Chapter 1 The Rare Sunny Day

It was half past eight in the morning, and another rare sunny day in this northern city. The warm sunlight streamed through the large glass windows, making people feel warm and lazy. Lily was sprawled comfortably on a lounge chair that had just been moved out of the basement, basking in the sun. Hao Ren and Vivian, each holding a pair of large scissors, were busy behind the girl, snipping away. As the scissors danced, strands of snow-white fur floated to the ground. Lily glanced back and sighed, "Cutting off three thousand strands of worldly cares, leaving clarity in the heart..."

Hao Ren reached out and slapped her. "It's just a haircut, why are you sighing like you're taking vows?"

Lily yawned lazily, her ears twitching lightly in the sunlight. "It's so comfortable... Bat, be careful, trim it neatly, okay?"

Vivian snipped away at the fur. "Don't worry, I used to shear sheep, I'm skilled at this. But to be honest, what's the point of trimming it neatly now? You'll just grow it back in two or three more rounds. I really want to shave you clean, so it might grow back more evenly..."

Lily shuddered at the thought and glared at Vivian. "Don't you dare! You'll ruin my looks!"

It didn't take long for Hao Ren and Vivian to trim Lily's tail back to normal. He patted the fluffy, silky-smooth tail and let the husky check the results herself. She jumped off the lounge chair, turned to look, and wagged her tail with a satisfied expression. "Mmm, it feels much better now!"

Vivian, while cleaning up the scattered fur, grinned at Lily. "Don't get too happy, it'll grow back soon. At least until tomorrow."

Hao Ren watched Lily circling around, examining her tail, and then looked at the pile of dog hair on the ground. His stomach was full of things he wanted to say, but he didn't know where to start. He really hadn't expected that living with a demon girl would involve such details. How to put it... it felt subtle and fun, but also a bit challenging to his values. Watching Vivian clean up, he couldn't help but ask, "Can this stuff really be used to knit a scarf?"

He reached out and pinched some of the silver-white fur, feeling its smoothness and unique elasticity. The thought that it had been cut from Lily's tail made him feel awkward. But Vivian, unlike Hao Ren, didn't have any special feelings about the fur. In her eyes, these fluffs were no different from ordinary wool. "It definitely won't work directly. They are not suitable for spinning thread, but I can process it with magic. The final effect should be similar to wool, guaranteed to be warm..."

"That's right!" Lily showed off proudly. "My ancestors dominated the polar transportation industry, isn't it obvious that we are resistant to the cold!"

Then she also pinched those white hairs with a strange look on her face: "But why didn't I ever think about this before? I threw away the fur that fell out every year when I shed... Thinking about it now, it's such a waste, I could have saved it up to fill a pillow."

Hao Ren felt like he couldn't keep up with this kind of value-shattering topic - in fact, his values hadn't recovered since he saw Lily bouncing out of the room like a Mote of Light in the morning. At this point, no matter what happened, he faced it with a "this old monk has given up on the world" mentality. Anyway, Vivian could do whatever she wanted, she knew more about the demon girl's lifestyle than anyone else. At this time, Nangong Wuyue also curiously came over, she stared at Lily's tail and thought of another thing: "By the way, Lily, there is something I have always wanted to ask you, but I was too embarrassed to ask: why is your fur white?"

Lily's ears stood up straight. "Because I have a noble bloodline! Don't you think a Moonlit Silver Wolf is pretty awesome?"

"But I remember that huskies aren't this color..."

As soon as Lily heard the word "husky," she immediately wilted, and patted her head as if she had just realized something. "Oh, that's right, I'm a husky, so what's up with the color?"

Hao Ren thought for a while: "Did your mom run out of ink while she was giving birth?"

Lily glared at Hao Ren immediately upon hearing this, pounced on him with a loud howl, Hao Ren broke away and ran through the living room to the kitchen, and from the kitchen to the second floor… but Lily at least upheld the werewolf’s tenacity in this regard, and would never let go once she had a lock on her prey—she was really biting—she didn't open her mouth until lunchtime, and Hao Ren’s shield was bitten in half with her teeth…

By the afternoon, everything was as Vivian had predicted. Lily's tail had indeed begun to grow wildly again, but this time the silly husky gave full play to her ethnic style and faced this matter with composure. She skillfully went to prepare the scissors and other things herself and called Hao Ren and Vivian to help. Looking at her happy appearance, Hao Ren suspected that this girl thought everything was a good thing in her mind: including the time she overdid it with the hair restorer while trying to fix her tail and ended up becoming a cotton candy spirit…

But this time Hao Ren didn't have time to mess with Lily's tail, because just as he picked up the scissors and was about to go over to help, the data terminal suddenly received a call from the Kuiper Station: the little green men from the Kabala United Kingdom had arrived.

Hao Ren quickly packed up his things, changed into a formal suit, and headed to Kuiper Station. This time he didn't bring anyone with him except for the data terminal: it wasn't a dangerous mission or a long-term business trip, but just a meeting with a few little green men to discuss engineering rescue issues, and he thought he could handle it.

Of course, there was another reason: he looked at the people in his family and found that taking them out was only helpful for fighting. Izhaks had seen the world, but every time he did, he was using meteorites to smash people…

Kuiper Station was as cold and desolate as ever. This transfer space station, located in a remote and desolate area, always had only a small group of staff working there. Hao Ren opened his eyes from the light of the teleportation, and unsurprisingly saw the familiar guide girl Lulu in front of him. Lulu bowed to Hao Ren with a giggle, deliberately putting on a serious face and pretending to be stern: "Inspector, your meeting room is ready."

Hao Ren smiled and nodded, following Lulu towards the core tower of the space station. While passing through an open connecting corridor, he saw several strange-looking spaceships in an outer docking bay. The spaceships had a uniform paint scheme, obviously from the same force, but their shapes and structures were all different, seemingly custom-made from various standard parts, which seemed to indicate that these spaceships came from different manufacturers. He asked curiously: "What are those ships?"

"That's the fleet from the Kabala United Kingdom," Lulu explained with a smile. "This alliance is a united force composed of many states, and the people who came this time are also representatives from different states, so the spaceships are not very much alike. They attach great importance to this matter, and it seems that each state has sent its highest diplomatic official."

Hao Ren happened to want to learn about these little green men before the meeting, and asked casually since Lulu seemed to be familiar with them: "Then tell me about this United Kingdom, I've only read some information in the public database, and I don't know much about their cultural taboos."

Lulu waved her hand with a grin: "Cultural taboos are not very important, the Imperial Code stipulates the standards for handling cultural differences when various civilizations communicate, and diplomats know how to deal with this. As for the Kabala United Kingdom... it is a state that was established not long ago, and is subordinate to the Campbell civilization circle. First of all, let's talk about the Campbell civilization circle, ninety percent of the population of this civilization circle are Campbells, and the remaining ten percent are elite members of the robots they manufacture who have obtained citizenship. This race has a strong curiosity, and their most famous characteristic is their spirit of exploration of the universe – this is also the core of their culture. The Campbells are enthusiastic about exploring the stars. Basically, as long as they have the strength, they will immediately start research in a brand new field. This is almost the entire driving force of their social development. They are constantly launching spaceships into the uninhabited areas, not for occupation, nor for hegemony, but just to see what is there, they are such a strange race. The Kabala United Kingdom is the most pioneering group of people among them. In the beginning, they were just a group of pioneers and explorers, but they accidentally flew too far and lost contact with their home star for a while, so they simply set up camp on a few planets and established states. In recent years, they have reconnected with their civilization circle, and they have become an independent regime recognized by the Campbell civilization circle..."

Hao Ren listened with amazement: "A group of explorers who don't care about their lives?"

"That's the gist of it," Lulu nodded, "Travelers can often find colonies and states of all sizes near the Campbell civilization circle, some of which even the Campbell civilization circle themselves don't know about, and those are all established by explorers who accidentally flew too far. Interstellar sailors have an old saying to describe these explorers: Campbells are not afraid of death, they are just afraid of not dying far enough – even their funerals are unique, they can sense that they are about to die, and before they die they will try to put themselves in any possible launchable object, they believe that whoever flies the farthest before breathing their last breath can receive the protection of the Campbell ancestors after death, and even become one of the ancestors."

Lulu said, suddenly paused: "Oh, I forgot to tell you, 'I hope you die as far away as possible' – this is a common farewell greeting between them and their friends, representing their best wishes, don't misunderstand later."

Hao Ren: "..."