For three consecutive nights, Hao Ren did not have a bad dream and he firmly believed that the Eight Trigrams Vivian gave him had nothing to do with it.
First of all, he knew for a fact that the tablet of Eight Trigrams was not an amulet but a tool to map Feng Shui energy. Second of all, he found a small print at the edge of the trigrams. It was the name of the manufacturer, which appeared to be from the Sichuan province.
However, he kept mum about it.
Although he was relieved by the absence of bad dreams, the mystery of the wolf fur still hung over his head. He had a feeling that unusual creatures could be watching him in the dark. Nevertheless, he was an optimist and decided to meet Raven 12345 again to talk it over. Until then, he resolved to let nothing bother him.
In fact, he had attempted to look for Raven 12345 a couple of days ago but he did not manage to see the weird Goddess.
Hao Ren followed the same route—he took a bus to Bastard Barrio and reached the telephone pole with the Chinese medicine bill on it. He was then teleported to the inverted mansion somewhere in another dimension. So, he figured that since he could come back to the mansion the same way he did the first time, it was not a dream. However, he did not manage to see Raven 12345. There were only a few blue, foggy figures patrolling the property. It was obvious that they were slaves working for Raven 12345. The blue, foggy figures seemed to be highly intelligent creatures but they spoke no human language. Naturally, there was no communication between them.
One of the blue, foggy figures then handed Hao Ren a note. It was from Raven 12345. She said that she went on a business trip to the Centaurus constellation for a few days. If she found the trip enjoyable it might be a few years before she would be coming back.
Right after that, Hao Ren was ushered out of the mansion.
"She’s being absurd."
He browsed some magazines in the living room with the air-conditioning on full blow. His mind was still on his last trip to the Bastard Barrio office of the Space Administration. The trip left a bad taste in his mouth. He could not wait to see Raven 12345 to clear all his doubts. He felt like he was being engulfed by a thick fog. He had lost all direction, and just did not know where to start. Raven 12345, the nutty Goddess, was the only person who could help clear his head.
Her obsessive compulsive disorder would have driven him crazy if not for his good emotional intelligence.
While Vivian and Lily were around, he had the opportunity to learn a thing or two about them and ‘the other kind’.
‘The other kind’ was a term Hao Ren randomly chose to refer to Vivian and Lily the day he met them. They both seemed to be comfortable with it.
It was not possible to trace back the origin of ‘the other kind’. They existed alongside human civilization and there were various records as well as legends about them. They were brutally persecuted by the church during medieval times as well as by the Chinese dynasties. Their stories were then incorporated into literature and folklore. For people living in this modern age, creatures like vampires, werewolves, monsters and spirits of the dead are merely fictitious characters in horror stories and thrillers .However, they appeared in the flesh and were seen by various eye-witnesses during the earlier periods.
‘The other kind’ were treated as a threat to humanity. Though there was no account of the earliest conflict, the war between ‘the other kind’ and humans began long before recorded history. In spite of that, stories of friendship did exist. During the Caveman era, they were depicted in the drawings of monsters, Gods or half-beast, half-human creatures on the cave walls. Some of them were results of creative exaggeration and humans with structural birth defects due marrying their cousins. The rest were truly ‘the other kind’.
They were a part of early human history; their role was that of the antagonists.
Vivian was from that early era but, her memory was messed up probably because she was a bit long in the tooth. Nevertheless, she still recalled bits and pieces; one bit which Hao Ren heard about was that of Zeus—God of the skies and thunder.
During the early ages, ‘the other kind’ had many unfair advantages over human kind; they had super perception, longevity, nine lives and were also highly intelligent. The rise of human kind’s absolute rule however, had driven ‘the other kind’ into becoming monsters of terror. Despite that, there were exceptions. The exact cause of their fall was not clear but there were three possible reasons: firstly, as human kind became more civilized and developed, they started developing various tools as well as weaponry, becoming more united and powerful. The widely scattered creatures were no match for humans on their own. In the end, they were defeated one by one. Secondly, their downfall was due to some mysterious entity and thirdly, the emergence of monster hunters.
The third factor was also the most impactful.
Monster hunters had a partial human lineage but no one could accurately tell their exact origin. Their emergence saw a worldwide hunt for ‘the other kind’. The term ‘monster hunter’ did exactly exist in the beginning. It was only coined by the European Council during the medieval period and popularized thereafter. The European continent was the last place on earth still ravaged by ‘the other kind’ then. Most of them had already been wiped out from the rest of the world by the human-monster hunter alliance. Terms for various species which constituted ‘the other kind’ and the term, ‘monster hunter’ were finalized during that time in Europe.
From being kings of the world to fugitives, ‘the other kind’ were edged out from the world’s history.
This alternate history completely destroyed Hao Ren’s worldviews.
He then started to show more interest in the two super girls in his house.
Lily was a relatively young werewolf—dozens of years at most. She was all brawn and no brains She did not have much stories of werewolves to tell. Vivian on the other hand, was on the opposite end of the spectrum; she was from the prestigious Blood Clan who had lived as long as the existence of human civilization. Oddly, she barely remembered her own stories except bits and pieces of them. Also, she slept anywhere she felt like. She was unlike her kind which were hell-bent on terrorizing humans. She spent most of her time battling her own bad days. Suffice to say, as far as vampires went, she was the black sheep of the Blood Clan.
To human kind however, she was a human-friendly girl.
All in all, she fell between two stools.