"You are not greedy for this."
Mu He's positive feedback was hard for Zhong Mu to understand. He was just returning Mu He's things. There were many useful items in the town, and this one might not be suitable for him. Although it was an SSS-level item, Zhong Mu preferred to return it to him rather than keep it on his person.
The main problem is that he's too weak and doesn't have the ability to protect his heart. If he accidentally injures his heart, he'll feel terrible for the doctor.
"Anyway, you should take it back." Zhong Mu waved his hand, not caring about the prop. "How do I untie it?"
The doctor held the heart in deep thought, then smiled and looked up, saying lightly, "The heart can only be considered truly back in my hands if the person bound to it dies and there is no next person to be bound to it."
Zhong Mu paused, then forced a dry smile. "You're not starting to have murderous thoughts, are you?"
Mu He looked up and smiled, "What do you think?"
Zhong Mu retreated at lightning speed, remaining on high alert while trying to negotiate with Mu He, "Could you wait until I suddenly die before taking my heart back?"
"Didn't you say you'd live to be a hundred? How long am I supposed to live?" Mu He stood there motionless, but Zhong Mu had already become alert and felt a sense of crisis.
"Um... how about I just wait until I die of old age?"
"Then wouldn't I be wasting a normal person's entire life on you?" Mu He slowly walked towards the direction where Zhong Mu had spoken.
He moved with light steps, following the sound to Zhong Mu's side. Looking at the gentle face before him, Zhong Mu trembled as he pulled a knife from his pocket and pressed it against Mu He's throat. "Although you have helped me... if you insist on killing me, I will fight back!"
"How do you intend to resist?" Mu He smiled faintly, exuding no threat whatsoever.
The heart he was holding was still pounding, and he could clearly sense the fluctuating emotions Zhong Mu was experiencing—not fear, but helplessness.
"Like this, just stab me through the throat?" Zhong Mu didn't move, but Mu He leaned forward slowly, and the sharp blade instantly left a bloody mark on his neck.
Startled, Zhong Mu leaned back, quickly withdrew his hand, and pressed himself against the wall, too afraid to move. "Can't we choose a peaceful way to resolve this?"
"How can we resolve this peacefully? You're a player, I'm a monster; we're never on the same path." Mu He approached step by step, but a gentle smile remained on her face. "Sooner or later, when you enter my instance, I will kill you too. For me, killing you now would be more convenient, wouldn't it?"
Faced with the white-haired youth who had already reached him, Zhong Mu was in a dilemma. They had been getting along well just moments before, so why was he being threatened with death over a mere disagreement? He felt so wronged!
"We'll talk about the future later... I really don't want to fight someone who just helped me." Zhong Mu's back was pressed tightly against the wall, completely blocked by Mu He. He didn't know where to retreat to, so he could only continue to be stubborn.
"Someone I know told me that when you're in a dungeon, the first thing you lose is hope, and the second is your humanity. Once you lose both of these, even if you're alive, you're no different from a monster."
"Although I haven't lost hope yet, it would be very painful for me to lose a person's basic moral qualities."
He would never strike first unless Mu He attacked him first. This was his principle: under no circumstances should he attack someone who had helped him.
Mu He smiled and gazed at him. Even though those eyes couldn't see anything, the gray, dim pupils reflected Zhong Mu's appearance, making Zhong Mu feel that this person was looking at him, or perhaps at something deeper within him.
"You really don't want to fight me? Even if I were to kill you right now?" Mu He murmured, extending his hand. On his slender, well-defined fingers, his nails were clearly growing longer, becoming sharper, and more dangerous.
Zhong Mu stubbornly shook his head, staring intently at the hand that was gradually reaching towards him.
The moment the hand swung towards him, Zhong Mu instinctively raised his hand to resist.
He imagined that the sharp nails would leave a bloody hole in his body, and it would hurt terribly, but the hand that looked dangerous didn't actually poke him. Instead, it reached out and patted Zhong Mu's face, as if comforting a child.
Mu He smiled gently. "You see, you still need this heart, right? Next time you encounter this situation, your heart will be able to protect you."
He shoved the metal box back into Zhong Mu's hands, then covered his mouth and gracefully returned to the table.
Zhong Mu stood there, stunned, clutching the metal box. For a fleeting moment, he thought he saw Mu He turn around, cover her mouth, and laugh. Was he deliberately trying to scare him? Was it really that funny to tease him like that?
"Should I keep the heart? I was thinking of keeping the heart with you. You can just wait for me to die and then take the heart back. It won't fall into someone else's hands." Zhong Mu looked down at the beating heart in the iron box and really felt that he didn't have the strength to protect it.
"It's alright, just leave it with you. Anyway, you're going to live to be a hundred, it won't be in someone else's hands anytime soon." Mu He shook his head lightly.
"So you don't want to kill me anymore?"
"I didn't intend to kill you."
Zhong Mu's face darkened with anger. "You were just kidding me!"
"Yes." Mu He answered casually, her smile meaningful. "If I lend you my heart, don't you have to pay some price? What's free is the most expensive."
Zhong Mu thought about it and felt that what he said made a lot of sense, and the other party had only scared him a little, but he was still a little annoyed.
"Alright, come here." Mu He gently beckoned to him and patted the cushion beside her. "Sit here. There are some things I want to tell you that I don't want the monsters outside to hear."
Zhong Mu stood there for two seconds, then realized what was happening and stopped being angry. He quickly walked over and sat down next to Mu He.
As soon as he sat down, Mu He reached out and placed a hand on his leg.
Zhong Mu froze, then turned to see Mu He's body rapidly shrinking and disappearing into his gray-blue Chinese-style long robe, the hand resting on his leg turning into a small white claw.
Zhong Mu: ? ? ?
Before he could even process what was happening, he saw a white cat with gray eyes crawl out of his long robe and then slowly stroll over to his lap and lie down.
"The black cat faction's monsterization is getting bigger, while the white cat faction's is shrinking, just like me," Mu He said casually, lying lazily on his lap.
Zhong Mu's brain briefly went blank. Realizing that he was talking about strange things, he quickly pulled out his notebook and started taking notes.
"Black Cat Monsterization... does it mean something like Ya Ya's?" Zhong Mu clearly remembered that Ya Ya's monsterization was like a huge, twisted, cat-like monster. The town mayor in the same instance also had a similar monsterization, which was the strangest change they had ever seen.
"Ya Ya? I don't know her. She's one of the monsters from the Black Cat faction, right?" Mu He rolled over on Zhong Mu's lap, revealing her fluffy white belly. "I'm a White Cat faction member. Do you know what the White Cat faction represents?"
Zhong Mu shook his head.
"They are pacifists, advocating against killing monsters and instead sealing them away." Mu He narrowed his gray pupils slightly. "Perhaps you don't quite understand who I mean by 'monster'."