The figure outside drew closer and closer. Li Xian quickly ducked into a blind spot out of sight of the window, but the person seemed to have spotted him. Their footsteps quickened, and they were almost at the door-
The only window was beside the door. There was nowhere to escape and nowhere to hide inside the room. Li Xian's mind raced for a solution.
Judging by the clothes he had glimpsed, the person was undoubtedly a villager. He couldn't reveal his gender the way he had with Ji Xie. Instead, he had to conceal the fact that he was a man.
Was trying to bluff his way through his only option?
Li Xian hesitantly picked up the wig, intending to put it back on, but halfway through the motion, he seemed to realize something. His hand froze in midair.
Now that he had washed off his makeup, he couldn't guarantee the villagers wouldn't grow suspicious even if he put the wig back on.
If the villagers discovered that he was their bride, they would drag him back and imprison him.
But he also needed to play the bride properly.
Because the system had explicitly said, "If the villagers notice the bride behaving out of character, you may face danger, so you mustn't let the villagers discover that the bride is a man."
At first glance, this seemed like an unsolvable problem.
Wait.
...The bride?
Li Xian felt as though he had caught the thread of an idea.
For some reason, he remembered those seemingly useless remarks the villagers guarding him had made:
"Li Xiaojuan usually looks so grubby, but I heard she's quite pretty with makeup on?"
"Didn't the village chief say no one was allowed to look at the bride's face once her makeup was done?"
An unexpected yet plausible theory slowly took shape in Li Xian's mind.
...But was that really how it worked?
Forget it. There was no time!
Li Xian cast aside his hesitation, immediately tossed the wig aside, and began taking off his wedding dress.
He undid a few buttons, revealing the white shirt underneath.
And beneath the skirt, he wasn't wearing embroidered shoes, either, but the sneakers he had worn before entering the instance.
This further confirmed Li Xian's theory.
The live comments, however, were baffled by his actions.
[What's the streamer doing? Just giving up?]
[What else can he do... His makeup's gone, so the villagers will definitely realize he's a man.]
[What a shame. Why did he have to get assigned this role? His luck is awful...]
[Nooo, I haven't had enough of that face yet... Can someone save him...]
[If that face... Oh, wait, if this streamer doesn't survive, my fine moral character, even my soul, will be destroyed!]
Li Xian strained to reach behind himself and undo the last few buttons on the back of the wedding dress. Meanwhile, the footsteps were almost at the door.
As the doorknob turned, Li Xian just managed to pull off the dress, then immediately threw it under the bed along with the wig.
Creak-
The wooden door was gently pushed open.
Li Xian looked up. A thin old man stood outside the door. Although it wasn't raining, he held an umbrella, and his trousers were tucked tightly into tall black rain boots.
His other hand gripped an axe nearly a meter long.
The old man raised his head. Loose skin sagged in folds across his face as his cloudy eyes sized Li Xian up and down.
Li Xian now had short hair and wore a plain white shirt and sweatpants. The shoes that had been hidden beneath his skirt were the sneakers he usually wore.
He was unmistakably a man.
[It's over. The streamer's dead.]
[Waaah... I'll miss that face...]
[Let's guess how long it'll take him to die. I say three minutes.]
[That's generous. One minute. This village chief chops people up crazy fast, like slicing melons.]
[Why hasn't he attacked yet?]
Li Xian stood still under the old man's gaze, letting him look him over from head to toe.
After a nerve-racking silence, the old man stepped forward, approaching Li Xian with the last light of sunset at his back.
"...Where did you come from?"
Only after hearing the old man's question did Li Xian's taut nerves ease a little.
Just as he had suspected, the system's peculiar wording had a purpose.
And that hidden meaning was his only way to survive.
He couldn't let the "bride" behave out of character, and he couldn't let the villagers discover that the "bride" was a man.
The subject of those statements had always been the "bride," not the "player" or "you."
The system had never said he had to play the bride.
So if the villagers didn't think he was the bride, they naturally wouldn't consider the "bride" to be behaving out of character.
He could pass himself off as an unrelated outsider.
Once he figured this out, his gender and missing makeup, previously obstacles, became the key to his survival.
And so Li Xian answered the village chief:
"The town outside the village," he said. "It started raining just as I arrived. I saw a few empty houses here, so I thought I'd take shelter for a while."
After answering the old man's question, Li Xian asked, "And you are...?"
"The village chief."
Li Xian understood. The old man before him was older than any of the villagers he had seen earlier. Perhaps because of the identity he had fabricated, the village chief showed no obvious malice and even exchanged a few pleasantries with him. But at the end, he abruptly changed the subject and asked:
"What's your name?"
"Li Xian."
After instinctively giving his name as he followed the village chief's lead, Li Xian suddenly realized something was wrong.
Sure enough, the village chief's expression shifted when he heard the name, and he said slowly:
"An elegant name. Not like the plain names everyone in our village has."
"That surname of yours is rare, too. And there's a girl in our village..."
"Whose surname is also Li."
Li Xian's instincts told him he absolutely couldn't afford to get this answer wrong.
"Really? What a coincidence."
"...Her name is Li Xiaojuan."
The axe in the village chief's hand swayed slightly. It was a tiny movement, but Li Xian still noticed it.
He did his best to appear natural as he replied, "It sounds fine to me. I wouldn't call that a plain name."
The village chief remained silent for a long time, seemingly assessing Li Xian's reaction. After an eerie stretch of silence, he finally spoke:
"You don't see many young people as polite as you."
"A few other outsiders came into the village before you. As soon as they saw me, they started shouting that they wanted to leave."
"Unfortunately, the rain just now washed away the only bridge connecting the village to the outside."
Li Xian put on a troubled expression. "That's a problem... How long will it take to repair the bridge?"
"...Who knows?"
The village chief's answer was vague, so Li Xian didn't dwell on the subject. Instead, he asked:
"Are there any spare rooms in the village, then?"
The village chief's fingers stopped rocking the axe, and he finally tucked it behind his back.
"Come with me."
Before you continue