You're Doumei, Right?

Under the moonlight, as Li Muyang's words fell, the little girl in the basket on his back fell instantly silent.

Li Muyang was very satisfied with the little girl's silence.

Heh heh... that'll teach you to keep lying to me, you brat.

Sweating buckets now, aren't you, little sister!

Having successfully intimidated the girl, Li Muyang was in a very good mood.

He glanced at the favorability rating in the top right corner of his vision, wanting to see how much it had dropped from this intimidation.

Regardless, he was just letting loose and messing around this time; he didn't care at all how much Little Wild Grass's favorability dropped—the charm of a save-scumming game was that he could restart at any time.

But when Li Muyang saw the favorability number in the top right corner, his footsteps in the mountain forest came to an abrupt halt.

In that moment, Li Muyang suspected he had misread it.

[Little Wild Grass: 16]

"?"

What was going on?

Was he blind? Or was the system malfunctioning?

After being thoroughly intimidated, not only did this brat not hate him, but her favorability had actually skyrocketed?

Why?

Li Muyang was dumbfounded, even starting to suspect a system error.

There should have been a minus sign in front of that 16, right?

The next second, the little girl's voice sounded timidly from the basket on Li Muyang's back.

"Big Brother, do you really hate it when people lie to you?"

"Uh... pretty much," Li Muyang, who had just been spouting threats, was now too bewildered to maintain his fierce persona.

He carefully confirmed that the favorability number was indeed positive.

In his previous failed save files, he had played with her, taken care of her, and fawned over her, practically treating her like an ancestor, yet her favorability hadn't budged an inch. Now, it had inexplicably surged by 16 points.

...Could this brat be a masochist? Did she like being scolded and treated harshly?

That made no sense!

While Li Muyang was still suspicious, the little girl in the bamboo basket spoke again.

She whispered timidly.

"Big Brother, actually, you had already figured out I was lying, hadn't you..."

The little girl's timid voice carried through the moonlight.

This proactive confession was a world apart from the evasive, lie-filled girl from before.

It was as if she were a different person.

Li Muyang hesitated for a moment; his intuition told him that the little girl's sudden change in attitude was the key to breaking the deadlock.

But he didn't know how to respond next.

After all, he didn't understand the female psyche; he had never even dated, and he couldn't compare to those sensitive, romantic experts.

So, after a brief hesitation, Li Muyang decided to let loose once again.

Anyway, he had infinite saves to test things out; if he messed this up, he could just reload.

Therefore, Li Muyang said candidly, "That's right, I knew you were lying from the very beginning."

"You brat are full of lies, not a single word out of your mouth is true; you just know how to deceive people, and it's annoying to look at."

Li Muyang spoke his mind directly.

Because this brat was full of nonsense and never told the truth, he had failed hundreds of times!

Li Muyang's tone was very displeased.

The little girl in the basket was silent for a few seconds, then asked cautiously.

"Then, Big Brother, since you've confirmed I'm lying... are you still going to take me to Jizhou?"

"You said earlier that if you found out I was lying once we reached Jizhou, you would chop my head off..."

The little girl asked tentatively.

Li Muyang curled his lip and said, "That was just to scare you. You brat are full of lies, so I was just giving you a fright."

"I, Jiang Xiaoyu, am not some murderous demon; how could I kill a child?"

Li Muyang's words made the little girl in the basket breathe a sigh of relief.

She asked cautiously again, "Then... Big Brother, you know I'm lying, yet you're still taking me away? Aren't you afraid the people in the village will hunt you down?"

"You're a villager too; taking the important Soul-Lost One away without permission... the people in the village surely won't let you off..."

The little girl clearly couldn't understand the logic behind Li Muyang's actions.

Who would ever take someone away from a stronghold upon their first meeting, knowing full well that she was lying?

The little girl was completely bewildered; she had encountered an adult she couldn't fathom for the first time, and for a moment, she felt lost.

Under the moonlight, Li Muyang hummed with total indifference.

"So what if they're hunting us? At worst, they catch up and hack us to death."

"I, Jiang Xiaoyu, fear nothing if not death."

He had already died hundreds of times; who would be afraid of that?

It was nothing more than a matter of reloading a save.

Li Muyang carried the little girl on his back, walking through the mountain forest under the moonlight, putting more and more distance between them and Black Cloud Stronghold.

Feeling the jolting of the bamboo basket, the little girl inside spoke timidly.

"Then, big brother, why... why did you take me with you?"

"Even if you aren't afraid of death, you don't like me, so there was absolutely no need to take me along..."

The little girl voiced the doubt in her heart.

Li Muyang looked up at the path and spoke as he walked: "It's precisely because I don't like the look of you that I want to get rid of you sooner."

"You don't like Black Cloud Stronghold, and as it happens, I don't like this dump either; I'm just taking you along because it's on the way. Once we're out, you go back to your Jiangyun County, and I'll walk my own path. We won't interfere with each other."

Li Muyang was spouting nonsense; in reality, he wanted to see if he would still be assassinated after leaving Black Cloud Stronghold.

But after he finished speaking, the little girl in the basket was silent for a few seconds before saying in an awkward tone.

"Um... big brother, actually, I'm not from Jiangyun County in Jizhou. I was just passing through there while wandering..."

The little girl's voice grew quieter and quieter...

Li Muyang cut her off directly.

"Doesn't matter. I don't care where you came from or what you've been through."

"To be honest, if I hadn't been forced to take care of you, I wouldn't want to have anything to do with a brat like you who's full of lies."

That part was actually true.

In other raising-sim games, the heroines were obedient, cute girls, busty young ladies, or submissive lolis—all sorts of moe characters, designed to be as soft and adorable as possible.

In this day and age, even the tsundere archetype was becoming obsolete, yet the system had saddled him with Little Wild Grass, who was even more troublesome than a tsundere.

She was full of lies, cold-hearted, and completely indifferent no matter how well he treated her. His own game character kept getting killed, and there was zero positive feedback... If the system didn't restrict him to only playing this game, Li Muyang would have wanted to quit long ago.

Yet, these words from Li Muyang seemed to deal a critical hit to the little girl in the basket.

She actually fell silent, not saying a word for a long time.

On the contrary, Li Muyang, who was carrying her, saw the favorability bar in the top right corner of his vision move again.

[Little Wild Grass: 20 (She seems to think you can be trusted)]

"?"

A question mark appeared over Li Muyang's head once more.

What kind of logic did this brat have?

When he tried to please her and treat her well, she looked at him with disdain.

Now that he was intimidating her and even showing his disgust, her favorability kept rising, and she felt he could be trusted...