Chapter 156 A Cabal

The crashed spacecraft from the Dream Plane had been lying at the bottom of Blood Lake for several months, and it had been over a month since Hao Ren posted the missing ship notice. Only now had the owner of the ship finally shown up. Turns out they weren't some force from a civilization circle, but a pioneer trading company—an organization that didn't belong to any official force, and usually lurked in the boondocks where transportation and information were inconvenient, so naturally their reaction was a bit slow.

Hao Ren took this opportunity to inquire about what pioneer trading companies were all about, and learned that it was a phenomenon unique to the interstellar pioneering stage.

The universe was vast, with numerous stars. Given sufficient technological support, a race that had stepped into space faced an astonishing array of choices and opportunities for colonization—although these opportunities came with risks, to some brave pioneers who pursued them, the risks didn't matter. Pioneer trading companies were such people. They often came from different races or even different civilization circles. Their predecessors were merchants, mercenaries, exiled politicians, and even pirates. They had their own vast wealth and power, and the ability to establish their own kingdoms in this infinitely vast universe. Some races supported their members in this kind of pioneering, and they formed civilization forms like city-state alliances. Some more conservative races made private pioneering illegal—but no matter the system, interstellar pioneering never stopped, and it was bound to spread throughout the universe. The extreme vastness and emptiness of the universe made it difficult for ordinary civilization circles to completely constrain such pioneering activities, and so colonial planets established by pioneer groups developed in the gaps between major civilization circles. These colonial stars might initially be just transit stations for pirates or merchants, but when they developed to a certain scale, they had the ability to step onto the interstellar stage on their own and become active as small kingdoms. After being recognized by a civilization circle, these small kingdoms, usually with only a few colonial stars, gained legal interstellar status.

Under normal circumstances, such small kingdoms would not be very large in scale. They had their own tricks for surviving in the cracks between behemoths like "civilization circles," and even though their social forms, ways of life, and development histories varied greatly, the major civilization circles still uniformly called these small kingdoms "landed nations" (literal translation) for the sake of convenience.

And because half of the pioneer groups were merchants, or at least claimed to be merchants, the pioneer groups that established landed nations, whether their predecessors were caravans, pirates, or mercenaries, were collectively known as "pioneer trading companies" among the civilization circles.

An organization calling itself the "Kabbalah United Kingdom" had just announced that it was claiming the crashed spacecraft that Hao Ren had previously announced. This organization was a federation composed of more than a dozen pioneer trading companies, and such federations were very common among pioneer trading companies. Most of the members of this organization were pioneers from the Campbell Civilization Circle—a young civilization that was extremely enthusiastic about interstellar pioneering. They officially supported any interstellar pioneering activities that did not violate the Imperial Code, so in the desolate star regions around them, there were patches of small landed kingdoms under construction. Now this civilization circle had officially confirmed the legitimacy of the "Kabbalah United Kingdom" through official channels, and had sent a series of supporting documents to prove the latter's ownership of the crashed spacecraft.

Hao Ren was just waiting to meet with the representatives of those little green people at Kuiper Station tomorrow or the day after.

After Izhaks came back, Hao Ren told everyone about this matter. Everyone (except for the muddled Becky and Doudou, who only knew how to hold chopsticks and gnaw) was very happy. After this pending case was resolved, a weight was lifted from everyone's hearts. Izhaks thought more deeply: "We still have to consider how to transport that ship out of the Dream Plane, right? Isn't the Wall of Reality unstable?"

"I've discussed it with the terminal, and there's a highly feasible process," Hao Ren nodded. "First of all, the spacecraft is an inanimate object, so it won't cause too much harm when passing through the Wall of Reality. Secondly, this is transporting the spacecraft from the Dream Plane to the real world, so the impact of the whole process won't be too great. The only problem is to get the shipowners and their engineering team into the Dream Plane, and 'pry' the entire spacecraft out of the lake bottom without disturbing the local natives."

"This unit has applied for a large conversion device. This device will arrive in a few days and can be installed at Kuiper Station. That place has plenty of unused work pods. With those devices, a whole engineering team can be transferred to the Dream Plane through the 'dream' method. This kind of transfer is very safe, and the engineering machinery can be brought in with Hao Ren's portable space," the data terminal added from the side. "After arriving there, the landing point should be near Blood Lake. I don't know if the locals' search work in Blood Lake is still going on. We'll improvise when the time comes. Anyway, there's plenty of high technology. At worst, we'll create a big explosion nearby to attract the local garrison away, as long as we can get the engineering team to sneak into the lake bottom. This unit has learned about the technical level of that Kabbalah United Kingdom. Their own engineering team is enough to handle this kind of construction."

Hao Ren nodded: "I've also made arrangements for some other details."

"That's good," Izhaks said with a chuckle, stroking his shiny bald head. "If you have a plan, then I don't need to worry. But what's wrong with Lily?"

Lily had the back of her chair facing forward, and was lying on the back in an awkward position, listening to others speak. Behind her was a tail wrapped like a chicken leg (look how apt that description is!). But obviously, the girl was in a good mood. The beautiful prospect of her tail returning to normal even made her not feel that the gauze behind her was ugly: "Never mind, I'm getting a beauty treatment."

Hao Ren sighed: "This is the first time I've heard of someone getting a beauty treatment that targets their ass..."

As soon as Lily heard this, she let out a howl and pounced over, baring her fangs and brandishing her claws.

But this fight only lasted for less than a few seconds before being interrupted: Becky had been listening silently for a long time, and suddenly reacted: "That's right! Can I go home while we're at it?"

Hao Ren was raising his fists and desperately resisting Lily's mouthful of steel teeth, when he heard Becky's words, he froze stiffly on the spot. Lily hadn't reacted yet, and bit him on the arm—the rigid shield was activated on the spot, and a crisp "ding—" sound of metal clashing was heard. Lily covered her mouth and left Hao Ren's arm, tears welling up in her eyes: "You bastard... why didn't you dodge properly!"

"Cough cough..." Hao Ren tried hard to make his expression look natural, and racked his brains to try to fool Becky, but he had realized that this problem couldn't be delayed for too long—Becky wasn't stupid, she was just curious and had stayed on Earth for so many days with a touristy mentality. Now it seemed that it was impossible to make her completely forget about going home. Repeatedly avoiding this problem would only make her quickly become suspicious.

Some things had to be said sooner or later. Hao Ren felt that a long pain was worse than a short one, and finally sighed: "Becky... I have something to tell you, you... you drink some water first."

Becky took the water glass that Vivian handed over, puzzled. Then Hao Ren tapped the data terminal: "Play some soothing light music."

Finally, he took out a Buddhist scripture and handed it to Becky: "Read a few more pages of the Buddhist scripture to calm your mind. It would be even better if you could achieve enlightenment on the spot and realize that all four elements are empty..."

Becky couldn't bear it any longer: "What exactly do you want to say?"

Hao Ren spread his hands: "Actually, you can't go back—strictly speaking, you can only go back for a short time, but you can't stay in the Dream Plane for a long time. You, like us, have become a completely Earthling..."

The water glass in Becky's hand almost fell to the ground. She asked blankly: "What... does this mean?"

Only then did Hao Ren tell the other party the whole story as it was, and at the end he emphasized the fragile connection between the Dream Plane and the real world, and the serious consequences of forcibly placing a creature from the real world in the Dream Plane for a long time.

After Becky finished listening, she didn't move for a long time, and the expression on her face changed constantly, making it impossible to guess what she was thinking. Hao Ren confirmed that the girl didn't plan to suddenly jump up and chop people, so he carefully opened his mouth: "Actually, you can think about it—you can still go home, but the time you spend at home each time is shorter. Just think of it as moving, from the Dream Plane to Earth. Besides being forced to move, there's actually nothing..."

Becky waved her hand to interrupt Hao Ren's words: "It's okay, I understand... I just want to be quiet now. Also, don't ask me who 'Quiet' is."

Hao Ren breathed a sigh of relief. She could still be glib, which meant the problem wasn't big.