"Welcome to the world of monsters, Gu Zhan."
After hearing the familiar welcome, Gu Zhan fully awoke.
This time, what greeted him was no longer the glaring spotlight but Mo Tuo’s smiling face.
Gu Zhan lay in bed, looking around. There was nothing different about Mo Tuo, nor did his own body feel any different.
It felt like he had simply taken a nap—no change at all.
He tried moving his arms and asked, “Has the system update ended?”
“Hmm.” Mo Tuo nodded, holding Gu Zhan’s arm as if trying to help him up.
Gu Zhan refused and pushed himself up from the bed. Everything was normal. This morning was just like any other morning.
Turning back, however, he noticed Mo Tuo sitting beside him with a slightly disappointed expression.
“What’s wrong?” Gu Zhan asked, puzzled.
Mo Tuo accused him, “You didn’t need me to help you.”
Gu Zhan: “...”
Something wasn’t right. This world must have updated with a small bug.
This monster seemed broken.
Ignoring the self-pitying monster, Gu Zhan got out of bed on his own.
Outside, everything appeared the same, though compared to last time, the church was much livelier. Many women dressed in white were cleaning. When they saw Gu Zhan, they greeted him respectfully.
It really felt like the treatment given to a Pope.
Gu Zhan clearly wasn’t used to it, and his steps quickened a little.
After finally walking out of the building and breathing in the fresh air outside, he let out a sigh of relief.
This world felt so real—blue skies, white clouds, and the wind brushing against him.
Everything was the same as before, yet everything seemed different.
Gu Zhan closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
At that moment, Mo Tuo approached from behind and asked, “Do you want to see the world of monsters with me?”
“The world of monsters?” Gu Zhan, in a daze, remembered that there was indeed a place in this world he had never been to.
He nodded eagerly, and in the next second, Mo Tuo brought him to the new world.
The process of being teleported from the dungeon to the world of monsters was similar to going to the Chun Bai Cheng.
With a thought, he arrived.
However, the landing spot made Gu Zhan a little surprised.
They actually landed in the middle of a street.
Even in the dungeon, there were special rooms for teleportation, but Mo Tuo, returning to his hometown landed on the street?
Gu Zhan glanced at Mo Tuo, and under his gaze, Mo Tuo gradually became embarrassed. He cleared his throat and said, “I... I don’t come back often.”
Gu Zhan: “...”
Gu Zhan felt that Mo Tuo probably didn’t return to his own dungeon often either. So where did he spend every day? Was he wandering around other people’s dungeons?
He felt a bit like being deceived.
A monster who could command the player world was acting like a street thug in the world of monsters.
“Ah…” Mo Tuo, feeling embarrassed under Gu Zhan’s gaze, stepped forward and took his hand. “Let me show you around.”
This world of monsters was very different from Chun Bai Cheng; everything was dark.
Yet Gu Zhan didn’t feel his vision was obstructed. It was as if he was born to live in this kind of lightless environment, and his eyes easily adjusted to the surroundings.
This was a long street that led to the realm’s boundary, with low buildings lining both sides. The architectural style was very strange, with pitch-black walls adorned with even darker patterns, and odd plants clinging to the corners and rooftops.
Some of the plants even had their own consciousness. Upon hearing the footsteps of Gu Zhan and Mo Tuo, they curiously picked up their tender buds, as if watching a spectacle.
There were also many monsters here. They either walked on the street or stayed in their rooms, talking to people outside through open windows.
It was quite lively.
Apart from their strange and bizarre appearance, the monsters looked no different from a human gathering.
“Yo, isn’t that No. 2? Came back with someone?”
A teasing voice came from somewhere, and everyone on the street turned to look at Gu Zhan and Mo Tuo.
Being watched by the monsters didn’t feel pleasant. Gu Zhan immediately felt the hairs on his neck stand up, his senses alert as he watched the monsters.
But the monsters didn’t notice Gu Zhan’s nervousness. Their faces, with all their bizarre features, were adorned with wide smiles.
A head popped out from an open window beside them. Its neck was elongated, almost pressing against Gu Zhan’s face. The bloodshot, bulging eyes spun around erratically. After a moment, its dark, jagged mouth split open, releasing a foul stench.
“Move.” Mo Tuo wasn’t polite. He stepped forward and pushed the weak head away, saying, “You’re scaring him!”
Gu Zhan stepped back, and the head reluctantly retreated.
From behind the window, the sound of a neck creaking could be heard, and moments later, the half-open window was pushed open. A woman leaned out, excitedly saying, “He’s so good-looking! He smells so nice, No. 2, you really know how to pick them!”
Gu Zhan stared at her for a while before barely recognizing that this woman was the owner of the head from earlier.
However, Mo Tuo didn’t look happy. He quickly pulled Gu Zhan behind him, blocking him, and said, “What nonsense are you saying? He’s someone you guys can even smell? Quickly, block your noses.”
After saying that, Mo Tuo became unhappy and dragged Gu Zhan forward.
However, the monsters didn’t let them off. On the contrary, they laughed loudly because of his actions.
Some monsters even whistled in their direction.
Mo Tuo pulled Gu Zhan a little farther, but the monsters were still teasing them. Mo Tuo, furious, turned back and glared at them. The monsters, who had been bold just a moment ago, immediately fell silent and, in the blink of an eye, disappeared from the street.
The once lively street instantly became empty.
Gu Zhan was quite surprised. “Do they like you, or are they afraid of you?”
“They’re not contradictory,” Mo Tuo replied. “The sequence monsters can freely devour other monsters, but I usually have a good temper. They like to joke with me...”
He then scratched his head in frustration. It wasn’t because he had a good temper, but because that system kept punishing him! Monsters, with their wild and unruly nature, always found themselves taking out their frustrations on him, and they couldn’t help but tease him.
Mo Tuo had even eaten other monsters before, and over time, this had become the result.
“It’s fine,” Mo Tuo said in frustration, but Gu Zhan replied, “It’s a good thing that they’re close to you.”
Mo Tuo immediately fell silent and looked at Gu Zhan, his eyes sparkling with light.
Gu Zhan suddenly thought of some dogs from the human world and almost reached out to pat the monster’s head.
But he stopped himself and shifted his gaze elsewhere, asking, “Are all the monsters here?”
“Only dungeon monsters appear here... Well, the ones with control over their own dungeons,” Mo Tuo answered. “After the system update, the players went back, and they were extra free, so they showed up here. Normally, there aren’t that many of them here.”
Gu Zhan roughly calculated that the monsters could be divided into 2 types. One type was like Mo Tuo, the sequence monsters. Though he didn’t know exactly what made them special, it was clear that...
He weren’t restricted by the dungeon, nor were he often bound by the system.
The other type... is the dungeon monsters. Some of them don’t even have consciousness, cannot leave the dungeon, and are even controlled by the dungeon master.
Xiao Xiu and Sun Jingqiu should belong to this category.
“What kind of monster am I?” Gu Zhan suddenly asked. “When I woke up, I heard someone say I was No. 707. What does that mean?”
“Hmm.” Mo Tuo paused before explaining, “That... is your sequence. In the world of monsters, that’s your name.”
“Are there so many sequence monsters?” Gu Zhan was surprised. He had thought that in this monster world, sequence monsters should be rare.
Mo Tuo smiled. “There are only nine initial sequence monsters. You got a sequence because you took a portion of my power.”
Gu Zhan then remembered that after he finished Mo Tuo’s dungeon, he had moved his small town directly into his own dungeon.
He couldn’t help but glance at Mo Tuo. Could it be that this monster had planned it from the start, sending the town to him?
But at that moment, Mo Tuo stepped forward and embraced Gu Zhan, whispering, “I originally planned to keep you in my dungeon, so you would never be able to leave me. Hmm, in my words, I wanted to make you my collection... But... but...”
His voice grew quieter, becoming inaudible.
Gu Zhan asked, “But what?”
Mo Tuo clung to him, and his voice seemed to flow out like it was coming from deep within his clothes.
“But you tempted me.”
The monster couldn’t quite express the feeling of a human grabbing his chin, jumping up, leaning in, and that fleeting moment...
It felt as if all the blood in his body rushed to his head.
All plans and thoughts were pushed aside.
Monsters are creatures who act on impulse, driven by desire.
It was natural for him not to resist.
But monsters also follow rules. Since it was his own failure to resist and he accepted the temptation from a human, he should reward the human accordingly.
And so, it turned out like this.
Gu Zhan naturally remembered what Mo Tuo had done at the time.
What surprised him more was that he wanted to possess the monster in that moment too.
But he hadn’t expected such a distant event to affect things now.
Gu Zhan was shocked. So, at that time, Mo Tuo had been so emotional that he even went so far as to use his own power?
He turned to look at Mo Tuo, but Mo Tuo, under the questioning gaze, gradually became aggrieved, pulling his hand and asking, “What do you think I am?”
Gu Zhan thought for a moment before replying, “A fleeting, uncommitted romance.”
Mo Tuo: “...”
After he said that, Mo Tuo froze.
Gu Zhan took two steps forward, but the monster didn’t follow.
Gu Zhan looked back. Mo Tuo stood there, his expression shattered, staring at Gu Zhan in shock.
Gu Zhan tilted his head. “What’s wrong?”
Mo Tuo looked even more hurt. “You’re asking me what’s wrong...”
His eyes widened in horror. “What did you just say? Aren’t we dating?!”
“Are we?” Gu Zhan already knew what the monster was thinking, but he suppressed the smile tugging at the corners of his lips, purposefully keeping his voice calm. “But in human terms, we only slept together. We weren’t dating”
The monster was even more shocked. “Sleeping together doesn’t count as dating?!”
Gu Zhan said, “Of course not. We have a special term for this kind of relationship. It’s called a fleeting romance, or... a one-night stand?”
Mo Tuo clearly didn’t want to accept this “reality.” He stood still for a while, thinking, before replying, “But... but we didn’t just sleep together once. Doesn’t that count as a one-night stand?”
“Well,” Gu Zhan continued, still scheming, but the monster suddenly sensed something wasn’t right. He quickly stepped in front of Gu Zhan and pulled him into an embrace.
“You’re just messing with me, right?”
Gu Zhan finally couldn’t hold back the smile he had been suppressing for so long. It curved slightly upwards.
But he still made one last effort to stay serious. “No, I’m serious... pfft.”
He couldn’t hold it in anymore and burst out laughing.
Mo Tuo finally realized that Gu Zhan was teasing him. He immediately became annoyed. “You’re no longer human! Although I don’t understand why humans define relationships this way, you can’t apply human standards anymore. You and I are in a relationship. Since that night, when I accepted your initiative!”
The monster had already realized he was being teased, yet he still declared it so seriously.
Gu Zhan couldn’t suppress his laughter any longer.
He leaned against Mo Tuo’s embrace, allowing the monster to hold him tight, and obediently said, “Okay, okay, we’re in a relationship, we’re in a relationship.”