You're a Decent Person

The little girl in the bamboo basket on his back was utterly surprised. She couldn't believe Li Muyang had trusted her so easily.

Li Muyang, running at full speed through the mountain forest, curled his lip. I've died at that monster's hands hundreds of times. How could I not believe you?

Naturally, there was no need to tell the little girl that.

As he sprinted through the forest toward the cave entrance they had come from, he said,

"I'm not stupid. You hate Black Cloud Stronghold and don't want to leave, yet you even urged me to go back... So what you said must be true!"

"Otherwise, if you'd already left Black Cloud Stronghold, why would you go back? Do you really want to stay in the stronghold and be a Soul-Lost One who gets bled?"

Most of the demonic arts practiced in Black Cloud Stronghold required demonic blood as an essential ingredient.

And the blood of Soul-Lost Ones was one kind of demonic blood.

So if the little girl returned to the stronghold, she'd have to be a living blood bank, regularly drained of blood.

If she had the chance to escape Black Cloud Stronghold, she'd surely want to take it.

Li Muyang's reasoning made perfect sense. The little girl in the basket froze for a moment, then smiled sadly.

"That's right... If you could leave, who would want to go back to the stronghold?"

The little girl sounded dejected.

This big brother really was clever. He'd figured out so much in an instant.

The way she'd pretended to be clever in front of him earlier must have seemed pretty funny to him...

The little girl curled up inside the basket and covered her face, feeling it burn.

After the little girl fell silent, Li Muyang glanced at the Favorability bar in the upper-right corner of his field of vision.

[Little Wild Grass: 23 (She thinks you're clever)]

It had gone up by three points again...

This little girl really was strange.

Her favorability had been so hard to raise before, but now it was climbing with ease. Just a couple of sentences had earned him three points.

As expected, he shouldn't have followed the usual dating-game approach to the story. If he'd let loose sooner and stopped letting the system's choices hold him back, he might already have reached stage three.

Carrying the little girl on his back, Li Muyang ran through the forest and soon returned to the pitch-black cave.

A tunnel deep inside the cave led directly into the stronghold.

Following the same path they'd taken earlier, Li Muyang and the girl made their way through the dark underground passage for a long time, eventually emerging once more beneath the moonlit sky of Black Cloud Stronghold.

It was already the middle of the night.

In the quiet stronghold, only the soft rustling and chirping of insects could be heard. Every stilt house in sight had its doors tightly shut, and the villagers were all asleep.

Yet now that he saw the gloomy, eerie stronghold, Li Muyang let out a long breath, feeling a sense of security.

—Even though he knew he wasn't safe in the stronghold either.

At least, as long as he stayed in the stronghold and didn't fall asleep, he wouldn't run into danger.

After carrying the little girl in the basket back to the stilt house, Li Muyang said,

"Get some sleep first. Rest for a while, and when you wake up, we'll talk about the monster in your dream."

Li Muyang's words left the little girl stunned.

She'd thought that once he brought her back, he would immediately ask about the monster.

But instead of asking, Li Muyang was telling her to rest first...

Confusion filled the girl's eyes. "Big brother, aren't you curious about the monster that appeared in my dream?"

Li Muyang answered calmly, "I am, but not right now. Hurry up and get some rest."

Everyone else was asleep at this hour. Even if he learned the monster's origins, could he go find someone to help?

It would have to wait until tomorrow anyway.

Of course, the main reason Li Muyang was in such a hurry to get the girl to sleep was that, after getting the first-stage reward, he was itching to try it out.

Right now, all he wanted was to study the Residual Cloud Movement Technique manual and figure out how to cultivate it quickly.

As for the rest of the game—the mystery-solving and defeating the monster—he'd deal with that after he'd finished studying the Residual Cloud Movement Technique.

Li Muyang saved the game again, then told the little girl to get into bed.

The girl hesitated for a moment, then obediently climbed onto the bamboo bed and lay down.

She curled up beneath the thin blanket, willingly let Li Muyang lock her around the neck, and obediently closed her eyes.

The Favorability bar in the upper-right corner of Li Muyang's field of vision jumped again.

[Little Wild Grass: 25 (She thinks you're a decent person)]

"?"

Another question mark appeared above Li Muyang's head.

Had her favorability gone up by two points just while they were chatting?

Was this little girl's favorability really that easy to raise? Then why hadn't it budged at all when he'd been so nice to her at the start?

After saving the game, Li Muyang slowly opened his eyes.

The afternoon sunlight fell across him. An old tree beside the field ridge swayed in the wind, its leaves whispering.

This mountainside, far from any people, really was incredibly peaceful.

Birdsong rang out, clear and sweet, from the woods not far away.

After exiting the game, Li Muyang exhaled deeply and stood up on the field ridge.

"Suddenly, raising favorability doesn't seem so hard..."

Li Muyang stroked his chin and pondered for a moment.

Could Little Wild Grass be the sort who was cold on the outside but warm on the inside, easy to win over once you got to know her?

But that didn't matter. What mattered now was the Residual Cloud Movement Technique!

He studied the manual carefully and found that the technique was easy to cultivate. The only thing it required was a plentiful supply of demonic blood.

With enough demonic blood to nourish it, he could master it in three to five days.

After reading the manual, Li Muyang stretched, picked up the enormous water bucket beside him, and hoisted it onto his shoulder.

The bucket was filled with cool spring water. As Li Muyang stood on the field ridge and performed the Lesser Cloud and Rain Art, the water inside slowly rose into the air, turning into a swirling mass of white mist.

The cloud of mist drifted away, releasing a sparse sprinkling of raindrops.

The spirit-rich rain fell onto the spirit field, continually nourishing the seeds within.

A spirit farmer's work was easy. All they needed to do was summon rain once in the morning and once in the afternoon.

Li Muyang wasn't a workaholic like Guan Xiaoshun, who summoned rain several times more than everyone else each day.

He didn't particularly care how well the spirit grain grew. Once he'd finished the two basic rainfalls, Li Muyang tossed the enormous bucket into the cleaned-up tile-roofed house, took a clay jar, and headed down the mountain.

Outside the gathering grounds of the Demon Refining Sect's outer sect was a marketplace.

Today happened to be market day. Disciples from all seventeen outer-sect settlements who needed anything would come to the marketplace.

Along with the usual places to spend money, such as brothels and restaurants, many low-level cultivators also set up stalls.

Some sold talismans or magical artifacts they'd made themselves; others sold surplus spirit rice... There was a dazzling variety of goods, with just about everything on offer.

The Demon Refining Sect was a rather closed-off place. Once outer-sect disciples entered, they found it difficult to leave, so the sect had developed an ecosystem of its own.

As he walked toward the marketplace, Li Muyang reviewed the Residual Cloud Movement Technique manual in his mind.

The Residual Cloud Movement Technique was a standard demonic art: powerful, quick to master, and harsh on the body.

Not only did using it come with negative effects, but cultivating it also damaged the body.

But Li Muyang didn't care. The system exempted him from every cost.

As long as he bought the demonic blood he needed at the marketplace, he could quickly master the formidable Residual Cloud Movement Technique.