Chapter 223: First Ever Broadcast
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Nangong Wuyue examined Lil Pea in her arms and came to a final conclusion: the little mermaid was as fit as a fiddle. She was even more vivacious than before, probably because she was happy to be at home.
"Did she have such strength in the past?" Hao Ren cuddled the fry in his arms and asked around. He had to take extra care with Lil Pea because her tail was always slippery. She liked to wriggle around and would easily slip out of his arms. Vivian shook his head. "No idea. Perhaps she was born with it. Just that we didn’t discover it before. You’re Lil Pea’s dad. You should know better, right?"
As Hao Ren was about to nod his head, he suddenly came to his senses. "B*llsh*t! How am I supposed to know that? I’m not a fish."
Lil Pea’s extraordinary strength had not gotten much attention because her unusual strength was only relative to her body size. It was the visual impact of a half foot, little thing lifting a table—a feat that was not worth a fig when everyone in the house was superhuman. Only Becky had shown her curiosity towards Lil Pea as she rested her head on the table, staring into Lil Pea’s eyes. "What’s this? So many strange creatures in this world."
Hao Ren had dumped her into the big tub in the washroom after he got home. Becky was in the living room playing with the high-tech gadgets so, she did not discover the little mermaid until now.
While Lil Pea crawled on the table, Hao Ren carried and placed her in his hand as he introduced her to Becky. "Her name’s Elizabeth, nicknamed Lil Pea. She's originally from the other world. I’m her guardian. Actually, you’ve met her before—she was in a pot..."
Then Becky realized the strange pot Hao Ren was carrying around with him all the time in The Plane of Dreams. She was surprised. "That lil thing was in there? You lied to me, saying it was an alchemical tool. By the way, is it the culture of your world to raise children in a pot?"
Sweat began to rain down from his forehead as Becky’s misunderstanding of this world got from bad to worse...
While everyone was talking, Hilda was the only one who remained silent. She ate quietly by herself as though she did not have any opinion about the food. Sensing that Hilda was being inadvertently snubbed as a guest, Vivian approached her. "Hey, Hilda. Is the food okay? How is it compared to the food by your home chef?"
"Home chef? We don't have such a thing back home," said Hilda, shaking her head. "I was just like everyone else, receiving rations of synthetic food. It was a bland organic matter. A little salty if one insisted it had flavour. Our eco-dome could only provide a limited amount of organic matter as the dome mainly provided research samples and some compounds which could not be made using synthetic methods. Food for the people came from the synthesis of plants and were results of recycling engineering. These food..."
Hilda pointed at the food on the table, feeling awkward. "...are very refined. I don’t know how to describe their flavours as my tastebuds are having difficulty in analyzing them. Anyway, it was very pleasant and I’m very grateful for your generosity. If you don’t mind, I would like to bring some back home and let other people try them."
Vivian felt awkward, like she had said something that was not supposed to be said—she thought as an elf queen, Hilda should have been enjoying life befitting a queen no matter how scarce the resources were in their world. But just like Hao Ren, she had underestimated the dire situation the elf queen was in.
Vivian’s poverty seemed like child's play before the elf queen.
The topic of conversation was so awkward that it completely spoiled the mood. Needless to say, the lunch ended in a dull and boring atmosphere. Only two people still retained their exuberant appetite—the growing Lil Pea and the naive Lily. Hao Ren was envious of them from the bottom of his heart.
After the lunch, Hao Ren held Hilda by her hand and led her down to the basement. The MDT had prepared a dormant cabin in advance. Hao Ren brought Hilda before the coffin-like installation and said to her, "You just have to lie in it for a while so that I can upload your traverser identity to the database. The relevant authority will be able to find your home."
Hilda had no comments about the coffin-like design of the dormant cabin. There was no taboo on this back in her homeland. The elf queen climbed inside the dormant cabin. Before the cabin closed, she looked at Hao Ren and said, "Make it quick. Everyday’s a torture, living in such a rich world."
As the dormant cabin closed, Hao Ren was pinned to the spot for a while before he executed the next step.
He switched the MDT on. Then, he searched for the official bulletin's interface in the local universe channel and hooray, he found his broadcast authorization. Before this, he had no idea how to use the broadcast module or had he ever joined any of the conversations. He felt that he could never keep up with those bigwigs in the local universe channel. But since becoming an agent and laying low for many months, a legend about a deep-sea mud monster lurking among the imperial commissioners began circulating around the channel and various broadcast stations—Today, he finally got his opportunity to say something in the local universe channel.
"Is there anything I should be aware of speaking in the official bulletin?" It was Hao Ren’s very first time. He felt a heavy sense of undertaking rising through him and as a precaution, he wanted to verify everything with the MDT—that nervous feeling brought him back to the time when he was reading manuscripts over the school radio station during his primary year three. The only difference was, back then he was just reading a message for the lost and found section during his school year whereas now, he was going to do a broadcast over the universe channel...
Nevertheless... it was still a lost and found case. Just that this time the subject was a lot bigger.
When he thought of that, he became less nervous.
The MDT explained everything about the various formats and channel operations in the official bulletin. The operation was greatly simplified to suit the various levels of civilization and cultural structures of the participants in the local universe channel. Not only did the receiving terminal have a translation module, the operation of the broadcast terminal was also simple. Very quickly, Hao Ren had finished writing his very first bulletin to broadcast to the universe from his small basement:
"Special announcement—local universe channel. Broadcast from the first galaxy—Kuiper Station to the entire universe. Agent Hao Ren has found a spacecraft wreckage without markings in The Plane of Dreams. It is believed that the spacecraft is originally from the Surface World. The crash is estimated to have happened two months ago (Kuiper Station provided the time conversion algorithm). The features of the spacecraft is hereby broadcasted. Any civilizations or individuals who receive this broadcast and know about the spacecraft, kindly contact the station master of Kuiper Station. Remarks: As this is a special incident that could probably affect the balance of the universe' foundation, it is recommended as a Category Three event. Please find the attached file for features of spacecraft. Announcement ended."
Earth was not yet a well-known civilization sphere in the universe and there were no other registered civilization systems nearby Earth so, it was natural for Hao Ren to use Kuiper Station as the place of origin for his announcement. The transit station which had a few crew but remained busy was his office in this region of the galaxy—at least that was what his ID card said.
He let out a long sigh as he finished broadcasting the message. He was not used to such a solemn announcement. He was tempted to say, "I spotted a six-hundred-meter spacecraft out there two days ago. I wonder whose thing that is." However, considering it was his first time making an announcement and he had to leave a good impression, he did it the solemn way.
The MDT was loudmouthed again. "Oh, you just sounded like a retired, old cadre..."
Hao Ren did not have the time to argue with the MDT because he found that his announcement was automatically pinned to the front page of all channels by the datalink. It was being sent out to all networks of every civilization in the universe as top priority. The response in the form of short messages came in from all directions like a DDoS attack.
"Unencrypted message—directional reply, Dan-Dwyn Civilization Sphere acknowledged. Investigation will be initiated."
"Unencrypted message—directional reply, Chattar Civilization Sphere acknowledged. Investigation will be initiated."
"Unencrypted message—directional reply, Suharr Satellite Base acknowledged. Message was forwarded to all chambers of commerce. Investigation will be initiated."
"...Kerbal Civilization Sphere acknowledged. Investigation will be initiated."
Every civilization sphere that was qualified to stand on the galaxy's stage would connect to the Empire's datalink and only the Empire's spokepersons were qualified to post announcements on the datalink. All these announcements were always important: without a doubt, they were life-and-death matters of civilizations or closely affecting the lifeline of the entire universe. Despite being in the picture, Hao Ren did not realize the meaning of everything he had experienced. All listeners on the datalink would not take his broadcasted message lightly.
These massive amount of solemn replies from all the civilizations in the galaxy had overwhelmed Hao Ren. He felt like he suddenly became a big shot and was a little flattered. But his other colleagues in the information exchange channel on the official bulletin gave him a quick reality check. He then realized he was still a rookie.
"Where’s the image? – Agent Tunalar, Dan-Dwyn Civilization Sphere."
"Attachment not attached? – Agent Loken, Kelsen-Volf Civilization Sphere."
"No image, no truth – Agent Ron, Kerbal Civilization Sphere."
"Rookie, don’t freak out. We rookies don’t sink to the level of the old f*gs – Guam Fander Pothelm, Arcturus Civilization Sphere."
Hao Ren was dumbstruck.
It was a hell of a working environment.