Chapter 1

The night was deep.

All was silent in the southern suburbs. Not a single light could be seen in any house, and not even a cat or dog could be found in the streets. Except for the streetlights, which shone with a cold brilliance throughout the night, the entire district was completely immersed in the quiet darkness, as if frozen in the night.

The clouds in the sky obscured the crescent moon. Behind the thick clouds, only a glimmer of light escaped through the cracks, the half-hidden moonlight seemingly tinged with a hint of scarlet, barely managing to spill onto the roof of the Hao family mansion, carrying a blurry, illusory quality.

A flurry of flapping wings suddenly broke the silent night, which seemed as if it would freeze forever. The clouds in the sky also seemed to retreat at once, and bright moonlight suddenly poured down from between the clouds, and in the moonlight, a dark mass of bats spiraled down from the sky.

The bats circled above the Hao family mansion twice in surprisingly neat order, then flew into the house through the open skylight. The faint moonlight that had been shining into the corridor through the skylight suddenly dimmed and was fragmented by the swarm of bats. The bats quickly converged in the corridor, and in the blink of an eye, they gathered into an elegant and slightly aloof black-haired girl.

Vivian had returned from her "walk". She looked back at the moonlight outside and saw that the moon had been covered by clouds again, this time making even that glimmer of light difficult to find.

The house was quiet, which was normal. It was nearly 1:30 a.m., and even the most nocturnal "Gun" and the insomniac Elizabeth should have gone back to their rooms to rest. Only she, the "vampire" with a unique biological clock, could stay awake at this hour and go out for a long walk. In fact, if she hadn't felt that she hadn't been sleeping well these past few days, Vivian would have stayed out even longer.

Thinking about her sleep problems, Vivian couldn't help but stretch and yawn, preparing to return to her room to rest.

But before returning to the basement, she went to the kitchen. First, she added rice and water to the automatic rice cooker and set it for the next day, then she went to the sink and filled a large basin with tap water to let it sit in the kitchen. The former was to make cooking easier when she got up in the morning, and the latter was because Dou Dou preferred to swim in tap water that had been left to sit for a few hours, as this could more effectively dissipate the strange smell in the tap water.

After finishing in the kitchen, she checked the amount of water in the water dispenser, because a certain careless big dog often emptied the last drop of water from the dispenser but didn't bother to change the bottle. She cleaned up some crumbs on the coffee table, which should be evidence of Gun sneaking up to eat in the middle of the night. If she didn't clean it up, that silly cat would probably be lectured by Hao Ren until noon.

Vivian put her hands on her hips and looked around the living room, feeling fulfilled and satisfied.

Finally, she returned to her room in the basement.

She didn't turn on the light, but simply hummed a few simple melodies, so that even without relying on dark vision, the sound waves reflected from the surroundings were enough for her to discern every detail in the darkness. The electricity saved this way was actually minimal, but Vivian was very used to this thrifty way of doing things. Even now that she had plenty to eat and wear, some long-established habits were not so easy to change.

She waved her hand again, and a group of bats appeared out of thin air and surrounded her, transforming the clothes on her body into a black nightgown. Then she lay on the bed, ready to go to sleep.

But soon, she sat up again and frowned slightly in the darkness, listening intently to a sound coming from a certain direction.

She heard someone calling her name again, and it was still that inexplicable auditory hallucination.

These auditory hallucinations were not appearing for the first time. They had appeared at least seven or eight times in the past few days, and each time they were so real that it was difficult to tell whether they were real or not.

Vivian shook her head and placed her hand on the amulet from Raven 12345 on her chest, and a feeling of peace and tranquility gradually surged up.

The auditory hallucination was only a momentary thing, and it quickly disappeared as if it had never appeared. Under the amulet's forced calming effect, she felt a little sleepiness slowly magnifying, so she put those unimportant things aside, lay back on the bed, and slowly fell into a dream.

The basement returned to silence. Only the medical pods and space transfer devices in the compartments occasionally emitted a soft hum while on standby. Deep darkness gathered from all directions, and everything was quiet in the darkness.

But after a while, some vague, indistinguishable things gradually emerged from the darkness.

In the corner of the basement, on the dark ceiling, and beside Vivian's sleeping bed, phantom-like things were gradually emerging. At first, they were a deep, turbid black, almost blending in with the surrounding darkness, but gradually these things took on more real colors and quickly stood out from the darkness in the background. These chaotic and blurry shadows became clear and began to take on various forms: birds and beasts, people and carriages, palace walls and pavilions, and even mountains, forests, lakes, and seas…

The space in the basement seemed to be expanded countless times in an instant, and it was as if the walls and furniture around had disappeared out of thin air, turning into a boundless world. In the darkness, apart from the bed on which Vivian was lying, all that remained were various phantoms moving around. They were piled up on top of each other in a mixed and overlapping manner, like scenes from a historical farce with temporal distortions and ridiculous logic. All sorts of things that had long since vanished into smoke were making their appearance in these scenes.

A Viking pirate walked out of the shadows. He was bare-chested, and several fine cracks ran across his horned helmet. He came to Vivian's bed, but one foot was suspended in mid-air as he struck a gazing pose. An inexplicable splash of water rolled up from under his feet, and then the wooden gunwale and messy ropes appeared under his feet.

Then a flash of fire streaked across the sky, and the Viking pirate shattered like glass. A fleet caught up from behind the pirate ship, the fleet flying the flags of the Greek city-states. An ancient Greek naval officer stood at the bow of the ship, drawing his long knife and pointing it at the terrifying sea monster that was emerging from the water.

Poseidon emerged from the head of Vivian's bed. The giant, whose beard and hair were as thick as seaweed, pointed his trident at the Greek warships, and countless warships were instantly torn to pieces by the wind and waves.

An endless expanse of yellow sand replaced the raging ocean in the next moment. Persians wearing long robes trekked across the desert. A merchant driving a camel stopped in front of Vivian's bed. He bent down, but his gaze did not fall on the bed at all. Obviously, he saw something else in his own time and space.

A long sword suddenly slashed through the illusion of the Persian merchant, and then, like locusts, crossbow bolts blotted out the sky and covered the earth. The Persian merchant caravan disappeared, and an army covered in black armor appeared in the distance. The mighty officer shouted on his horse, "The King of Qin has ordered that meritorious service be recorded for the heads of enemies, regardless of noble or humble origin, all bravely kill the enemy!"

However, the general's words were swallowed by the wind and sand, and his army quickly became a phantom drifting in the yellow sand. In the sandstorm that blotted out the sky and covered the earth, an airborne battleship that seemed to be made of gold slowly passed across the sky, its brilliantly shining giant sails almost comparable to the sun.

Countless prostrating people appeared. They prostrated themselves in the yellow sand, beside the pyramids, and in the fertile soil on the banks of the Nile. Whether they were princes, nobles, or common people, they all praised the name of Ra and extolled the majesty of Horus.

However, a powerful light struck from the west, and the sun ship was torn to pieces in a huge explosion. The whole of Egypt was plunged into a sea of fire.

The chaotic and mixed history was still being staged in this absurd drama, but only that small bed in the heaven and earth was like an isolated island, unaffected. Vivian frowned on the bed, as if she was dreaming of something bad.

She turned over, and all the phantoms vibrated violently, silently collapsing into fragments that filled the sky, as if the world was collapsing. Mount Olympus collapsed, and Ra's temple was also collapsing. Pompeii, Troy, Asgard, Thinis, Babylon, and the legendary Tower of Babel… everything began to collapse.

But this silent collapse suddenly stopped, because Vivian calmed down again. She murmured a few words, perhaps about tomorrow's menu, perhaps about things to buy for the house, or perhaps about the name of a certain TV show. In short, she fell back into a peaceful sleep, and the phantoms of the basement were able to be preserved.

After maintaining a moment of eerie silence, these phantoms receded like a tide, and the original scene of the basement was finally revealed again.

But not everything had faded away. Beside Vivian's bed, some translucent things still lingered there. They were a circle of primitive people wearing animal skins and with disheveled hair. They formed several circles, and the firelight from another time and space shone on their faces, making these primitive people look as terrifying and hollow as ghosts. They prostrated themselves beside Vivian, repeatedly bowing down and kissing the ground around Vivian. Their voices came from another time and space, subtle and blurred:

"Great, King of Blood, great, King of Nightmares, great, King of Death…"

The deep night was gathering in all directions. Finally, this last phantom also disappeared.

The dark clouds in the sky had dispersed at some point, and a crescent moon was once again revealed in the sky. It was about to sink below the horizon, but it was still emitting a bright moonlight that was almost abnormally bright. This moonlight shone into the room through a narrow vent above the basement, shining directly on Vivian.

Under the last ray of moonlight tonight, Vivian turned over again. Seeming to be affected by the light, she frowned and murmured softly:

"Time to get up…"