Chapter 1 Awestruck

Hearing something that nearly choked him, Hao Ren stared blankly (he seemed to be in a state of blank shock quite often these days), hardly daring to believe the big-eyed woman: "You just said...what?"

"The Celestial Management," the silver-haired woman said with a smile. Though she had a cold, aloof air when she wasn't speaking, that coolness melted away with a smile, making her seem easy to talk to.

Hao Ren asked dumbly, "No, I mean the second half of what you said?"

"Oh, the Wangbatuozi Outpost," the silver-haired woman nodded happily, admitting it so readily.

Hao Ren almost wanted to bash his head... Better to go outside to do it. Everything in here looked expensive, and he probably couldn't afford to break anything. But he really wanted to bash his head somewhere! How could "Celestial Management" and "Wangbatuozi Outpost," two terms so far apart, be combined? And the white-haired girl in front of him didn't seem to think anything was wrong when she said it. The expression on her face was as if it were perfectly natural. Hao Ren felt like he'd heard someone say: The Wang family has three children. The eldest is named Daming, the second is named Erming, and the third is named Eisenbruck William Hannibal...

But what the silver-haired woman said made so much sense, Hao Ren was speechless: there really was a Wangbatuozi nearby.

"Heh... heh," Hao Ren forced a stiff laugh, shifting in the thick, cotton-padded seat to find a more secure position. He was worried that hearing something even more shocking would make him fall to the floor. "Celestial Management... Oh right, what did you say your name was?"

He then remembered that the other party seemed to have introduced herself, but he'd been too busy being emotionally agitated to hear clearly.

The silver-haired woman didn't mind at all, even more good-tempered than he expected: "I'm Raven 12345. Remember it well, it's important."

"Including the numbers?"

"Including the numbers—actually, the numbers are the main body," the woman who called herself Raven 12345 nodded vigorously. "It can prevent confusion with other Ravens. What other questions do you have?"

In an instant, Hao Ren's mind flashed with a whole bunch of settings: artificial humans, clones, dark forces, evil armies plotting to subvert the earth, with two hundred thousand words of text and a dozen protagonists' love-hate entanglements, as well as three sets of male-female relationships. It wasn't that he had too much imagination, it was just that he usually watched too many movies. But he cleverly didn't ask where the other Ravens were (experience told him that this was a taboo question, though he would later learn how wrong he was), just scratching his chin: "Raven 12345... Ah, a pretty creative name, heh, heh. So, you're looking for me for something?"

The silver-haired woman smiled slightly: "There should already be a strange creature living in your house, right? If my calculations are correct, it's a 'werewolf'."

Hao Ren tensed up instantly, every muscle in his body involuntarily trembling. He had previously regarded this as a top secret, planning to guard it strictly, believing that Lily's identity must not be exposed. This was his last futile attempt to save his familiar daily life, but he didn't expect this mysterious woman in front of him to know everything! But he quickly relaxed—since the mysterious person in front of him was also a "heterogeneous," then it was inevitable that she knew some things. Hao Ren was very clear that he was still almost completely ignorant of a certain mysterious field, so he couldn't act too alarmed, which would put him in a passive position.

Since Raven 12345 didn't mention Vivian, it meant that her information was also a bit behind. Hao Ren naturally wouldn't be so proactive as to say more.

He nodded: "Indeed, but this shouldn't be anything taboo, right? Does your Celestial... Management take care of this kind of thing?"

"There's nothing taboo, I'm just reminding you that more strange guys will be living in your house in the future. This will be your future job," Raven 12345 said lightly, dropping a bombshell. "The organization has high hopes for you..."

"Wait a minute!" Hao Ren finally couldn't help but jump up: "This is all arranged by you?!"

"Not currently, but it will be in the future," Raven 12345 shrugged. "Anyway, you've already been in contact with that 'werewolf' named Lily. I happen to be short of a helper, and you're very suitable for this job."

"What exactly do you guys do?" Hao Ren frowned. He felt that this Raven 12345 was talking a bit incoherently, always inexplicably starting to talk to herself, and couldn't get to the point after a long time. You should at least explain what the Celestial Management does!

"Us? The group of 'us' is very large," Raven 12345 touched her nose. "The Xi Ling Empire is vast, managing countless universes, with numerous departments and complex divisions of labor. There are all kinds of things. You can just lump us together as gods, which is easier to understand—by the way, we only recently transitioned into a god race as a whole. The organization is very young, but youth is where the opportunities are. As for the Celestial Management, it's a department under the Empire specifically used to manage various universes, responsible for information transmission, guiding and controlling the crossing behavior between universes, and improving world cohesion or something... Anyway, that's what the new document issued by the higher-ups says. It might change in the future. I'm a grassroots cadre of the Celestial Management, responsible for the trivial matters of this universe here—such as preventing certain races from courting death and causing a world-ending event, or planning the evolution of celestial bodies. In theory, this isn't my job, but due to some special reasons... I'm filling in here. As for you, it's because I need an assistant—I have to manage matters at the entire universe level, so the trivial matters in local areas need to find an agent. You've been selected, don't you feel awesome?"

Hao Ren listened to this almost Arabian Nights-like story, feeling dizzy, and very calmly stood up: "Thank you, but you're a good person. Your special effects show is very interesting. May I ask where the exit is?"

Raven 12345 didn't even have a surprised expression on her face, as if she had seen similar situations too many times. After Hao Ren finished speaking, she gently snapped her fingers: "According to the entry requirements, newly promoted trainee inspectors need to undergo psychological testing. The testing period is quite long. Now we'll conduct the most basic..."

Before Hao Ren could say anything more, he felt his body lighten, and then the surrounding scenery turned upside down!

The magnificent house was gone, and a heavy darkness rushed in from all directions. Hao Ren found himself standing in a void, and then a bright spot suddenly erupted in this void, with ten thousand rays of light!

What appeared first was an indescribable, scorching light, without identifiable structure or fixed shape. This mass of light rushed towards him with overwhelming force, and in the blink of an eye, it spread to the boundless distance. Hao Ren only had time to blink, and the light had already expanded to a scale he couldn't understand.

Then the light dimmed, the ultra-high-energy energy rapidly decayed and degraded, and primordial particles were born in the cooling and layer-by-layer attenuation. The afterglow of the initial flash blew through all things in the universe, and the earliest primordial nebula was born, laying the foundation for future galaxy clusters and giant celestial structures.

Everything continued to cool down, and ancient stars began to be born in the dense areas of matter in the primordial nebula. The primordial nebula itself was transforming into independent galaxy clusters. Local nuclear reactions replaced the rapid energy of the Big Bang, and all things welcomed a more gentle period of order—as cooling continued, primordial stars were also rapidly burning up their fuel, ejecting heavy elements accumulated over many years in one explosion after another. These heavy elements were the first highly stable substances to appear after the "initial flash." They flew along the paths indicated by the remnants of the stars, colliding, merging, and being captured by newly born young stars.

The first star systems were born.

Matter became increasingly thin, and the restless galaxies also became stable after releasing a large amount of energy and consuming a large amount of matter. The complexity of the universe began to increase, stars evolved, and life flourished. Hao Ren felt that his vision had exceeded human understanding. He stood at an almost omniscient angle, observing the entire universe, and at a glance, he saw the goal he was trying to find: near a young star, a blue planet was being covered in green...

Then the picture froze, and a line of text floated in front of his eyes: Genesis Recording Expert Trial Version, please recharge to continue using.

The surrounding scenery receded like a tide, and Hao Ren found himself still sitting in that magnificent room, his clothes soaked with sweat. The woman who called herself Raven 12345 looked at him with a smile: "This is a record of your universe's evolution to this day. Of course, local segments have been adjusted in the timeline to make it easier for you to watch. This wasn't recorded by me, but a snapshot directly extracted from the universe's underlying information, so you've personally experienced a creation, how does it feel?"