The Record of Unusual Creatures

Panda Novel

Despite all the preparations in advance and the help of the ‘secret’ provided by Raven 12345, Hao Ren passed out as expected after reading the Bible, but this time the sleep was short: he woke up in time for dinner.

As soon as he woke up, he saw Vivian standing beside him, looking like she had been waiting there for a long time, while Lil Pea lay on his chest. The baby fish had fallen asleep, curled up into a lovely ball, and occasionally tapped him on his chest with her tail as if she were dreaming.

Vivian saw Hao Ren open his eyes, immediately gave him a gentle smile and said, “I’d be shocked again if I hadn’t experienced it before. Wuyue had checked your body, the mental drain is a little high, but the situation is much better than last time. Do you feel any uncomfortable?”

“… I think I may have believed in a false god, taken false Bible, and read false oracles…” Hao Ren rubbed his head. “Damn it.”

Vivian looked at Hao Ren curiously and asked, “What on earth did you see in that scripture?”

Hao Ren found it funny when Vivian referred to the big black book as ‘the scripture’ in awe.

“Nothing.” Hao Ren then thought for a moment, and then decided to tell them what he had seen. Anyway, he did not really have to worry about them losing their faith, and Vivian did not believe in any gods. “It says that if the Goddess of Creation is completely eroded by the Mad Lord and we run into her, just take out the bible and knock her on the skull until she’s sobered up…”

“Or… Would you like to sleep for a while?” asked Vivian.

“I know what I’m saying.”

“Well, it seems that you are not joking,” Vivian said with a confused expression. “You wasted your energy to get this kind of answer.”

“Well, not really.” Hao Ren shook his head, turning to look at the big black book lying quietly on the bedside table. He fainted in the living room, but now it seemed that Vivian carried him to the bedroom and also brought the book along. “I passed the test of this book, and now… I should be able to use some of its power.”

As he spoke, the big black book made a slight noise as if it sensed Hao Ren’s words. The fiery black iron chain on the spine of the book also started rattling, full of the spirit of war.

Hao Ren, “…”

Feeling the connection between the Bible and his spiritual world, Hao Ren resolutely put it back into his dimensional pocket and covered half of his face with his hand. “I’ve decided that I would never touch it again unless it was necessary. Communicating with this book is more destructive than communicating with Raven 12345.”

As they were talking, Lil Pea, who was sleeping on his chest, finally woke up. The little mermaid was so happy to see Hao Ren was fine that she jumped directly onto his face. “Dad, you finally wake up! Are you okay?”

“How many times do I have to tell you, don’t jump on my face. Do you know what it feels like to have a worm fall on your face?” said Hao Ren and he grabbed the little mermaid away from his face.

The little kid was wriggling in the air and said, “But I’m a fish!”

“It’s the same.” Hao Ren sat up and handed the little fish to Vivian and said, “This child grew up too fast. How could a three-year-old child have such a logical, clear and meticulous mind?”

“That’s not right. I went to Inferno to save the world two hours after I was born. Gifted children have nothing to do with age…”

Hao Ren, “…”

Hao Ren felt that Vivian had recently become happier after she had relieved herself of those psychological burdens.

When Hao Ren returned to the living room, he saw Rollie was leaning on the sofa and gnawing a wool ball while Lily was squatting in front of the TV, kept changing the channel. Others were nowhere to be seen. They probably went to the Nangong couple’s restaurant for a meal. Looking at the time now, Vivian probably needed more rest and could not cook for them, so those hungry ones would naturally go out to get their own food when they have nothing to eat, except Lily and Rollie. The two of them were probably dying here waiting for Vivian to cook.

Yup. As soon as Vivian appeared, Lily jumped over and shouted exaggeratedly, “Battie! Battie! Hurry up and cook! I’m starving!”

“Can’t you find something to eat first?” Vivian muttered, glaring at Lily as she walked to the kitchen.

Lily grimaced at Vivian’s back. “Rua –”

Then she turned to Hao Ren and giggled, “I knew you were okay. You’re as strong as me. Did you get the answer?”

The corner of his mouth twitched. He really did not want to recall what he saw…

After dinner, Hao Ren took out the data terminal, began to study those messy historical data, and at the same time, trying to understand the intelligence sent from each monitoring station from the Plane of Dreams.

“Did you see that map of the stars projected by the Crimson Moon?” He asked casually, scanning the highlighted observations.

“Of course, I have already archived the star map – but as you know, there are so many missing parts in the map that even with my power, I can’t make it a complete one out of thin air, so don’t try to force open that kind of incomplete map on the Plane of Dreams.”

“I know, I’m not stupid. I just want you to compare that map with all the maps we have collected so far. Maybe you can find a little overlap so that you can at least determine which galaxy the map in Vivian’s memory probably points to.”

Data terminal shook its body up and down and said, “Oh, okay. But honestly, I don’t think it makes any sense. Star maps are different from regular maps. It describes not only the three-dimensional space but also the trajectory of the three-dimensional space under the time scale. It is almost impossible for two maps to overlap without knowing the transform guidance data… Beep, beep, beep, beep? !”

Hao Ren was startled by the sudden strange sound from the data terminal. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I found an overlapping…”

Hao Ren blinked, and it took him two seconds to understand what the data terminal meant. “WTF?”

“You asked me to look for it. How come you looked more surprised than me when I found it?”

“That’s too fast! Just now you threw out a whole bunch of theories about the impossibility of finding overlapping star maps and now you found one!” Hao Ren looked at the data terminal as if he was looking at a ghost. “Did you find it long ago, just to wait for the right moment to surprise me?”

The data terminal shook its head disdainfully and changed the image on the holographic projection. “Look here — I don’t have time for that kind of joke.”

The two star maps immediately appeared in front of Hao Ren.

With the powerful skills of navigation science level 5, introduction to starships level 5, and blind guess level 99+, Hao Ren saw at the first glance that at least one-third of the two star maps were overlapping… No, not just overlap.

One-third of them overlapped, and the rest… complemented each other.

Together they formed a complete star map!

“… Where did the other star map come from?” Hao Ren looked at this incredible scene, could not help but mutter, “Such a coincidence…”

“Remember Inferno– when we were looking for the entrance to the Firstborn’s cave, we found the ruins of the Sun Dynasty.” The data terminal’s memory was much better than that of Hao Ren’s. “In the ruins of the Sun Dynasty, we activated the seal of the great pyramid, and as the pyramid activated it projected a star map in the sky. We always thought that the star map indicated the original coordinate of Inferno in the Plane of Dream, and you’ve also sent a fleet of UAVs into the depths of the universe to find the corresponding location of the star map, but nothing was found.

“That star map is…” Hao Ren looked incredulous.

“Yes, that map is the missing second part. It complements the star map projected by the Crimson Moon. After recombining the two maps, I have completed the restoration of the original map…”

The holographic projection started to transform again. The two maps merged, and all the star paths and navigation marks began to shine at every node.

Hao Ren was puzzled. “Wait a minute. The map we saw on Inferno was not defective. It looked quite complete. Otherwise, I would not send UAVs to look for the coordinates on the map. How could it be the remnant of another star map?”

“Because it’s partly hidden.” As the data terminal explained, the holographic projection changed continuously. “The missing parts of the map are folded, hidden in a bunch of meaningless coordinates and transformation rules. At first, we thought it was a mess created by the Sun Dynasty in the process of saving or making star maps due to lack of technology. However, in the process of comparing the two star maps, I found the way to unfold these ‘random codes’, and here it is.”

The two star maps merged into one, indicating a mysterious place deep in the universe on the Plane of Dreams.