire Claws.”

The husky lamented, “I really miss my days in the Siberian snowfields. When I first left the village and wandered, I was excited and had many ideas. I never worried about anything, including the problems I would face in the human world. While I lost my way, living with the wolves was joyful. Mr. Landlord, did you know that I actually went all the way to the Arctic until a glacier blocked my way. Then I had no choice but to turn back.”

“I know. You’ve been this way for half a century.” Hao Ren’s mouth twitched.

Lily smiled slightly. She reached into her clothes and took out a badly-worn, thread-bound Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

“This book is still with me. I haven’t returned it.” Lily shook her head. “I’ve brought it along with me wherever I go, and read it countless times when I wandered the snow land. Later I came upon human society, looking for food, fighting, doing chores, and mingling with the gangsters. Suddenly, I had an urge to study. I wanted to be a cultured person, so I went to Beijing and studied there. After graduating from Peking University, I finally remembered that I had to go back to the small village, but the village was no longer there.”

Lily sighed and continued. “I’ll probably never be able to go back again. The old gentleman must be scolding me in his heart.”

Hao Ren looked at Lily in amazement. After a long while, he hesitantly asked, “Are you crying?”

“No, of course not.” Lily looked up and bared her fangs at Hao Ren. “I’ve gotten used to such things for half a century. Just lamenting a little here. I never imagined that I would relive the past here. Mr. Landlord, let’s not waste time. Go out and see what year it is now. I can’t wait to finish the mission.”

Hao Ren looked at Lily again. He was a little surprised that the simpled-minded husky maiden could have such a sentimental moment. He nodded and went up to the wooden door, which had some faint light leaking through the gaps.

On the other side of the wooden door, another space and time awaited them, while inside the hunter’s cabin, space and time were still in black and white. Hao Ren took a deep breath and pushed the door open without hesitation.

Immediately after he stepped out of the door, time seemed to resume again in the tranquil space. The residual rays of the sunset sprinkled on his face, frightened swallows flew away in all directions, and sounds came from everywhere. Carriages running over the stone pavement and sporadic human voices from afar could be heard. Hao Ren took another step and now, he was out in an entirely different space and time.

He found himself in front of an old street, where a wet stone road extended from the south to the north with dirty and smelly sewage on both sides. Houses, mostly old and built out of bricks, had moss on the lower half of their outer walls, and mottled surfaces on the upper half. The tallest buildings were merely three stories. Houses of different heights stood in between the sinking sun in the horizon and Hao Ren, splitting the sunlight into beams as it passed through the gaps.

Perhaps it was because of the approaching dusk that there were few pedestrians on the street. Occasionally, there were a few people jostling by from afar, but none of them were wearing fancy clothes. They had numb expressions and were in a hurry. They did not notice the two strangers in exotic costumes popping up on the other side of the street. A horse-drawn carriage loaded with stuff passed by an intersection, and the driver hurled insults at the horse in a strong local accent. The entire scene looked a little dreary.

Hao Ren looked back at the wooden door, from which he came out of. It was still there, inlaid on a wall covered in moss. Next to it was a slatted window, reinforced with an iron frame. There were oil stains on it. A faint yellow oil lamp hung above the slatted window and swung gently in the evening breeze, emitting a squeaking sound.

Hao Ren pushed the door to the hunter’s cabin open again and found that the still, black and white block of space and time was still inside. But he could not see the slatted window that he saw on the outside. Undoubtedly, it was a space-time anomaly.

The cabin seemed to be lodged at the border of both dimensions. It was kind of like a portal; the seemingly flimsy wooden door was the only thing that connected the two worlds.

Lily had tucked her ears and tail, appearing as a human. She looked at the old street in front of her curiously. “It looks like we’re in Europe, 600 years ago.”

“It’s the late Middle Ages. We’ve gone back in time,” Hao Ren said. “Vivian’s hibernation lasted three centuries or so each time. We’ve come to the right time in history.”

“Medieval Europe reminds me of the witch hunt.” Lily snuffled as if she could sense the disgusting burnt-human smell in the air. “We’ve come to a terrible era.”

Hao Ren shrugged. “Humans created the Dark Ages, an era that was worse than the Mythological Era. We should change into clothes that are appropriate for this era. Our clothes stick out like a sore thumb in this world. I bet people of this era won’t be as tolerant towards ‘performance artists’ as those in our time.”

Lily rubbed the cold sweat off her forehead. “I agree. I’m still wearing my Siberian survival suit, and I’m already a hot dog.”

Hao Ren silently glanced at Lily. This girl truly keeps it real , Hao Ren said to himself.

The two of them swiftly sneaked into a quiet alley and got themselves a set of clothes each from the clothesline behind a house. It did not feel comfortable to wear, but it was the perfect disguise. Hao Ren was not wary of the ordinary folks on the streets; those people posed no threat to them. He was more concerned about the demon hunters. In a particular period right after the demise of the Mythological Era, supernatural forces still profoundly affected human society. The demon hunters strictly or semi-openly monitored the world. Their target was not the humans, but they would bribe or even threaten humans to become their eyes. Especially in Europe where the Mythological Era ended last, such surveillance was rampant. In the dark and rundown streets, staring eyes alerted the demon hunters about anything suspicious.

This monitoring and high-handedness spawned many fake and unscrupulous groups as well as individuals, which then gave rise to a large number of whistle-blowers who served these fakers. These people had helped fan the zeal of the witch hunt during Europe’s dark times.

There was another more important player in the witch-hunt farce: the Church. The Church was once a symbol of humankind’s resistance to the supernatural forces during the Mythological Era. It was the only institution with an armed force that had the means to do so. It was also the medium of contact between the demon hunters and the humans. But after the end of the Mythological Era, the threat from the otherworldlings—whom the Church called heretics—disappeared. Because the killings cooled off, the demon hunters stopped actively engaging the humans, and the Church started to lose control. That was the main source of the witch-hunt movement.

However, Hao Ren could not care less about all that. He was only a passerby in history. Everything that happened in that space and time was just a play in Vivian’s memory and the mirrored Earth. He was there to look for the female protagonist.

“Mr. Landlord, this robe is cumbersome,” Lily said, wriggling in the dress made of course fabric. “Can’t medieval women wear lighter clothes? This feels like a sack.”

Lily had gotten herself a gray burlap skirt with a hem that almost touched the ground. Then there were also the pleated sleeves on her blouse. The clothing was simple, but compared with the light attire she was used to wearing, it was still too inconvenient.

“Let’s not be picky. It’s economically backward here apparently. How many clothes does one family have?” Hao Ren said as he put on a set of clothes—a black shirt and a pair of trousers. The shirt came with a hood. He had no idea how he was supposed to match them, but he took cues from the attires of the pedestrians he saw at the intersection. “It’s getting dark. We’ll check the place out at night and figure out what year it is.”

As Hao Ren spoke, he gently pressed his hand on his waist and felt the icy cold sensation of a metal object.

He knew that by his waist was a sacred silver dagger—a standard demon hunter weapon. The model was of the year 1315, and it was sponsored by Hasse.