Chapter 1 Hao Ren's New Ride

Hao Ren compiled everything he had seen and heard at the Athens Sanctuary, especially the latest intelligence regarding the Origin Artifact and the Homecoming Plan, into a report and sent it to Raven 12345. Then he had nothing to do. His next plan was to study the things he had brought back from the Sanctuary, but he needed time to wait for the research facilities to be set up.

And this research facility was not on Earth.

The "Origin Artifact" brought back from the ruins was huge, and there was no room to even put it in the house. In addition, there was a large pile of miscellaneous samples that needed to be analyzed. Hao Ren realized that he needed a special research place to handle these things, and this research place should be hidden enough – so that he wouldn't have to worry about it being exposed even in the event of natural or man-made disasters. After thinking about it, renting a black factory or contracting a small coal mine was unreliable. With those wizards who fell asleep in the mountains and were blown up by dynamite as a cautionary tale, it was better to put the laboratory in a relatively remote place—such as on the spaceship parked in the Kuiper Belt.

Living on Earth and conducting research in the Kuiper Belt, the distance between the two places felt subtle. Hao Ren felt that he could also say something awesome to others: My house is so big that I have to use hyperspace transmission to go to the studio every day, and it takes more than ten years to fly there by rocket...

He installed that fixed teleporter in the basement last night to prepare for this. He has realized that as he becomes more familiar with his work and comes into contact with more and more things, he will inevitably travel frequently between Earth and the spaceship. His tenants will also have to run around with him from time to time, and each time using the data terminal's transmission was not very comfortable, and he had to be present to send people to the spaceship. These limitations finally made him decide to install a portal in his home. After the portal was installed, he sent all the junk in his personal space (including the Origin Artifact) to the hangar of the Petrified Tortoise. Now the autonomous machines on the spaceship have started a scientific research cabin and moved everything in. Next, those mechanical squid will do a preliminary analysis of the Origin Artifact and let the spaceship factory produce some supporting research tools. Hao Ren is now waiting for the completion report of the scientific research cabin.

The millennia-old hole in Hesperides' forehead was finally confirmed to be completely healed, and the exorcism power left by the demon hunter was also completely cleared under the effect of divine magic. Now her only problem was her whole body was weak: the power of the goddess's name not only dispelled the demon hunter's spells, but also cleared Hesperides' magic power, and the latter probably had to spend three to five days to recover. Vivian also hoped that her old friend could be a guest at home for a few days, so Hesperides had to stay here and rest slowly before she fully recovered.

Hao Ren didn't have any objection to this. Anyway, his house was originally for people to live in, and all the expenses of the tenants in the house are now reimbursed by the Space-Time Administration at a high rate. He even wished that every room in his house was full of people.

Anyway, as long as there are no accidents.

It was now more than nine in the morning. Lily went out for her routine rounds, Yizaks also went to various employers to scare the front desk girls as usual, and Becky and Nangong Wuyue went out early in the morning, and they didn't know where they were shopping at this time. When these people left, the house naturally seemed much quieter, so Hao Ren took advantage of this quietness to do something a father should do: educate Dou Dou.

Dou Dou had been hatched from the egg for… anyway, it had been a long time. Hao Ren had basically figured out the little mermaid's living habits, her preferences and personality. This little guy, apart from being more fond of seeking death than ordinary children, was no different from ordinary children with strong curiosity. Of course, her learning was even better than ordinary children—she could roughly understand what adults were saying not long after she was born, and her intelligence was obviously much higher than that of ordinary Earth children.

So Hao Ren had been busy educating Dou Dou recently. He held the little guy and stared at her with big eyes, teaching his daughter to speak with a silly smile: "Call me daddy."

Everyone knows Dou Dou's intelligence. The little guy learns everything quickly. She flicked her tail and patted Hao Ren's face twice, with a crisp voice: "Call me daddy!"

Hao Ren felt that there might be something wrong with his teaching method, so he awkwardly put the little guy down, pointed to his face and said concisely: "Daddy!"

"Oh."

Hao Ren: "..."

In fact, the two had been tossing around for half an hour for this one word, so you see, taking care of children is a very hard work, especially taking care of children with higher intelligence - I don't know which unreliable guy in the family this fish learned from!

But Hao Ren enjoyed it. What he liked was the process of fooling around with the little mermaid, so he continued to tirelessly teach the little guy to recognize things and speak human language. But Dou Dou quickly became bored with this kind of thing. She seized the opportunity and jumped off the coffee table with a thud, ran quickly to the bottom of the TV cabinet and hugged the power strip and started to gnaw on it. Hao Ren looked at the little guy's innocent and lovely appearance and was still happy: "Hey, look at this kid really... Damn, you can't bite that thing!"

He rushed up and pulled Dou Dou off the power strip, and was horrified to find that the latter had almost bitten through and could see the copper sheet.

"I think instead of teaching this child to speak, you should first teach her some common sense so that she doesn't seek death all day long," Vivian came over with her small box for needlework, "Didn't the goddess say that because of the harsh living conditions, the newborns of this kind of mermaid develop their mobility the fastest after they are born, and Dou Dou may also have the habit of grinding her teeth. I saw her gnawing on the gas tank in the kitchen early in the morning—fortunately, she couldn't gnaw on that thing."

When Hao Ren heard this, he suddenly broke out in a cold sweat: "Is this child already so ferocious?"

Vivian nodded, took out a tape measure and gestured on Dou Dou's body. The little guy probably felt very itchy, giggled and twisted her tail. Vivian nodded to Hao Ren: "Help me hold her down."

Hao Ren held Dou Dou down and asked curiously, "What are you doing?"

"Making her two new clothes," Vivian measured Dou Dou's upper body with a tape measure, and finally measured the little guy's length, "Haven't you noticed that this child has grown a little?"

Only then did Hao Ren remember that when he was holding Dou Dou recently, he seemed to feel that she was a little heavier than before, but he had a question he couldn't understand: "Speaking of mermaids... should we say she's taller or longer?"

Vivian looked down at Dou Dou and stared at her for a while: "...It should be calculated by length."

Dou Dou blinked her eyes and looked at the adults talking curiously, then pulled her tail hard, indicating that she had indeed grown longer.

Just then, Hao Ren suddenly heard a clanging sound from the direction of the back door, and at the same time, a strange white light flashed past the narrow glass window next to the back door.

He was wondering what was going on when he heard the data terminal exclaim excitedly: "Hey, your salary for this month has arrived, go and see quickly—the car you wanted!"

When Hao Ren heard this, his face was filled with surprise. He had said before that he wanted to apply for a car for short-distance missions, but after applying, he temporarily put the matter aside: he thought that according to Raven 12345's style, it would take at least a few months for this matter to be implemented, but he didn't expect it to be so fast.

He conveniently put Dou Dou in his arms and ran out of the back door happily, and saw his new car parked in the open space behind the house.

Hao Ren: "..."

"This is a good thing," the data terminal floated out, introducing it like an old profiteer, "Inspectors originally don't have a car, but Chief Raven specially took care of you and asked her friend to design one for you. This car has a large-capacity shield, which is more durable than the rigid shield on your body. The overall structure is cast according to the starship alloy standard. It is durable, lightweight, safe and reliable. It uses the military's standard psionic energy reactor, so you don't have to worry about energy problems before the end of the world. The lines are tough and atmospheric, with a panoramic driving position with a wide field of vision, stepless transmission, intelligent navigation, internal constant temperature, and a space expansion device. More importantly, its appearance perfectly fits the Earth's style, so you don't have to worry about this thing attracting unnecessary attention when driving outside..."

Hao Ren listened silently, and threw the data terminal out: "Explain to me first why it looks like this!"

The data terminal was still shouting while flying out: "But the focus is on the connotation!"

"Connotation your ass! This thing can't even get into the Third Ring Road!" Hao Ren shouted, jumping up and down, "Don't you know that the city bans tricycles?"