Hao Ren threw the MDT cum dead body into his Dimensional Pocket. He did not want anything to happen to the carrier while he was away from the Plane of Dreams. After he deliberately greeted several mercenaries, he left Grey Fox with swagger.
He was not worried about someone finding the body in the room missing: Firstly, he would only be away for a day, so the mercenaries would not break into his room. Secondly, he had left an autonomous robot behind in the room. If someone broke in, the robot would alert him immediately as it delayed the intruder for a while. He would be able to sneak back in time.
But, his hunch told him that these things were probably not going to happen after all.
After leaving the base, Hao Ren came to a junction leading to the town where Khiton’s body was hanging from a lamppost with a huge sign below read ‘This Is What Happened to Those Who Betrays Grey Fox.’
“I still couldn’t believe Nolan was only seventeen,” Hao Ren muttered in a low voice, passing by below Khiton’s body. “Since Ulyanov could live so long with the help of artificial organs, Nolan’s age mightn’t be her real age.”
“Only if I can fully function,” the MDT spoke in his head. “I’d be able to scan the girl and know what she is up to. Unfortunately, I can’t even figure out my own body right now…”
Hao Ren walked down the street full of potholes into the town. After passing through the last sentry post of Grey Fox, he made a turn into a winding alley. There were only three places in Black Street: factories, barracks, and slums. He was now near the borders of the slums. A pungent odour filled the air. Rusted tin houses had old clothes that were almost like rags hanging on them. The streets were always wet. Dirty and toxic sewage leaking from the factory pipes flew out in the open. Hao Ren had to weave along carefully. He noticed someone in the nearby tin house was peeking out; trepidatious eyes peered from behind windows because someone in clean and tidy dress with a mercenary dog tag was intruding into their neighbourhood. They sensed something was not good.
Hao Ren ignored the snoops and finally found a quiet corner. Making sure no one saw him, he whispered. “Get me out.”
The vertigo and weightlessness struck. He felt a moment of blackout before waking up on his familiar bed. He opened his eyes and saw the ceiling of his bedroom. Although he only stayed in the dream for over half a day, there was a stark difference between the two worlds. When he saw his home and became a little emotion: Home is the best place in the world.
It was nightfall. There was no light in the room. It was dark even in the living hall. Probably everyone had felt asleep. Hao Ren fumbled to find the light switch. As soon as he got himself up, a pair of golden eyes glowed in the dark staring at him. “You’re awake! Mr. Landlord!”
Shocked, he looked carefully at it and only found Lily was in front of him. There was nothing wrong with the werewolf maiden except her pair of golden eyes that glowed in the dark, almost like a pair of will-o’-the-wisp! He reached out and pressed his hand on the furry head of Lily. “Are you out of your mind? What are you doing here in my room in the middle of the night?”
Lily pushed his hand away, arms akimbo staring at him. “I was waiting for you for dinner!”
Hao Ren turned the light on and saw the steaming hot food that seemingly had been reheated multiple times was on the small table next to him. He looked at Lily, who could no longer hold her eyes open, feeling surprised and touched. “I’ve never thought of… Thank you. Where did Vivian go?”
He could totally understand it if it was Vivian waiting for him, but he could not fathom it—why Lily? Thoughtfulness had never been part of the husky. Her mind did not work that way. Now, her arms still akimbo. “Battie is taking a night stroll outside. She asked me to wait here. And I have reheated the meal for you, the MDT had just informed me that you were about to wake up.”
Knowing Vivian had arranged the meal, Hao Ren felt his worldview normalised again. The husky just would not that that on her own initiative. He suddenly felt he was starving. He had gone without a single drop of water from noon to midnight. But when he came to the table, he froze. “What happened to this bun?”
Lily turned her head away. “I took a bite…”
Hao Ren: “…”
Lily gritted her teeth and took out a pack of spicy strips from her pocket. She gave it to Hao Ren. “For you. It’s so much more delicious than the steamed bun.”
Hao Ren took the spicy strip with a forced smile, thinking that she was truly a straightforward maiden. While having his late dinner, Hao Ren glanced out the window at the night sky. “What time is it now?”
Lily sat down on the bedside, swinging her legs boringly as she yawned. “Half past ten. So you had gone to the Plane of Dreams again? The MDT said that you were exploring a new world. How does it look like?”
Lily’s eyes glowed as the sleepiness in her eyes quickly disappeared. Her normal biological clock would have her drowsing after ten at night, but weirdly, she had not. So there was more to keep the dinner warm for Hao Ren than meets the eye. She was waiting for stories.
Hao Ren rolled his eyes. “Let me finish eating first. I’m starving. Can you stop sweeping the bed with your tail? Do you know hard difficult it is to clean up the hair?”
After he finished eating, Lily graciously cleaned the table up. Meanwhile, Vivian just happened to come back from outside. The three of them in Hao Ren’s room. Hao Ren knocked the MDT that still played dead on the bedside table. “Wake up, wake up! You’re just a freaking PDA; don’t pretend you’re still in a trauma!”
The MDT had not been moving since returning to the surface world though the flickering lights on it suggested that it was alive and kicking. It was not until Hao Ren poked it that it staggered to get up. “Phew… my previous and perfect body! Got it back finally! I was just enjoying it just now!”
Hao Ren felt goose bumps rose on his skin. “You found like a sexual pervert.”
The MDT was pissed. “It’s better than necrophilia.”
Lily suddenly looked at Hao Ren with an odd expression. “Necrophilia? What were you doing in the Plane of Dreams, Mr. Landlord?”
The quizzical sights of Lily and Vivian jittered Hao Ren. He could not help thinking of how the MDT had turned into a dead girl in the Plane of Dreams, and how people mistook the brick as his girlfriend. It was such a ball-ache as he thought of it. He buried his face in his hand. “On, don’t mention it, I screwed the pooch…”
As his voice trailed off, a silver light flashed across the room. Lily had gone hiding under the bed, only leaving her head poking out cautiously. “Mr… Mr. Landlord, bachelor dog has dignity too! You can’t take advantage of…”
Hao Ren: “…”
He stepped forward, grabbed Lily by the ear, and pulled her out from under the bed. “Sit still here! I’m saying that I screwed up things in the Plane of Dreams. Hey… please don’t bite!”
Biting in Hao Ren’s wrist, Lily voice mumbled in her throat. “But it’s sexual harassing!”
Vivian folded her arms across her chest, watching in excitement. She let Lily gnaw on Hao Ren’s wrist for a moment before she opened her mouth. “Me. Landlord, for so long you have been living with a bunch of demons, haven’t you learned?”
Hao Ren forced Lily into a chair. Vivian’s interruption had made forgetting about the frustration for now. He began to narrate his and the MDT’s encounters in the Plane of Dreams, most importantly, about the suspicious things during the operation. He wanted to know Vivian and Lily’s thoughts on this.
Lily’s might look like a sloth, but mentally, she was no slowcoach at all. She was witty, able to offer better suggestions to difficult questions than Vivian could sometimes.
There had been many question marks raised for their voyage in the ‘dream.’ Whether it was into a strange planet or dream, the sudden, uncontrolled teleportation was abnormal. The strangest of all was what had happened to the MDT—a highly sophisticated gadget that was even more reliable than the human brain had had a mental abnormalities.
Hao Ren poked at the MDT floating in front of his eyes. “But I do think that this bugger has never been normal since day one. So nothing would surprise me anymore.”
The MDT suddenly hit on Hao Ren’s head in protest.
“Please be reminded that you’re no longer a girl now. I wouldn’t think twice to hit you back!” Hao Ren snorted.
Lily looked at Hao Ren curiously. “Mr. Landlord, you said you have got a mercenary dog tag? Could you let me take a look?”
“I don’t know what you’re thinking, but you’re weird,” Hao Ren said, reaching for the identity tag he had should have brought out from the Plane of Dreams. “This is… Oh wait, where is my dog tag?”