The Record of Unusual Creatures

Panda Novel

When the sun shone into the bedroom, Hao Ren was still asleep in his bed. But a sudden cry from outside the door awakened him. In his grogginess, he faintly heard Lily knocking vigorously on the door and repeatedly calling him, “Mr. Landlord, something is happening!”

Hao Ren staggered to sit up. Before he could open his eyes, he heard a loud bang. Squinting his eyes, Hao Ren saw two pieces of broken door panels piercing through the air and flying in his direction. His heart skipped a beat. He bounced up instinctively, dodging the first shard of wood in a split second. Almost immediately, the second piece hit the wall next to his bed.

As soon as the shards dropped to the floor, Lily lunged in and pressed Hao Ren to the wall. “Mr. Landlord, something is happening!” Lily yelled.

By now, Hao Ren was totally awake, thanks to the husky’s abrupt and bang-bang actions. He felt that he was having hyperemia from his lumbar up. Hao Ren could barely push Lily’s face away with all his might. “What is wrong with you this early in the morning?! You are crushing my Steel Membrane Shield!”

He thought the exaggeration would scare off the crazy ancient dog, but it did not work this time. Lily was unmoved, still gripping him by his arm with one hand and pointing out the window with the other. “Mr… Mr. Landlord, look outside!”

Hao Ren turned and looked out the window, his jaw dropped to the floor. “Holy moly, has someone finally come to the Southern Suburbs and built a theme park here?”

“It is not a theme park!” Lily screamed. “Everything has gone wrong! Big Guy and Nangong Sanba just went out to check around and came back with pale faces. The other parts of the town are even worse than here!”

Hao Ren turned his neck stiffly and looked at the strange scene outside the window.

A majestic megalithic temple in ancient Roman-style architecture stood at the end of the pothole-filled street in Southern Suburbs. If Hao Ren remembered it correctly, that should be the location of the small grocery shop. It seemed the fat owner’s dream of rebuilding his old building, which he inherited from his ancestors, had finally come true. But this Roman-style mansion was no way for human’s dwelling. In the surroundings of the megalithic temple, stone slabs covered the old concrete street. Pedestrians in various costumes from various ages and worlds traversed on the roads. Sometimes, there were even antique vehicles straight out of history books hustled past, and unknown birds and animals emerged in a flash. From his short while of observation, Hao Ren had least identified a few distinct people of ancient Romans, Egyptians, and Persians. He even saw a group of armored soldiers with shiny armor from the Ming Dynasty. Among them were two ax-wielding Vikings with bare shoulders.

Hao Ren took a deep breath and looked farther.

A pyramid stood in the direction of the Southern Suburban market and a mountain peak shrouded in the clouds was behind and above the pyramid. Two giant flying creatures that looked like pterodactyls swooped down from the summit with a shrill. On the back of these two weird creatures were two warriors who looked like from ancient Greek, but they were not Greeks.

As far as Hao Ren could remember, no ancient Greeks were four meters in height.

“Mr. Landlord. Have you seen it?” Lily’s faint voice came from behind, and Hao Ren finally came to his senses. “Everything is so wrong.”

“I saw it, I saw it…” While speaking, Hao Ren blinked and quickly calmed himself down. He was no more the rookie who reacted in a fulsome way when seeing a flying PDA. What he saw now was nothing in terms of the visual impact compared to what he had seen before. His shock a while ago was mainly because he was caught off-guard. Never in his imagination and logic that such sights could have happened on Earth. As he calmed down, his mind became clear, and he started thinking.

“When did this happen?” Hao Ren asked Lily.

“I have no idea,” Lily replied, shaking her head. “It was already like that when I woke up. I asked others, they were just as clueless.”

“That is to say, it happened sometime last night, silently and no one noticed,” Hao Ren said with his brows knitted together. “Did you just say Nangong Sanba and Y’zaks had gone out to check out the situation?”

“Yep, the two of them went out at once when they saw the situation was not right. It seemed that the phenomenon exists everywhere—at least they found it the same in the town center and the neighboring towns.”

“Could it be an apparition or something?”

“Not an apparition!” Lily said, shaking her head immediately. She then handed out a small object to Hao Ren. “This is what Nangong Sanba brought back from outside.”

Hao Ren took the object in his hand. It was a silver coin, not very refined. His shallow knowledge in history and relics meant that he had no idea to which era and kingdom this silver coin belonged to. He only knew that it was definitely not from China.

“What is this?” Hao Ren asked, looking up.

“The silver coins of the ancient Persia,” Lily said as she blinked. “Nangong Sanba found it on the body of a dead Persian soldier by the roadside. An ancient Egyptian killed the soldier.”

“That was kind of messy,” Hao Ren said.

“Mr. Landlord, do you know what happens?” Lily asked as she held and shook Hao Ren’s arm. Her tail stiffened, and she rolled down on the floor because she was nervous. “This phenomenon is not supposed to appear on Earth. Isn’t Earth a safe zone?”

“Earth is only relatively peaceful. But since finding out that the God of this universe is a female neurotic, I have been mentally prepared for everything,” Hao Ren said, trying to calm Lily down. He then reached for his jacket hung on his bedside. “Lily, let me get changed. Please take Lil Pea out with you, she has woken up.”

After getting changed, he went straight down to the living hall. Unsurprisingly, everyone had gathered in a circle there. Among them were the Nangong couples. Everyone was there except Vivian.

“Where is Vivian?” Hao Ren frowned and asked. It was rare to see Vivian being absent.

“I have no idea where she goes,” Nangong Wuyue, sitting next to her brother, answered. “I did not see her since the early morning. It looks like the kitchenware is untouched in the kitchen.”

“The kitchenware is untouched?” Hao Ren was startled.

He immediately felt something was amiss. The kitchen was Vivian’s territory in the house. Cooking was the most important things in her daily routine. She would stick to it no matter what and as long as she was at home.

Was she attracted by the scene outside that she left everything behind and flew out to investigate?

Hao Ren quickly ruled out this possibility because it was out of Vivian’s character. She was thoughtful and paying attention to detail. Even if there were an emergency, she would at least leave some notes or something behind.

“Have you looked carefully enough?” Hao Ren turned to look at Lily. “I mean using nose.”

“I did. The first thing I do after getting up every morning is to see what Vivian has cooked for breakfast. Her smell here is of yesterday. There are no signs of her walking out the door. If she flew out through the skylight, then I would not have known.”

Hao Ren felt uneasy. Vivian’s disappearance could be related to the scene outside. It might be too early to conclude that Vivian was missing, but the series of abnormal situations made him think otherwise.

Even if she was only going out to check out the situation, it was still worrisome considering the strange phenomenon outside.

The more Hao Ren thought of it, the antsier he got. He suddenly got to his feet. “Let’s check out the basement.”

There was nothing unusual in Vivian’s room.

Except that Vivian did not make her bed.

“This is not her,” Hao Ren said after glancing at the bed. “Making the bed is her first priority in the morning.”

“I have never done it,” Lily said matter-of-factly.

“Crap, yours are a kennel,” Hao Ren said and shot Lily a look. He then bent down to examine Vivian’s bed. “It is still unkempt. She must have left in a hurry, but there are no signs of struggle, and the security alarm around the house has not detected anything. We can rule out someone took her away.”

Hao Ren firmly believed that there was no one on this planet who could quietly kidnap Vivian. Even if Vivian had weakened, she was still an apex creature. Nobody could easily take her away and leave no trace at the scene. Setting that aside, with the Xi Ling Empire’s security system in the house, it was impossible for even a demigod to infiltrate the place. All the more so when each sensor of the security system was connected to the thinking core of the MDT and Hao Ren’s mental link.

So Vivian left by herself.

“Did she just disappear into thin air?” Lily scratched her face and mumbled.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know so we can fix it as soon as possible.