Chapter 221 (1/2)

Hilda was silent on the way home. She was wearing the new clothing Hao Ren had bought her while her torn dress was in the shopping bag, which she considered incredible as well as wasteful. She gazed at the shopping bag and fell into deep thought.

They were walking on the empty streets in the Southern Suburbs. Hao Ren did not use teleportation; he needed to let Hilda experience the public transportation system on Earth for herself. It was to divert her attention so that the anxious elf queen could ease herself. After all, Hilda was only going to stay on Earth for three days. She was just a tourist. But, things did not work out the way he expected to. Hilda was not in the mood to explore. All the while, she frowned. She questioned the way humans lived on Earth. Then she spent the rest of the day getting lost in her own thoughts, worrying about her homeland.

She was not like that during the past few days in The Plane of Dreams. Most of the time, she was traversing the wilderness, sleeping in a simple and cramped watch-house, having little time to observe and judge people’s lifestyle. Nevertheless, she did once express her envy for the blue sky and natural forest in The Plane of Dreams—though Hao Ren did not give it any thought at that time. Noticing Hilda’s strange behaviour, Hao Ren could not help asking, “What is it like in your homeland?”

He once heard Hilda mention that she left due to scarcity of resources back home. Out of desperation, she left home searching for new life in a new world but, the portal she was travelling in malfunctioned and she was flung into The Plane of Dreams accidentally. Hao Ren did not pay attention to what she said back then.

Lack of resources. How severe was it?

Hilda remained silent for a moment. Then she pointed to an old, metal shelf abandoned at a street corner. The metal shelf was a typical advertisement light box in the Southern Suburbs during its booming years. “Can you see the metal that’s being wasted there?”

“I see.”

“We recycle all materials over and over again. The energy and chemicals needed for recycling are stored at Coronal Station near the star. It’s an installation to harness energy and trace elements from the sun’s radiation. Every year, thousands of elves die from the solar radiation and light disaster.”

Hao Ren was stunned.

Hilda noticed the expression on the man’s face. She smiled as though she expected it. “Hard to imagine, isn’t it? I was born there and I received better material rations than other elves. I couldn’t imagine what it’d be like in a world of plenty until I was teleported to the land of blue sky and fresh air in The Plane of Dreams.”

Hao Ren did not want to admit his ignorance but, he could not hide the fact that he was completely clueless about things in Hilda’s homeland. He bowed his head, wondering, as an agent, what he could do for her.

In silence, the two of them finally reached home. He decided to set aside, for now, all their problems—The Plane of Dreams, The Day of Return, unusual creatures, the falling ‘wall’, the spacecraft wreckage and its owner. There were too many things he had to think about. It was better to deal with them one at a time, he thought.

“I’m back!” Hao Ren stood at the door, greeting everyone. Then, a voice was heard coming out from the kitchen. “Welcome back! Take a rest. Lunch will be ready soon!” It was Vivian.

Hao Ren loved this life: the noisy tenants were not just any other tenants. They shared with him a special identity and secrets. They were like a family giving warmth to one another. It did not matter who, when one got home, there would always be someone there. This was home.

Just a few months back when Hao Ren was all alone, there was just the silly cat rolling on the floor greeting him when he got home everyday. But now he always had a tableful of home-cooked food waiting for him to come home.

And not to forget there was also the silly husky who spun its tail like it was going to broke off.

As Hao Ren entered the living room, Lily immediately buried her head into a pile of snacks Hao Ren had brought back. Her tail wagged while she looked for her favourite snacks. “Where are my spicy sticks?”

“Don’t take too many spicy sticks.” Hao Ren sighed. “It could trigger an involuntary formshifting.”

Like we’ve said before, Lily was the only werewolf in history affected not by moonlight but, by spicy sticks.

Lily mumbled a few words as she darted to the fridge. At that moment, Hao Ren noticed a girl whom he had never seen before, sitting on the couch: she was clad in casual wear and her maroon hair casually draped over her shoulders. She had wheat-colored skin, which gave the impression that she was mixed race. She watched the TV as she cumbersomely played with the remote controller. She turned her head around and waved at Hao Ren when she realized that Hao Ren was staring at her.