Hao Ren’s heart skipped a beat when Raven 12345 told him to bring Vivian along. He could instinctively sense that Raven 12345 had something to say to him. He immediately tucked Lil Pea in his pocket and got ready to bring Vivian to “Heaven”.
“Don’t forget the egg,” the MDT reminded him as it opened the portal. “Be careful. Don’t break it!”
Hao Ren held the mermaid egg in his hand. He wanted to put it into his pocket but was afraid that he would accidentally crush it. He thought better of it and carried it in his hand instead. “Let’s go. We’ll use the portal.”
The two of them arrived in “Heaven” with the fish. For the first time in history, Raven 12345 was standing at the door waiting for them. Hao Ren brought Vivian up to Raven 12345 and showed her the mermaid egg. “Lil Pea just laid it a while ago.”
Raven 12345 took the tiny egg from Hao Ren’s hand and examined it with interest. The egg was delicate and exquisite like a piece of art but very fragile. After reviewing it for a while, the Goddess raised her head and said, “It won’t hatch.”
“I know.” Hao Ren nodded. “Mermaid isn’t parthenogenetic. I want to know if this is normal. Or is Lil Pea precocious?”
“I need to check.” Raven 12345 turned and walked towards the door. “This mermaid is not on my creation list, but it won’t take long to check.”
Hao Ren and Vivian followed Raven into the mansion. After passing through a few corners in the long corridor, they finally came to a smaller lounge. Raven 12345 waved her hand, summoning up a silver plate out of thin air and then motioned Hao Ren to put the little mermaid on the plate.
The plate seemed to possess a kind of unique characteristics, as when Lil Pea lay on it her body temperature and hardness changed. The little guy stretched out her tail and lay still comfortably. Hao Ren looked at the plate and felt that it was a bit strange in shape, but he could not tell why he had that kind of feeling.
Raven 12345 stared at Lil Pea for a while, as if she had thought of something, she suddenly took out a few pieces of cilantro and shallots and lay them around the little guy. When she finished putting the leaves in a circle, it became evident to Hao Ren that what it was. “Is it a fish plate?”
“Oops! I am just too used to it!” Raven 12345 quickly removed that cilantro and shallots while hemming a couple of time. “Just hold on a moment, I’m checking her,” she said embarrassedly.
While saying that, her eyes emanated a mysterious silver-white halo, which caught the eyes of Lil Pea immediately. As Lil Pea looked at the corona, she slowly fell into a trance. Not to disturb the Goddess’ work, Hao Ren and Vivian stepped back instinctively.
“Mr. Landlord.” Vivian nudged Hao Ren’s arm. “Do you know why the Goddess asks for me?”
Hao Ren replied in a quiet voice, “I guess it’s about your split, and also the Goddess of Creation.”
Hearing that, Vivian lowered her head and did not say a word, as if she was in thought.
Before long, the glow in Raven 12345’s eyes faded as she finished examining Lil Pea. Lil Pea returned to her usual activeness. Hao Ren came up and asked nervously, “How is she?”
“She is fine.” Raven 12345 nodded. “It’s a normal growth process. Because of the harsh living environment and disturbances during the incubation period, this type of mermaids often suffer from congenital disabilities. After the larval stage, they will run a self-test on their physiological functions to find if there’s any problem, and if there is, the fries will stop growing, and in their native environment, it means they will die very quickly. In this way, they could leave enough resources for healthy individuals to survive. There was no such problem with Lil Pea because she has you guys to take care of her. The little guy is very healthy. She was doing a ‘self-check, that’s it.”
“I didn’t know there is such a thing.” Hao Ren was wide-eyed and once again lamenting about the complexity of life and the environment of each world. “So will she still lay eggs in the future?”
“She won’t be until adulthood,” Raven 12345 said while shaking her head. “It will be years before that day comes. Now she has completed all the checks on her bodily functions and will grow up healthily and rapidly.”
“What do we do with this?” Hao Ren pointed to the mermaid egg beside Lil Pea. The little guy seemed to be unaware of what this meant for her. She just stared at the small ball curiously, poking it with her finger occasionally. At least, she knew that thing was very brittle.
“The egg will quickly lose its vitality. After all, it’s just a test, and probably, it will only last for a few hours. The egg means a lot to Lil Pea though. I should do something.”
Raven 12345 thought for a while and then clapped her hands, picked the mermaid egg up and began to inject magic into it. A silvery-white glow floated at her fingertip, and the air around the mermaid egg quickly condensed and formed into a crystal-like substance. When the white radiance gradually dissipated, Raven 12345 had a small and cute pendant in her hand. It was a teardrop gemstone with a light blue luster, inlaid with the mermaid egg like a work of art.
Raven 12345 made a rope and hung the pendant on Lil Pea’s neck solemnly. “Treat it as a talisman.”
Hao Ren was like really?
Vivian said in a quiet voice, “I think I should say something, but I don’t know what to say.”
Lil Pea fiddled with the pendant curiously. It looked a little big for her size, but she was happy. She clapped with her tail and thanked Raven 12345 politely.
She thought the teardrop pendant was beautiful though she did not know what it could do.
“You taught her well.” Raven 12345 nodded complimentarily.
“She could easily lose it.” Hao Ren had another thought. “She swims in the water all day long, and she could drop it unknowingly.”
“No worry. I have given the pendant a positioning capability; it could fly back to its owner if it dropped. It is the main feature of the pendant.” Raven 12345 said while smiling. “Of course, even then it is still a divine artifact. After all, I made it myself.”
Hao Ren was speechless as he felt that the most useless divine artifact in the world was finally born; hand-made by the Goddess, a real celestial object of which its only function was GPS-capability. What a shame!
“We’re done with Lil Pea, let’s talk about something more serious.” Raven 12345 handed the little mermaid to Hao Ren, and her eyes finally fell on Vivian. “Come with me; I want to show you something,” she said.
Vivian and Hao Ren exchanged a look involuntarily and nodded at each other spontaneously.
Raven 12345 brought them to a ‘warehouse.’
The warehouse was located in a unique dimension that was inaccessible on foot. Raven 12345 clicked her, and a light flashed across Hao Ren and Vivian’s eyes. When they finally came to their senses, they found themselves standing in an unusually wide indoor space.
Rows of neatly arranged pillars stretched out in front of their eyes. Asides from the mysterious ornamentation on the pillars and the vague magic patterns on the ground, the place looked more like an empty underground parking lot. Hao Ren had no idea why the Goddess brought them here, but soon he would know the answer.
Raven 12345 opened a part of the ‘storage’ as the air between two rows of pillars closest to Hao Ren and Vivian began to ripple like water surface. Twenty crystal containers in two rows emerged.
The crystal containers looked like unique hibernation pods and were translucent. Hao Ren stepped forward and took a gander of the inside. “This is…”
A red-haired Vivian was lying in every crystal container.
Vivian almost could not believe what she saw. When she saw her split-body for the first time earlier, she suspected that more such splits existed around the world, but she had never expected to see one, and it was more than one. It was a shock to her as there were more than twenty split bodies laid in front of her eyes as if it was some dark scientific experiment or strange ritual. Seeing the identical splits sleeping soundly in the containers; a creepy feeling began rose within her.
“I’m not sure, but most of them are here.” Raven 12345’s words jolted Hao Ren and Vivian out of their stun.