The Record of Unusual Creature

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.