The five-digit, white haired succubus may have looked a tad bit unreliable. However, she never went back on her promises. Hao Ren was teary eyed when he saw the amount of money in his bank account. It was just too awesome; it contained a string of zeroes. He signed the contract without as much as a second thought.
Hao Ren realized that from then on, he would be leaving behind his idyllic, carefree life and things would have to be seen from the roost of the Space Administration. For the monstrous organization, human currency was very much just part of the tools of the trade and seemed to come in unlimited numbers. A part of him wanted to have Raven 12345 wire another million bucks into his account but, his better judgment decided against it.
That said, he did not have to worry about his living expenses for the time being. Vivian's free-loading expenses were also covered for a year or two at the very least. Ever since the hopeless vampire moved in, she free-loaded off Hao Ren's expenses. While he did mention the prospect of her being a live-in maid to offset the rental, it was more of a joke than anything. Hao Ren was a common man; he obviously could not afford such a life. It was pretty much an excuse to put Vivian at ease with her free-loading. Well, that was no longer a problem too. The witch gave him enough money for three to go around the world, just to pick someone up from England.
During the ride to the international airport, Vivian constantly bugged Hao Ren. "Hey, is that Space Administration thing still hiring? I could go there to operate the air conditioning!"
She was still going on about it when they got on the plane. Hao Ren got a bit irritated and went, "Forget about it. This requires talent you know? I'm at the very least a reserve civil servant and a back-up successor. You think it's that easy? Aside from that, the witch's place is pretty much fluid all the time. She's a Goddess; air-conditioning is probably the least of her concerns…"
Vivian fussed with the air-conditioning at home to save cost and all of them saw her as no different than the air conditioner’s remote.
The vampire pouted and faced towards the window. She curiously stared at the ground staff running about their duties. "Is Rollie going to be fine?"
"Don't worry about him. He's much more capable than you think." Hao Ren was not worried about that devil of a cat at all. Obviously, one could not bring a cat into the aircraft and international shipping was not a realistic option. Thus, Hao Ren just left him at home and asked for the help of his neighbor to look after him.
Hao Ren was pretty sure that by day two, Rollie would slip out of the house to do whatever it wanted. "Rollie does have a glorious history behind him. He was the dominant alpha of the street with just a few pounds of meat on him a few years back. His survival instincts are much better than mine. When I took him in two years ago, I was dead worried when I had to leave the house. After a while though, I realized it was really for nothing. Once, I was away for a month and he came back half a kilo heavier."
"Hao Ren, what is England like? I've never been there before." Lily was seated right opposite of Hao Ren. As she stared outside curiously, Hao Ren saw that she was seated like a cat: on all fours.
With the allowance that he had received, Hao Ren went ahead and booked them on First Class. And boy, it was very spacious. The distance between the seats were pretty wide as well. Hyperactive Lily was already squirming about before the flight took off. Granted, while traveling in style was partly due to the generous allowance, Hao Ren wanted the privacy more than anything. With two supernaturals in tow, he did not want to take any chances lest their identities be revealed to other passengers. It also made talking about sensitive topics a little easier.
"How would I know? Never been there myself." Hao Ren shrugged and looked at Vivian. "Right, just to reconfirm, you're sure you've been to England before? You'll be our guide over there now since you said you could speak English…"
"Of course, who do you think I am? A mere charlatan?" Vivian sneered. "I've already been around the world before; knew the earth was round when you humans were still chomping on raw game. In fact I've been to the Vatic—"
Hao Ren quickly feigned a cough. "AHEM, let’s leave what you did at the monastery aside. Who knows what your kind would think of that…"
"Them? Haven't seen them in centuries. Most of them are stubborn idiots. The few smarter ones are even better at hiding than me." Vivian shrugged. "Our kind are very individualistic. Even during our golden years, unity was fragile at best. How else did you think we ended up in such a fringed position during the present? Ah, forget about it... It's depressing talk. How did I ended up like this?"
Hao Ren grinned, "Oh, so you DO realize how silly you are. That's that. Well, as long as you can speak English and guide us around, it’ll be fine. Saves us the trouble of getting a guide. Our job can't involve anyone else. Raven even said that as part of the training, she's not even giving me a map…"
Vivian patted her chest, "Don't worry, even Arthur Mordred could not best me in an argument. I lived in England for a good 130 years you know. English is like my mother tongue."
Hao Ren raised his eyebrows in suspicion. It felt like Vivian was gloating more than anything but, he decided to pay it no heed.
After a while, Hao Ren noticed that Lily was still squirming in her seat and sought to distract her with a question. "Oh yeah, I have been wanting to ask you this. How do you get your identities in the human world? Especially you, Lily. How do you do it?"
This question actually did plague Hao Ren for a while. Vivian did look and played the part of a human. Lily the idiot, was another matter altogether. She said she was around during the time of the Republic and registered herself as a famous artist. God knows how many identity cards she had changed throughout the years. It was very surprising to see Lily blending in with the humans so nonchalantly. Lily finally settled down, squatting on her seat. She shook her head as if a pair of ears were there. "Wasn't that hard, ya know? I saw how human civilization was built. So, living as a human was not difficult at all."
At that point, Lily suddenly perked up. Her slowpoke of a brain finally had a spark of brilliance. "And what do you mean, especially me? You taking me for an idiot?"
Hao Ren quickly shook his head in denial while Vivian turned away to ignore the commotion. Lily pointed her finger at them. "I know that you two think I'm dumb. I'm pretty quick with my senses ya know. Just can't be bothered to get serious with you guys. I’m telling you Hao Ren, don't think just because I look dumb most of the time… I'm very capable, ya know? I know a lot of people, like... uh... most of them are dead now… It is what it is but I'm capable, okay?"
Hao Ren wiped his cold sweat off. His instincts told him that Lily was just about to parade a list of historical greats before him. Thank goodness she kept it short. Ever since the two supernaturals came into his life, Hao Ren was constantly surprised at how they spoke of historical figures like they were close friends, much to his disbelief.
With the pre-flight preparations completed, the lead stewardess made an announcement for the passengers to push up their seats and buckle-up. Lily finally stopped squirming and sat down quietly as she put on her seat belts deftly. Then, Lily and Hao Ren saw something that stunned the both of them... Vivian was struggling with the seat belt.
The vampire may have looked the part of a high class aristocrat but when the flight take off announcement was made, Vivian was fumbling about with the seat belt. Hao Ren helped her to buckle up but could not help taking a piss at her, "You’re afraid of airplanes? You can grow wings to fly, right?"
"I've never sat on one of these before…" Vivian said meekly.
Hao Ren's eyes widened. This vampire, who was around during the construction of the pyramids and other great wonders; whose knowledge of the world was akin to verbal diarrhea, never actually sat on a plane before?
Vivian looked like she was about to cry.
"I...couldn't afford the tickets…"
Hao Ren had nothing to retort.