The Record of Unusual Creatures

The Crapple Research Station, CARS, was a space station that was constantly undergoing minor adjustments and reorganizations. Although its grand appearance would hardly change, within the space station, a large number of crystal filled compartments were a group of seemingly living facility. Under the instructions of the space-station central computer, the crystal hill, the internal crystal structures gradually formed individual rooms according to Hao Ren’s requirement. Firstly, the living area for Muru, then research facilities and huge lifeblood culture vessels for Zorm, and finally, living and dining compartments for humans and humanoids, considering that Hao Ren would occasionally bring his housemates here.

In the beginning, they could only stay in the standard crystal-structured room. Later, with the help of the MDT, Hao Ren had figured out how to reset the structure of the core area and built a dining room that made everyone in the family happy, especially Lily.

The dining hall in the CARS was as crystal clear as other places, though it had not been decorated, it was still very splendid. In this vast and rectangular crystal-structured room, there were two rows of thin pillars connecting the roof and the floor and large irregular-shaped crystals arranged between the pillars to form a fixed portal that linked to other parts of the space station—due to the size of the space station, there were similar portals in every large crystal-structured rooms. The long dining table in the center of the dining hall was also made of crystal. When the master was dining here, the space station servomechanism would synthesize food that was indistinguishable from the natural products and filled the table. The arcane creature formed by pure light and energy would shuttle around the table, like the elven waiter in a fairy tale.

Only at such time and in such an atmosphere that Hao Ren would feel he was clergy-like.

Only if Rollie could get down from the table, and Lily not to squat one the stool.

It was a hearty meal nevertheless. Though Vivian did not get to cook today, the food synthesizer made as good a meal as any famous chefs on Earth. The dining table was full of everyone’s favorite food: ramen, flat noodles, fried bean-paste noodles, gravy noodles, beef noodles, Korean noodles, dandan noodles, and even instant noodles. The food synthesizer had also made plastic forks that looked just as flimsy to ensure that the instant noodles tasted the same as on Earth. Lily rolled up the noodles with a pair of chopsticks in the shape of a chicken drumstick and happily gnawed. Nangong Wuyue poked the noodles before her, looking confused. “Mr. Landlord, I had wanted a long time ago: why are there only noodles on the space station?”

“Raven 12345 was the one who set up the food synthesizer. You may look for her if there is a problem,” Hao Ren said and continued to take a few sips of noodle soup. “There are several hundred types of noodles. Enjoy it slowly. I haven’t got tired of them yet.”

It should be the most regrettable part of this advanced CARS. If you do not want to cook your meal, then you can only accept the food made by the machine. You have hundreds of set meals to choose from the menu, just that they are all noodles.

Hao Ren had challenged the system numerous times. The most successful one was he finally added a menu to the food synthesizer, but he later found that he still could not escape from the noodle-mania of Raven 12345 as the dining hall had only added one hundred types of instant noodles to the menu.

After Hao Ren’s last successful attempt that added a Plastic Fork option in the synthesizer, he gave up on the catering system. There would not be any inquisitive reporters coming to this place to interview the pope of Raven the Goddess about the dinner here.

“I don’t like noodles,” Rollie said. She was chase from the table again. Sitting awkwardly on the chair, she clumsily held the chopsticks and poked it in the bowl and harassed Hao Ren with her tail. “Get me small dried fish, and I’ll let you touch my ears. You know I’m cute, right?”

“Who taught her these?” Hao Ren asked as he corrected the way Rollie used the chopsticks.

“For a cat who could read newspapers and watch TV, do you think she still needs to someone teaching her?” Vivian twitched her mouth. “A while back, she was watching online the footage where cats were going to rule the world, she thought that it was real and packed up in the middle of the night to search for her organization, purportedly wanting to return to her parent star. She had even slid a farewell letter under your pillow. Fortunately, I found it out on time and managed to drag her back and gave her an earful,” Vivian said.

Hao Ren was stunned. “She did that? Why didn’t I know?” he asked.

“Cats are nocturnal creatures. She is at her most alert state when you sleep like a pig,” Vivian said, pointing at herself. “Fortunately, I’m also nocturnal.”

Hao Ren thought for a moment; he suddenly recalled there seemed to have such an incident a while ago where he found a note on the side of his pillow when he woke up. The note read: “Big Boss Cat, I’m helping my race to conquer the world, after which I will appoint you like an imperial guard. Lick you.” Half of the words were written in pinyin.

He later found that Dumb Cat was still at home, so he did not take it seriously, only thinking that the cat was practicing her writing skill.

After Hao Ren coaxed Rollie to take a few bites of seafood noodles, she became restless, took Lil Pea and disappeared from the dining hall. After the two clowns left, the conversation over the meal finally normalized. Y’zaks asked, “About the resonance experiments on the two Gilded Discs, other than knowing that they resonate with each other, is the resonance carrying any messages or information?”

“There is a pattern in the signal, as if some information exchange, but it is very fragmented. There is no way to decipher it,” Hao Ren said and shook his head. “There are many discs, and when there are enough discs to resonate together, it will produce a signal that is complete enough to be deciphered.”

“Speaking of which, I always have a weird feeling when looking at the discs,” Vivian said suddenly. “I didn’t think so at first, but when the two discs were placed together, I couldn’t help but want to look at them,” she said.

What she said triggered the alarm in Hao Ren. “So you had zoned out when I called you just now?” he asked.

“Yeah, I think so,” Vivian said. “It’s hard to describe that feeling. I just looked at them a few times more. Maybe that was just my illusion. The Goddess of Creation created the disc and me. It makes me a little sensitive towards them.”

After learning her birth and relationship with the Goddess of Creation, Vivian had learned to face it with an open mind and others would also take the link of Goddess of Creation and Vivian as a precondition in their discussion about the goddess.

Hao Ren thought for a moment. “Have you ever touched the two discs? Direct contact?”

“No.”

“Aside from being attracted to them, is there any other abnormal reaction?”

“Neither this.”

“Well,” Hao Ren said, “no matter what, this inexplicable phenomenon needs to be taken seriously. I suggest that you keep a distance from the disc, don’t touch them directly, and it’s best to have someone accompanying you if you ever want to go near that laboratory.”

Vivian acknowledged with a nod. Hao Ren further mentioned what he saw in the illusion of deicide. “Speaking of which, I saw a lot of inexplicable things when the divine blood dragged me into the illusion. I could still vividly remember when the Goddess of Creation fell; she said ‘forgive’ to me, which I haven’t figure out what she meant.”

“Forgive?” Nangong Sanba came up curiously. “Did she mean forgiving the treacherous child?”

“Who knows?” Hao Ren spread out his hand. “All I heard were this word, but it should be a part of a sentence. What if she meant “never forgive”? Then things would be different. What’s more, there were many doubts about the fall of the goddess. A black, strange sword killed her. She was injured like an ordinary person, bleeding, and then died. Her death itself was very peaceful and not causing the slightest energy fluctuations. It was the subsequent sacred punishment and the explosion of the Star of Creation that destroyed everything,” Hao Ren said.

Y’zaks scratched his jaw and his brows knit together. “It sounds like a mortal.”

“A powerful creature with the power of the gods, her death cannot be so ‘peaceful,'” Nangong Wudi, who was having his meal quietly, joined the discussion. “Her energy would be released, and it would ignite or destroy everything in the surroundings, produce explosions or heatwave. Even when an ordinary demon hunter dies, his blood will burst into flame. What you said makes me feel like the Goddess of Creation had lost her power.”

“Was it because of the sword?” Vivian guessed. “How did those treacherous children make such a weapon?” she asked.

Hao Ren shook his head with a regretful look on his face. “There must be something to do with the sword that was used to kill the goddess. Unfortunately, the sword has fallen into the Umbral Realm together with the Star of Creation.”

Suddenly, an incoming urgent message interrupted the conversations.

The MDT floated above the table and projected the message in a hologram. “Hey buddy, the drone cluster has found something.”