The morning sun spilled over two fields of spiritual land halfway up the mountain.
A faint mist hung over the fields, where the first hints of green had begun to poke through.
Li Muyang stood on the ridge, yawning as he held a water dipper and performed the Lesser Cloud and Rain Art.
He hadn't gone to sleep until the second half of the night after cultivating, and now he'd gotten up early to work. Li Muyang looked a little worn out.
But his eyes were bright with excitement.
He hadn't gotten up so early because he was diligent. He was just too excited to sleep after mastering a genuine demonic art.
After spending most of the night cultivating, he had finally mastered the Residual Cloud Movement Technique.
He'd drifted off twice during the second half of the night, but woke again at dawn.
Since he couldn't get back to sleep, he'd gotten up early to water the spiritual fields.
Li Muyang seemed unchanged, but once he used the Residual Cloud Movement Technique, faint demonic markings would surface on his skin.
With the boost from these eerie markings, Li Muyang's speed became frightening.
If he ran at full speed, he could even leave a blur in his wake.
There weren't many people in the outer sect who could keep up with that kind of speed.
With a trump card like this hidden up his sleeve, Li Muyang might not be able to swagger around the outer sect, but at the very least, if anything happened, he'd be the first to make a getaway.
Humming a cheerful tune, Li Muyang held the water dipper and performed the Cloud and Rain Art. He soon finished his morning watering.
He wouldn't have to water the fields again until the afternoon.
Looking at the faint spiritual mist drifting over the fields, Li Muyang put down the water dipper and sat on the ridge to rest.
The old tree growing on the ridge had become an old friend of Li Muyang's.
He sat in the shade with his back against the trunk, felt the light morning breeze from the mountains brush across his face, and closed his eyes.
Game with Fairies, start!
Inside the dim stilt house, Li Muyang opened his eyes.
The little girl on the bamboo bed had her eyes closed and had just fallen asleep.
Choices for tonight appeared in Li Muyang's vision.
[So sleepy... I'm going to sleep too. I'll ask about the monster tomorrow.]
[The monster in my dreams... I think I've heard of something like that before. I can't sleep. What if it appears while I'm asleep?]
After Li Muyang unlocked the information about the assassin, the options before going to sleep at night had changed.
Naturally, Li Muyang chose the second option.
The light inside the house shifted rapidly as time in the game sped by, as if someone had hit fast-forward.
The moonlight streaming through the window drifted farther and farther away, then disappeared.
At last, the first rays of morning sun lit up the mountains, and roosters crowed throughout the stockade.
In a matter of seconds, the whole stockade had fast-forwarded from the dead of night to dawn.
"Cock-a-doodle-doo!!!"
The rooster crowed, and soon the stockade, quiet all night, began to stir.
The little girl on the bamboo bed rubbed her eyes and sat up.
"Good morning, big brother."
The little girl greeted him sweetly.
Two choices appeared in Li Muyang's vision.
[(Ask her about the monster)]
[(Tell her to wash up and prepare breakfast for her)]
Li Muyang naturally chose the second option.
Now that he'd finally managed to raise her affection, he had to keep it up.
This little girl actually thought he was a decent person... He couldn't ruin that image by rushing things.
Li Muyang got up and told the little girl to wash up. Then he opened the door of the stilt house and went out to the kitchen to start a fire and cook porridge.
When Li Muyang returned to the stilt house with a steaming bowl of plain rice porridge, the little girl asked timidly,
"Big brother, did you not sleep last night?"
The little girl looked curious, but also a little concerned. "Your eyes are so bloodshot."
Li Muyang glanced at the affection bar in the upper-right corner of his vision... It was still at 25. It hadn't gone up.
Still, after so many failed attempts, this was the first time Little Wild Grass had shown concern about him not sleeping.
Li Muyang handed the little girl the hot porridge and said, "Eat first. After you're done, tell me about that monster."
"I didn't dare sleep last night. I was afraid that monster would come out and kill us while we were asleep."
Li Muyang's words made the little girl shrink her neck.
"N-no way, right?" The little girl nervously glanced around. "There are so many powerful people in the stockade. That monster wouldn't dare come in."
Li Muyang looked at the innocent little girl and grinned, his smile not reaching his eyes.
"Eat up. We'll talk after."
Whether that monster dared come in or not... As someone who'd been killed hundreds of times, wouldn't I know?
Soon, the two of them finished the plain rice porridge in their bowls, one after the other.
After eating, the little girl wiped her mouth and spoke up first.
"That monster appeared after I was captured by the human trafficker and passed a charity cemetery in Yazhou County."
"It often appears in my dreams. It has two very thin, very long legs, and when it stands up, it's taller than the walls beside the road. It wears the kind of costume performers wear onstage, and its face is covered in white paint."
"It has seven hands and two mouths."
"It can't speak like a person. Whenever it opens its mouth, it makes this awful creaking sound that gives people a headache."
"The first time it appeared was at night. It suddenly jumped out of the woods beside the road and tried to grab me, but the human trafficker drove it away with a red stick."
"After that, it didn't dare show itself in front of the human trafficker anymore. Instead, it often came into my dreams and chased me."
"After I told the human trafficker, he asked a spirit medium to examine me, but it didn't help. The monster still appeared, though it chased me less often."
"Most of the time, it just stood far away in the woods watching me. I'd run through the woods, but no matter how far I ran, I couldn't shake it."
As the little girl spoke, she shrank her neck, as if the frightening memory had come back to her.
She looked cautiously at Li Muyang and said, "The human trafficker is gone now, but I didn't dream about the monster last night."
"It might have gone away, or it might still be waiting outside."
"So, big brother, we can't leave the stockade yet. I'm afraid that monster is waiting for us out there..."
The little girl told him everything she knew.
But Li Muyang felt his scalp go numb as he listened.
This thing... He'd originally thought it was a danger in the stockade, but from the little girl's story, it was clearly some kind of evil spirit she'd encountered on the road.
Just hearing about it was horrifying.
It had the full flavor of folk horror.
As someone afraid of ghosts, Li Muyang was glad this raising-sim game was an interactive galgame and didn't require him to fight anything himself.
Otherwise, fighting something this eerie and sinister... That'd make his sanity drop!
Two choices appeared in Li Muyang's vision.
[Let's go find Granny Gu in the stockade. She specializes in dealing with things like this.]
[Let's go find Steward Wu and ask him what to do.]
Excellent! A completely new story route he'd never triggered before!
It seemed they'd finally found a way to deal with the monster.
Li Muyang stood up and chose the first option.
"Let's go find Granny Gu. She's an expert at driving out evil."
Before you continue