Another meaningless conversation.
Li Muyang seriously inquired about Little Wild Grass's past experiences, and the little girl timidly and obediently told him her sad life story.
However, in the hundreds of failed attempts at loading the save, this damn girl had spun over a dozen different versions of her story.
Clearly, the pitiful experiences she narrated were all wildly fabricated by her.
She had no intention of telling Li Muyang, a stranger she had just met, about her family background and encounters.
And this version Li Muyang heard was all too familiar to him; it should be considered the most frequently occurring one among the stories the girl had concocted.
Previously, whenever he heard these false stories, Li Muyang would feel depressed. He would either directly expose the little girl and earnestly inquire about her real situation,
or he would load the save again and change his chatting strategy, trying to touch the girl's heart with his words.
Or he would simply get angry, coerce her through private messages, trying to force the girl to tell the truth...
He had been stuck on this level for far too long and was desperate to get through it.
But this time was different, this time Li Muyang was truly tired.
He looked at the girl in front of him with a weary face and sighed.
"Are you serious?"
What does it mean to be mentally exhausted... This was mental exhaustion.
At that moment, Li Muyang suddenly felt the fatigue of a father, catching his lying, incorrigible daughter in yet another misdeed, so tired he could not even bring himself to scold her.
He even had a sort of "forget it, let it all be destroyed" attitude.
Meanwhile, in the dimly lit Stilted Building, the timid little girl froze, then nodded earnestly.
"Mhm, everything Little Grass says is true,"
the little girl solemnly reassured herself.
Looking at her obedient and pitiful demeanor, who could imagine that she was a person who spewed lies on the fly?
Li Muyang was almost brought to laughter by her exquisite acting skills.
"Alright, if you say it's true, then it's true,"
He looked up at the sky outside and said, "It's getting late, and you've changed into new clothes. I'll take you out for a walk."
"Since you don't want to stay with me, and frankly, I feel much the same,"
"I'll send you away from Black Cloud Fort, and afterwards, you can go wherever you want to avoid staying at Black Cloud Fort and being wronged,"
Li Muyang, who had been circling inside the fort, decided to try a different route this time.
Since he had given up on clearing the level, he decided to just have fun with the game and play around.
For instance, sending the girl out of Black Cloud Fort to see if the system would forcibly determine his game failure,
or after sending the girl out of the fort, to see if it would trigger a new storyline.
After so many failures, Li Muyang had not yet tried taking the girl out of the fort.
As Li Muyang finished speaking, the little girl paused and then quickly shook her head.
"No, big brother, I won't leave,"
"I was bought by you guys, so I will stay in the fort and work for you obediently."
"Big brother, please don't send me away. If I leave the fort on my own, I will die,"
"The forest is full of monsters and wild beasts!"
The little girl tearfully pleaded with Li Muyang, not wanting him to send her away.
Whether she was sincere or not, Li Muyang couldn't care less at the moment.
He directly took out the only tool in the Stilted Building—a small bamboo basket.
"Cut the chatter, if I say I'm sending you out of the fort, that's what I'll do. Keep yelling, and I'll slaughter you first and throw your corpse out,"
Li Muyang's fierce words seemed to scare the little girl, finally silencing her.
Looking at the girl sobbing quietly in front of him, Li Muyang smirked and said, "Don't worry, I won't throw you out into the wilds."
"After I take you out of the fort, I will personally escort you home,"
"Isn't your home in the water town of the Central Plains? Your father is a lecherous scum, and your mother is a villain who only loves your brother and abuses you. They despised you as a soulless person and sold you to a kidnapper. You hate them deeply."
"Coincidentally, I, Jiang Xiaoyu, also despise such scum. So, I've decided to personally accompany you to your hometown and find your wretched parents to chop them to death, letting them get the retribution they deserve."
Li Muyang blurted out nonsensically, placing the small bamboo basket in front of the girl, and said, "Get in, and I'll take you away. I know a small path we can use to sneak out of the fort."
"There's nothing good in Black Cloud Fort; I've wanted to leave for a long time. Now's the perfect opportunity to leave together, and we'll go to your hometown to commit murder."
Li Muyang spoke casually, with a relaxed tone.
But the little girl's eyes widened, seemingly frightened by his suggestion.
"Go...go back to my home?"
The next second, the little girl shook her head furiously like a rattle-drum.
"No, no! I don't want my parents to die, big brother. Can we not go to kill my parents, please?"
The little girl pleaded, grabbing Li Muyang's hand incessantly.
However, Li Muyang glared at her: "What? Weren't you just wishing death upon your parents, hating them to the bone? How come you're suddenly pleading for them now?"
"But let me tell you, it's too late! Pleading is useless!"
"I'm determined to kill your parents!"
"They live in Jiangyun County, Jizhou, right? It's only about ten days' journey from here to Jiangyun County."
"I will personally take you there to find them and chop those pieces of scum to death."
"Those who sell their own daughter to a kidnapper don't deserve to be parents!"
And so, with a mix of coercion and intimidation, Li Muyang got the little girl to crouch into the small bamboo basket. After covering the basket with cloth, he carried the basket out the door.
The secret path to leave the fort was one Li Muyang had discovered while rampaging through the fort.
Now, it came in handy.
No one would suspect that Jiang Xiaoyu, a villager of the fort, would suddenly take a soulless person and flee the fort.
Thus, he passed through the fort unobstructed and came to an abandoned house at the southeastern corner of Black Cloud Fort.
Carefully prying open the floorboards of the abandoned house, a winding staircase leading downward appeared.
This passage was obviously frequented, for there was no dust upon the ground.
Li Muyang, carrying the little girl, entered the tunnel, passing through the long, dark, and gloomy underground passage until they reached a mountain cave within the forest.
When they emerged under the moonlight once more, Li Muyang clearly felt the little girl, who had been well-behaved and quiet the entire way, let out a sigh of relief inside the bamboo basket.
——Clearly, this brat didn't want to stay in Black Cloud Fort that much.
Peeking through the cracks of the cloth covering the bamboo basket, the little girl whispered timidly.
"Big brother, are we really going to my house...?"
The little girl sought confirmation again.
Under the moonlight, Li Muyang observed the dark and secluded forest around them with curiosity.
——The system hadn't deemed it a game failure?
Did this mean that taking the little girl and escaping from the fort was permissible?
There were no restrictions on scenes and routes in this cultivation game?
Then the freedom was higher than he had imagined.
Thinking this, Li Muyang's smile grew even brighter.
"Yes, we're going to your house."
Hearing the little girl's timid question from behind, he chuckled gleefully, "We're going to kill your parents and carry out justice on behalf of the heavens."
After saying that, Li Muyang paused for a moment and then added, "And if I find out that you lied to me once we arrive, I will chop off your head and mince your body to feed the dogs."
"I, Jiang Xiaoyu, detest being lied to the most!"
Li Muyang's voice spread under the moonlit sky while the girl inside the bamboo basket behind him held her breath in an instant.