Li Muyang passed through the rows of stilt houses, some tall and some short, and came to the entrance of the stronghold.
Once he stepped outside the gate, the most conspicuous thing was the woods ahead, beside the main road.
Corpses, dried and twisted into wretched shapes, hung from the gnarled branches of the trees.
The bodies had been left hanging out in the open for what seemed like a long time, yet not a single scavenger had come to peck at them.
Li Muyang waited by the roadside for a while, then saw a carriage emerge from the woods ahead, where the trees were draped with dried corpses.
The driver wore a black robe, his face hidden beneath his hood. He looked eerie and mysterious.
After he stopped the carriage by the roadside, Li Muyang saw three grimy children sitting in the wagon bed.
Their eyes were all filled with terror. Helpless and huddled together, they crouched in the wagon bed without moving.
The black-robed driver glanced at Li Muyang and rasped, "The lambs your Black Cloud Stronghold ordered."
Among the three children, Li Muyang keenly spotted his target.
[Little Wild Grass]
A huge, pale-yellow health bar floated above one of the children's heads.
She wore a thin, filthy hemp garment. Her hair was a tangled mess, and her face was smeared with grime. She looked no different from the other children.
But there was no doubt about it: she was the target Li Muyang had come to find, the heroine of this raising game.
The handover went smoothly. Li Muyang paid the driver, then led the three children toward the stronghold after counting them.
The three children, all around ten years old, followed behind Li Muyang timidly, like startled birds. They seemed utterly terrified and only knew how to obey.
As Li Muyang led the children through the stronghold, he suddenly felt as if he were herding sheep.
But the Demon Refining Sect herded actual mountain goats. Those goats were a little strange, but they were beasts all the same.
The "lambs" before him, though, were actual human beings...
Watching the three trembling children and hearing the villagers on the roadside laugh and point, Li Muyang curled his lip.
What age was this? They were still practicing traditional demonic arts...
Look at the Demon Refining Sect. A great power in its own right, it controlled over a hundred cities and had long since developed entirely new methods of demonic cultivation, abandoning such inefficient traditional methods as killing people to extract their bones and refine their souls.
What a waste to kill people.
The Demon Refining Sect had simply cast aside the old practice of killing people to cultivate. Instead, it raised Two-Legged Sheep and other monstrous beasts to take the place of living humans in blood sacrifices.
As for the ordinary people living in its territory, they all had to pay taxes to the Demon Refining Sect, work, and perform forced labor. Squeezing them for all they were worth created far more value than killing them outright.
As a demonic cultivator of the modern age, Li Muyang naturally looked down on these traditional methods of demonic cultivation in the game dungeon.
But he didn't take it too seriously.
After all, the world of a game dungeon was bound to differ from reality. In the beginner's tutorial he'd cleared last time, the Tianyuan Dynasty hadn't seen a single demonic cultivator for a thousand years...
Li Muyang took the three children to Steward Wu and handed over the money pouch.
Steward Wu counted the silver inside, then glanced at Li Muyang.
"Pick one. You're already in this sorry state, so don't go up the mountain again. No need to die up there."
"Take one of these three lambs home and look after it. Just don't let it starve to death. After that, you can move freely around the stronghold."
As Steward Wu spoke, another dialogue box popped into Li Muyang's field of vision.
[...Me? Steward Wu, please, don't! I can still go up the mountain!]
[(Drop to your knees and kowtow, begging for mercy)]
"...?!"
The two dialogue boxes that appeared before his eyes left Li Muyang dumbfounded.
What was going on? The game character had to pick a child to take home and raise... Why did it sound like a matter of life and death?
These three children looked harmless and timid. What was Leng Aqi so afraid of?
Li Muyang fell silent for a moment, then chose the first option.
After Li Muyang chose the first option, the game character immediately begged Steward Wu for mercy.
But after coldly listening to the game character's pleas, Steward Wu's eyes remained icy.
"Leng Aqi, don't play the fool with me. Either pick one and take it home, or get out of the stronghold. Those are your only choices."
The old steward was extremely hostile. Li Muyang fell silent for a moment.
A new dialogue box appeared in his field of vision.
[Choose a child to take home]
Li Muyang turned around and looked at the three children before him again.
There was one boy and two girls, all around ten years old and filthy, like disaster refugees with nowhere to go.
Their eyes seemed to be full of fear.
But for some reason, perhaps because of what Steward Wu had said, Li Muyang now sensed a hint of danger as he looked at the three children.
--These three kids didn't seem as simple as they looked.
He studied the children warily, then finally chose [Little Wild Grass], the one with the pale-yellow health bar above her head.
"She'll do. I choose her."
Li Muyang pointed at the filthy little girl. Since it was a raising game, there could only be one choice. He had to take this little girl home.
If he lost this chance to adopt her, the game would surely end in failure.
That was what Li Muyang thought. But the moment he chose the little girl, she remained silent, standing timidly with her head bowed.
Yet the pale-yellow health bar above her head instantly turned into a red enemy health bar, brimming with hostility.
What the hell...
Hostile already? Just because I chose you?
Li Muyang stared at the little girl, speechless. That confirmed it: these three little brats weren't as simple as they looked.
These weren't three harmless little lambs at all. They were three little monsters in sheep's clothing!
After Li Muyang made his choice, Steward Wu went inside and came back with a chain forged from refined iron, which he tossed out.
"Remember to chain her up before you go to sleep. Keep her a little distance away from you," Steward Wu said, glancing at Li Muyang. "But don't chain her too far away. If she can't absorb your yang energy, she'll go berserk."
What the hell...
Hearing that, Li Muyang almost hurled the chain at Steward Wu's head.
These three brats really were no good. After taking one home, he actually had to chain her up nearby so she could absorb his yang energy?
What was this stronghold even doing, buying back such creepy children?
Li Muyang was full of questions, but Leng Aqi had already obediently picked up the chain and left.
Meanwhile, [Little Wild Grass], the one with the blood-red health bar above her head, obediently followed right behind Li Muyang, step for step.
He didn't even need to call her over. She already knew to follow him.
A little girl so docile and sweet would normally have been endearing.
But looking at the red health bar above her head, Li Muyang could only feel speechless.
This brat was pretty good at pretending...
Good thing it was only a game. With the hostility indicator, he could tell. If he'd met a terrifying little brat like this in real life, he might really have been fooled by her innocent, meek appearance.
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