The door closed, leaving the three children alone, with two sitting on the plain white bed.
The other stood silently at the entrance, his back against the closed door.
Ji Minghuan and Kong Youling had their heads together, raising their eyebrows and opening their eyes wide, curiously examining the boy’s wolf ears and the tail that had coiled entirely around on the ground.
"He looks like a puppy," Kong Youling scribbled in the notebook.
Ji Minghuan nodded absentmindedly.
In fact, aside from those non-human parts, Filio looked more like a mixed-race child, with delicate and three-dinsional features, though his hair and eyes were black.
For a mont, the three in the confinent room exchanged glances, each unsure of the other’s arrival, with Filio clueless about what to do, just standing there dumbly.
"Ah, there’s a big puppy!" Ji Minghuan suddenly shouted, pointing to Filio’s tail dragging on the ground.
The deathly silence in the confinent room was interrupted by such an inexplicable remark.
Kong Youling froze for a second.
Filio also paused.
Under his hair long enough to nearly cover his eyes, the cold gaze montarily collapsed, revealing a trace of panic and evasion—apparently, he had been confined here for quite a while, not knowing how to interact with peers, especially when being directly pointed at.
In the next second, Ji Minghuan jumped down barefoot from the bed and swaggered in front of Filio, greeting him:
"Hey, may I touch your tail? I heard in Africa, puppies use their tails as a substitute for handshakes."
"Stay... stay away from ," Filio said, his pupils squeezing out a hint of ferocity.
Ji Minghuan imdiately frowned: "Co on... do you have to be so aggressive?"
He turned his cheek, pretending to be generous: "Call the leader, and I’ll cover you in this lab, no other kids will dare mistreat you..."
With that, he suddenly lowered his voice to whisper: "I’ll tell you, if I hang myself here, even the ntor would kneel and beg not to die."
"No chance, we won’t give you the chance to hang yourself... but kneeling down and begging you not to die might indeed happen."
The ntor’s voice echoed from the broadcast throughout the confinent room.
His tone was gentle, as if a good-natured professor had suddenly joined a college debate, laughing and joking with them.
Ji Minghuan pouted, thinking, why is an adult interfering with our kids’ chat?
But the next second, he suddenly changed deanor, proudly saying: "Did you hear? Even the ntor said he’d kneel and beg not to die. Do you know who’s the most impressive in this crummy place, huh? Got it?"
With that, he raised his hand and patted Filio’s shoulder.
He did so intentionally, wondering if the ntor would zap him with the collar for touching Filio, but clearly, that didn’t happen—in that mont, he understood why once, when he wanted to touch Kong Youling’s hair, Salvation Society forbade their interaction:
It was because, at that ti, Salvation Society likely hadn’t yet found a way to suppress psychic abilities, fearing Ji Minghuan and Kong Youling would enter each other’s spiritual world, communicating privately beyond their view.
But now, they probably had the ans under control, allowing Ji Minghuan and Kong Youling to engage in physical contact under their noses.
Just thinking about it, Ji Minghuan’s hand on Filio’s shoulder was slapped away with a "smack".
"Don’t touch !" Filio’s tone grew colder.
Ji Minghuan lowered his eyelids, nonchalantly saying: "Not playing with you anymore, making look like a villain."
Not far away, Kong Youling couldn’t hear the ntor’s words on the broadcast, but she could read from the lip movents what Ji Minghuan and Filio were likely discussing.
Under the cold light, she blinked her red eyes, looking at Ji Minghuan’s back.
Only Kong Youling knew why Ji Minghuan suddenly beca so active, like a different person:
He used to do this too, to keep the children from the Welfare Institute from bothering her, always posing as the king of kids in front of them, driving them away.
Back in the library, Ji Minghuan once read a book while saying to her:
"Children are the worst. They understand nothing, so they can do anything, completely disregarding others’ feelings... let alone these poorly educated kids from the Welfare Institute. So, don’t take their malice as your problem."
After many days, Ji Minghuan displayed the other familiar side to Kong Youling again: pretending to be a mischievous child upon encountering strangers, regardless of who they were, carelessly rushing to cause a scene.
Shielding Kong Youling behind him, he drew everyone’s attention to himself.
Over ti, people would forget he originally just liked quietly reading books, perhaps... even he forgot his true self?
At this mont, Ji Minghuan gazed intently into Filio’s eyes, clearly not quite trusting this unexpected guest.
But the ntor insisted they befriend Filio, the reason being simple upon reflection:
Demons... don’t sound like easily educated beings; the ntor hopes Filio has a peer friend to stabilize his emotions.
Ji Minghuan was well aware he was the key person here; should this little werewolf actually go on a frenzy and bite soone, the ntor would undoubtedly drag him out first.
So, he put on a childish deanor as if the school was his ho, waving his hand and saying, "Take a seat, big puppy... you’re late, the VIP bed has already been occupied, but there’s still a chair over there."
After speaking, he sat back beside Kong Youling.
"Who is he?"
Kong Youling wrote in the notebook for Ji Minghuan to see.
"His na is Filio, he’s a child of humans and demons."
"Demon?"
Kong Youling apparently hadn’t heard about those things regarding exorcists from the ntor.
"Hmm... Just think of him as the child of Pleasant Goat’s mom and Grey Wolf’s dad, and then he went wild and ate Pleasant Goat’s mom, so Grey Wolf’s dad kicked him out of the green pasture in anger, forever exiling him."
Ji Minghuan made up a story, lowering her voice so Filio wouldn’t hear.
Under the gaze of the two, Filio quietly found a corner by the wall to sit down, wrapping his arms around his knees.
He hung his head, staring at the floor, his eyes returning to the empty look they held before.
Looking pitiful, like a little abandoned puppy.
Kong Youling pinched Ji Minghuan’s sleeve.
Ji Minghuan ignored her.
She pinched Ji Minghuan’s sleeve again.
"Alright, alright, I understand."
Ji Minghuan said sowhat impatiently, silently getting out of bed to sit by the wall with Filio;
Kong Youling also followed to sit at Ji Minghuan’s right, holding her sketchbook without speaking.
"Can I ask you a question?" Ji Minghuan turned to look at Filio.
Filio was silent for a long ti, seemingly recalling the ntor’s advice to him, then slowly opened his mouth:
"Go ahead."
"How did you co to my bedroom? I still don’t know what the outside looks like."
Ji Minghuan didn’t ask Kong Youling because she worried that Kong Youling might be punished—Filio on the other hand didn’t matter. On the one hand they weren’t close, so she didn’t have to be concerned about him, on the other hand, he was a demon child, thick-skinned.
Filio thought for a mont and said, "I walked out of my own bedroom, the lights in the hallway are so bright that you can’t open your eyes. Following the broadcast guide, I walked for a long ti, and eventually ended up at your bedroom. Other than that, I can’t see anything."
Upon hearing this, Ji Minghuan glanced at Kong Youling.
She gently nodded; it seed both she and Filio had co from their "bedrooms" this way—Kong Youling’s eyes were sensitive to light, making it even more impossible for her to see the way in overexposed conditions.
However, he didn’t expect to learn the structure of the institute from the mouths of these two.
At least he knew that outside the confinent room there was a long, winding corridor, and that this corridor linked the bedrooms of the children kept here.
When the day of attacking the Salvation Society ca, Ji Minghuan would free the children here one by one, open their inhibitors, and let the "gentle" adults taste their own fruits of wickedness.
After pondering for a while, Ji Minghuan asked again: "Can you transform, like a Saiyan turning into a giant ape."
"As long as I take dicine regularly, I won’t transform." Filio said, his tone clearly cold, yet a hint of timidity could be heard.
"That’s great." Ji Minghuan nodded in satisfaction, "The ntor told : you were sent here when you were very young, is that true?"
Filio maintained his silence, gently nodding.
"Don’t you miss your family?" Ji Minghuan deliberately avoided ntioning the "mother" he devoured.
"Haven’t you heard from the ntor?" Filio lowered his head even further.
"Heard what?"
"I ate my mom... Dad must be really angry, I’m afraid when he finds , he’ll eat ." Filio whispered, "It’s quite nice hiding here, without having to deal with anyone. If it weren’t for the ntor’s insistence, I wouldn’t see you at all, so... you’d best stay away from , I’m afraid I’ll eat you."
Your dad might be angry, but he’s still searching the world for you, silly child, though he’s also busy pillaging and plundering along the way... Ji Minghuan shrugged, teasingly in her heart.
"Don’t you miss him?" Ji Minghuan asked.
"I’m a monster, monsters only deserve to stay here..." Filio said, "Only the ntor is willing to accept , only he treats like a human, everyone else hates ."
He paused and buried his head in the protective embrace of his arms wrapped around his knees, whispering:
"To ... the ntor is like my father."
Ji Minghuan froze for a mont, slowly lowering her head, her mouth twitching as if holding back a laugh.
After a mont, she raised her head and sighed deeply at the ceiling, thinking: Demon Lord, co and save your son already! He’s about to recognize a traitor as his father! If you don’t co soon, this family is truly falling apart!
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