"That's the egg!"
When Hao Ren heard the words, he knew the Goddess had got him into a fix again: how could she not tell him earlier about such important thing!
Nangong Wuyue was shocked too. Her tail trembled and the oversize egg dropped on the ground. Hao Ren lunged forward like how Lily did when seeing bone. Most people would think the egg was broken, but it wasn't.
Perhaps the soft sand on the sea floor cushioned it, or maybe the egg shell was solid; it didn't suffer a scratch after falling off the siren's tail. Hao Ren held the egg like a baby and examined it real hard for half a day to ensure it was OK. He finally exhaled in relief. "Holy moly, I was almost scared to death. It was lucky that it was intact."
When Nangong Wuyue played with the egg, Hao Ren had thought it was a ball. Not until he held it in his arm he realized it was really an egg. It was pure white with a little yellow spot in the centre, much more bigger than goose egg, oval but more rounded than normal egg. The egg shell was silky smooth and warm to the touch. Nangong Wuyue came up and touched it. She was very curious but very cautious too. "Thank God it's still in one piece."
"How could this be? An egg?" Hao Ren almost cried as he spoke to Raven 12345. "My new tenant is an egg?"
"It hasn't hatched yet." Raven 12345 spoke matter-of-factly. "It doesn't matter what it is, just keep it safely. There're already four different kinds of people with you, and you still couldn't shake off your racial mindset?"
"...It's not about racial prejudice." Hao Ren half-smiled half-cried with the egg in his hand. "It was perfectly acceptable when you sent a werewolf and a vampire, but this time...it's an egg! It even doesn't have a face! Is that what you mean 'people'?"
"Just wait until it hatches." Raven 12345 sounded totally calm. "It will hatch. And I think you should happier, looking after an egg is way easier than taking care of a husky. Just don't break it and it'll hatch by itself in no time without needing special environmental condition. And make sure it's got enough humidity, that little thing doesn't really fond of dry atmosphere once it hatched."
Hao Ren knew no way he could convey his feeling of pain in his heart to the obstinate Goddess. He had to bite his lip while welcoming his new egg-tenant. The two gave each other a glance before Hao Ren asked with a faint voice, "At least you've got to tell me the egg's origin."
"I'm about to tell you that, in fact, when we meet. I'm on my way to you." Raven 12345 sounded cheerful. "I've got a big surprise for you as a commend for your job well done! Get the MDT out into an open space now, I'll be there in about an hour."
Raven 12345 hung up rudely right after that just like she used to be, leaving Hao Ren stupefied. "She's coming?"
For two seconds, he tried to grab his thought. Then he came to his senses. The pyscho was coming. He didn't know how she had found the time to come here. He grabbed Nangong Wuyue's tail and curled it up on his waist and said, "Let's get out of here."
Nangong Wuyue looked at his familiar act. She grimaced at him before uttered a short syllable just like before, the barrier disappeared in a snap. Sea water came back down like a burst dam. In the thunderous sound of the rushing water, the siren was carrying Hao Ren and shot for the surface.
The return trip felt a lot quicker. The two of them didn't say a thing as they headed back to the surface. Before long they were able to see the sunlight from above and the shadow of the floating ice right up. As they came close to the surface, Nangong Wuyue let loose Hao Ren and pushed him out of the surface with the help of the controlled-flow current. "Landlord, please pass me my cloths when you get up there. I'll dress up down here. Hey, grab the egg!"
When Hao Ren broke the surface, he felt that he was in the most awkward moment of his life as his hand was raised above his head holding the egg like the Statue of Liberty...
He wished it was anything but egg!
This vast expanse of sea water was already under the control of Nangong Wuyue. As Hao Ren reached the surface, the water under his feet turned into an ice bridge linking to the floating ice where Y'zaks was safeguarding the icy "cloth-ball" while playing poker with himself. When he say Hao Ren he gave him a very warm welcome. "Hi, welcome back! Where are the lady siren and the new tenant?"
"Wuyue needs her cloths back." As he said it he tossed the icy cloth-ball into the water. The mermaid jumped out and pulled the icy ball back into the water with her. "This' the new tenant." said Hao Ren as he shoved the egg in front of Y'zaks.
Y'zaks: ".....?"
"You've got it right. This is the new tenant." Hao Ren's face turned solemn. "It wasn't just straying out of course, but also coming way too early—this thing hasn't hatched yet. Now I know the reason they was using a container."
Y'zaks was still flabbergasted and speechless. ".....?"
After a long-winded explanation, the demon finally came to grip with the situation—the egg was the target of the mission. With an annoying expression on his face he said, "My Goddess the majesty... tsk tsk, I was thinking to shake hand with the new tenant."
Hao Ren shoved the egg to Y'zaks. "Take it. And don't break it."
Y'zaks: "....."
The sound of splashing water was heard from not far away. Nangong Wuyue was coming out of the water as she had transformed back into human form with her cloths on, fully dry. As Hao Ren and Y'zaks were sitting facing each other and studying the egg in the middle, Nangong Wuyue reminded the two careless chaps. "Sister Goddess will be here any moment. Where're we going to find a open land?"
"The beach where we landed is pretty wide." Hao Ren pondered a a moment and his eyes landed on the floating ice. "But nothing comes close to where we're now when you're talking about level field. Wuyue, could you expand the floating ice?"
"If course I can if within one-kilometre radius in size."
"Wait a second. I suggest you guys should go back to the beach instead." The MDT suddenly chimed in. "Experience tells me that when Ma'am Raven said 'big surprise' she really meant B-I-G; when she said 'open land', we should really find a more solid ground."
Hao Ren concurred with that. He knew Raven 12345's style. The three of them, plus the egg, was teleported back to the beach where they had landed earlier. To make sure the chosen spot was wide enough, they found a much bigger beach a kilometre away from the landed spot. And they waited the arrival of the Raven 12345.
And yes, the arrival of the Goddess should deserve a red carpet treatment.
As the MDT sent out its location, Raven 12345 was just a few minutes away. They went to a higher ground on the beach and stared at the sky expectantly. Hao Ren felt that time was crawling very slowly this time. As he was about to doubt the pyscho would ever show up, a streak of light appeared in the sky.
A strange vision filled the sky: the sun was gone, and the firmament was filled with thousands of star. A curtain of blue light like an aurora started to lower from above the high sky while a huge door appeared in the centre of the aurora. Seconds later, Hao Ren saw a massive silver white object emerged from the space door.
It was a spaceship.
The spaceship was asymmetric hexagonal, one end was bigger than the other, and slightly narrow in what looked like a western-style casket if you asked Hao Ren. Luckily there were some other attached structures which helped lessen the casket illusion. On the narrow end of the spaceship were four hexagonal cylinders in pairs, one on each side. The front end of the spaceship had complex and protruding structures which made it looked like a floating, many-eyed monster. Hao Ren wasn't able to tell the dimensions of this monster ship, but he knew it was bigger than any aircraft carriers human had ever built on earth—to put it into perspective, it was like a mountain falling from the sky.
The spaceship was covered by a translucent blue light-curtain while the image of Raven 12345 appeared on it, her voice was like thunder. "How's that? This' the big surprise I was talking about. It's yours! Just got the approval today and I'm delivering it to you myself!"