Mobius's lips twitched slightly before she handed the last bucket of instant noodles to Xu Ziling, who was burying his head in his food and devouring it at lightning speed. Around them were over a hundred empty noodle buckets, all neatly arranged.
Xu Ziling finished the last bucket in three seconds. With that, the provisions Mobius and Blanca had brought from Mu—enough to sustain them for half a year—had been completely wiped out by him.
Mobius kept telling herself, It's fine, it's fine. It's worth it for the experiment... But the more she thought that, the harder the little heart in her chest throbbed.
Instant noodles! My instant noodles! All those different flavors of instant noodles!... They're gone! They're all gone!
They were all children that had been bought less than a month ago! How could they just be gone like that?!
Most importantly... This Serpent hadn't even had a bite yet...
No! I need to think of a way to tie this Little Mouse completely to me! Only the experimental data from his body can justify the sacrifice of hundreds of buckets of instant noodles!
But at that thought, Mobius found herself troubled again.
When it came to ordinary people, Mobius had plenty of ways to steal from them, deceive them, and bluff them.
But Xu Ziling... this freak had learned the common language of modern human civilization from just a few scattered words from Mobius after spending "Monkey King's Birth" inside the stone statue. That proved his intelligence was definitely not low... If she used the methods she used on ordinary people against him, things might backfire, and that would be no fun at all.
To completely tie down this monster capable of tearing apart alloy with his bare hands and make him an experimental subject belonging only to herself... the best way, of course, was to make Xu Ziling develop the desire to follow her on his own.
But how exactly was she supposed to... Oh? Right. Hadn't this guy forcibly kissed her just now?
Yes! This guy had just forcibly kissed her!
At that thought, Mobius felt as if the clouds had parted and the sun had emerged. She secretly laughed at herself for being so muddle-headed. This walking mass of experimental data had already handed her the "rope" she could use to tie him down, yet it had taken her this long to realize it.
Meanwhile, Xu Ziling finished the last bucket of instant noodles and, prompted by the instincts of this body, closed his eyes and began sensing his current physical condition.
Xu Ziling's current physical state... was good! Better than ever before! But... it was very empty.
It was like a river that had once completely dried up receiving an infusion from a clear spring. Although its condition was far better than when it had been dry, it was ultimately only a drop in the bucket.
At that thought, Xu Ziling couldn't help wondering whether his soul had crossed over or his body had crossed over. If it had been his soul, just what kind of thing had he crossed into? How could it have been weakened to this extent?
System, do you know?
[Beep~ System restarting...]
Right. It seemed this was destined to be a system with little presence.
"Cough, cough... Um, Little Mouse?"
At that moment, Mobius coughed twice tactically. After collecting the empty noodle bucket from Xu Ziling's hands, she said,
"Are you full?"
"Mm..."
He obviously wasn't full yet, but... looking at the hundreds of empty noodle buckets and Mobius, who had gone from confident at the start to hesitant and helpless now, telling the absolute truth would make Xu Ziling seem a little too shameless.
"Thank you for your hospitality, Doctor."
After thinking for a long while, Xu Ziling spoke in what he considered his most polite manner:
"Would you like me to help you deal with this trash first, Doctor? Or should I directly undergo your experiment?"
"Cough, cough... There's no need to rush that."
Mobius found it easy enough to weigh a single experiment against long-term, stable experimentation.
She stacked the empty noodle buckets and the other empty containers she had just brought over, then shoved the whole pile aside. After that, Mobius sat down opposite Xu Ziling, propped her cheek up with one hand, and thought for a moment before attempting to converse in what she considered her most polite tone.
"Little Mouse... You see, although I don't know why you were born from a stone statue... before you were sealed inside that statue, as an intelligent life-form, you must have had your own 'civilization,' right?"
"Mm..."
That question from Mobius successfully left Xu Ziling speechless.
He was a transmigrator who had crossed over halfway through the process. He didn't even know why he had ended up inside a stone statue, so how could he possibly know about the civilization that had existed before that statue?
However, if he regarded the Blue Star he had lived on before transmigrating as his former civilization... then Mobius's question wasn't impossible to answer.
With that thought, Xu Ziling nodded and replied:
"Mm."
Mobius's eyes lit up at his response. That simple nod from Xu Ziling contained an enormous amount of information!
It was enough to prove that in Mobius's current era of civilization, there truly had been a "Previous Civilization" that belonged to them!
Seeing Mobius's eyes gradually grow excited, and taking the despairing backdrop of the Previous Civilization into account, Xu Ziling had little trouble guessing what she was thinking.
Before transmigrating, Xu Ziling had been an overworked employee. Under the coercion of Dog Boss at a heartless company, he had long since developed the passive skill of always keeping something in reserve, along with acting skills so superb they bordered on the miraculous. Faced with Mobius's reaction, he wasn't about to be suspected immediately just because he had given the wrong answer.
Thus, Xu Ziling pondered for a moment, put on a sorrowful expression, and justified his earlier reply:
"Doctor... I understand your excitement upon learning that a 'Previous Civilization' truly existed, but... my civilization was insignificant. It has also long since passed away with the wind...
"If you need me to cooperate with you for some physical examinations, I would be happy to do so. But regarding my civilization... please allow me to refuse to answer for now. I need time to accept everything that has happened. I also need time to accept the passing of my civilization."
Mobius was startled when she noticed Xu Ziling's reaction. But after thinking about it carefully, it made sense. If Xu Ziling's civilization still existed, he couldn't possibly have appeared in the form of "Monkey King's Birth." Since he had been buried deep underground and had leaped out of a stone statue, that could only mean... his civilization had already perished.
She had only wanted to confirm Xu Ziling's cultural and civilizational knowledge, but she had overlooked that this action was also akin to reopening someone else's wounds.
"Mm..."
After thinking rapidly, Mobius scooted the chair beneath her a little closer to Xu Ziling and said,
"Um... sorry, Little Mouse. I didn't mean to offend you... I just wanted to tell you something."
"Mm."
Xu Ziling nodded, sorrow flickering in his eyes. He had never imagined that the acting skills he had developed in his previous life to slack off under his boss's nose would come in handy after transmigrating.
"What is it you want to say, Doctor? You can tell me directly."
At that moment, Xu Ziling had perfectly assumed the identity of a survivor of a lost civilization. In a bitter and helpless tone, he said to Mobius,
"I don't know what the etiquette is like in your civilization, Doctor... but in mine, when someone bestows kindness upon you, you must remember that kindness. After I awoke, you were the one who fed me this meal. I will not forget such kindness."
"Mm..."
Hearing that, Mobius's earlier excitement slowly faded. After thinking for a long time, she said,
"Little Mouse, I'm a down-and-out biologist and not good with words. Some things I say may come across as presumptuous, so don't take them to heart... I've said so much to you because I wanted to ask: since 'kindness' existed in your civilization, then 'feelings' must have existed too, right? Do you know what a 'First Kiss' means?"
Mobius's sudden question at the end left Xu Ziling utterly confused. He instinctively repeated,
"First Kiss?"
"Cough, cough."
Mobius quickly pulled out her phone and brought up a surveillance recording. After displaying it in front of Xu Ziling, she said with an utterly serious expression,
"First Kiss means that you have to... No, I mean, aside from me, you can't come into contact with a second woman. Understand?"
When Xu Ziling saw the "himself" in the surveillance footage pounce on Mobius and knock her down, his mind went completely blank. His earlier acting collapsed on the spot.
Mobius claiming that he had forcibly kissed her was one thing. The other reason was...
The "himself" in that surveillance footage... when he had leaped out of the stone statue, he hadn't been wearing... a single piece of clothing.
Then what about me now...?!
Before you continue