Chapter 206 The Abstract Goddess

Vivian noticed Hao Ren studying the mural, and she came over to join him. "Looks pretty weird, right?"

"What the heck is this supposed to be?" Hao Ren knew that Vivian had been inquiring about things related to the church when she was in Luntemburg, so he turned to ask her.

Vivian shrugged. "That's their goddess, according to them."

Hao Ren: "...That's what their goddess looks like?!"

"Abstract expressionism," Vivian said, frowning at the bizarre scene. "To be honest, I also think they painted their goddess a little too ugly. Aren't they afraid that the goddess will see herself being painted like this and destroy the world again in a fit of anger?"

Hao Ren silently looked at the blob of heavy black-red paint and fluorescent powder that had been randomly smeared to create the "goddess image." He couldn't understand what the people of the Radiant Church were thinking. He wondered what the consequences would be if the followers of Raven 12345 (if she had any) painted her something like this. Optimistically speaking, getting struck by lightning a hundred or eighty times a day wouldn't be enough. At the same time, he admired the religious painters of the Radiant Church: it was a skill to be able to paint something so irregular. It was really hard on her followers that the goddess looked so abstract.

Vivian looked at the mural for a while and then turned her eyes away. "You keep studying it. This ugly goddess is giving me a headache."

Who wouldn't get a headache looking at this thing? Hao Ren immediately lost interest in studying it. He returned to the center of the church and found that Lily had taken off her mask and was sniffing around on the ground. Izhaks was drawing green runes in the air, studying the energy residue in the vicinity in a demon's way. Nangong Wuyue was creating a water ball in the air, letting Dou Dou swim around in it—although this last one was useless for the mission itself, it was the most creative. Who could come up with this kind of gameplay without the leisure to count melon seeds?

But there didn't seem to be any evidence left in the church. Hao Ren had originally hoped to find the fluctuations left after the space gate opened, but there was nothing here, only a large pit and an abstract painting of the goddess that gave him a headache.

Dou Dou saw Hao Ren passing by and immediately jumped into the water ball, leaping onto Hao Ren's arm and hanging on it like an armband. The latter looked at the outside through the long, narrow window in the lower part of the church (just a rectangular hole, he didn't know what it was for, but he could see outside). He remembered the scene described by the noble knight who was responsible for guarding the Orb on the night it disappeared.

Earthquake, strange pillars of light in the sky, the lake water boiling and churning, and strange floating phosphorescence rising from the lake's surface.

He decided to go to the bottom of the lake to see what was going on.

The Radiant Church had not yet sent anyone to search the bottom of Lake Beinz. On the one hand, the lake was sacred, and the remains of the past popes were said to be buried under the island in the center of the lake, so no one dared to rashly extend the search to the bottom of the lake. On the other hand, the water in Lake Beinz was really strange. Ordinary people, even the most skilled church knights, would quickly lose consciousness and develop strange diseases if they soaked in this water, and this situation would become more serious with the depth of the dive, so no one had ever checked the conditions at the bottom of the lake.

But Hao Ren planned to dive down and take a look. He instinctively felt that this was a highly suspicious blind spot.

Since the outside was heavily guarded, the group couldn't go out through the main entrance, so they teleported directly back to the shore of the lake. Hao Ren told everyone his idea, and Nangong Wuyue immediately hesitated a bit: "Are you sure you want to go down? This water isn't normal. What if there's a contagious disease?"

"Can't you control water? And cure all kinds of diseases by the way?" Hao Ren looked at Nangong Wuyue. "You even tested it specially when you came. Isn't the water in the blood lake nothing special to you?"

"I heard that the deeper you go into the blood lake, the more obvious the strange power contained in the water becomes. The bottom of the lake is an untouched forbidden area," Nangong Wuyue said, feeling a little uneasy. "If I start losing scales at that time, you have to be responsible for healing me."

"Don't worry, we have a real goddess backing us up." Hao Ren waved his hand with great momentum, but in that moment of waving his arm, he felt a lightness on his arm, and something shiny jumped off him. Then he heard a splash from the lake not far away.

Dou Dou jumped out again!

This little girl had been brought out by Hao Ren several times, and now she had finally lifted her guard against the vast world outside and began to be curious about everything. This time, when she saw such a large body of water in front of her (although it was red), the little girl immediately forgot the thrilling scene of almost being washed away by the river that day and jumped into the lake happily as Hao Ren swung his arm!

"Oh crap!" Hao Ren exclaimed and rushed to the lake, but he only saw a few flashes of phosphorescence under the moonlight, and the little merman had already swam away.

Vivian also became anxious. "Get her out of there!"

Nangong Wuyue jumped into the water without being told and completed the transformation the moment she entered the water. She threw her clothes onto the shore after freezing them into an ice ball and then plunged into the water with a flick of her golden-red tail. Hao Ren and the others waited anxiously on the shore for a while and finally saw a light red water ball floating up from the lake. Dou Dou was happily swimming around in the water ball. The little girl seemed to want to swim outside the water ball, but Nangong Wuyue controlled the water flow to keep the little girl hovering near the center of the water ball.

Nangong Wuyue poked her head out of the lake, grabbed the little girl, and threw her to Hao Ren. "Keep an eye on your daughter! Don't let her court death!"

Hao Ren quickly hugged the little merman, who twisted restlessly in Hao Ren's arms and then spat out water: she didn't seem to like the salty lake water in the blood lake, but other than that, she seemed fine.

Looking at Dou Dou's still energetic appearance, Hao Ren nodded blankly. "It seems that the lake water is really no problem, at least for Dou Dou..."

Nangong Wuyue splashed out of the water. Since she had to put on clothes to return to human form, she simply swayed to Hao Ren's side in mermaid form. "By the way, why does this child like courting death so much? It's like she's been walking through a sea of knives and fire since she was born."

Hao Ren thought about it and realized that it was true: Dou Dou was incubated by boiling water, and the first thing she did after birth was to jump towards the burning gas stove. She was interested in the kitchen knife rack and loved to suddenly jump on the ground and scare people when her family members were walking around. Finally, she often teased cats—as a fish teasing cats.

Immediately, he hugged Dou Dou tightly and didn't dare to let go: he was fine if he didn't recall it, but after recalling it, he suddenly realized that this child had been courting death all along!

At this time, Dou Dou poked her head out of Hao Ren's arms and happened to see Nangong Wuyue's mermaid form. The little girl froze for a moment.

A lot of thoughts flashed through her tiny little brain, and then she finally became completely confused and babbled loudly.

Hao Ren was startled by the little girl's sudden ruckus. "What's this child saying?"

Nangong Wuyue was communicating with the lake water, preparing for everyone to go down. Hearing this, she casually touched Dou Dou's forehead, and the moment her mind connected, she jumped up. "How is this child's brain wired?"

Hao Ren became even more curious when he saw this. "What did she say?"

Nangong Wuyue's tail was beating hard on the beach, and her entire face turned red. She put her hands on her hips and shouted at Dou Dou. "I'm not your grandma! Nor am I the mistress your dad is keeping! I can't give birth to a pot! You won't have a lid on your head when you grow up! Your dad doesn't have flames under his body when he sleeps at night because he's not a pot either! The reason your mom can't speak is because she's made of iron! I don't usually have a tail not because I don't eat enough chopsticks! Your dad doesn't have a tail not because he's arguing with your mom! The tap water pipe isn't a passage to grandma's house! What does it have to do with you that there are three purple and gold flower patterns on my tail—I'm a sea siren, you're a mermaid! I can even turn into a mantis shrimp, can you?"

The scene fell silent immediately. Hao Ren would never have imagined that so many messy but subtly related questions would pop out of Dou Dou's little brain in just that instant. Even Izhaks, who didn't usually speak much, squeezed out a sentence: "How is this child's brain wired?"

Dou Dou was shocked by Nangong Wuyue's barrage of scolding, but she soon became even more confused and babbled even louder. This time, Nangong Wuyue refused to translate at all. Hao Ren, the bewildered father, could only hug his fish daughter and comfort her for a while. After a long time, the farce finally calmed down.

The little girl managed to completely ruin the atmosphere of what was supposed to be a serious mission.