Chapter 179 Eggs

Hearing that Vivian was to be brought along, Hao Ren's heart skipped a beat. His intuition told him that Raven 12345 truly had something important to tell him this time. So he didn't waste any time, stuffing Doudou into his clothes, and prepared to teleport to "Heaven" with Vivian.

"Bring the egg," the data terminal reminded while opening the door. "Be careful, don't crush it!"

Hao Ren carefully pinched the "merman egg." He wanted to put it in his pocket, but he was afraid of accidentally crushing it. So, in the end, he simply held it in his hand like that: "Let's go, anyway, we're going through the teleportation gate."

The two of them arrived in "Heaven" with a fish. Unprecedentedly, Raven 12345 was actually standing at the door to greet them this time. Hao Ren quickly walked up with Vivian, showing the merman egg in his hand: "This is what Doudou just laid."

Raven 12345 took the small egg with an interested expression. It was exquisitely delicate, like a work of art, with a heartbreaking fragility and slenderness. After observing it for a while, the goddess sister raised her head: "Nothing will hatch out of it."

"I know," Hao Ren nodded. "I haven't heard of mermaids being able to reproduce by parthenogenesis. I just want to know if this is a normal phenomenon? Or is Doudou precocious?"

"I still have to check," Raven 12345 turned and walked towards the door. "This kind of merman isn't on my own list of creations, but it won't take much effort to check."

Hao Ren and Vivian followed Raven into the mansion. They turned several corners in the long corridor, and finally arrived at a smaller lounge. Raven 12345 waved her hand and summoned an oval silver plate from mid-air, signaling Hao Ren to put the little merman on the plate.

The plate had wonderful properties. The moment Doudou touched its surface, it changed its temperature and hardness. After the little guy lay on it, she immediately stretched out her tail comfortably and yawned, then lay still obediently. Hao Ren felt that the shape of the plate was a little strange, but he couldn't quite put his finger on where the sense of déjà vu came from.

Raven 12345 stared at Doudou for a while, not knowing what she was thinking, and suddenly took out a few sprigs of cilantro and scallions from somewhere and placed them next to the little guy. Only when this circle of vegetable leaves surrounded her did Hao Ren suddenly realize: "A fish plate?"

"Oh, I messed up, it's a habit!" Raven 12345 hurriedly removed the cilantro and scallions, and coughed awkwardly twice, "Ahem, wait a moment, I'll check."

As she spoke, mysterious silver-white halos appeared in her eyes, and Doudou was immediately attracted by this light, staring at it and entering a trance-like state. Seeing that the goddess sister had really started to do serious business, Hao Ren stopped talking and stepped back slightly with Vivian.

"Landlord," Vivian nudged Hao Ren's arm, "what do you think the goddess specifically called me here for?"

Hao Ren lowered his voice: "It should be to talk about your constant splitting, and it might even be related to the goddess."

Vivian said "oh," lowered her head, and didn't say anything else, not knowing what she was thinking.

Raven 12345's examination didn't last long. Soon the light in her eyes slowly faded away, and Doudou regained her usual clever state. Noticing this, Hao Ren stepped forward nervously to ask, "How is it?"

"Everything is normal," Raven 12345 nodded. "This is a normal developmental process. Because the living environment of this kind of merman is harsh, the offspring often have congenital defects due to environmental interference during the hatching process. Therefore, as soon as they leave the larval stage, they will 'test' all their functions. If there is a problem with any function, they will stop developing. In their homeland, this means that they will die soon—so that they can leave sufficient resources for other healthy individuals. But Doudou's hatching process and growth and development are definitely no problem with your care. The little guy is healthy, she just did a 'self-check'."

"There's such a thing…" Hao Ren opened his mouth, once again marveling at the complexity of "life" and the completely different environmental structures of each world, "Then will she still… uh, lay eggs in the future?"

"Not until adulthood," Raven 12345 shook her head. "That will take many more years. Now that she has completed the inspection of all her functions, she will continue to grow healthily and quickly."

"Then what should we do with this egg?" Hao Ren pointed to the merman egg placed next to Doudou. The little guy didn't seem to realize what this thing meant to her at all. She just looked at the little ball curiously, occasionally poking it gently with her finger: she at least knew that this thing was very fragile.

"It will quickly lose its activity, after all, it's just a test product, it will probably only survive for a few hours. But it's a memorable thing for Doudou, so I think we should do something…"

Raven 12345 thought while saying this, then clapped her hands, pinched the merman egg, and began to inject magic into it. A hazy silver-white brilliance floated at her fingertips, and a crystal clear, crystal-like thing quickly condensed around the merman egg. When the white brilliance gradually dissipated, Raven 12345 had a small and cute pendant in her hand. The shape of the pendant was a teardrop-like gemstone, with a light blue luster, and the merman egg was inlaid inside the gemstone: it had now become a work of art.

Raven 12345 also made a rope to tie the pendant up, and solemnly hung it around Doudou's neck: "Let it be a talisman for you."

Hao Ren: "..."

Vivian quietly stuck out her tongue: "I always feel like I should say something, but I don't know what to say."

Doudou curiously fiddled with this pendant that was still a bit big for her, and soon became happy. She clapped her tail and said to Raven 12345 very politely: "Thank you!"

Although she didn't know what this pendant could do, she thought it was very beautiful, like a drop of water.

"You've educated your daughter well," Raven 12345 nodded approvingly.

"Speaking of which, this thing won't be easy to lose, right?" Hao Ren thought of something else. "She swims in the water all day long, and the things hanging on her body will always be thrown somewhere."

"It's okay, I added a positioning function to the pendant. Whenever the little guy throws it off, it can fly back immediately. In fact, the main feature of this pendant is that it can be positioned…" Raven 12345 smiled as she spoke, "Of course, even so, it is still a divine artifact: after all, it was made by yours truly."

Hao Ren was speechless. He felt that the most useless divine artifact in the world had finally been born: made by a true god, a divine artifact with full marks no matter where it was thrown, and the only function was to carry a GPS—what a waste of the name of a divine artifact!

"Now that we've finished talking about Doudou, let's talk about something more serious," Raven 12345 handed the little merman to Hao Ren, and her gaze finally fell on Vivian, "Come with me, I'll show you something."

Vivian and Hao Ren couldn't help but exchange glances, and then nodded at the same time.

The place Raven 12345 was going to take them was the "warehouse."

The warehouse was located in a special space, so naturally they couldn't walk there. So Raven 12345 snapped her fingers, and Hao Ren and Vivian only felt a flash of light and shadow in front of them. When they opened their eyes again, they found that they were standing in an unusually vast indoor space.

Rows of neat pillars stretched out in front of them. Except for the mysterious patterns on the pillars and the faintly visible magic patterns on the ground, the overall structure here couldn't help but remind people of an open underground parking lot. It looked quite empty here. Hao Ren didn't know why the goddess sister wanted to bring him to such an empty place, but he soon knew the reason.

Raven 12345 activated a part of the "cargo space." So, between the two rows of pillars closest to Hao Ren and Vivian, the air rippled slightly like the surface of water. Accompanying the circles of ripples were more than twenty crystal containers arranged in two rows.

The appearance of the crystal container was like some kind of special hibernation facility, and through its translucent surface, one could clearly see what was inside. Hao Ren immediately stepped forward quickly: "This is…"

A Vivian—the red-haired version—was sleeping in each crystal container.

Vivian herself was even more stunned as she watched all this. After seeing her "split body" for the first time, she had imagined that there would be more similar individuals scattered around the world, but she never thought that one day she would meet these split bodies in such a shocking way. More than twenty split bodies, like some kind of dark scientific experiment or weird ritual, were arranged in front of her, sleeping with the same face. She felt a kind of creepy feeling gradually spreading from the depths of her heart.

"I wouldn't dare say it's all of them, but most of them should be here." Raven 12345's voice awakened Hao Ren and Vivian from their stunned state.