What if you were targeted by a cool and aloof beauty?

"Just then, a dark, humanoid creature appeared." Xiao Xiao chuckled self-deprecatingly, then sighed.

"A dark, humanoid creature?" An Chen took a breath, his face darkening.

He seemed to smell something similar to the main plot information in the entire content of a novel or anime.

An unnamed fire surged up in An Chen's heart.

It's been more than three years...

Recently, my long-term strategy of trying to catch a big fish hadn't yielded much success, but unexpectedly, things took a turn for the better at this time.

He held his breath, trying to calm himself down.

"Could it be... an illusion?" Hearing Xiao Xiao's words, Jiu Ge glanced at An Chen with some worry.

Did he accidentally stumble upon the clue that An Chen had been searching for but had been unable to find after coming to the Man-Eating Mountain?

An Chen's face looked a little pale.

She took a breath and reached out to hug An Chen's arm.

"I'll help you catch it!" Jiu Ge whispered to An Chen, nuzzling her face against his shoulder in a coquettish manner.

"Hmm." An Chen sighed, his expression relaxing slightly.

He could never do anything with this little girl.

"..." The knight glanced at the interaction between An Chen and Jiu Ge.

After hesitating for a moment, he turned his head away, pretending that he hadn't seen anything.

“Not bad…” Zhang Zhidong’s expression became more serious than before.

He also knew some things about the phantoms.

Zhang Zhidong has always been resolute in his stance on anything that could harm the world.

"Yeah, it was dark and humanoid, you couldn't see its face. As for the phantom, I don't know what you're talking about." Little blinked, somewhat confused.

Does this thing have a special name, just like cats and dogs?

"I don't know what you're talking about either," the knight honestly stated his thoughts.

He felt very regretful and saddened by the first half of the short story.

However, when they got to the second half, the knight couldn't understand anymore.

Then, when An Chen and the others suddenly spoke up and inserted themselves into the story, he became even more confused.

"Hmm... so what did that dark thing do?" An Chen asked in a deep voice.

Thinking about my own experiences and the intelligence I had gathered, I realized that...

His desire to seize the phantom immediately was even stronger than before.

"It drained my parents' life force under the pretext of being able to revive me, and then transferred their life force into me." Xiao Xiao sighed and continued to recall.

The black, humanoid creature's body contained immense energy.

In front of his parents, the creature performed a strange act of bringing destroyed trees back to life.

From then on, the little boy's parents completely believed in the black humanoid creature.

Overwhelmed with grief and love for their daughter, her parents did not hesitate to sacrifice their life force and nearly a thousand years of cultivation to Xiaoxiao on the spot.

With less than two hundred years of cultivation, he simply couldn't withstand that enormous energy.

First, it became neither clever nor intelligent.

Subsequently, because her soul could not withstand the shock, she almost lost her soul.

"When I woke up later, I had lost my body. Even if I gave up that body and used all the cultivation my parents sacrificed to me to transform into human form, I could only become a state similar to a spirit."

However, by then, because my parents' souls were about to perish, I discovered that I unexpectedly possessed the ability to replicate all sorts of things, including spirits.

Xiao Xiao still shudders when she thinks about what happened back then.

The parents lost their lives and their spirits were on the verge of shattering because they believed the words of the black humanoid creature.

It wasn't reincarnation or self-salvation, but rather a true near-total annihilation of the soul.

In the end, she couldn't be saved, and her parents also lost their lives.

"Back then, to prevent my parents from being terrified, I put in all my effort, and I succeeded in replicating it." Xiao Xiao became more and more excited as she spoke, and tears began to well up in her eyes.

She pried Zhang Zhidong's hands off, kicked her legs, and jumped to the ground.

"It's all because of that black thing that my mom and dad are gone... I don't want to be resurrected at all..." Xiao Xiao wiped her tears with her arm.

Anger, resentment, grievance, hatred, and frustration—all sorts of emotions that had arisen at that moment surged into her heart once again.

For so many years, Xiaoxiao has been holding back from thinking about it and from recalling it.

It lost its life because of that damned war and that despicable enemy.

Because of that black thing, she lost her parents, gained a false new life, and was even imprisoned, never to leave the Man-Eating Mountain.

“But my abilities weren’t perfect back then…” Xiao Xiao gritted her teeth.

She and her parents' souls lived underground for less than five years.

In the end, because of his limited abilities at the time, his parents' false souls dissipated on their own.

She was surrounded by feelings of loneliness and pain for several years.

But because of that black thing, Xiao Xiao couldn't die completely.

This situation only ended when someone on the man-eating mountain died.

Before that person's spirit dissipated, Xiao Xiao copied the other person's spirit.

She took the spirit to the underground and began to keep company with the spirit she had copied.

Although she was still very happy, perhaps because she was too young and her skills were not yet refined, most of the spirits she copied were in a state of mental derangement.

In a blank space, Xiao Xiao began searching for the memories of the spirits, copying various external buildings and placing them underground.

She felt that this would make the spirits accompanying her happy.

As time went on, more and more people died on Man-Eating Mountain, and more and more spirits were created by the Little Replica.

Today, the underground world is already quite vast.

The fact that An Chen and the others came to the underground was an unexpected surprise for her.

She had been so lonely for so many years.

The moment Xiaoxiao saw Zhang Zhidong, she was reminded of the person she had seen on the news on TV.

The same voice, the same facial features.

"So he's the incredibly talented and amazing Zhang Zhidong among humans," she thought to herself.

The little girl's parents are gone.

Over the years, she has longed for a real family, a family she can communicate with, laugh and play with.

From the day she completely lost her parents, Xiaoxiao longed for this.

Chapter 222 It's Right Here (Seeking Monthly Tickets and Subscriptions)

"In other words, your current situation is similar to that of Uncle Knight." Jiuge roughly understood the current situation.

The existence of the Knights and the Association is now confirmed to be inextricably linked to the thing that An Chen called a phantom.

"Uncle Knight?" Xiao Xiao sniffed and looked at the knight who was standing motionless to the side, not daring to speak.

"From what I sense... he does seem somewhat similar to me. If I'm neither a clever nor a little clever, he's neither a human nor a clever one," she replied after thinking for a while.

"Are you insulting me?" the knight asked, his voice sounding aggrieved.

Although it seems that Xiaoxiao scolded herself first.

"No, I'm just stating the facts." Xiao Xiao had no idea that her words were so hurtful.

"..." The knight lowered his head, walked to the side, and sat dejectedly on the hotel steps.

"That's right! So that means the Knight was also someone who was harmed by that Phantom guy." Zhang Zhidong clapped his hands, suddenly realizing.

No wonder he sensed something was wrong the first time he saw the knight.

Zhang Zhidong chose to trust the knight simply because his intuition told him that the knight was harmless.

Just now, he also believed Xiaoxiao.

"So that nasty, stinky guy's name is Phantom..." Xiao Xiao pouted, and tears that had already dried in the corners of her eyes welled up again.

"Damn it, damn it, damn it!" She stomped her foot really hard.

Not satisfied with stomping her feet, she started spinning in circles.

She hopped and twirled around, leaving Jiu Ge beside her and the knight sitting behind her completely bewildered.

"He's still just a kid." Jiu Ge let go of An Chen's arm and couldn't help but pat the top of his little head.

“You used to stomp your feet in anger like a child too,” An Chen retorted expressionlessly.

"I didn't!" Jiuge immediately retorted.

“Hmm…you stomped your feet in excitement just like her,” An Chen said, rephrasing the statement.

"I didn't!" In a fit of excitement, Jiu Ge punched An Chen on the shoulder.

"Hiss..." An Chen felt a blow to his shoulder.

"So, as long as there are bones, their clones can be preserved. If the bones are missing, their clones will disappear?" He rubbed his shoulder.

"Oh dear... I'm so sorry!" Jiu Ge, having regained her senses, quickly helped An Chen rub his shoulders.

"No, my parents' bones are all gone. I, with my poor skills, copied them and they lived for almost five years." Xiao Xiao stopped spinning in place.

“…” Zhang Zhidong frowned.

A bad feeling welled up in his heart again.

"Huh? What happened to your parents' bones?" Jiu Ge stopped massaging An Chen's shoulders.