Fantastic Creatures’ Travelogue Chapter 14

Chapter 14 The high-end work unit

 

Hao Ren raised his head high, and gaped at the vision at the sky, with his mouth wide open. Now he could not see his own appearance, but If he could, he definitely would have thought that he had just graduated from a two-year rehabilitation training from a Castle Peak Hospital. 1 A large-scale building was suspending upside down above his head, and the scene almost gave him the w.i.l.l.i.e.s!

It was a huge foreign-style house with a blue roof, a cross-shaped body, and had long, detached wings along both sides. The main building had white walls, giving it an elegant and n.o.ble look. It looked like the combination of a modern European castle and a manor. Behind the main building was a complicated, streamlined high tower. The tower and building’s styles did not fit together, but it, as a whole, gave others a feeling of mystery. The building itself was built on a pure white base, around which you could see vibrant lawns and gardens which had small fountains distributed symmetrically in the gardens. On the square in front of the building, there was a “giant”, which word was barely enough to describe its size, artificial fountain. All above, the area was really impressive.

Even more amazing was that all of it was upside-down in the sky! Even the fountains in the air were upside down, disobeying Newton’s Laws of physics as it wished. 2

Hao Ren, in this life, had only seen buildings of this size on TV, but apparently never buildings of this size hanging such a strange way in the sky… On the spot, because of his human instinct, his calf was beginning to cramp, and his first thought was what if this stuff dropped to the ground, you could not blame him for making a fuss. Even if you let Schwarzenegger over here and had him see a building even bigger than a residential area hanging over the sky, he would shiver too. What was even more weird, was that Hao Ren was 100% sure that there was nothing in the sky before. He found that, even thought there was the giant house in the sky, on the ground he could find no trace of shadows at all, and he could still feel the hot sun shining directly on him, making him exude sweet continuously. Of course this time, the sweat was not entirely due to the sun. In short, what happened was completely beyond his comprehension as an ordinary person, to the extent that he only reacted once he noticed the phone in his head was ringing. “Hey! Hao Ren! Can you see the big house in the sky? ”

He raised the phone to his ear, brewing his words for a long time before he sighed, “Holy s.h.i.t… ”

“First clause of the employee conduct code: no talking dirty in front of your boss, but now you have not been recruited so you can talk as you wish”, The woman said carelessly. ” Now remove your hand from the ad of the traditional Chinese medicine doctors, and remember to keep looking at the square. Otherwise I won’t take responsibility for where you will fly to. ”

In fact, Hao Ren originally had intended to leave, but hearing that he broke into a heavy, cold sweat. Thank goodness he had held onto the pole and didn’t move, otherwise, by this time something really bad would have happened!

Hao Ren knew that he could not run away from this anyway, so he could only clench his teeth and summon up his courage. He let his hand go towards the square in front of the building in the sky.  At the same moment, he felt that the world began to spin, and he was thrown to somewhere several hundred meters in alt.i.tude, then to somewhere with no up or down nor gravity, followed by being rotated violently in all directions for an unknown amount of 360 °s. And just as he felt like throwing up last New Year Eve’s dinner, the crazy feeling finally receded, and he found himself standing still on solid ground, but the view around him had completely changed. The huge fountain in front of him was spurting water vibrantly, and a soft breeze touched him with pleasurable and cool moisture, which made his pores wanted to stretch completely. On both sides around him were the green lawns and beautiful gardens. The ground was covered by neat, white stones and although Hao Ren was not sure whether they were stones, he knew they were not cement, as they were delicate and elegant, with a texture between plastic and metal. It was a building material that he had never encountered before.

Hao Ren turned his head slowly and he saw behind him was the huge white building with the blue roof.

As he had expected, he had moved to the tall building hanging upside down, which he saw just now, and that’s to say…

Hao Ren raised his head and made a weird and horrified expression, but surprisingly he did not see another piece of ground upside down. Above him was only a bright blue sky with clouds. Behind the clouds were brilliant bands of light like an aurora swimming slowly. He did not see the sun, but a warm sunshine was still coming from above. As he looked further, he found that there was nothing around the building which blocked his sight. There was also a straight and open road in the middle of each of the garden on the two sides, but he could not find anything at the end of the road. Hao Ren could only see a belt of thick fog, as if the whole area was surrounded, with the giant building and the garden as the only existences.

It was a lonely island surrounded by fog. That thought startled Hao Ren, but then he realized there would be no chances to return.

There was a cracking sound from behind, which made Hao Ren come to himself quickly, and as he turned his head he saw that the gorgeous door on the building had already been opened. A “creature” with a human figure had come out from inside. Hao Ren had never seen such a peculiar creature, as he could not distinguish whether it was a male or a female, and he could not even distinguish its five senses.  The entire “human” was composed of translucent light blue fog. The creature was human height, with four human-like limbs. It had bright currents flowing inside its body’s mists from time to time, as if the currents were the creature’s bones.

Besides, Hao Ren did not see it wearing any clothes… Well, for such a strange creature clothes might not be necessary, right?

Hao Ren had encountered too many strange things in the past two days, and having seen the floating, upside-down building, which almost shocked his nerve endings to death. Even when the strange guy, who could not even be called a person, showed up in front of him, his surprise did not cause him to gaffe. The “Blue Fogman” then nodded at Hao Ren, whose body burst with a crackling current sound. It edged slightly away showing Hao Ren that he should follow it into the room.

Hao Ren ventured towards the creature, walking behind it after moving fast for a few steps to catch up, and walked into the strange building.

The house looked as gorgeous inside as its appearance from the outside. There was a bright lobby after entering from the main door leading into a long, red-carpeted hallway. Hao Ren followed the silent, strange creature, carefully observing the surroundings when they moved forward. There were no sources of light throughout the corridors, but every inch of the corners was full of light. On either side of the walls hung many ambiguous murals. Some of which were skysc.r.a.ping castles and towers, while some were pictures depicting planets and the universe. Some were scenes with huge warships firing at each other and high-tech military armies fighting, while others painted a picture that depicted some magicians performing magic. To be frank, those murals hanging on the wall were really dissonant with the atmosphere.

Finally, he saw at the end of the corridor, a mural of graffiti-like tortoises… This was something he completely could not comprehend.

After browsing he was led to the front of a dark brown wooden door, which looked quite heavy, but gorgeous. The “Blue Fogman” pointed at the wooden door, and then dissipated into air before Hao Ren could ask anything.

Hao Ren could only shrug and knock on the door, gathering up his courage.

A melodic female voice came from behind the door, who sounded exactly like the woman on the phone, “Come in, the door is not locked. ”

Hao Ren forced the door open, and everything behind the door presented itself to him.

This was a large semicircular room, and in the center of the room there was a dark table, which seemed quite heavy. There was no carpet on the ground, but instead the ground had a gray texture, which looked like moist bricks.  Against the arc-shaped wall of the room was a semi-circle shelf, but it was not a bookshelf. Strange things, that Hao Ren could not identify, occupied the shelves. Some were like models, others were like flashing crystals, and there was a grid with a “Jian Bing Guo Zi” which was half eaten. 3

Yes, there was really half a “Jian Bing Guo Zi”. Only G.o.d would know why!

Behind the large table in the center of the room, a long white-haired woman was seated. She was a pretty woman who made Hao Ren distracted slightly. She looked surprisingly young, maybe even a little younger than Hao Ren himself. Her temperament seemed cold, with her brown eyes and silver white hair. Her nose bridge was high, and her lips were thin. Generally, she gave an impression to others of an unapproachable person when she didn’t speak. The young woman was wearing some very strange clothes, which looked a bit like a black robe and an improved dustcoat. Although its style was uncommon, it appeared to fit the woman, giving her a mysterious temperament.

Just as Hao Ren was distracted, the young woman smiled, and thus the cool temperament faded. She nodded at Hao Ren, indicating him to sit on the chair beside the table. She pointed at herself, “You can call me Raven12345, I’m your boss from now on. ”

Hao Ren was just immersed in his mind, which had been a mess, so he did not notice the name the woman introduced, and just asked subconsciously, “Here… What is this place? ”

“Here? This is the s.p.a.ce-Time Authority, ” The so-called Raven12345 was beaming with pride, “Node en35 of the s.p.a.ce-Time Authority, Special Agencies in “w.a.n.g Ba Tuo Zi”. How do you feel? ‘Gee whiz’, right? “4

Hao Ren: “…”

 

A well-known mental hospital in HK.  A neta frequently used in JP anime, where the female characters’ upskirt…if you know what I mean lol  (Chinese: 煎饼果子) A kind of street snacks originated from Tianjin, China. It was made by putting ingredients on pancakes and is rolled into a circle or folded.  This name was coined especially by the author out of his weird interest, to combine a high-end unit’s name with the rube name of the district.