Chapter 541: An Accidental Clue
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Hao Ren had read about how cats repay kindness from the stories long time back, the traditional version and the cat girl version. The former involves catching rats for the owner while the latter becomes a cute girl who treats her master like a king. He never thought that his cat was the third kind: she had turned into a cute girl, but she still insisted on catching rats...
It was obvious that she was a mishmash of the two orthodox versions, but Hao Ren felt something was off...
But Rollie wouldn't know what her master was actually thinking, and she actually thought that she had did something commendable. Happily, she ruffled against Hao Ren's leg. "Boss Cat, Boss Cat! A rat for you to eat! It's still moving!"
The dumb cat raised her hand to gloat before Hao Ren, in her hands was a big fat rat. The latter was obviously not fully dead, and still let out a faint whisper. Goosebumps immediately ran all over Hao Ren as he recoiled backwards. "Stand there, and don't move!"
The cat girl gave Hao Ren a puzzled look. "You're not happy nya?"
"Where did you get that from?" Hao Ren kept his distance. "Throw it out now!"
"I caught it on the plains back home. Beardy Cat said I cannot go to town." the dumb cat swung the rat like a pendulum, her face looked rather dejected. "Why don't you want it? Are you nyangry?"
Hao Ren had thoughts to disciplined the dumb cat, but looking at her innocent face, any anger inside him was immediately extinguished. He knew that the cat girl was still a cat to the bone, and a few days as a human was not enough to teach her all she needs to act like one, and her clumsy actions was all to make him happy. Sighing resignedly, he said, "I'm not angry, but... humans don't eat rats."
The cat girl lifted the rat and looked at it. Seeing so Hao Ren quickly added. "You're not eating it either."
"I'm not eating that." The cat girl shook her head. "It's not as tasty as biscuits and fish jerky."
Hao Ren glared at her. "Then what do you mean by feeding me that?!"
"It's because you don't know how to catch a rat!" The cat girl's had that 'Duh' tone to it. "So it's up to me to catch them for you."
Hao Ren was speechless as he tried to reconcile the fact that he was seen as a weakling in the eyes of a cat...
At the very least, Rollie had threw the rat away and as per her usual habit of following behind Hao Ren around the house – like she was inspecting her own castle. After a circle she reached the hall and went for her cushion by the staircase to snooze. Hao Ren sighed again as he saw it. "Do you really have to sleep here? Didn't I prepare a room for you?"
Rollie simply just gave him a lazy stretch before curling into a smaller ball.. Her tail wagging at Hao Ren with as she meowed at him.
That meant, 'Your royal highness is sleepy and wants her royal nap, so make yourself scarce'.
Hao Ren sighed again, as he went upstairs to contact Raven12345.
For once, the Goddess was actually not skipping work and the line connected immediately. Hao Ren briefed her on the progress of the research on the First Born and also brought up the matter of creating a space station in the Plane of Dreams for long term research of the First Born.
Raven12345's voice was chirpy as always. "You're getting good at this, kiddo. You're really thinking outside the box now. Guess my choice was right on the money....Go ahead with your plan.
Hao Ren then carefully posed a few questions than worried him the most. "Will this large migration affect the balance between the Surface World and the Plane of Dreams? Using only a dimensional rift, is it possible to build such a big space station? Can I claim expense for that?
Truth be told, he was most worried about the third question, and if he did not balance it out with the first two serious question first, the crazy Goddess would probably blessed him with a dimensional thunder strike...
"Hmmm... Your space laboratory is indeed a pretty bold idea... but since you have already found a stable pathway, as long as you ensure all material and personnel goes through that rift, there won't be any issues. Your Goddess here too will help you strengthen the connection stability of the areas around earth.... If anything goes wrong, I'll back you up." Raven12345 was dependable when it comes to work. "As for the size of the rift that is not a cause of concern. What to you take the Empire for? The Xiling Celestials are the best there is when it comes to dimensional tech. When the time comes, we'll just compress everything into a small construction cube for you to activate."
Hao Ren had yet to forget the most pertinent of questions. "So... all of this are borne by the Administration right?"
Raven12345 sniggered. "You sure have a way of asking thing. Reminds me of me in my younger days. Don't worry, Xiling's industry and wealth is not just for show. We won't expect a staff to dig into his own pockets for just a space station. No matter how big the expenses incurred for this endeavour, the Administration will bear the cost. You just need to sign it off.
Hao Ren was relieved hearing that. "That's good to hear... and actually, the paint of the wall at my place had chipped and I plan to repaint...."
"You f*cking stand there and don't move. A blessing is coming your way!"
Hao Ren quickly terminated the call and heaved a sigh of relief after things were settled. He then made his way to the living room, looking for old Y'zaks to discuss the matter of visiting New Aerym and his people. But as he stepped into the room neither the demon or his daughter was there. Vivian and Lily on the other hand were huddled together, as if they were studying something.
"What are you two up to?" Hao Ren was surprised. It was rare sight to see this two bickering duo together peacefully.
Lily looked up at Hao Ren and let out an excited howl, her tail wagging in excitement. "We are doing science!"
"You? Doing science?" Hao Ren was amused by that very notion and walked over to see what the pair was up to. He noticed a few pentagonal crystal plates on the tea table. The plates let out a gentle glow, it was mysterious yet intricate and the MDT was by the side of the plates, as if it was helping to analyse the item. "This is..."
"The storage items we could from the planetarium at Tannagost." Lily pushed the crystal plates before Hao Ren. "The MDT said this is still readable... but you were busy with bigger things so this were left collecting dust."
Hao Ren only remembered the matter when Lily brought it up. The group was chased by the vengeful spirits from Alamanda to an abandoned planetarium. Wuyue and the rest then found this data slates. It was there too that Hao Ren managed to make contact with the collective conciousness of the Tannaeans, and uncovered the mystery behind the vengeful spirits.
The ancient data slates were indeed valuable research objects but the group soon found an even more valuable object, the Tannagost Data Value, the living sample of the Seed of Origin, the Lifeblood, a living First Born, each and everyone of them an item of extreme interest, and that left the data slates from the planetarium looking a wee bit insignificant.
Of course, Hao Ren did not totally forgot about it, and he actually had the data slate restored when he brought it back to the Petrachelys and had extracted the data from within. But he soon realised that all of the data entailed reading of the stars and did not seem to have anything to do with the First Born, thus he just left the thing sitting there. That was the last time he touched the thing, and it soon became part of Lily's treasure.
Perhaps boredom got the better of the husky as she took the data slate out to study it. This was probably inspired by the research done in the Petrachely's lab.
"So what you found?" Hao Ren asked casually.
Lily's face was however serious. "According to Battie and my professional analysis. Of course mainly me, we think that the last diary entry was just before the First Born's apocalypse...
Hao Ren had just turned away before he heard that. "Diary? What diary?"
"Astronomical diary entry. Penned by one of the staff at the planetarium." The MDT said as it floated. "As it looked like a normal diary entry, it was not given much attention. I only just remembered it earlier and got Lily to take out the data slate for reanalysis. Well, their professional analysis not withstanding, these two here are merely part of the crowd."
Lily and Vivian was speechless.