I managed to get her to agree to let me have a few days to think about my current situation, though it did also give her time to initiate the protocol she was telling me about so it was a win-win for both of us.
I did ask her about it since I was a little curious and it was basically just a plan where the person in charge of that branch would be expanded to serve the interests of the Mortal God that has awakened in this country in particular.
Even though it says to 'serve', I understood that it was more that the group was there to watch over the Mortal God instead and to guide them to match the interest of the government.
She would most likely start recruiting staff members to work in the new department and it would then become an independent organisation instead of being a subsidiary under the Ministry of Anomaly Management.
She also mentioned that the ministers and leadership of this country would want to meet with me but I told her to reject all meeting requests for now since I wasn't ready for that.
There was one request that I had her grant me and it was to keep my identity a secret.
While the country would no doubt broadcast the fact that we now have a Mortal God of our own, it was not necessary to reveal my identity to everyone in the world.
I would be able to operate under an alias and to also hide my face if I wanted to so people could see me on the streets and not know that I was a Mortal God.
The main reason why I wanted that was to keep my family safe since they might be targeted by others if my identity as a Mortal God was revealed.
Not just by people who want to meet me through them, but also supporters of other foreign Mortal Gods might come along to eliminate them in order to get rid of me.
While on the surface, it might look like humans have completely set aside our differences to deal with the rifts but that was only a facade.
Even in such a scenario, countries are still involved in petty squabbles and competition and they would even go as far as to plan for the downfall of their rival country's Mortal God than to try and work together with them.
In other words, they could also send assassins and other threats to wipe out another Mortal God.
Of course, I wasn't delusional enough to believe that I could hide my identity forever since I was pretty sure it would be revealed one day, but I would like to keep it a secret for as long as possible.
Also… I'm pretty sure my mother would also yell at me about this if she found out about it, Mortal God or not.
Thankfully, I didn't need to worry about trying to hide the jade coloured book as I could just stuff it back into my chest to store it.
I returned home and entered through the door, the first person I saw being my dad who was seated in the living room watching the news.
"I'm here reporting on the site of where the supposed portal had opened and several witnesses saw a glowing man fight off Anomalies--"
"I'm home," I called out, taking off my shoes and walking in with a bag of puddings that I bought from the convenience store on the way back.
My father looked up from where he was seated in the living room, "Oh, back already? How was Dan?"
It took me a moment to remember that I lied to them that I was going out to meet Dan instead of the real reason I went out earlier.
I cleared my throat, "Ahem… He was fine."
"That's nice. Ah Hui is still looking for you, by the way."
I raised an eyebrow, "Little Sis is looking for me? What does she want?"
He shrugged, "She just told me to tell you that she's looking for you when you come back."
I guess I should see what she wants…
But before that…
"Where's Mom?"
"Behind, doing laundry."
Good… That means she would most likely be too busy with that and wouldn't question me about my fake trip with Dan and figure out that I didn't actually go out to meet him.
I made a noncommittal noise before I went over to my sister's room, her door currently closed shut.
I rapped my knuckle on the door, "Sis?"
The door opened after a while and my sister peeked through the gap, her face lighting up when she saw it was me.
"Oh! You're back, Gor Gor! Come in! Come in!"
She opened the door the rest of the way and I stepped into her room, letting her close the door behind me.
Her room looked clean and organised as usual aside from her bed that had a small mountain of stuffed toys that were piled up in the corner, some of them having been with her since she was young.
"You were looking for me?" I asked.
"Ya! You forget already ah? I want you to help me choose my Uni!"
I crossed my arms, "I'm pretty sure you have a better idea of which Uni you want to go to considering the fact that I never went to university."
"Yes, yes, you and your 'university is a waste of time' talk blah blah. I just want some advice! I don't know if going to a local one or overseas would be better!"
I paused.
If she had asked me this question yesterday, I would have told her she could pick any that she wanted but now that I was awakened as a Mortal God, having one of my family members overseas might not be a good idea.
"I think… It might be better for you to just pick a local Uni instead."
She grinned and nudged her shoulder playfully against me, "Oh, oh? Gor Gor going to miss me is it? Don't want me to leave and find a boyfriend outside ah?"
"More like you're too stupid to live on your own and you'll get taken advantage of anyway."
"Aiyah!! I not stupid, ok? You everytime always bully me!"
I sighed and reached into the plastic bag I was holding in my hand and pulled out one of the cups of pudding, "Yes, yes. The real reason you wanted me here was because of this, right?"
She immediately snatched the cup of pudding away before hugging me, "Yayyyy!! You know me so well!! I love you, Gor Gor!!"
"Don't tell Mom… Or else she's going to talk my ear off about spoiling you again."
"Ehehehe~ You're the best brother, Gor Gor~ Don't worry, I will always have your back! When I go Uni, I'll definitely help you find some nice girls to intro you!"
I rolled my eyes, "Just focus on your studies and make sure you submit your university applications before the deadline. Otherwise you're going to miss the entry period."
"Mmmm~" She mumbled, already digging into her pudding and ignoring what I said.
I left the room and headed to the kitchen to put the rest of the pudding I bought in the fridge, only to come face to face with my Mom when I entered said kitchen.
Damnit… Bad timing…
"Come back already ah?" She asked, her hands still wet from doing the laundry.
I gulped, "Ah… Yes."
"So early in the morning, where you go?"
"Dan wanted me to grab breakfast with him," I lied.
"He called you ah? He doing ok now?"
"Yeah…"
"His family leh?"
"They're also fine."
She narrowed her eyes at me, probably already suspecting that I didn't actually go to meet him just from that short exchange.
I wanted to squeeze past her to get to the fridge but she reached out her hand to stop me, "Wait."
I could feel a metaphorical sweat roll down my face, wondering if she somehow figured out that I awakened as a Mortal God.
That was until she reached out and grabbed the plastic bag from me to peer inside it, her face immediately scrunching up when she saw its contents.
"Haiyah! Buy sweets again! You know all this is unhealthy right? Ah girl always eat this then she's going to become fat, you know?!"
Yeah… She's trying to claim the girl who basically plays basketball every other day and also works out that she would become fat just because she eats some sweets occasionally…
"She'll be fine," I assured her.
She narrowed her eyes at me, "You always spoil her."
I shrugged, "I buy those for myself. She just steals them from me."
Mother huffed before she sniffed at me, "Why you got this weird smell on you? Is that perfume smell? You go out meet girl is it?!"
Ah… Oh crap… That's Olivia's smell isn't it? I can't remember if she was wearing perfume but some of it must have gotten on me when we had that sudden spar earlier…
I grimaced, "No lah… Umm… Dan wanted to buy some perfume for his wife so… We went to a perfume shop and he sprayed some on me as a joke…"
She narrowed her eyes even more before she made a shooing motion at me, "Hurry up and go shower lah! Come back so dirty still haven't go wash yourself!"
Mother then turned back into the kitchen to start putting the pudding I bought inside the fridge, allowing me to escape into the shower room and free myself from her interrogation.
Can't believe I actually managed to get away with that.