A connection spanning three hundred years

This question left Ye Jiang slightly confused. Did she want to help them?

She hadn't considered whether she wanted to help the toys; she had just asked the question naturally.

An image of a little zombie flashed through my mind, with gray-blue skin and large, protruding eyes on its face. Bang! With a loud bang, the little zombie's arm exploded, and it lay on the ground.

Ye Jiang straightened her face and nodded. "Yes, I want to help them."

If the toys in the building are sentient Quasi-Life, then the little zombie exploding its arm is no longer a question; it truly did choose to self-destruct its arm to avoid harming her.

Its clapping to soothe was genuine.

Its joy is real.

She wanted to help them, and if she could, she would lend a hand.

Ye Jiang put down the dinosaur toy she was holding, straightened it, stepped back to look at it, then changed her mind. She placed her hands under its armpits and carried the whole thing to another toy. Rong Yin watched her busy herself, a gentle look in his eyes that vanished in the blink of an eye.

"But I don't know how to find their creator," he said from behind her.

Ye Jiang paused for a moment.

"Okay, I understand."

She continued to move the toys around, trying to find a companion for the little dinosaur that had just lost consciousness.

Rong Yin asked her, "What are you going to do?"

Ye Jiang found a companion for the dinosaur toys. The two colorless toys nestled together, and looking at this scene, she calmly replied, "There's nothing we can do but wait and see if any relevant clues appear."

What else could she do? She wasn't particularly bright; she couldn't become a detective.

She looked up and said, "But I will always remember this."

Rong Yin looked at her, and saw that her chin was tense, and her droopy eyelids, which had always made her look listless, lifted up, and a faint light condensed in her eyes as if it were injected with determination and seriousness.

Do you still... remember?

He lowered his eyes to conceal his emotions and said, "That's an honor that many people long for but can't attain."

Ye Jiang blinked. "?"

How did it escalate to a question of whether it's an honor or not?

Who can't obtain what they desire?

Rong Yin changed the subject. "There's a toy that's fallen over over there."

He pointed to one side.

Ye Jiang looked over and, sure enough, saw a toy lying on its side in front of a shop. Her attention was easily diverted, and she walked towards the toy. Rong Yin Yin's lips curled into a slight smile as he followed behind her.

Both of them had excellent eyesight, and the toys they saw were actually very, very far away. As they walked, they looked around at their surroundings. Ye Jiang confirmed once again that the layout of this place was exactly the same as the Toy Mall she had visited before. The dim environment did not interfere with Ye Jiang's vision; everything around her was clearly visible to her, and her eyes glowed with a faint dark red light in the darkness.

Rong Yin.

She suddenly spoke up.

The young man behind her paused slightly and replied, "You remember my name?"

"..."

"Do I look like the kind of person who can't remember people's names?" someone muttered.

The young man's lips curled into a slight smile, "Simply because you've never called me by my name."

"Yeah?"

"Um."

Ye Jiang: "."

She thought aimlessly that her memory might really be a bit bad, but the young man's memory must be very good, because he even remembered such trivial things as whether she had called his name or not.

"Why did you call me?" The young man's voice interrupted her reverie. She steadied herself, remembering the important matter, and asked, "Do you know how monsters permanently detach from their host's body?"

silence.

A long silence.

Ye Jiang stopped and looked back. Rong Yin stood a few steps away from her, his expression somewhat strange in the darkness.

"?"

The young man's voice was slightly hoarse. "... Are you a monster?"

Ye Jiang realized, oh, she hadn't told the young man that she was a monster, nor had she told him that she knew he was a monster too.

She had completely forgotten about that. With a blank expression, she introduced herself, "Um, I just found out I'm a monster."

Silence.

quite a while--

"Really?" the young man said softly. Ye Jiang couldn't help but look at him, sensing that his words contained a great deal of complexity.

Her gaze met the young man's eyes, and she saw a fleeting, fiery, magma-like madness within them, as if understanding her monster identity was something that would drive him insane. She paused, and when she looked again, only the familiar, dark depths remained in his eyes; that previous glance seemed like a mere illusion. This was too strange, to the point that her subsequent confession became hesitant. "I know you're a monster... I learned it from the Ability Control Bureau."

"Um."

"..."

"..."

The atmosphere was a little awkward.

At this point, the young man spoke up, saying, "You want to know how a monster can permanently detach from its host's body?"

He knew how to divert Ye Jiang's attention, and Ye Jiang's focus was immediately drawn to this matter. "Really?"

The young man said, "Yes."

He said, "I'm using my original body now."

Ye Jiang's eyes widened slightly.

... ah?

She couldn't help but take a step forward. "How did you do that?"

The young man said, "Talent."

Ye Jiang froze, and the joy that had been sprouting in her heart like a seedling breaking through the soil quickly receded.

With a blank expression, she asked, "Are there many monsters with this kind of talent?"

"Not much."

"."

Undeterred, she asked, "What kind of talent is it?"

"It's hard to describe," the young man said, looking at her. "But monsters with this talent don't feel any constraints from the rules when they reveal their true form. You instinctively know that you can use your true form to move in the Surface World, and then it's just a matter of shaping—molding your true form into a human shape."

Ye Jiang's expression became even more wooden; she still didn't know how to reveal her true form.

It seems we'll have to wait until she remembers how to reveal her true form to know if she has that talent. Until then...

She looked at the young man, from his sculpted face to his handsome, slender figure.

She looked up and asked—

"May I touch your body?"

Before that, she could only learn how to sculpt her body.

The composed young man froze, his gaze momentarily unfocused. Ye Jiang didn't notice; her eyes lit up, her enthusiasm for learning surged. The young man remained silent, so she assumed he agreed and placed her hand on his chest, causing his body to tense.

Bang!

A loud crash interrupted Ye Jiang's studies. She turned her head at the sound and saw a person fall in front of a shop in the distance, letting out a familiar groan. The person sat up, revealing a familiar face— Yu Hai.

The exploration team leader from the Ability Control Bureau fell into this pitch-black place.

Captain Yu hadn't yet noticed the two more monsters here. At this moment, his pupils contracted, and his eyes were fixed on the shop in front of him, where a skeleton sat against the wall.

Footsteps approached, Yu Hai looked up alertly, seeing the approaching Healer Ye Jiang, and behind Ye Jiang... Monster No. 0.

His pupils contracted again.

Chapter 121 A Connection Across Three Hundred Years

The elite field agents of the Ability Control Bureau and the bureau's top vigilant monster locked eyes across the distance, one tense, the other indifferent.

Why is Monster No. 0 here?! And with the VIPs of the Bureau, the hope of all humanity?!

Yu Hai was unable to remain calm.

Monster No. 0, Rong Yin, is the earliest recorded monster in the Ability Control Bureau. It is speculated that his strength surpasses that of all the monsters in the files, making him terrifyingly powerful.

He is the most unique existence in the Monster Archives. The Ability Control Bureau regards him as a savior. On the Disaster Day three hundred years ago, he did indeed help humanity as the files said. However, after three hundred years of getting along, they have truly felt that he is an alien. Indifference is the most fitting label for him.

The Ability Control Bureau still doesn't know who imposed the shackles on this monster by the sentence on the title page of the Monster Archives. Even if such a guarantee existed, they did not blindly regard him as a kind and gentle human companion.

The Ability Control Bureau is self-aware; it is dangerous, even though it is bound by unknown shackles.

Fortunately, Monster No. 0 rarely ventures out of the mountains, and has lived peacefully with humans for three hundred years.

So why is this giant monster in the mall, and why did it have to run into the Healer?!

What happened? Wasn't the Healer supposed to be on the 5th floor waiting for him to finish his mission? Why is he in this dark place? Where is this place? The Healer clearly read the Monster Archives and knows about Monster No. 0, so why is he still staying with him? Was he being coerced?

The head of the exploration team at the Ability Control Bureau was filled with questions.

At this moment, the captain was unaware that during the time he accepted the toy quest and was pulled into the quest illusion, many things happened on the 5th floor of the Toy Mall. He was completely oblivious and missed everything.

Yu Hai was on edge, highly vigilant about the situation before him.

He had too many questions, but he dared not ask them directly, or even look directly at Monster No. 0 for long, fearing that the other party would take it as an offensive act and offend him. He only glanced at it before forcibly looking away, suppressing all his thoughts in his heart and enduring them without expressing them.

He looked away, but could still feel Monster No. 0's gaze pressing down on him, heavy and oppressive, as if it were watching him intently.

Monster No. 0's aloofness meant he rarely showed interest in any human, making such a gaze quite unusual.

This was no honor. What was the difference between being watched by a monster and being watched by death itself? In an instant, cold sweat covered the back of Yu Hai's neck.

Instinct compels him to press his neck down, forcing him to submit to this monster. However, he grits his teeth, resists his instincts, and struggles against the pressure to raise his eyes.