Samsara Paradise: Dream Weaver of Connections.

The dean was sitting on an old-fashioned wooden chair with stone slabs on it, his gaze fixed on the outline of a faded mural on the opposite wall.

The lines of the mural have been eroded by years of dampness and dust, and only a few distorted human figures and a winding vine pattern can be vaguely seen. The gray-white stone surface exposed after the paint has peeled off looks like patches embedded in the wall.

But his gaze wasn't really focused on the mural; his pupils were slightly dilated, a state of unfocusedness characteristic of deep thought.

He was dissecting the alien's defenses line of intelligence in his mind, some of which were confirmed to be credible and put into reliable files, some were marked as questionable and pending verification, and several obviously contradictory records were listed separately and marked with a question mark.

These scattered fragments slowly pieced together in his mind a layout sketch that was not yet complete, but whose general outline could already be seen.

Lin Yi walked over from the other side of the hall. When he was still three steps away, the dean tilted his head slightly, indicating that he knew someone was approaching, but he did not completely pull his attention away from his thoughts.

Lin Yi walked over and stood next to him. After waiting for two seconds and realizing that the dean did not look up to acknowledge him, he reached out and patted the dean on the shoulder.

After being patted, the dean finally turned his gaze away from the mural. He first looked down at the hand on his shoulder, then raised his eyelids to look at Lin Yi, his gaze conveying a clear attitude of "I saw you a long time ago, but I couldn't be bothered with you."

He reached out his free hand and gently pushed Lin Yi's hand off his shoulder. The movement was light, but the meaning was clear: don't disturb my thinking.

After brushing aside the mural, he turned his gaze back to it, but the corners of his mouth turned down in a slight smile. The displeasure at being interrupted was barely concealed, and only those who knew him well could read it from that micro-expression.

"What is Bai Ye doing?" The dean asked without turning his head, his tone as if he were asking casually.

Lin Yi withdrew his hand, which had been pushed away, and put it in his pocket. Leaning against a stone pillar, he replied, "That guy is still in the lab. He went in after he got the Wang Xin fragment and hasn't come out since. Even Bubuwang has been neglected and has come out to play with me."

The dean nodded after hearing the answer. This was not a bad thing for the team. The value of materials of the level of Wang Xin fragments in Su Xiao's hands was far greater than letting them lie in someone's storage space gathering dust. It just required patience to wait for him to produce results.

He immediately turned his head and looked directly at Lin Yi, his gaze shifting from a distracted, wandering state to a focused scrutiny: "How's the situation with Youying? What was the result of the surgery you performed?"

Lin Yi nodded, meeting the dean's gaze: "There shouldn't be any major problems. There might be mild post-operative reactions in the next day or two, but as long as nothing unexpected happens, it won't worsen. She herself is aware of her physical condition and will be careful."

After listening, the dean did not respond immediately. He leaned back in his chair, crossed his hands over his abdomen, and shifted his gaze from Lin Yi to the vaulted ceiling of the hall.

He knew that the connections and relationships in this place were intricate and complex, to say the least.

Dorothea, Shadow, Ubell, Teld, Karen, and Little Beetle—each of them is entangled in different power backgrounds and grudges, and their attitudes toward the alien species and their willingness to participate in the fight are also very different.

Before Shadow was the most uncontrollable variable. Her resentment towards humanity, her despair about her own situation, and her wariness of any outsiders intertwined, keeping her constantly at a distance from the possibility of cooperation.

Now Lin Yi has solved her core problem, allowing her to regain the experience and ability to act as a human being within her limited remaining lifespan. This change is equivalent to transforming a landmine that could explode at any time into a projectile that can be launched in a directional manner.

After the transformation, Shadow's combat power was fully unleashed, and she clearly expressed her willingness to follow Lin Yi. This filled the gap in the Dean's original plan, which required multiple people to make up for the weakness.

Just as Lin Yi was talking to the dean, Dorothea suddenly exclaimed, and Lin Yi immediately walked towards the operating room.

Under the cold white light of the operating room's shadowless lamp, Youying's gaze fell upon Lin Yi.

Her breathing was much more stable than before, her chest rising and falling evenly under the blue sheet, the frequency much slower and deeper than before the surgery, each breath carrying a long, drawn-out feeling she had never experienced before, as if her lungs, which had been compressed by the foreign heart for so long, finally had enough room to work.

The lips looked a little healthier than before, although still pale, but at least not the almost ashen white.

Lin Yi reached out and placed his hand on the radial artery on her wrist to check her pulse. Then he lifted her eyelids to look at the pupil's light reflex. Both pupils contracted sensitively and reacted in unison.

He straightened up and turned down the brightness of the operating light by two levels. When he turned to look at the doorway, he found Dorothea still squatting there.

When Dorothea saw Lin Yi looking in her direction, she quickly pointed to the bed and asked, "Is there anything I can do for you?"

"No need, just wait at the door."

Dorothea pouted, stood up, dusted herself off, took a couple of steps, glanced back at the shadowy figure on the bed, and then reluctantly left the operating room, waiting at the door.

The little beetle was also guarding the door, curling up into a small ball against the inside of the door frame, her body wrapped in gray and white cloth.

Her head was tilted against the door frame, and the eye peeking out from the gap in the cloth strip was half-closed. She looked as if she was about to fall asleep but was awakened by Lin Yi's movements. She suddenly raised her head and looked around.

"Well? Do you still remember who you are?"

Lin Yi waved his finger toward Youying's eyes. Her gaze was initially unfocused, then fell on the dimmed shadowless lamp above her head. She stared blankly for several seconds before her gaze gradually returned to focus.

Her expression was blank and bewildered the moment she woke up, like someone who had just emerged from a nightmare that had lasted too long and hadn't figured out where they were.

That blankness lasted for about three or four breaths, then something gleamed deep in her eyes, and her entire facial muscles visibly relaxed, abruptly transitioning from a state of perpetual tension and vigilance to a state of near-paralysis.

She raised her right hand, looking at it over and over several times, opening and closing her fingers, clenching them into a fist and then releasing them, as if to confirm that the hands were still her own.

Her gaze moved from her palm to her arm, then down to her shoulder and chest.

A blue sheet covered her, but her gaze pierced through the fabric and landed on the area under the blanket that had been bulging from the alien heart.

She stretched her other hand out from under the blanket, placed her palm on the center of her sternum, and pressed gently, as if to confirm that it had really flattened out.

She remained silent for a long time, so long that Lin Yi thought she intended to stay silent forever, when she suddenly spoke. Her voice was much clearer than before she fell asleep, and the muffled hoarseness that emanated from behind the mask had almost completely disappeared, leaving only a slightly weak but clear tone.

"It's really gone."

Lin Yi nodded: "I can't say it's gone, but I've modified it a bit so that it won't put too much strain on your body."

Youying removed her hand from her chest and placed it on the blanket. She stared at the light on the ceiling for a few more seconds, her lips twitching as if trying to organize some expression but failing.

She took a deep breath, her chest rising and falling almost twice as much as before. The feeling of her lungs fully expanding made her pause for a moment, and then she let out a very soft laugh as she exhaled. The laugh was short and shallow, like the sound of a thin piece of ice melting in the palm of your hand.

"So this is what normal breathing feels like." She turned to look at Lin Yi, her gaze no longer filled with the tension between expectation and resignation, but instead with something cleaner, like a dusty mirror that had been wiped clean and was now reflecting light again.

"The surgery was a success, and your body is accepting the new organ much better than expected."

Lin Yi looked at Youying and suddenly asked, "Does your body feel hungry now?"

"Very hungry."

Youying was silent for a few seconds before speaking. Then she tried to sit up by supporting herself on the bed with her hands. Her movements were obviously unsteady when she used her elbows to push herself up, like a young animal that had just learned to stand. The muscles in her arms were still trembling slightly as she supported her body weight.

Lin Yi reached out and supported her back to help her sit up straight, then propped up a pillow behind her back so she could lean against it.

After settling down, she looked down at her hands, raised her right hand and touched her face, from her forehead to her chin. Her fingertips traced the smooth skin left after the scars disappeared. When she touched the light-colored traces of the radiating scars on both sides of her mouth, her fingers paused, and then she gently traced the lines of the scars.

She lowered her eyes to look at the new skin on her chest and suddenly said, "I used to feel like I was a body that was sewn together. The first thing I did every morning when I woke up was to check which parts of my body were still working properly and which ones were malfunctioning."

Lin Yi stood at the foot of the bed tidying up the leftover instruments on the operating table, putting a pair of surgical scissors into a sterilization box: "Now?"

Shadow raised his hand and patted the center of his chest: "Now I feel like a person."

When she uttered the word "person," her voice rose slightly with a hint of uncertainty, as if testing whether the word still held true when she said it. The word lingered on her tongue for a moment, and after it left the air, she herself was taken aback, as if she hadn't expected to say it so naturally.

The little beetle made a slight noise from the doorway. She straightened up from the door frame and poked half her head in. When she saw the shadowy figure sit up, her eyes, which were sticking out of the cloth strip, lit up noticeably.

She hesitated for a moment before stepping out completely from behind the door frame, carrying her metal helmet, and slowly moved to the foot of the bed. She squatted down two steps away and looked up at the shadowy figure.

Shadow reached out and beckoned to the little beetle. The little beetle got up from the ground and walked to the bedside. It held up the metal helmet and handed it to Shadow. Inside the helmet was a small bowl of stew that had cooled down, with a thin layer of oil on the surface.

This was left by the little beetle at the dinner table, intended for itself to eat for the next few days. However, after hearing that Youying was hungry, it brought it over for her.

Shadow looked down at the bowl of cold soup and remained silent for a few seconds before reaching out to take the helmet, lifting it to his lips, and taking a sip.

The soup had cooled completely, and the fat had solidified into thin white flakes floating on the surface. Her Adam's apple bobbed as she drank it, and then she took another sip while still holding the helmet. Only after finishing the third sip did she put the helmet down and return it to the little beetle.

She licked her lower lip, as if savoring the taste, and then said seriously, "It tastes a bit salty."

As he said this, Youying couldn't help but laugh out loud.

At this point, having anything to eat is already a blessing.

Seeing the shadowy smile, the little beetle's eyes, peeking through the gaps in the cloth strip, curved into two crescent moons. It grabbed its helmet, turned around, and skipped away. The grayish-white cloth strip looked like an old flag being blown by the wind as it ran.

As Youying watched the little beetle run away, she touched her own body and found that all the frost scars on her body had disappeared.

She twisted her arm and looked at it under the light for a few seconds, then suddenly asked, "Will my body ever turn back into the way it was before?"

Lin Yi knew what she meant by asking that question.

"It's basically impossible, but your origin has been corrupted. I'm not sure what you are now, but judging from the dominant forces in your body, you can at least live as a human before you die."

Upon hearing this answer, Youying leaned against the pillow and slowly exhaled, as if releasing something that had been held back deep within her body.

"That's enough. I never thought I would still be able to live as a human. If you need me in the future, just let me know."

Youying's favorability towards Lin Yi has now reached its peak. It can be said that if Lin Yi needed Youying to die now, Youying wouldn't hesitate much.

"Get some rest first. We'll have to fight the aliens later, and we'll need your help then."

"it is good."

After saying that, Youying yawned and went back to sleep.

Her body hadn't had any energy for a long time, and she felt a little sleepy after drinking some broth.

Lin Yi covered Youying with the blanket, then came out and found that Su Xiao had already come out of the room.

"Is the experiment over?"

"Not yet, just came out for some fresh air."

The two walked together toward the center of the square. Dorothea leaned out from beside the row of stone houses and waved to them. She was holding a ceramic pot with steam rising from its spout, indicating that she had prepared some hot drink.

"Come and have some hot drinks. We have important matters to discuss tonight. You'll need to eat well to have the energy to use your brains."

Lin Yi and Su Xiao walked to the table in the center of the square, which had been cleaned again, and sat down. Dorothea poured each of them a bowl of dark brown liquid. It smelled of herbs and bark mixed together. It was slightly bitter at first, but the aftertaste was sweet. In this cold underground, being able to drink something at this temperature was a luxury.

The dean had clearly extracted a lot of valuable information from Karen, and his expression showed satisfaction.

"Doctor, that guy is yours now."

"A minor issue."

Lin Yi understood the dean's meaning: they were planning to heal Karen and use him as cannon fodder. However, even if Karen knew, he wouldn't care; he'd probably be even more willing to fight the mutants. (End of Chapter)