They were back to the surface after solving the problems in the Calamity Cloister. Since many of the above-ground facilities were severely damaged in the incident a month ago, the Tannaean survivors rescued from the freezer were placed in a nearby power plant. The once thriving Ancattero family was almost wiped out overnight in the disaster, the family of thousands had now been reduced to just a few hundred.
These frightened survivors were resting near the reactor and relied on the heat pipes of the factory to regain their strength. Wayne took a small team of demon hunters, found a nearby warehouse, and salvaged some well-preserved refrigerated food. The survivors were silent and depressed. Some people were quietly eating. Some people just stared at the reactor cooling tower, while others lied down but could not sleep. Few people were talking, only an occasional short conversation. When they knew everyone was safe and sound, they fell into silence again.
This depressed atmosphere had Lily quieted down. She knelt in front of a Tannaean child, trying to use her precious stone collection to divert the child’s attention. Hao Ren rarely saw this other side of the maiden, and she was so gentle now although the Tannaean child seemed not interested in the stones.
“I’m deeply sorry for what you all have gone through,” Hasse stood with Vogus and said quietly to the survivors, “though I’m a demon hunter.”
“It will get better, we have had worse,” Vogus said slowly. There was no obvious emotion on his pale-golden face. “The Ancattero family has never bowed to any difficulties. From the day we signed up to guard the seal, we were ready to face anything,” Vogus said.
Then he turned to look at Hao Ren. “What did you want to tell me just now?”
Hao Ren had been standing with Vogus for a while, but his mind was in another world. He was entangled in his cobweb, a dilemma. It was kind of like he was a forensic doctor who had announced the death of a person and even issued the death certificate, but this ‘dead’ person suddenly came back alive again.
He could not seriously think to shoot that guy so that the guy would die for real.
The Tannagost civilization had been registered as a lost civilization in the database. Hao Ren was the one who concluded the report two years ago. He had also extracted a database from the planet Tannagost, but at that time, he did not know there were Tannaean survivors. These Tannaeans did not turn into vengeful spirits, nor were they wiped out by the demon hunters and the other otherworldlings. That was his dilemma. The Tannagost civilization may have to change. Of course, changing the state of civilization was not the biggest problem; the biggest problem was…
He had conveniently sublet the planet Tannagost to others. Zorm, Muru and the 1.6 billion aliens were building their homes on the planet. Now he found out that the original owner was still alive and he had a problem explaining his blunder.
Hao Ren was at his wits’ end. He felt like burying his head in the sand. But upon hearing Vogus asking him, and thinking of his position as the highest religious head on the planet, he could only bite the bullet. “I want to tell you something. Do you know where your family came from?”
“What do you mean?” Vogus sounded a little hesitant. ‘Where you come from’ was an eternal philosophical question, especially in this case, the questioner would not expect to hear an answer like “I came from Hebei Province.” The senior patriarch had vaguely realized that the question was referring to 10,000 years ago. “The origin?” he asked back.
“Let’s be frank.” Hao Ren nodded. “Do you know that you lot were once called the Tannaeans? The name comes from your hometown. You guys used to live in a place called Tannagost.”
All the while poker face, Vogus the alien finally had some animation on his face. He was wide-eyed, “How do you know that?”
Y’lisabet was standing not far from them. Looking up at Hao Ren and then Vogus, she said, “Uncle Ren, you don’t have to tell him. No one is going to know if you keep mum.”
“I feel like I have to do that.” Hao Ren waved his hand. “I am a pope after all. It’s a positive role. I have to be worthy of the character! Vogus, how much do you know about Tannagost?”
The old patriarch had a million thoughts in his mind. The attitude of Hao Ren when he mentioned the name and what the little demon said had triggered his memory. “I… in fact, we can only learn from the records of our ancestors, and we have never told any outsiders about it. We do know that our hometown is a place called Tannagost, where something catastrophic had happened, and our ancestors had to live in exile on this planet. As for the disaster, the ancient information disk mentions that it was an ecological disaster.”
“Well, I knew it. You guys are better than other otherworldlings, at least you know you came from another place,” Hao Ren said. His had guessed it right; the Gilded Disc that was tainted with the deicidal sin had a different level of effect on different races, even though they were the creations of the same Goddess. The otherworldlings from Holletta had almost completely lost their memory of their hometown, but the Tannaeans still retained a vague knowledge of where they come from, only that they did not know how they came. “Do you know where Tannagost is?” Hao Ren asked.
“For thousands of years, the biggest wish of the Ancattero family is to find its home.” Vogus shook his head slightly. “But we couldn’t do anything. This planet is not suitable for us to survive. We have modified our genes as much as possible to adapt to the water and air here, but there is no way to rebuild most of the industries and technologies. The underground hibernation facility you saw before was the last attempt by the patriarch 2,000 years ago: we wanted to build a large spaceship and find our home in the universe. The plan was put on hold because there were too many problems. We had to give up.”
Hao Ren had guessed it right that the frozen hibernation cabin in the underground was part of a spaceship. He only got it half right though. He also thought that it was the same as the city of the sirens where the Tannaeans came with the spaceship. It was not true. Instead, the Tannaeans built it on Earth. “Two thousand years ago? You guys were planning to go into space? This plan sounds much grander than other otherworldling families. But how were you going to find Tannagost when you don’t even know its coordinates?”
“At the time when the Mythological era was in the midst of collapse, and people had lost hope for the future, we felt that there was nothing worthy to hold on to this planet. Some scholars at the time thought that there might be clues of our home on Mars or its satellites, so our ancestors built the spacecraft,” Vogus explained. “Of course, the plan did not see the light of day.”
It was a good thing that the powerful Tannaeans had given up the idea; Hao Ren thought because their home was not a place where they could reach in a spaceship. Instead, if they looked back, they might be able to find a small door back in Siberia that would lead them back home.
However, in reality, there was no ‘what if’; the Ancattero family had built half of the spaceship, but still did not realize that the secret path to home was on this planet.
Hao Ren sighed. “I have been to your home. It has been abandoned for a very long time. Nature has reclaimed the place…”
He slowly told the senior patriarch about the things about Tannagost and the insignificant things of his work. Seeing this from afar, Lily grabbed the Vivian and asked, “What is Mr. Landlord doing?”
Vivian thought for a moment. “The housing agent has accidentally rented out the wrong house to some migrant workers. Now he is trying to explain that to the owner of the house.”
Lily had been drawing circles on the ground for a long while. At last, she looked up. “Arf?”
Like the little demon said, Hao Ren was tempted to go with the easy way; he could keep quiet, pretend nothing had happened and swept the matter under the carpet, Vogus and other Tannaean survivors had no chance to find their home anyway. If that did not work, he could come out with a lie to cover up his blunder. For example, he could tell them that the planet had exploded, which would completely ruin the idea of the Tannaeans to go home.
These were not Hao Ren’s styles though.
He might look lackadaisical, but he would call a spade a spade especially when it was the right thing to do. He also knew full well that favoritism would not go down well with Raven 12345. The eccentric goddess might be hairy at the heel sometimes, but she was a dyed-in-the-wool law enforcer when it came to business. Making things straight would be the smartest thing to do, which was also in line with Hao Ren’s style.
Since things had come to this, fretting was unnecessary. Such was Hao Ren’s style.
