Chapter 1 The Beginning

Lulu, the guide, was one of the few acquaintances Hao Ren had at this space station on the edge of the solar system. Seeing a familiar face was, of course, pleasant, and even the bad mood brought on by the data terminal's antics dissipated a bit. Without needing to be reminded this time, Hao Ren already knew the rules here, and pulled the still somewhat bewildered Lily and Vivian away from the transfer platform. Lily didn't wake up from her daze until they reached the open space opposite the transfer area. Looking at the spectacular and novel scenery around her, she exclaimed from the bottom of her heart, "Awoo—"

Before the last "oof" could come out, Vivian slapped her back. "Can't you try not to embarrass yourself when we're out?"

Normally, Lily would have started tearing at Vivian, but this time she couldn't care less. She just stared around with wide eyes, and then, taking advantage of Hao Ren's inattention, she darted out, running around a shiny pillar in the middle of the hall. "This is a space station! This is a space station! This is..."

Hao Ren grabbed Vivian and walked forward. "Let's go, we don't know her."

Lily's ears twitched and she dashed back, but the excitement on her face hadn't diminished in the slightest. She looked at everything around her with an eager expression, her whole being as restless as a rabbit on drugs. Hao Ren suddenly thought that next time he took this girl out, he should put her on a leash, no matter how much it helped, at least it would fulfill the requirement of "safely raising a large dog"... Look, even the space station staff were frightened by this giant husky.

In fact, Vivian's sense of novelty wasn't any less than Lily's, but she controlled her words and actions very well. She was the kind of girl who could show off your status: she would always try to maintain her dignified image, completely different from the husky next to her who would use all fours to move around once she got excited.

Except when picking up money.

And of course, Vivian had never picked up money in her life.

The group passed through the viewing corridor that Hao Ren had walked through last time. Lulu seemed to have deliberately arranged for the new guests to experience the unique scenery of the Kuiper Station. During this time, Lily indeed rushed to the side barrier: this girl was extremely bold, as if she wasn't afraid of the cold, dark space outside at all. Afterwards, they went directly to the special port where the Giant Tortoise Rock was docked through the transfer device, and passed through an overhead corridor that spanned the port and had huge windows on the side. Hao Ren glanced out the window and found that he could already see the massive figure of the Giant Tortoise Rock: Although a spaceship of several hundred meters wasn't anything in the entire Imperial warship sequence, it was already a behemoth to Hao Ren, and even more so to Vivian and Lily.

The spaceship looked the same as when it had first docked here. Now it was suspended in the static force field of the port berth, and a group of autonomous machines were flying around the hull, doing inspections and maintenance work. Imperial public ships like the Inspector's ship didn't need the civilian port to send people to maintain them. The staff of the Kuiper Station could only do some superficial care on the periphery. The real ship maintenance was done by the ship itself: it had life, its own symbiotic mechanical group, and even its own small factory and production line. It could completely take care of itself, and even in extreme cases—such as when the entire ship was blown apart—complete self-regeneration. Lily was趴 (pā - leaning) on the window, staring at the ship outside the corridor with her mouth wide open, wishing she could stick to the window and move sideways. "That's our spaceship..."

She consciously added the three words "our spaceship"... The husky girl was actually very clever.

"Pretty impressive, right?" Hao Ren得意 (déyì - pleased with himself) to Vivian. "The space inside the ship is even bigger than the outside. There are space distortion devices inside, and the cargo hold can hold a skyscraper!"

Vivian exclaimed softly when she heard this, and then suddenly her eyes blurred, and she staggered as if she were drunk, almost falling to the ground!

Hao Ren was taken aback and quickly helped Vivian. "What's wrong? Are you not used to this environment?"

"It's not..." Vivian frowned, looking a little confused. "I suddenly felt like I was trapped in a container that was rolling around crazily, and I suddenly felt dizzy... Ugh, it's happening again!"

Before Vivian could finish speaking, she became dizzy again, but this time she was prepared and didn't stagger. However, her face suddenly became unsightly, and Hao Ren became nervous at this sudden change. "Wait, Lulu, go find a doctor. A vampire's physique might be allergic to something in space..."

"No, don't look for a doctor, I know what's going on," Vivian quickly waved her hand, looking at Hao Ren with a strange expression. "It's all your bad idea... I'll never use express delivery to send bats again!"

Hao Ren was stunned. "What?"

Vivian shook her head hard with a bitter face. "I encountered violent loading and unloading... Wow! It's happening again!"

Hao Ren: "..."

He then remembered that when he asked Vivian to contact the hermits hidden in various places, he gave her an idea to pack those small bats with runes and secret letters and send them by express delivery. No one thought too much about it at the time, and thought it was a brilliant idea, but Hao Ren and Vivian both forgot one thing: In some places, when sorting express deliveries, those boxes were thrown around like Tang Sect hidden weapons...

Vivian began to feel dizzy in waves. Obviously, several of her bat packages had arrived at the same transfer station. Now those unlucky little things were being sealed in glass bottles and thrown around, and Vivian felt the same way, so she was swaying back and forth as well. After half a minute of tossing, the vampire girl finally calmed down, her eyes looking forward with a sense of trance: "Landlord, don't ever believe the advertising of express delivery companies in the future... I have firsthand evidence here."

It was painful for Hao Ren to keep a serious expression in this situation, but he had to hold back from laughing out loud. "Are you feeling better now?"

"I'm fine, but I don't know if the other packages will encounter the same situation," Vivian shook her head, looking annoyed. "I've never encountered such a humiliating thing in my life! They actually dared to throw my clones around!"

Hao Ren wiped his cold sweat and dared not respond. He thought to himself that this sister didn't mention the experience of running to the church to wipe tables and sweep the floor when she was extremely down and out back then. Was it not humiliating at that time?

At this moment, he suddenly remembered something and quickly took out the data terminal and asked, "Wait, if Vivian goes to another world, will she still be able to contact her bats? Wouldn't those things be out of control?"

"This is indeed a problem," the data terminal replied. "She can't access the Imperial data network, so she definitely can't contact her clones across worlds, but this machine can set up the ship's relay antenna and open a separate relay channel for her, and then use some devices set up by Raven-in-charge on Earth to allow her to contact..."

"No need to contact, no need to contact!" Vivian suddenly waved her hand vigorously. "My bats have a part of my will, and if the connection is suddenly interrupted, they can complete the next simple task by themselves. Moreover, a complete interruption of contact is actually a good thing, so I don't have to worry about the demons discovering them and tracking them back. Hehe, hehehe... Let's get on the ship and set off quickly!"

Hao Ren silently glanced at Vivian. The vampire girl really couldn't fool anyone, and probably even Lily could see that she was afraid of being thrown around again...

After this little episode, everyone arrived near the entrance of the Giant Tortoise Rock. The moment Hao Ren approached, the ship's main computer sensed the captain's signal, and a faint humming sound came from inside the ship, followed by blue light pulses and flashing lights that began to light up all over the hull. A group of autonomous machines made happy gurgling whistles and returned to the ship's body from the carrier aircraft channel at the top of the hull, while the group entered this Inspector's ship, which was about to begin its first official mission, from the entrance at the bottom of the ship.

The control room was ready for departure. Hao Ren, Izhaks, Hilder, and the two girls who were excited about their first contact with the starry sky found their own positions in this circular hall and sat down. Lily didn't know what she was thinking of, and started waving her arms and posing on the seat: "Our goal is the stars and the sea! Let's head into the depths of the universe! Let's go! Let's... Landlord, Landlord, why isn't the ship moving yet?"

At this time, Hao Ren had just stuffed the noisy data terminal into the card slot, and while answering "It's coming soon, it's coming soon", he methodically began his operation as a trainee captain:

Check the route, confirm the route markers along the way, confirm the Kuiper Station guidance signal, confirm the ship's main computer data report, and then...

Switch to autopilot and take both hands off the console.