The Record of Unusual Creature

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!