Chapter 1 A Cat's Gratitude

Hao Ren had read stories about cats repaying kindness before—both the traditional and the catgirl versions. In the former, the cat would catch mice for its owner, while in the latter, the cat would transform into a cute girl to warm its owner's bed. But he never expected that the cat repaying kindness he encountered would be the third type: the cat he raised turned into a cute girl and then resolutely went to catch mice...

This could be considered the best of both worlds, but to be honest, Hao Ren felt like something was off about this development.

But "Gun" had no idea what her master was thinking. The catgirl felt like she had finally done something likable. She happily rubbed against Hao Ren, "Big cat~~ Big big cat! Mouse, for you to eat! It's still moving!"

The silly cat proudly raised her hand in front of Hao Ren, clutching a fat rat by the tail. The latter wasn't completely dead yet, occasionally emitting a faint squeak. Hao Ren felt goosebumps rise upon seeing this and jumped back more than two meters, "Stay right there!"

The catgirl looked at Hao Ren in confusion, "Are you not happy?"

"Where did you get the rat?!" Hao Ren maintained his distance from the silly cat, "Throw it away!"

"I caught it in the wild behind the house. Big-bearded Cat said I shouldn't go into the streets," the silly cat shook the rat in her hand, a slightly aggrieved expression suddenly appearing on her face, "Why don't you want it? Are you angry again?"

Hao Ren originally wanted to scold this idiot, but he couldn't bring himself to get angry when he saw her innocent appearance. He knew that this girl was still a cat at heart, and a few days simply wasn't enough for her to accumulate much knowledge about humans. Her rash actions were completely intended to make him happy. So he could only sigh, "I'm not angry, it's just... humans don't eat rats."

The catgirl looked at the rat in her hand. Hao Ren quickly shouted from the side, "And you're not allowed to eat that either!"

"I don't eat this," the catgirl shook her head, "It's not as good as biscuits and dried fish."

Hao Ren immediately glared, "If you don't even eat it yourself, what do you mean by giving it to me?"

"Because you can't catch mice!" the catgirl said matter-of-factly, "So only I can help you catch them."

Hao Ren was speechless, thinking that in this cat's worldview, he was actually a weakling in need of help...

After much persuasion, "Gun" finally threw the rat away. Then, according to habit, she followed Hao Ren around the entire house—this was considered inspecting her castle. After finishing the tour, she arrived at the living room and immediately collapsed on the cushion next to the stairs and began to purr. Hao Ren couldn't help but sigh as he watched this scene, "Do you have to sleep here? Didn't I clean your room for you?"

"Gun" stretched her limbs on the cushion, then curled up into a smaller ball and wagged her tail at Hao Ren, "Meow~~"

This meant "Your Majesty is sleepy and wishes to retire."

Hao Ren sighed and ran to the balcony to connect with Raven 12345.

The goddess sister was rarely not skipping work this time, and the communication connected instantly. Hao Ren briefly explained the progress of his research on the First Born, and then brought up his plan to build a large space station in the Dream Plane for long-term research on the First Born and its associated phenomena.

Raven 12345's voice was as boisterous as ever, "Not bad, kid. Your ideas are always unique. I knew I didn't choose the wrong person back then... Your plan is feasible."

Hao Ren focused on asking about the questions that worried him the most: "Will such a large-scale activity disrupt the balance between the Dream Plane and the Surface World? Given that there is only one spatial rift for passage, is it possible to build such a huge space station in the Dream Plane? And can all of this be reimbursed?"

Actually, the third question was his biggest concern, but he felt that if he didn't add the first two questions to balance things out, he would easily be struck by lightning and receive a blessing from the goddess sister from afar...

"Well, your space station project is indeed quite bold... But since you've already found a stable channel, as long as you ensure that all personnel and materials are transported through that spatial rift during the entire project, there won't be any problems. In addition, this goddess will also help you strengthen the stability of the connection near Earth. If something goes wrong... I'll cover for you," Raven 12345 was quite righteous when it came to work, "As for the problem of insufficient throughput in that spatial rift, there's no need to worry at all. What do you think the Empire was founded on? The Xiling God System is the best at space technology. I'll send you a building module in a compressed package, and that's all you need."

Hao Ren didn't forget the question he cared about the most: "So, is this all reimbursed by the organization?"

Raven 12345 chuckled on the other end, "You're really something, you're stingy like I was back in the day—don't worry, the Xiling God System is rich and powerful. How could we possibly make our employees pay out of their own pockets for building a space station? This time, no matter how much construction you do, the organization will fully reimburse you. You just have to sign your name at the end."

Hao Ren felt relieved when he heard this, "That's good. Actually, the outer wall of my house is a bit dusty, and I'm planning to repaint it in a few days..."

"...You stay right there, I'm going to give you a blessing!"

Hao Ren quickly hung up the communication, feeling relieved after settling the big matter. Then he wandered back to the living room, intending to discuss the matter of visiting relatives on the New Airem Star with the old King in a few days. However, when he entered the living room, he didn't see Izhaks and Elizabeth. Instead, he found Lily and Vivian, two adversaries, gathered together, seemingly studying something.

"What are you two doing?" Hao Ren was very surprised. How could these two, who would engage in at least three hundred rounds of verbal sparring after meeting, be so harmonious?

Lily looked up and saw Hao Ren, happily "Awoo-ed," and wagged her tail vigorously, "We're doing scientific research!"

"You're doing scientific research?" Hao Ren chuckled when he heard this. He walked over to see what the two were doing. He actually saw a pentagonal crystal plate on the coffee table. The crystal plate emitted a soft glow, mysterious and exquisite. The data terminal was lying next to the crystal plate, seemingly helping with the analysis, "What is this...?"

"It's the storage device we found at the astronomical observatory on the Planet Tanagus," Lily diligently pushed the crystal plate in front of Hao Ren, "The data terminal says it can still be read... But you've been studying big things, so this thing hasn't been put to use yet."

Lily's reminder made Hao Ren suddenly remember this: Back then, when everyone was being chased by the Wrathful Spirits, they ran from the Golden Ruins of Alamanda to an abandoned astronomical observatory. Nangong Wuyue and the others discovered this storage device in the observatory's ancient equipment. It was also there that Hao Ren came into contact with the Tanarans' soul aggregate, which led to the unveiling of the Wrathful Spirit mystery.

Originally, this ancient storage device was also a valuable sample for investigation, but after that, everyone quickly discovered more valuable things: the Tanagus database, a living sample of the First Seed, Source Blood, a living First Born—each of these extraordinary samples was placed before them, causing the storage device taken from the old astronomical observatory to quickly become inconspicuous.

Of course, Hao Ren didn't directly forget about it. In fact, he remembered that after bringing this storage device to the Giant Tortoise Rock Terrace, he had the ship's equipment repair it and read the information inside. However, he quickly discovered that it only contained star chart records, and all the records showed no connection to the First Born. So he quickly put it aside—that was the last time he analyzed this storage device. After that, this thing was added to Lily's dog treasure.

He didn't expect that the husky girl, bored out of her mind, would rummage through her pile of stones again and excitedly start researching it: This might have been the research enthusiasm sparked in the spaceship laboratory.

"Did you find anything?" Hao Ren asked with a smile, just asking casually, not really paying attention.

Lily had a serious expression on her face, "After professional analysis by me and the bat—of course, mainly my professional analysis—we unanimously believe that the last log inside was recorded on the eve of the First Born Disaster..."

Hao Ren was originally planning to go back to his room, but his heart suddenly stirred when he heard this, "Log? What log?"

"It's an observation log, casually recorded by an astronomical observatory staff member," the data terminal floated up from the table at this time to explain the situation, "Because it was just something like a diary, it was initially ignored by us. Just now, this unit suddenly remembered that thing, so it asked Lily to bring the storage device over to reconfirm it—it has nothing to do with the professional analysis of either of them. These two are just here for fun."

Lily and Vivian: "..."