"I'd thought I was talking to myself back then. I never imagined I had a listener."
And such a special listener, too.
The old man's lips curled into a smile.
Now that he knew the truth, even that hazy memory didn't feel quite so painful anymore.
Someone—no, a monster—had been remembering his older brother alongside him. A hint of warmth rose in his heart.
Boss Bai fell silent.
If what the old man said was true... then what Master Xiao had told him... really could be true.
His granduncle had had a monster friend...
To protect his monster friend, who had attracted unwanted attention, his granduncle had put the monster inside this jade ball...
Boss Bai lowered his head to look at the jade ball in his hand.
Beneath the moonlight, the jade ball seemed to absorb the moonlight, its surface shimmering with a faint glow.
But life was unpredictable.
The monster friend had been safe.
But his granduncle had unexpectedly died in a car accident...
"A monster..."
Boss Bai murmured, "Has it really been trapped inside this jade ball for all these years?"
From his grandfather to his father... and now to him... it had been an incredibly long time.
"Yes."
An apologetic expression appeared on the old man's face. "It was all my—"
"Grandpa."
Boss Bai cut off his grandfather's self-reproach. "Master Xiao said that even if you'd understood what Granduncle meant, you still wouldn't have been able to open the jade ball."
"That's right..."
"I can't open it..."
"But I can find someone to help."
The old man gave a bitter smile.
The monk who had given his brother the jade ball... Master Xiao...
He'd lived most of his life before learning that so-called experts really existed.
Since his brother had found an