A slacker when alone? We monsters love learning!...

Chen Hong's movements were practiced, clearly indicating he had done this many times before.

The dinosaur toy was very fond of it; it raised its two little short arms, covered its neck, and spun around in circles.

Ye Jiang: "."

Her face was blank, a complex mix of emotions welling up inside her. The toy spinning in front of her...

He really does look a bit like a child.

Ye Jiang stared intently at the toy when suddenly, the little green dinosaur stopped and stood there motionless.

The little dinosaur stared intently at Ye Jiang. During their eye contact, Ye Jiang noticed that the dinosaur's black eyes seemed to fade slightly. Ye Jiang thought she was mistaken, but she wasn't. Soon, the fading became more pronounced; the color faded faster, and the black eyes instantly turned deathly white. From there, the toy's bright colors began to disappear, first its head, then its long neck...

Ye Jiang subconsciously looked at Chen Hong, hoping that this toy expert could translate what it was all about, but she was surprised to see Chen Hong's serious face.

"It..."

Before Chen Hong could speak, the little dinosaur lost all its color, becoming like an unpainted initial mold. At the same time, the space around the toy also changed slightly.

Ye Jiang sensed the change and, without thinking, reached out and grabbed one of the dinosaur toy's small front paws. A shadow appeared in the blink of an eye; someone had come and grabbed Ye Jiang's arm. Before Ye Jiang could see who had grabbed her, she smelled the scent of pine and wood, and a small area of space collapsed, forming a vortex that dragged the dinosaur toy and its entourage into it.

[... and then... she...]

As Ye Jiang fell into the spatial vortex, a childish voice appeared in her mind. It was the voice of a dinosaur toy, but due to the spatial disturbance, she couldn't hear what the voice said.

The spatial vortex disappeared.

No one noticed what was happening here. The people who remained in the vicinity were all trapped in a mental breakdown and couldn't get out. They had lost their sense of what was happening outside. Only Chen Hong recorded this scene with his mouth agape and his eyes.

He took a few steps forward and groped around in the air, but found nothing.

"..."

In fact, Chen Hong didn't know what was going on either. He had only been in the building for two years and had twice encountered toys fading in color and disappearing into spatial vortexes in front of him. He didn't know what had happened, but he knew that the faded toys had never appeared in front of him again.

In the distance, in an empty shop, the bright overhead lights illuminated the bright and beautiful shop, and a fragrance filled the air.

A mirror stood upright in the shop, its edges exquisitely trimmed, seemingly the shop's most ordinary decoration. Suddenly, ripples spread across the smooth surface of the mirror, and a beautiful woman appeared in it.

The woman stepped out of the mirror, and the mirror surface shattered into shimmering fragments. As she walked out, these fragments gathered on her back, forming the flesh and blood of her body.

The woman looked up in one direction. The first person in the building was touching the air in front of him. The woman watched silently for a long time. Then, her cold and sharp face shattered, and she disappeared without a trace.

Ye Jiang opened her eyes, feeling something uncomfortable against her chest. Looking down, she realized she was holding the dinosaur toy. The faded dinosaur rested quietly against her chest, cold and hard, its colorless eyes empty and lifeless. Something seemed to have vanished from the toy's body. What was it?

Ye Jiang's heart stirred, and she suddenly felt a strong urge to touch that eye.

She raised her hand, only to feel a tug. Turning her head, she noticed that her arm was being grabbed.

The young man stood beside her, holding her hand, his head raised, gazing into the distance, his eyes dark and unfathomable.

What is he looking at?

Ye Jiang raised her eyes and was greeted by a dimly lit world. Under her feet was a black floor of unknown material, and above her were lights emitting a dim glow. Everywhere her gaze fell were smoothly lined partitions. The familiar layout easily awakened her memories. This was the layout of Toy Mall floor, exactly the same.

However, like the opposite side of light, this place is filled with darkness and shadows.

There are toys here too, lots and lots of them.

The colorless toys stood motionless, their springs no longer wound, an unprecedented stillness, the dim light scattered upon them their only color.

The shopping mall Ye Jiang was familiar with was bright, with wind-up toys moving around inside. Although everyone said the toys were scary, she still found them childlike and cute. The mall was vibrant and bright.

Here, it was dark and deathly silent.

Like a graveyard.

Chapter 120 A Lonely Lazybones? We Monsters Love Studying!...

"I see."

The young man spoke indifferently, then calmly withdrew his gaze.

He always possessed a coldness even deeper than Ye Jiang's.

Upon hearing this, Ye Jiang looked at him, and the young man lowered his head slightly to meet her gaze. The indifference that had always lingered around him dissipated.

"Are you alright?" the young man asked her. Ye Jiang was puzzled. What could possibly be wrong with her?

Seeing this, the young man said, "The passage we just passed through was crudely constructed and not very safe."

Ye Jiang suddenly realized, "So that's how it is."

She seemed to have thought of something, and kept staring at the young man, who tilted his head slightly because of her gaze.

"What are you looking at?" Rong Yin asked.

Ye Jiang had no concept of social etiquette. When called upon, she stared intently, a glint of light in her eyes, and said, "You are very knowledgeable."

She had no idea how she got to this place, but the young man directly stated that they had passed through a spatial passage and could even inspect the passage they had passed through. He seemed to be a learned person, or rather, a learned monster.

Ye Jiang's eyes were bright.

Rong Yin: "..."

Ye Jiang's eyes shone; she was searching for a learned monster!

She wants to consult the monster about a way to permanently leave her human body!

But now is not the time.

The light in Ye Jiang's eyes slowly dimmed. She looked down at the dinosaur toy in her arms, and tried to pull away from the hand that the young man had been holding. This time she managed to pull away, and the young man released her. She touched the dinosaur toy's eyes with that hand, and felt its icy coldness.

Toys don't have body temperature, but she inexplicably felt that something was wrong, that something was missing.

She pondered deeply for a long time, then asked the monster beside her, "You said 'So that's how it is'... what did that mean?"

This statement makes it sound like the young man knows some inside story, about this place that resembles a graveyard, and about these strange toys in the building.

She looked up and said, "Do you know something?"

Rong Yin lowered his head, his gaze lingering on the person beside him, looking at her slightly disheveled hair and her thick, dark eyelashes when she lowered her eyes. As soon as she raised her head, he looked away.

He glanced at the toys in the distance, but after one look, he felt he had been looking at them for too long, so he turned away and looked at the ceiling light instead.

"I know of a kind of life, unlike Quasi-Life which is born from a mother's womb, but which comes from the hand of a Creator," Rong Yin said. "A work created by the Creator develops consciousness and becomes Quasi-Life, but to become a true life, it needs the Creator's approval, otherwise..."

"Otherwise what?"

Rong Yin's gaze fell on the faded dinosaur toy in Ye Jiang's arms, and he said coldly, "The consciousness it generates will soon dissipate on its own."

silence.

Ye Jiang lowered her head and met the lifeless eyes of the dinosaur toy.

The missing thing she felt between her fingers was her fading consciousness.

The young man's meaning was clear: he meant that the toys in the building were Quasi-Life, created by humans, and possessed a sense of life.

No wonder she could not sense any life in them, yet she always hallucinated that they were living beings, that they possessed joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness.

They do possess it.

However, they are not true life forms, and...

To become a living thing, it also needs the approval of its creator.

The toys on this floor lost their color because they failed to receive the Creator's approval, causing their consciousness to dissipate.

It's dark and desolate here, like a graveyard.

It really was a cemetery.

How quickly will it dissipate?

"As far as I know, it's an hour."

Ye Jiang paused; the number seemed somewhat familiar.

This is the maximum time a monster can stay in the Surface World.

Ye Jiang's eyelashes trembled. No, this was just her unfounded association. It was because she was too concerned about escaping the host's body that she made this connection. An hour was not a special number at all.

Pushing aside her distracting thoughts, Ye Jiang continued to press, seizing upon a point that didn't make sense. "If they could only exist for an hour, then there should have been many instances of toys fading in the building."

But she's been inside the building for a while and this is the first one she's seen. How do you explain that?

Rong Yin couldn't give her an explanation; he simply said, "I don't know."

He said, "I only know what I know."

Ye Jiang looked at him. The young man had a very handsome face, and his overly refined features gave him a strong sense of distance and inhumanity, which intensified his coldness.

His eyes were deep, like two blobs of ink inside, an unfathomable, dark depth that made one wonder if they held countless secrets.

Ye Jiang suspected that the young man hadn't told her everything he knew, and that he was hiding something.

But she didn't doubt that he was lying to her, even though his concept of a Quasi-Life had such a fatal flaw.

She believed him for no apparent reason.

Ye Jiang's eyes flickered; she didn't dwell on the issue, she didn't want to force him.

She then asked, "How can I find the creator of the toys?"

Rong Yin's expression shifted slightly upon hearing this. He looked at her and asked, "You want to help them become living beings?"