Falsehoods, lies, and loyalty.

Expanding the field of vision slightly, two huge, adorable cats came into view, their bodies gilded, lazily lying on the ground.

These are the two cats in the courtyard on the first floor. Only in the courtyard on the first floor can you find two cats like these. Ye Jiang recognized them at a glance.

The surroundings were quiet, with no one in sight. Looking up, one could see countless buildings, with a dome resembling blue sky and white clouds covering the sky hundreds of stories above.

This is the first floor of the mall; it looks like this.

However, a rough, imitation feel hits you immediately. There's no fragrance in the air, and while the exquisite decorations that are usually found everywhere in shopping malls are also present here, they're not refined enough; they're crude and perfunctory.

This is an alternate space built based on the model of a shopping mall.

This is the toy's activity space.

Based on the task box that had been previously visible when the field of vision dimmed, Ye Jiang quickly deduced the answer.

Having been in the mall for a while, accompanying Yu Hai all the way to the fifth floor, Ye Jiang knew that some toy missions didn't take place inside the mall, but rather involved being pulled into another space by the toys. She had never been inside one, but this place should be one of those mission spaces.

"Players are in position, the game is about to begin, about to begin, about to begin."

A mechanical voice rang out, its tone flat. Ye Jiang looked over and saw a little yellow chick among the toys. The toy, over a meter tall, clucked and stared at Ye Jiang from a distance of several meters. When she looked at it, it flapped its wings twice.

As if under some kind of command, the wind-up toys surrounding Ye Jiang and Rong Yin all started moving, scattering in different directions.

Some of them even jumped to the upper floors.

This is indeed just a replica of a shopping mall's workspace, with no barriers between floors.

The toys were all gone, except for the little yellow chick, which remained in its spot, continuing in a flat, mechanical voice, "The energy-carrying shard of the mirror is hidden on one of the toys. Find it, find it, find it!"

After saying that, he turned and left.

Shards of a mirror imbued with energy?

Was it the patch that the little yellow chick plucked from the woman?

Another lens flashed through Ye Jiang's mind, a lens picked up from the bones in the Toy Graveyard. She was slightly distracted for a moment, and when she came back to her senses, her gaze fell on the little yellow chick toy, which was taking small steps in one direction, leisurely the whole way.

In fact, the other toys left just like the little yellow chick; they were all very relaxed. Ye Jiang can still see a few toys slowly turning around, not avoiding the taskers at all.

Ye Jiang: "..."

At this moment, Rong Yin was also looking at the toys. He seemed lost in thought, his eyes unusually dark. After a while, he calmly looked away and said to Ye Jiang beside him, "We've been locked into a toy mission. Should we go and complete it?"

Ye Jiang, unaware of the danger of this mission so far, readily replied, "Go."

Rong Yin said "Hmm," and in a flash went to a toy. He stood in front of the toy, and Ye Jiang was still wondering how he was going to check if the toy was carrying an energy lens, and whether to fight it, when she saw the young man turn around and go to another toy and stand in front of it.

Is this... are you sure that toy is gone?

Ye Jiang showed a hint of surprise.

She caught up with the young man and asked him what had been on her mind, "That toy didn't have any lenses on it?"

She was looking back at the toy as she asked the question, appearing quite puzzled.

"Hmm, no." The young man glanced at the toy in front of him a few times and said with certainty, "This one too."

Ye Jiang: "..."

How to determine this?

She followed the young man to the next toy, which was wandering around the building, neither hiding nor avoiding it, appearing completely relaxed and carefree.

"Rong Yin." She called the young man's name, a hint of curiosity in her voice. "Do you have a special way of identifying people? Is it your special ability?"

Rong Yin looked at her.

"No. It's not." He denied it twice in a row.

"Huh?" If that's the case, how do you know it's not there?

Rong Yin saw through Ye Jiang's thoughts, his eyes flickered slightly, and he slowly said, "If the toy has lenses on it, it will run away."

He paused for a moment, then added two words, "Probably."

Ye Jiang: "?"

What kind of judgment led to this method?

He clearly entered the mission space with her and listened to the mission rules together, so how come she didn't see this instruction anywhere?

Ye Jiang wasn't entirely convinced.

She parted ways with Rong Yin and went to find the lens on her own.

She had no clue what to do, so all she could do was stop any toy she came across and examine it from head to toe.

She also tried fighting with a toy, but the toy wouldn't attack her, so fighting with a toy was clearly not the way to find the lens.

After half a day of fruitless searching, she pursed her lips and went back to find Rong Yin, wanting to see how his outrageous method was going.

Ye Jiang found the person on the 65th floor. Just as she was about to walk towards him, a toy appeared on the road. Ye Jiang had been searching for a toy for a long time and was already a little disheartened. She just glanced at the toy casually. However, just as she brushed past the toy, the leisurely walking toy suddenly sprang up and ran away.

--If the toy has lenses on it, it will run away.

Almost reflexively, Ye Jiang chased after the toy.

The wind-up toy in the building was very fast, but Ye Jiang, who was often mistaken for a speed-type ability user, was even faster, and she caught up with it in an instant.

She grabbed the wind-up toy's shoulder, and it struggled, the clockwork making a clicking sound as it wound up at high speed.

It's very noisy.

The thought flashed through her mind, and just then, Ye Jiang did something she hadn't even considered: she punched the toy on the head, as naturally as if it were a habit etched into her soul.

With a bang, the struggling toy stopped moving.

Was it broken?

As Ye Jiang thought to herself, she heard a snap, and the toy's belly suddenly split open with a vertical slit, then opened to both sides like a door, revealing a space where a shard of a silver mirror lay quietly.

Ye Jiang's breathing stopped abruptly, and in an instant, fragmented memories flooded back.

Someone is talking.

"... You're too weak... The toy runs fast... Catching the toy... is training... There's something in your belly... Go play..."

A fragmented voice echoed from the depths of my memory—who was speaking?

Ye Jiang frowned. She wanted to hear it more clearly, but the sound was beyond her control, gradually fading away until it sank into the depths of her memory, never to be heard again.

In the field of vision, the replica shopping mall was shaking, as the mission space was rapidly collapsing due to the completion of the mission.

In the distance, a cold and aloof young man was watching her, his eyes unfathomable.

The space completely collapsed, turning into fragments and dissipating. After a brief moment of darkness, light returned, and Ye Jiang was back in the real shopping mall, holding a shard of a mirror in her hand. An energy emanated from the shard, similar to the feeling of a prop.

Ye Jiang didn't look at the lens; her gaze pierced through the void and landed directly on the young man in the distance.

"How did you know?" Her lips tightened.

"If a toy has lenses on it, it will move." She scrutinized him. "How did you know?"

Chapter 124 Falsehoods, Lies, and Loyalty.

Ye Jiang watched silently, her gaze unwavering and direct. The dejection that had lingered around her faded at this moment, subtly revealing a hint of strength.

She needs an answer.

No refusal allowed.

Bright lights quietly enveloped the two of them, the cool tone of the light giving off a chilly feeling.

The young man looked at her silently for a while, then walked towards her, meeting her gaze.

He stopped in front of her.

The amnesiac monster, her eyes reflecting the cold light, was unaware of the terrifying pressure emanating from her pale, weak human body. The floor fell silent. The toys that had returned to reality with her froze in place, as if malfunctioning. The aloof woman remained frozen in the pose of half her body emerging from the mirror. The consciousness of life and Quasi-Life within the building was frozen in place.

The young man stood before her, and the indiscriminate, terrifying pressure made his soul scream and tremble, yet his expression showed no fear; it was calm, even somewhat gentle.

He seemed to enjoy this kind of oppression.

I miss it.

"Eye."

He stared into her eyes. "Your bloodshot eyes are showing."

Ye Jiang: "..."

In an instant, the atmosphere subtly changed because of this completely unrelated remark.

Ye Jiang touched her eyes, but couldn't feel anything, so she put her hand down and blinked a few times into the air. Her pupils returned to black as she blinked. Because of this action, which was not very authoritative, the invisible domineering aura emanating from her dissipated slightly.

The frozen, stagnant air in the mall began to move, but all life forms and Quasi-Life, who had been instantly stripped of their consciousness in the impact, were still in a daze and unable to break free from the shock for the time being.

Ye Jiang's vision was narrow; her intense focus on the answer to the question she had asked caused her gaze to be fixed solely on the young man, and she completely failed to notice the unusual situation that had occurred in the mall because of her.

Then she heard the young man's answer.

"I heard it. I know a monster who came out of the mall, that's what he said," the young man replied.

Ye Jiang frowned. "Just something I heard about?"

This is actually possible. Unlike the consensus among the people in the building that no one had left the mall, Ye Jiang knew that the Logistics Team from the Ability Control Bureau had only briefly entered and then left. Therefore, the young man's explanation made sense.

But it felt a bit like a casual, offhand excuse.

The amnesiac monster has little experience as a human, and unconsciously has developed a slight sensitivity to the excuses and rhetoric commonly used by humans.