Chapter 987: Found
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The demon hunters seemed to have disappeared.
Rus.h.i.+ng over to their workplace, Hao Ren did not find Liu Sheng and Zhao Xi. However, it was almost a certainty that the ma.s.s disappearance of the demon hunters was true. He brought Rollie home and kept mumbling to himself on the way, “Half a month ago, the demon hunters showed no signs of abnormality. Going further back, they had even gone to the secret realm in South America with Ha.s.se. All of this happened not too long ago. What could have happened to the demon hunters now?”
Why did a powerful race which ended the Mythological Era, and a group of supernatural beings with no natural enemies on Earth disappear in such a short period? What made them go?
“We were occupied with the fleet of arks earlier and completely overlooked the demon hunters,” Hao Ren said, pouting as he was talking to the MDT telepathically. “Now they’re gone. There aren’t many clues that we can work on now,” he said.
“They couldn’t have just disappeared into thin air. Since it was a ma.s.s disappearance, there will be some clues left behind,” the MDT said in Hao Ren’s mind. “I suggest you release some energy-detecting probes. The demon hunters should have left behind some Letta rune residual energy. We can use it to trace where they’ve gone to.”
“Well, that’s the only thing we can do at the moment anyway. But I’m not prepared to seek Raven’s help just yet because of this little thing. I don’t know how she would react,” Hao Ren said.
He held Rollie’s hand and walked along the old alley of the Southern Suburbs, discussing with the MDT in his mind. He drove on the way out, but he decided to tuck his car away on the way back because he felt like he could think and focus more while he walked. Though this habit was not recommended, hey, who cared? He was a superhuman now. Rollie followed Hao Ren from behind timidly, appearing a little listless. Although Hao Ren had bought her two strings of grilled fish in the town, the cat maiden still regretted coming out with him as she missed the warm sofa cus.h.i.+ons at home.
The Southern Suburbs was remote and spa.r.s.ely populated. The weather was always colder compared to the city although the snow on the roads had almost melted completely. In the old alleys, the snow was still ankle-deep, which caused a squeaky noise while people walked across them. Hao Ren walked on the snow and glanced back over his shoulder, to make sure that the cat girl was still following him obediently. He made sure that she was not wandering off and that she was walking on two feet. He then continued to ponder about his stuff. At an intersection not far from them, a few stray cats were playing next to a rubbish bin. Well, they were not playing, more like fighting for the rights to some leftover food.
The little commotion attracted Rollie’s attention. She looked up, and the image of the garbage bin, as well as the strays reflected in her eyes, made her recall a distant memory. She still saw herself as the black and white stray from a few years ago. She used to live around garbage bins. In the winter, she would fight with the strong and hungry stray cats and dogs to fill her hungry stomach. During every snowy winter night, she would squat on a geothermal vent for the night and repeated the ritual day after day.
Even though she did not think of her life as difficult at that time, the cold and hunger still dominated her life a little. It was almost the only memory she had of the winter season.
One day, a big, strange cat suddenly appeared in front of her and handed her a string of dried fish, which tasted weird. Since then, the winter of her life was over.
While Hao Ren thought about saving the world and similar things, the essential element in Rollie’s life were the issues of hunger and cold. She stared at the strays at the intersection for a while, then she suddenly turned and rubbed against Hao Ren’s arm with her head, groaning from her throat.
Hao Ren was shocked by her sudden neurotic behavior, which interrupted his train of thought. “Hey, what are you doing?” he asked.
Rollie rubbed against his arm for a long while, almost pus.h.i.+ng the soft cap she wore off her head. She then looked up and said, “Big Boss Cat, you’re cute!” she said.
These were the only words of ‘praise’ she knew. No one knew where she learned those words from, but she pretty much remembered it.
“You’re sick,” Hao Ren said, pus.h.i.+ng Rollie away. While he did not mind Rollie doing that at home, it was a problem doing that on the street. The worse part was, she had a runny nose after walking in the cold for a while. It was disgusting to see her wiping her mucus on his arm. “What’s the matter?” he asked.
Jumping up and down around Hao Ren for a long while, Rollie began to think if she should lie on the ground and let Hao Ren scratch her belly. She felt that he had not scratched her stomach for a long time, which made her a little frustrated. But Hao Ren had quickly read her mind; he grabbed the cat girl by the collar and said, “If you dare lie on the ground, I’ll stop supplying you dried fish for a week!”
Thanks to the cat demon’s weird behavior, Hao Ren had utterly lost his train of thought. He petted her on the head and said, “Let’s head home and tell Vivian about what happened to Liu Sheng and Zhao Xi. We’ll see what she thinks.”
As he spoke, he glanced at the trash bin at the corner of the street from the corner of his eye. He petted Rollie on the head again and said, “No more rummaging through the trash bin.”
Just as his voice trailed off, a white light flashed across the sky in the distance, and a figure appeared out of thin air. Runes surrounded the figure. The runes flashed a few times in the air before disappearing altogether, and the figure dropped straight down, plopping into the huge, metal trash bin.
The stray cats around the trash bin were shocked and began to run for their lives.
“Did someone just fall from the sky?” Hao Ren was shocked. He would have taken out his mobile phone, snapped a photo and shared it on Weibo if this had happened two years ago. But he had undergone the baptism of many supernatural phenomena, so his first reaction now was, of course, to check if the person was okay.
Hao Ren ran up and peeked into the trash bin. The weather will chilly, and there was no foul smell from the garbage. He saw a girl clad in black with long, silver hair lying inside. Though her hair covered her face, she looked familiar.
Judging from the dress, he knew she was a demon hunter.
Hao Ren quickly bent over. With half of his body in the trash bin, he tried to pull the silver-haired girl out. Rollie got the shock of her life after she saw what happened. She jumped to the side and yelled, “Didn’t you say no more rummaging through the trash bin?”
It looked like Hao Ren was going to have a hard time teaching the dumb cat from now on.
He ignored the dumb cat and continued to pull the girl who fell from the sky out of the trash bin. It took him quite a while. When the girl was finally out of the bin, he was stunned. “White Flame?!”
She was that female demon hunter he came to know. No wonder she looked familiar, Hao Ren thought. But she was quite the sight now: pale, cold, and full of bruises. Her combat suit was soaked in her strange, white blood as if she was about to die from blood loss. Hao Ren put his finger under her nose; she was still breathing. “Oh, thank G.o.ddess. The trash bin cus.h.i.+oned your fall, and you’re still alive,” he said.
“Big Boss Cat, let me see!” Rollie was jumping up and down beside him, trying to catch a glimpse. Then, she exclaimed with surprise, “Ah, I know her. Is she being abandoned? Her mom must have had too many babies at one time.”
“She’s not a cat,” Hao Ren said, carefully carrying White Flame with both hands while glaring at the dumb cat. He looked around and made sure that no one was looking, then he called the MDT telepathically, “Teleport us back home.”
Back home, Lily and Nangong Wuyue were fighting for the TV, while Vivian was busy cleaning up the house. A s.p.a.ce door suddenly opened in the living room before Hao Ren hurriedly emerged from it. Lily was shocked and proceeded to scream before she asked, “Mr. Landlord, you’re back? Have you had your lunch? There’s still a little bit left. Oh, is that White Flame? What happened to her?”
Rollie got ahead of Hao Ren and said, “Just like me, abandoned. She was picked up from the trash bin.”
Lily was speechless.