The Record of Unusual Creatures

Hao Ren had a thousand and one questions in his mind, but he had to refrain from going farther. It was time to regroup in his house. Strangely, while the entire Southern Suburbs and even the whole world had transformed, his old house and a small area around it remained unaffected by the messed-up space and time. Like a safe house in a disaster, Hao Ren’s house was now the only stable refuge amid the global chaos.

Hao Ren and Lily were the first to return. The house remained quiet. Rollie was lying on a blanket in front of the mouse hole at the corner, soundly asleep. A meter away, Lil Pea was in the water basin. It seemed that the dumb cat was dedicated to the task that Hao Ren had assigned to her. But to be able to sleep like a log in such a chaotic time, it seemed that the cat was a little too heartless.

Seeing that the dumb cat and Lil Pea were snoozing, and Noobie was not coming out to cause trouble, Hao Ren decided to let the sleeping cat lie. He flung himself on the sofa. While waiting for the others to come back, Hao Ren discussed with Lily about what they found outside and where Vivian could possibly have gone. They spoke in whispers.

Half an hour later, Hao Ren finally breathed a sigh of relief when everyone came back safe and sound.

“There is nothing dangerous out there—at least, we haven’t met with anything dangers,” said Nangong Sanba the moment he stepped into the house. “Those ancient people seem to live in their own space and time. Their world may have overlapped with our real world, but it does not respond to anything outside their space and time.”

Nangong Wuyue followed behind her brother. “We went to the city center. Guess what? It has turned into a forest. What is left of Whitestone Building are merely two-story shops. The upper levels have turned into the village of the elves,” she said.

“Please come in. We need to do a debrief,” Hao Ren said.

Everyone sat in a circle around the coffee table. Hao Ren first looked at Lorissa. Earlier, everyone went out in a group of two except for Lorrisa. She was confident of her ability but not used to work in a team. The elven queen had a wealth of knowledge in magic and superb perception. She could use her incredible spells to see the minutest details that no one could see. So Hao Ren wanted to first hear from the elven queen what she was thinking.

“First of all, everyone should have known by now that the phantoms are all real,” Lorissa said. “They look very odd and do not respond naturally to external stimuli, but from a physical point of view, they are all true. Secondly, all the changes are randomly located. I am not very sure about the history of your planet, but I can see that those ‘things’ come from different times and civilizations. They are randomly distributed, and their interactions are unnatural. I guess all these things are not the effect of magic.”

“Not a magic effect?” Y’zaks was doubtful.

“I have not sensed any magic energy,” Lorissa said as she turned around. “I projected my mind into the atmosphere, high enough to have a bird’s-eye view and do a wide-area scan. I am sure that those things that pop up out of nowhere are not of magic. They are a more advanced form of existence.”

“A more advanced form of existence?” Hao Ren scratched his chin. “Replacing the real world?”

“What did you say?” Lily asked as she did not hear Hao Ren clearly.

“Nothing, please continue,” Hao Ren replied.

After Lorissa, it was everyone else’s turn. At last, the MDT summed up their findings and came to a few conclusions.

“As Lorissa mentioned, there is no pattern to the distribution of all the phenomena, or any magic.”

The MDT floated up and projected various images in the air. Some of the visuals were taken while Hao Ren was investigating outside, some were sent back from the probes, which were now scouting around in America.

“Secondly, according to the information sent back by the probes, we can be sure that the phenomenon affects the whole world. The ‘real phantoms’ are everywhere. There is the frosty Tower of the Babel in the South Pole and Poseidon in the Atlantic Ocean. We are stuck in the strange, dream-like scenes.

“The house we live in and the small area around the house seems to have become a ‘safe island.’ No matter how strange the space-time out there is, it does not affect the area within 15 meters radius of our home.”

“I think this is because of the power of the goddess. Hao Ren is the Pope, and the pope’s palace is under the protection of the goddess.” Lorissa chimed in with her opinion.

“I think what you said makes a lot of sense,” Hao Ren hemmed and said.

The MDT swayed in the air and brought everyone’s attention back. “Listen. After the change, people of this world have become abnormal. Perhaps the illusion of overlapping space and time causes them to undergo similar changes, they are now living in an isolated space and time, seemingly ignorant of the changes happening around. I have no idea how long this ‘protective response’ would last, but one thing is sure, everything on this planet has been ‘isolated,’ except for us.”

“That sounds scary,” Lily said with her arms crossed involuntarily.

The Nangong couple stood up and said, “We have a question: we both moved out a while ago. We did not live in this ‘safe house’ when the change happened. But now it seems that the change has not affected both of us.”

“Hmm, that is weird. My parents seem fine. They were still on the outside at the time,” Nangong Wuyue said.

“Perhaps it was because of me?” Hao Ren said, scratching his face. “I am propitious?”

“Don’t be narcissistic. It is mainly because both of them have also come into contact with the power of Madam Raven before. They are also blessed,” the MDT said bluntly. “I guess divinity or power associated with divinity could resist this messed-up space and time. On the other hand, this phenomenon may also have something to do with divinity. But let us not come to a conclusion yet since were have no sufficient information.”

“Those who have been in contact with Raven 12345 could resist the change?” Hao Ren suddenly remembered many others. “If that is the case, there will be many people who could stay normal now. Hassel, While Flame, Hessiana, Liu Sheng, Zhao Xi Zhao Wei and such; all these people may be fine but just confused now.”

“Possible,” the MDT said. It had missed this point earlier. “But we cannot contact them now. Space and time have changed globally, it has become segregated. People who are still in a normal state are isolated outside the main space and time. There is a global outage of communication. At least, normal people like us would not be able to communicate with the outside world.”

“Mr. Landlord, there is no signal, really,” Lily said, shaking her mobile phone.

“Let us first put this aside,” Y’zaks said with a hoarse voice. “The key thing now is that we still cannot figure out how this thing happened, nor have we found any clues about Vivian.”

“I think this phenomenon in itself is a clue to find Vivian,” Hao Ren said with his brows knitted together.

“What do you mean?” Y’zaks asked.

“Have you noticed that the messed-up space and time contains things from the Mythological Era to the present day, but not a thing, such as dinosaurs, outside this period.”

Everyone suddenly came to their senses. Nangong Sanba nodded vehemently. “If this is the case. Then all we saw were things from 10,000 years ago at most. There are no flora and fauna of the earlier period.”

Nangong Wuyue scratched her head and said, “But I saw a saber-toothed cat. Isn’t that something from the era of the dinosaurs?”

“Saber-toothed cat was not extinct until ten thousand years ago. That means, when Vivian first arrived here, there were still saber-toothed cats on Earth.” Nangong Sanba said, shooting her sister a look. “You need to read up. I am much more knowledgeable than you are in this respect.”

Nangong Wuyue rolled her eyes.

“So are those things outside from Battie’s memory?” Lily asked, wide-eyed. “What she did not experience will not appear in the illusion?”

“Possible. It could be broader,” Hao Ren said. He seemed to have thought of something. “A person’s memory is limited to his perspective, so the extent of the scene reconstructed is also limited by his memory. But the extent of the phantoms in the space and time outside is apparently bigger than this. I am sure of one thing, however, that what appears in this phenomenon is consistent with Vivian’s period of memories.”

Lily, with her writer’s brain hole wide open, suddenly said, “So after Vivian lost her memory for years, things suddenly came back abruptly?”

As big as Lily’s brain hole was, Hao Ren had to admit that she did have a point.

Just as Hao Ren was about to think along those lines, he suddenly felt a wave of signals coming into his mind. Then he heard Raven 12345’s voice.

“Hao Ren? Say hi if you hear me!”