“`
Under the moonlight, as Li Muyang’s voice ceased to linger, the little girl in the basket on his back fell silent instantly.
Li Muyang was very satisfied with the little girl’s silence.
Hmph… serves you right, you little liar,
Now you must be sweating bullets, aren’t you, little sis!
Having successfully scared the girl, Li Muyang was in a very good mood.
He glanced at the affection level in the upper right corner of his field of vision, curious about how much it would decrease after this scare.
Anyway, this time he was just letting loose, playing recklessly without caring about how much Little Wild Grass’s affection level might drop—it’s the charm of save-game that you can always start over.
But when Li Muyang saw the affection level number in the upper right corner, his footsteps halted abruptly in the midst of the forest.
At this moment, Li Muyang doubted his eyes.
[Little Wild Grass: 16]
“?”
What’s going on?
Am I blind? Or Is there a glitch in the system?
After all that scaring, not only did she not hate me, but her affection level actually soared?
Why?
Li Muyang, completely baffled, even started to suspect a system malfunction.
There should be a minus sign before this 16, right?
The next second, a timid voice came from the basket on Li Muyang’s back.
“Big brother, do you really hate it when people lie to you?”
“Uh… more or less,” the once intimidating Li Muyang, now too perplexed to sound threatening, answered.
He double-checked and, indeed, the affection level was positive.
In all his past failed saves, he had tried playing along, taking care of her, trying to please her to the point of almost worshipping her, but the affection level didn’t rise a bit. Yet now it had inexplicably shot up by 16 points.
…Could it be that the kid is masochistic? Likes being scolded and treated harshly?
That’s illogical!
Li Muyang was still skeptical, but the little girl in the basket on his back spoke again.
She spoke in a low voice, timidly.
“Big brother, you already figured out I was lying, didn’t you…”
The little girl’s timid voice spread out under the moonlight.
This forthright confession was worlds apart from the previous facade of innocence and lies of the little girl.
It was as if she had become someone else.
Li Muyang hesitated a moment, his intuition telling him that the girl’s sudden change of attitude was an opportunity to turn things around.
But he didn’t know how to respond next.
After all, he didn’t understand the minds of women; he had never dated, let alone match the insight of those great romantics.
So after a brief hesitation, Li Muyang once again decided to just go with it.
With unlimited saves to fall back on, he could simply restart if he messed this up.
Thus, Li Muyang candidly said, “Yes, I knew from the start that you were lying.”
“You, you little brat with a mouth full of lies and not a shred of truth—it’s completely off-putting.”
Li Muyang spoke his mind frankly.
It was all because of this kid’s incessant lies that he had failed hundreds of times!
Li Muyang’s tone was very annoyed.
The little girl in the basket fell silent for a few seconds, then spoke with caution.
“Then, big brother, now that you’ve confirmed I was lying… are you still going to take me to Ji Zhou?”
“`
“You just said if we get to Ji State and discover I’m lying, you’ll chop off my head…”
The little girl asked cautiously.
Li Muyang curled his lips and said, “That was just to scare you, you little brat full of lies and deceit. It was just to give you a fright.”
“I, Jiang Xiaoyu, am not a murderer. How could I possibly kill a child.”
Li Muyang’s words allowed the little girl in the basket on his back to breathe a sigh of relief.
She carefully spoke again, “Then… Big Brother, knowing I lied, you still chose to take me with you? Aren’t you afraid of the people from the fort coming after you?”
“You are also a villager, and taking an important soul-lost person away on your own, the people in the fort certainly won’t let you off…”
The little girl clearly couldn’t understand Li Muyang’s logic in his actions.
Who ever heard of someone who, upon first meeting and knowing she was lying, would still take her and run away from the fort!
The little girl was confused, encountering an adult she couldn’t read for the first time and felt somewhat lost.
Li Muyang, under the moonlight, hummed nonchalantly.
“If they chase, they chase, at worst they catch up and kill me.”
“The last thing I, Jiang Xiaoyu, am afraid of is dying.”
Having died hundreds of times already, who would be scared?
It’s just a matter of loading a saved game.
Li Muyang, carrying the little girl, walked under the moonlit forest, getting farther and farther away from Black Cloud Fort.
Feeling the jolting of the bamboo basket, the little girl inside timidly said,
“Then Big Brother, why… why do you want to take me with you?”
“Even if you’re not afraid of dying, you don’t like me, so there’s really no need to run away with me…”
The little girl voiced her puzzlement.
Li Muyang looked up at the road and replied while walking, “It’s precisely because I find you annoying that I want to get rid of you as soon as possible.”
“You don’t like Black Cloud Fort, and it just so happens I don’t like that crappy place either. I’m merely taking you with me because it’s on the way. After we’re out, you go back to your Jiangyun County, I’ll take my own path on Yangguan Road, and we won’t interfere with each other.”
Li Muyang spouted nonsense. In reality, he wanted to see if he would still be assassinated after leaving Black Cloud Fort.
But after he finished speaking, the little girl in the basket was silent for several seconds, then said in an awkward tone,
“Well… Big Brother, actually I’m not from Jiangyun County of Ji State. I was just passing through there when I was wandering…”
The little girl’s voice became softer and softer…
Li Muyang directly interrupted her.
“It doesn’t matter, I don’t care where you come from or what you’ve been through.”
“To tell the truth, if I hadn’t been forcibly assigned to take care of you, I wouldn’t want to have anything to do with a dead kid like you who is full of lies.”
That statement was serious.
In other nurturing games, the female leads are always obedient cute girls, busty young ladies, or compliant lolitas—characters designed to be as soft and adorable as possible.
In this day and age, even tsundere characters are almost out of the scene, yet the system saddled me with a Little Wild Grass more troublesome than a tsundere.
Always lying, heart like stone… No matter how nice you are to her, she remains indifferent. My game character keeps getting killed, with no positive feedback at all… If it weren’t for the system only allowing me to play this game, Li Muyang would have given up already.
Li Muyang’s words seemed to have struck the little girl in the basket severely.
She fell silent, not saying a word for a long time.
It was Li Muyang, carrying her, who noticed the favorability bar in the upper right corner of his vision move again.
[Little Wild Grass: 20 (She seems to think you can be trusted)]
“?”
A question mark appeared above Li Muyang’s head once more.
What kind of thinking was this dead brat using?
When I tried to please her, when I treated her well, she didn’t give a damn.
Now that I scare her, even despise her, her favorability keeps rising and she thinks I can be trusted…