Hao Ren should never have mentioned the words "traffic cop." Explaining what a traffic cop was to the four ascetics took him quite some effort, and by the time he had finished, both he and Becky felt parched. The oldest of the four ascetics—the sturdy, gray-haired man with a full beard—pondered for a while after hearing him out. Just as Hao Ren was preparing to explain everything again, assuming the man had understood nothing, he suddenly raised his head. "I understood everything. Two worlds, one outer and one inner, a fragile connection, and the teleportation process you mentioned. Oh, and the 'traffic cop' you spoke of. I understood all of it."
Hao Ren immediately relaxed. "That's good..."
"You mean that we came from a space you call the Dream Plane," another male ascetic with a short beard said, gazing deeply at Hao Ren. "And you call your own world the Outer World. The two worlds should never have been connected, but a crack appeared in a barrier called the 'Wall of Reality,' creating a spatial passage. We were 'flung' out of our own world and ended up here. And you're the person responsible for regulating such passages?"
Hao Ren had just nodded when the man asked in an unusually solemn tone, "Then where does the Goddess stand in your system?"
Hao Ren was stunned. A feeling of what the hell slowly rose within him. He finally understood the most troublesome situation one could encounter when speaking with a religious fanatic: How was he supposed to explain, from the perspective of the greater universe, the status of a goddess who was only slightly more important than a village chief? And how could he do that without provoking that fervent yet fragile heart of faith?
He had already given some thought to