Purple Cloth Strips

Li Muyang opened his eyes in the stilt house, where faint motes of dust drifted through the air.

He looked around, and those two options popped up in his field of vision again.

[I'm... I'm not dead? That's great! I'll go report to Steward Wu and get back to work.]

[I'm so tired... My whole body hurts like hell. I don't want to work anymore. I'll keep sleeping.]

Looking at the two options, Li Muyang should have chosen the first one. After all, choosing the second had already resulted in failure.

But at the critical moment, Li Muyang grew curious again.

Wasn't the female lead supposed to have tremendous potential? She died just because he did not go outside? That potential was way too worthless.

With that thought, Li Muyang chose the second option again.

Leng Aqi let out a weary murmur. "So tired... It's late anyway. I won't work today. I'll sleep for a while."

After saying that, Leng Aqi lay back down on the bamboo bed and fell asleep. Darkness filled Li Muyang's vision.

After some time passed in that darkness, a system prompt appeared before Li Muyang.

[You have missed the opportunity to personally water Wild Grass...]

[Game failed]

Li Muyang was kicked out of the game instance again and returned to the main interface.

This time, Wild Grass had not died. Instead, it said Li Muyang had lost the opportunity to personally water Wild Grass?

Li Muyang entered the game again and, refusing to believe it, chose the second option once more.

Then, just as expected, he was judged to have failed again and forcibly kicked out of the instance.

After failing eight times in a row, Li Muyang roughly understood what was happening.

"Looks like if I don't get involved, Wild Grass won't necessarily die."

Of those eight failed runs, Wild Grass died only in the first and fourth. In the remaining six, Wild Grass survived.

It was simply that Li Muyang had lost the chance to personally cultivate her, so the system judged the development a failure and forcibly kicked him out.

"Although the risk of death does exist, it isn't very high. It looks like Wild Grass really does have potential."

According to the story background, the village in this Miasma Land was filled with danger.

For an undeveloped female lead meant to be raised and nurtured to die there was nothing out of the ordinary.

But her death rate was lower than Li Muyang had expected. She truly had potential.

When Li Muyang opened his eyes and appeared in the stilt house again, he finally chose the first option.

"I'm actually not dead?"

Leng Aqi murmured in surprise, "But it's already so late... If I go find Steward Wu now, I'll be late..."

Leng Aqi hurriedly dressed, wrapped a black cotton strip around her waist, and rushed outside.

The people in this village all wore ethnic clothing from the southwest. Their dusty dark-blue garments were printed and dyed with many plain white patterns. They looked flashy, yet somehow simple.

Many of the women in the village had bundles of black cotton cloth wrapped around their heads, making it seem as though each wore a black ring atop her head.

The men also wrapped cloth around their heads, but theirs looked more like caps.

Leng Aqi ran through the village and soon arrived at a small open square.

"Steward... Steward Wu."

Panting heavily, Leng Aqi came before Steward Wu.

Steward Wu was thin, with sunken cheeks. He looked somewhat mean and gloomy.

He wore a long robe from the Central Plains, dressed unlike the people of the village.

Seeing Li Muyang approach, Steward Wu, who sat by the doorway smoking from an enormous water pipe, lifted his head disdainfully and exhaled a thick cloud of smoke.

"It's Leng Aqi..."

Steward Wu looked Li Muyang up and down before saying, "You're not dead yet?"

After Steward Wu spoke, three dialogue options appeared before Li Muyang.

[...Thanks to your good fortune, I'm still alive. Is there any work for me to do today?]

[Steward, I'm so tired. Can I rest today?]

[...](You may enter your own response)

Oh? This time, he could answer for himself rather than rigidly reciting one of the system's options?

That was interesting.

He had never experienced a game with real-time typed dialogue in his previous life. How could an ordinary game possibly respond in real time according to a player's answers?

Li Muyang first opened the system interface and saved his progress before personally entering a response.

At the edge of the square, sickly Leng Aqi suddenly opened her mouth and cursed Steward Wu by the door.

"You old Wu bastard! Even if you die, this grandpa of yours won't!"

The air seemed to freeze at that moment.

Several passing villagers turned their heads in shock, staring at Leng Aqi in disbelief.

Steward Wu, still seated with the water pipe in his arms, froze as well, as though doubting his own ears.

The strange silence lasted several seconds.

Then the thin, mean Steward Wu suddenly sprang up and viciously smashed the water pipe in his hand onto Li Muyang's head.

Blood burst forth.

[You have died. Game failed...]

"Fuck, I died that casually?"

Li Muyang opened his eyes in the thatched hut. This time, his provocation had not been mere malicious amusement; he had been probing for information.

Steward Wu dressed differently from everyone else in the village and looked utterly out of place, yet he was brazenly arrogant.

Li Muyang wanted to see what status the man held within the village.

Yet he had not expected that seemingly frail old man to suddenly explode into action and smash him to death in the blink of an eye.

Such ruthless disregard for human life, killing whenever he pleased—this village truly was dangerous. And Steward Wu's position in it was clearly extraordinary. He killed without the slightest fear.

After briefly reviewing all the information he had gathered so far, Li Muyang loaded his save and entered the game again.

This time, facing the gloomy, gaunt Steward Wu, he chose the most reasonable answer.

Steward Wu, holding his water pipe, gave him a sidelong glance. "It's already so late. There's definitely no time to send you up the mountain."

"How about this? Go wait outside the village. A batch of lambs will arrive shortly, and you'll be responsible for receiving them."

As he spoke, Steward Wu untied the money pouch from his waist and tossed it to Li Muyang.

"The usual rule: two taels of silver per lamb. Just pay the drivers by headcount."

"When you pay, remember to inspect them carefully. No sickly or crippled ones."

After Steward Wu assigned the work, Li Muyang took the money pouch and turned to leave.

Although this interactive game used an immersive perspective, the body would often move on its own as the plot unfolded. Whenever that happened, Li Muyang lost control of it.

After the game character Leng Aqi took the money pouch, she headed outside the village with practiced familiarity, requiring no control from Li Muyang at all.

Li Muyang observed the village around him, carefully studying each villager.

He found that most of the village residents were ordinary people and even appeared rather simple and honest.

But some villagers were clearly different.

They looked fiercer and more formidable. Every one of them had a purple cloth strip wrapped around the wrist, all in the same style.

These people were also residents of the village, but they were clearly one of the sources of danger within it.

And on Li Muyang's wrist—or rather, on the wrist of the game character Leng Aqi—there was also such a purple cloth strip...