Chapter 4: Arriving at Hai City
Two assembled a small pushcart, and on it, he laid out a considerably cozy little nest with a thick cotton quilt.
Pang Hua and Little Dirtball were placed inside, sleeping comfortably.
“Like two little Kasuolas,” Two remarked quietly after a glance.
“What’s that?” Cai Feng asked.
One explained, “It’s a word from our dialect. It means ‘little pigs’.” (In truth, they had a pair of small wings more than pigs, but they couldn’t fly either.)
Cai Feng was not delicate at all. Although One and Two told her she should just rest, she insisted on taking turns with them pushing the cart. The cart was piled high. Cai Feng had taken everything she could easily carry, even stuffing her kitchen knife onto it, leaving just enough space for one adult to sleep.
One and Two didn’t rest on the cart; only Cai Feng would lie down for a bit, holding the children.
One had already calculated their destination. They definitely couldn’t go to any of the surrounding areas; it would be bad if they ran into people from the village in the future.
It was best to choose a more developed city, where he and Two could investigate the true level of human technology. The situation in the village was certainly not representative of human science.
Therefore, he chose a distant coastal city—Hai City.
Hai City was quite distant, over a thousand kilometers away. But it was open to the outside world, meaning they could gather more information there.
How to get there was a problem. For people in this area, airplanes and trains were considerable luxuries.
Fortunately, Cai Feng possessed a most timely ignorance.
“Hai City?” She scratched her head. “Where’s that?”
One and Two exchanged a look. Obviously, she didn’t know of the place.
“It’s some distance from here,” One said cautiously.
“It can’t be too far,” Cai Feng said, looking at the two children. “If we’re on the road too long, the babies might get sick.”
“How about three days, then?” One asked tentatively, watching Cai Feng’s expression. “Would that be alright?”
“That’s not so bad,” Cai Feng nodded.
And so, while Cai Feng was asleep, One and Two pushed the little cart and activated their accelerators. Cai Feng slept soundly on the cart, holding the two children. When One and Two’s speed exceeded 60 km/h, a breeze broke through their protective barrier, ruffling Cai Feng’s hair.
Pang Hua quietly awoke. With a finger in her mouth, she gazed with blank innocence at the scenery flashing by outside.
One gently placed a finger to his lips. “Don’t tell them. This is a secret.”
When Cai Feng woke up, she felt something was strange. “It’s so humid. Is it going to rain?”
She looked around. “Whoa, you Big Brothers covered a lot of ground last night,” she praised. “Even the trees look different. We don’t have trees like these back home.”
In reality, it wasn’t just the trees that had changed; the climate had, too, shifting from a temperate continental monsoon climate to a subtropical maritime monsoon climate.
One and Two had advanced them 500 kilometers.
If Cai Feng had been more worldly, she would have noticed more details.
But she wasn’t a detail-oriented person; right now, she only noticed the humidity. Little Dirtball’s face, which had been a bit dry before, was now surprisingly soft and tender.
While Cai Feng slept, One also took care of some important business.
He took a trip to Hai City and ascertained the human monetary system.
Then, he went to a junkyard and found some materials. Human methods of transportation were clumsy; most were two-wheeled, though there were some four-wheeled ones as well.
The four-wheeled ones were much rarer and much more expensive.
So, after observing for a while, he assembled a car from the materials he had found. This was all accomplished at night. Then, during the day, he found a person driving a car and politely knocked on their window.
“I have a car here,” he said. “The price is very low. Would you be willing to take a look?”
Before Cai Feng woke up, he had already obtained a handful of cash, found a residential area in a less prosperous part of Hai City, and rented a house.
This whole process was a bit complicated for One.
The most convenient method, really, would have been to materialize currency. But since he was mentally prepared to integrate into human society, he wouldn’t resort to such an unreasonable method.
He hadn’t considered, however, that building a car from scratch with discarded materials wasn’t a very reasonable thing to do either.
As they neared Hai City, One and Two stopped using the accelerators and conscientiously pushed the cart. In the distance, they saw the buildings of Hai City. There were many tall buildings.
Cai Feng grew anxious. “That place looks so expensive. Where will we live? What will we eat?”
Mood directly affects milk production. Two comforted her: “We have a place to live.”
When they actually moved into the apartment One had rented in advance, Cai Feng still couldn’t believe her eyes.
“Good heavens,” she wandered through the three-bedroom, one-living-room apartment, looking here and there, utterly astonished. “We really have a place to live? And it’s this nice?”
This was her first time seeing a marble floor. Although One repeatedly told her she could walk in with her shoes on, she still insisted on taking them off, only daring to step into the room in her socks.
For Cai Feng, who had only ever lived in an earthen-floored house in the village, this place was simply paradise.
“You’ll take the master bedroom,” One arranged for Cai Feng. “Because Pang Hua and Little Dirtball need to stay with you right now, and the master bedroom gets better sunlight, which is good for their development.”
The master bedroom had a large bed with a spring mattress. Cai Feng sat on it and was completely shocked. She wasn’t highly educated and had no hang-ups about etiquette. After testing that the bed was quite soft yet firm, she used her bottom for leverage and bounced happily up and down.
One and Two were putting things away. As they passed the master bedroom door, they glanced at Cai Feng and felt some emotions they had never experienced before.
It was hard to describe, but it made them feel that the sunlight today was especially warm.
Pang Hua and Little Dirtball adapted well, never waking up as they were moved from the pushcart to the bed.
Cai Feng and Two stayed home to watch the children and unpack, while One went out to purchase some food and daily necessities.
He stepped out of the apartment, and the door opposite him immediately opened.
An old woman stared eagerly at One and began firing questions: “Just moved in? When did you move in? How many people in your family? What do you do for a living?”
The old woman’s two lips opened and closed rapidly, launching a barrage of questions.
One immediately realized the difference between Hai City and the village. The old ladies here were of a higher difficulty level, equipped with reconnaissance abilities.
One tried hard to think of how to properly answer the old woman’s questions to avoid revealing any flaws.
Suddenly, he remembered Cai Feng’s performance during her argument.
The answer to “You’re a cheater!” didn’t have to be “I’m not a cheater,” but could instead be “You eat shit.”
One collected his thoughts, intelligently realizing he didn’t have to answer the old woman’s questions. But he didn’t know what else he should say.
He gave the old woman a cautious look, quickly turned, and ran off.
The old woman watched his retreating back, the excitement on her face gradually replaced by bewilderment.
With a heavy heart, One went to the wet market and strictly purchased several days’ worth of ingredients based on their nutritional content.
By the time he was almost home, he had thought through what he needed to do next.
Cai Feng was in the bedroom with the children, humming a tune with unintelligible lyrics. Two was in the kitchen, a kitchen knife in hand, precisely dicing a carrot into one-centimeter cubes.
“I’ll look for a job tomorrow,” One said, squatting by Two’s feet. “Otherwise, it will be easy for humans to notice something is wrong.”
“What about me?” Two asked.
“You stay home for now. Cai Feng can’t take care of two children by herself.”
Two wanted to ask something else, but Cai Feng’s voice came from the bedroom.
“Is dinner almost ready?” Cai Feng called out loudly. “I’m a little hungry! It’d be great if there was some meat.”
Two sped up, finished the carrots, and started on the potatoes.
Steam billowed from the pot, pushing up the lid. A large hodgepodge stew was ready. The meat was cut into 2-centimeter cubes, the carrots into 1-centimeter cubes, and the potatoes into 1.2-centimeter cubes, all perfect, uniform squares.
But after simmering in the pot, these strange little cubes lost some of their shape and looked much more harmonious.
Cai Feng ate in big mouthfuls. Two similarly put food in his mouth. He couldn’t taste anything and watched Cai Feng with some envy. “Is it good?”
Cai Feng nodded vigorously. “It’s good!”
But her vocabulary was limited, and she couldn’t explain what exactly was good about it, so she simply summarized: “There’s meat. It’s good.”
After the meal, One went to wash the dishes, while Two stood by the bed in the master bedroom, watching the two cooing babies to make sure they didn’t fall off.
Cai Feng was in the living room with nothing to do.
She had her own little schemes. Though not particularly clever, she was savvy enough to make the best choices for herself.
Her life was good now; it was the most relaxed time of her life. She started to feel a little embarrassed, so she gathered Pang Hua’s and Little Dirtball’s clothes and began to wash them.
Water in the city cost money. Cai Feng had learned this from Two, so she had to use it sparingly.
She used the clean water to wash Pang Hua’s clothes first, then Little Dirtball’s. Finally, she took an old rag they had brought from home, dipped it in the water, and squatted on the floor, huffing and puffing as she scrubbed the floor.
Little Dirtball was almost six months old. His limbs were strong, and he proudly propped his chubby leg on top of Pang Hua, completely unaware that his mother had already placed him in a position of lesser importance than Pang Hua.
That night, after Cai Feng and the two children were asleep, One and Two closed their door and held a short meeting.
One summarized their recent progress and asked for Two’s opinion. As expected, he received no valuable suggestions, but this demonstrated his respect for Two as Number One, which was beneficial for the future execution of their work.
Then, One announced his plan for the next phase.
“We need jobs. Because the outside world is complex, I will go out and find a job first. You will be responsible for maintaining the household’s operation.”
Two nodded in agreement, and One continued with his operational plan. “Regarding work, I have a preliminary idea.”
“Since we are unfamiliar with the content of human jobs, I will likely make mistakes at the beginning. If I switch jobs a few times, no one will be able to see through my disguise.”
“Therefore, for the first job, I should choose the smallest possible company.”
“It would be best if it’s in poor condition and goes bankrupt quickly. That way, I won’t need to find a reason to switch jobs.”
The night grew late. One scanned the surroundings to confirm it was safe. Two sat on the edge of the bed, closed his eyes, and his entire body once again transformed into his initial spherical shape.
A small hole appeared in the middle of the sphere. Several invisibly thin, transparent metal filaments slowly extended from it, writhing as they searched upwards.
But after searching for a long time, they still couldn’t find what they were looking for.
“The information has been sent,” countless shades of dark light flashed through One’s eyes, so fast that they only appeared white. “The homeworld will receive our message.”
“But the homeworld has not yet located our position, nor can it send a reply.”
“The mission continues.”