"Shang Yang."
Xiao Xiao answered the girl's question.
"Shang Yang..."
The girl murmured the monster's name again.
"It's clearly a bird, no—"
The girl shook her head.
Shang Yang wasn't a bird.
It was a monster.
"It clearly looks like a bird..."
She corrected herself. "But its name has the word 'sheep' in it."
"It's clearly a monster..."
"But it dances so well..."
"What a strange monster."
Xiao Xiao smiled. "Monsters are multitalented, too."
The girl's eyes curved into a smile. "I always thought monsters were different from this."
"Were you expecting monsters to be more like the ones in cartoons?"
"I—"
"No."
Xiao Xiao's expression grew serious.
The two girls were taken aback by the change in his tone, and the smiles slowly faded from their lips.
"Some monsters have no hostility toward humans, but many are dangerous to them."
"Until you know how dangerous one is—"
Xiao Xiao looked at Qiu Shui Yi Ren. "Don't approach a monster recklessly."
Qiu Shui Yi Ren pressed her lips together.
She nodded solemnly.
She knew Master Xiao was thinking of her safety.
She knew nothing about monsters.
The only reason she had accepted their existence so quickly was that this was the monster she had seen.
She had been captivated by its dance.
As for its identity, it wasn't something she particularly cared about.
Whether it was human or a monster—
All she cared about was the dance.
The girl looked at Xiao Xiao, then at Qiu Shui Yi Ren. "I guess I was being too optimistic."
A monster was still a monster, after all.
Monsters in real life weren't like the ones in fairy tales.
But—
The girl winked at Qiu Shui Yi Ren. "Qiu Shui, you really are lucky."
"Hm?"
Qiu Shui Yi Ren furrowed her brow slightly,