I, Jiang Xiaoyu, Hate Being Lied To

It was another meaningless conversation.

Li Muyang solemnly asked Little Wild Grass about her past, and the timid, obedient girl told him the story of her miserable life.

But in the hundreds of failed attempts when Li Muyang had reloaded his save, that little brat had come up with more than a dozen different versions of her story.

Clearly, every miserable experience she described was something she'd made up on the spot.

She had no intention of telling Li Muyang, a stranger she'd only just met, what her life had really been like before.

And the version he'd heard this time was nothing new to him. It was probably the one that came up most often among the stories the girl invented.

Whenever he'd heard these fake stories before, Li Muyang had been frustrated. Sometimes he'd call the girl out directly and earnestly ask her to tell him what had really happened.

Other times, he'd reload his save and try a different approach, hoping to win her over with words.

Or he'd simply fly into a rage and interrogate her through private messages, trying to force the truth out of her...

He'd been stuck at this stage for far too long. He desperately wanted to clear it.

But this time was different. This time, Li Muyang was truly exhausted.

He looked at the girl in front of him, weary to the bone, and sighed.

"Are you serious?"

So this was what it meant to be emotionally drained... This was it.

At that moment, Li Muyang suddenly felt like a father who'd caught his daughter lying through her teeth again, after countless scoldings, and was now too exhausted to even reprimand her.

He even felt like giving up entirely and thinking, Forget it. Let it all burn.

In the dimly lit stilt house, the timid-looking little girl stared blankly for a moment, then nodded earnestly.

"Mhm, everything Little Grass said is true."

The girl solemnly stood by her story.

Looking at how obedient and sensible she seemed, all pitiful and helpless, who would guess she was the sort who spun wild tales and lied without a second thought?

Li Muyang was nearly laughing from sheer frustration at her superb acting.

"Fine. If you say it's true, then it's true."

He looked up at the sky outside. "It's getting late, and you've changed into your new clothes. I'll take you out for a walk."

"Anyway, you don't want to stay with me, and I feel about the same."

"I'll take you out of Black Cloud Stronghold. After that, you can go wherever you like, and you won't have to stay here and suffer."

Li Muyang had spent so long wandering around the stronghold. This time, he decided to try a different route.

He'd already given up on clearing the game. He was going to have fun and try messing around instead.

For example, he could send the brat out of Black Cloud Stronghold and see if the system would automatically declare that he'd failed.

Or perhaps sending the girl out of the stronghold would trigger a new storyline.

After so many failed attempts, Li Muyang had never tried taking the girl outside the stronghold.

When Li Muyang finished speaking, the girl froze for a moment, then hurriedly shook her head.

"No, big brother. I don't want to leave."

"You bought me, so I'll stay here and work for you, like a good girl."

"Big brother, please don't send me away. I'll die if I leave the stronghold alone."

"The forest is full of monsters and beasts!"

The girl pleaded tearfully, begging him not to send her away.

Whether she meant it or not, Li Muyang couldn't be bothered to care just then.

He took out the only tool in the stilt house: a small bamboo basket.

"Enough nonsense. I said I'm taking you out of the stronghold, so that's what I'm doing. Keep shouting, and I'll kill you first, then throw your body outside."

His menacing words seemed to scare the girl into silence at last.

Looking at the little girl quietly sobbing in front of him, Li Muyang curled his lip. "Don't worry. I'm not going to dump you in the middle of nowhere."

"Once we're out of the stronghold, I'll take you home myself."

"Your home is in a riverside town in the Central Plains, isn't it? Your father's a lecherous, unfaithful scumbag, and your mother's a brute who only likes your little brother and abuses you. They despised you for being a Soul-Lost One and sold you to a Human Trafficker. You hate them."

"As it happens, I, Jiang Xiaoyu, hate scumbags like that too. So I've decided to go with you to your hometown and find your two scumbag parents, then hack them to death so they get what they deserve."

Li Muyang made it all up as he spoke. He set the little bamboo basket in front of the girl and said, "Get in. I'm taking you away. I know a trail we can use to sneak out of the stronghold."

"There's nothing good in Black Cloud Stronghold. I've wanted to leave for ages. We might as well go together this time. We'll head to your hometown and kill some people."

Li Muyang looked relaxed, his tone casual.

The girl, however, widened her eyes, apparently frightened by his suggestion.

"G-go to my home?"

The next second, she shook her head frantically.

"No, no! I don't want my parents to die! Big brother, can we please not kill my parents?"

The girl grabbed Li Muyang's hand and begged him over and over.

Li Muyang glared at her. "What? Didn't you just say you hated your parents to the bone and wished they were dead? Why are you pleading for them now?"

"But I'll tell you this: it's too late! Begging won't help!"

"I'm killing your parents, no matter what!"

"They live in Jiangyun County, Jizhou, right? It's only a dozen or so days from here to Jiangyun County."

"I'll take you there myself and hack those two scumbags to death."

"People who sell their own daughter to a Human Trafficker don't deserve to be parents!"

With a mixture of force and intimidation, Li Muyang made the girl crouch inside the little bamboo basket. Then he covered it with a cloth and carried it out on his back.

He'd discovered the secret passage out of the stronghold while wandering around it earlier.

Now it came in handy.

No one would have guessed that [Jiang Xiaoyu], one of the stronghold's residents, would suddenly try to escape with a Soul-Lost One.

So he passed through the stronghold without a hitch and reached an abandoned house in its southeastern corner.

He carefully pried up the floorboards of the abandoned house, revealing a winding flight of steps leading down.

Clearly, people used the passage often; there wasn't any dust on the ground.

With the girl on his back, Li Muyang entered the passage. He walked through the long, pitch-black underground tunnel and eventually emerged in a cave in the mountains.

When they stepped out into the moonlight again, Li Muyang clearly felt the quiet, obedient girl in the basket let out a soft breath of relief.

—Clearly, the brat hadn't wanted to stay in Black Cloud Stronghold all that much.

Peering timidly through a gap in the cloth covering the basket, the girl whispered, "Big brother, are we really going to my home...?"

She asked him to confirm it again.

Under the moonlight, Li Muyang studied the dark forest around them, looking curious.

—The system hadn't declared that he'd failed?

So taking the girl out of the stronghold was allowed?

This cultivation game didn't restrict the locations or routes?

Then it had more freedom than he'd expected.

Li Muyang's grin grew even wider.

"Of course. We're going to your home."

Hearing the timid question from behind him, he chuckled cheerfully. "We're going to kill your parents and deliver justice on Heaven's behalf."

After saying that, Li Muyang paused, then added, "If I find out when we get there that you made up all those lies to fool me, I'll chop off your head, hack your body into pieces, and feed it to the dogs."

"I, Jiang Xiaoyu, hate being lied to most of all!"

Li Muyang's voice carried through the moonlit night. Inside the basket on his back, the girl's breathing stopped at once.