Su Xiyue sighed, deciding it was best to just wash up and go to sleep. The matter of winning them over would have to be taken slowly.
She was just about to climb onto the hard, stone bed.
Suddenly, a voice echoed in her mind—the system's voice: "Ding. Host, the favorability levels of your target characters have changed. Would you like to check now?"
Hearing this, she was momentarily startled, but quickly recovered and hurriedly said, "Check."
She was curious to see what had changed.
The next second, a virtual panel appeared before her eyes.
Host: Su Xiyue
Age: 16
Charm: 10 (Initially 0, max 100)
Appearance: 20 (Initially 10, max 100 — a slight improvement, but still ugly as ever.)
Health: 60 (Max 100)
Weight: Severely overweight, affecting mobility.
Skill: Wood Elemental Ability (Level 1)
Favorability of Targets:
Ye Ling: -90 (Disgusted)
Mo Lin: -80 (Disgusted)
Qing Zhu: -85 (Disgusted)
Bai Qi: -75 (Disgusted)
Xuan Ming: -80 (Disgusted)
Su Xiyue's eyes lit up as she stared at the numbers.
She remembered her charm had started at zero, but now it was ten.
Ten charm points were still trash, but at least it wasn't a big fat zero anymore.
She wasn't sure how the increase happened, but it was probably related to her recent actions.
Her appearance score had also risen by ten points, from 10 to 20—likely thanks to her detoxifying bath.
All five beast husbands' favorability levels had shifted as well.
She recalled Ye Ling's favorability had been a max-level -100 disgust before, but now it had improved to -90.
Su Xiyue found this strange—after the charm fruit and kicking incident, how could his favorability go up? Could Ye Ling be some kind of masochist?
Xuan Ming's favorability had also improved from -90 to -80.
Surprisingly, even her fleeing had somehow raised his favorability.
She shook her head—men really were strange creatures.
Mo Lin and Bai Qi's favorability each rose by ten points.
Qing Zhu's went up the least, only by five points, but it was still an increase.
She didn't know the exact reason for these changes, but it was definitely linked to her behavior.
Though all still negative, it was at least a good start.
Glancing once more at the system panel, she closed it.
She lay down on the stone bed, but the hard surface made her whole body ache. Without a cover, the cold made her shiver uncontrollably. Sleep wouldn't come.
So she went back to the fire and sat down, leaning against the stone wall to rest.
She planned to make do for the night, then find some dry grass tomorrow to make the bed more comfortable.
The night was silent, but the tribe grew livelier—the constant chorus of moans and groans filled the air, almost like singing.
The sounds were loud and persistent, impossible to ignore.
Su Xiyue's lips twitched as she secretly marveled: the nights in this beast world were truly passionate and uninhibited—no matter where you went, you could hear these noises.
For someone from the post-apocalyptic world, it was a bit overwhelming.
After an unknown amount of time, she finally drifted into a restless sleep.
Meanwhile, Xuan Ming was on his way back to his own cave.
Halfway there, he noticed a faint flicker of firelight coming from Su Xiyue's cave.
For reasons he didn't understand, he changed direction and headed toward her cave.
Approaching, he saw a large pile of beast pelts at the entrance—various animal skins, filthy, foul-smelling, some even moldy.
Clearly, they hadn't been washed or dried.
Xuan Ming frowned deeply—those pelts were the fruits of their hard hunting efforts, yet Su Xiyue was simply ruining them.
What a waste of good resources.
A cold frost flashed in his eyes as he stepped into the cave.
He clearly intended to give Su Xiyue a good scolding.
But upon entering, the scene surprised him.
The entire cave was empty except for a few pieces of meat and roasted fish wrapped in broad leaves, and eight bird eggs.
Everything else was gone.
The cave was extremely clean and tidy, no longer resembling the garbage dump it had been.
A fire burned brightly in the center.
Su Xiyue was curled up by the fire, hugging her knees, her head resting against the stone wall, fast asleep.
She looked somewhat pitiful.
Xuan Ming scoffed internally, "Pitiful? Serves her right—wasting perfectly good pelts like that. Let her freeze to death."
He was about to turn away, but his gaze fell on Su Xiyue's horribly ugly face, and his steps faltered.
For some reason, he felt something was different about her.
But what exactly was different, he couldn't say.
He just had the odd feeling that her face wasn't as ugly as before.
Xuan Ming was shocked by his own thoughts—he must be crazy to think that the ugly girl wasn't ugly.
He must be losing it.
Still, she did look cleaner and fresher.
Su Xiyue was usually lazy and greedy, doing nothing but eat and sleep, and incredibly sloppy.
That she had actually taken the time to clean herself today—it was like the sun rising in the west.
His gaze shifted to the meat and roasted fish wrapped in leaves nearby.
One piece of roasted meat was from Bai Qi; the other three pieces of raw meat had been thrown there by himself, Mo Lin, and Qing Zhu.
He had thought Su Xiyue would have eaten all the meat by now.
But to his surprise, she hadn't touched any of it and had even kept it.
"Is she really trying to lose weight? Can she actually hold out?"
Xuan Ming raised an eyebrow, skeptical. He wasn't sure how long she could last.
He figured she'd probably be devouring those pieces of meat by morning.
Half-asleep, Su Xiyue vaguely sensed someone nearby.
When she opened her eyes, she saw Xuan Ming standing quietly inside the cave, staring at her with a curious expression.
The flickering firelight danced across his face, making him look even more striking and extraordinary.
His deep, dark eyes shimmered faintly with an inscrutable light, as if probing her thoughts.
Su Xiyue jumped in fright, thinking the man had followed her to give her a beating.
Suddenly, all her drowsiness vanished.
She sat up straight, scooting back to put some distance between them.
Her gaze fell on his face, and she forced out an awkward laugh as she explained, "I—I really didn't mean to spy on you bathing. I just happened to go to the river to wash my face and didn't expect you to be there."
Though she wasn't lying, even she found the excuse hard to believe.
After all, the original owner had done far worse.
Seeing Xuan Ming's expression darken, her voice grew quieter and quieter until she fell silent.
He stared at her deeply, inscrutable as ever, leaving her uncertain if he believed a word.
Fortunately, he didn't lay a hand on her, only scowled and tossed out a single warning: "You'd better be telling the truth."
Then he turned and left the cave.
Watching his retreating figure, Su Xiyue breathed a quiet sigh of relief.
She muttered under her breath, "Stinky man."
Then she withdrew her gaze, yawned, and leaned back against the stone wall, ready to sleep again.
But no matter how hard she tried, sleep wouldn't come. Her mind was a tangled mess—sometimes flashing scenes of being blown up in the post-apocalyptic world, other times replaying the various self-destructive fates of the original owner from the book.
The images kept playing like a movie in her head, haunting and impossible to shake.
That night, Su Xiyue's sleep was restless at best.
The tribe's uninhibited, passionate moans rose and fell in waves, unceasing and loud, making it impossible for her to rest.
Especially in the second half of the night.
The noises grew louder and more bizarre, mixed with strange sounds she couldn't even identify.
Listening to it, she blushed deeply, tossing and turning by the fire, utterly unable to sleep.
She couldn't help but admire these beastmen—what incredible stamina they had.
At the same time, she was deeply curious: did these beastmen never need to sleep?
Before crossing over, in the apocalypse, she had spent every day running around for survival—killing zombies, scavenging supplies—with no time to think about such things.
At night, she would rest early to regain strength.
But these beastmen? They were full of energy from dawn to dusk, always hunting or mating.