There was no shadow of a doubt, the two presences in her divine sense were mortals. Instantly, she probed them and their possessions.

One figure was tall and burly, with facial features that seemed to be primitively carved out of stone. The other one was exactly the same but smaller.

"A father and a son with axes, this deep into the forest. They are cutting wood" Shin Sumi had seen the long handles and sharp metallic faces strapped to the men's backs.

The two mortals were still quite far away and were completely oblivious to Shin Sumi's presence. On the other hand, the latter had completely analysed them, what they had and what she would do.

"They don't have a mule or a cart which means they will transport the wood by hand. Their home is close-by!"

"This one'll do," the men stopped before they reached the end of the path where Shin Sumi was.

Now that she was in the mortal world, she reminisced a bit about the ways of mortals, while patiently waiting for the lumberjacks to work their way through a trunk.

Cutting wood, for starters, seemed a bit strange to her now. It had been a long time since she had seen fire come out of a pile of logs. Paper talismans were much easier to use.

How could she have forgotten such trivial aspects to daily life? She remembered the pile of wood that her father would regularly buy for their own home. It was only thanks to that pile of wood that Shin Sumi ate hot meals and sometimes even took hot baths, back in East Seaside Village.

In the winters, when the wind whistled and would make people shiver, the Shin family would spend time close to the hearth of the main room, depending on the flames for heat.

"They wouldn't turn their back on a young girl lost in the woods, would they?" she asked herself in a low voice.

She had realized that she hadn't eaten a proper hot dinner in almost a year. Cultivators, past a certain point in cultivation, didn't need to rely on food to survive. Spirit plants and fruits were often eaten only because they provided slim boosts in cultivation.

Eating for survival was a thing of the past for her, but eating for pleasure was an activity she found herself missing. More importantly, in order to reduce the use of the precious stock of wood, people would only cook a single meal for everybody and thus eat together. Sharing a meal with another person was another aspect she missed fondly.

Shin Sumi waited for the man and his son to finish cutting the fallen trunk into smaller logs. The boy insisted on holding one himself, his arms tight around the piece of wood that looked almost bigger than him. The father took the other four, his muscular frame a sign that it was a regular occurrence for him.

Finally taking a step forward, Shin Sumi soon entered the two men's sight.

"Father! Look" the boy's voice rose in a surprised pitch that could only be achieved by a man who had not reached puberty yet.

"Don't point your finger at a person, son. That is impolite."

Shin Sumi was surprised. The man seemed more well spoken than she had expected.

"My apologies on behalf of my son, fair lady. This is quite the remote location for a stroll and Wuike is not used to seeing people like you."

Shin Sumi had not spoken a single word yet, as the man bowed his head lightly, encouraging his son to do the same. "People like me?" she thought, wondering what the man meant by that.

"Are you perhaps in need of a place to stay? Or are you looking for the way to the nearest city?"

Shin Sumi was perplexed. As if the man had read her mind, these were the two things she was wondering about.

"I humbly thank you for your hospitality, sir. This stupid girl lost her way and is not used to small forest paths" Shin Sumi refered to herself and responded to the man's bow in kind.

"These woods are treacherous and an awful lot of young people tend to get lost in them, it is only natural to provide help when I can. Come along, my and Wuike's house isn't far."

The man turned around and started walking. The young boy, Wuike, looked at Shin Sumi for a few seconds more, his eyes darting up and down her figure before he followed his father.

Folding her hands in her sleeves, Shin Sumi quickened her pace and followed as well.

She broke the silence after a few minutes, her curiosity of the man's last few words being too important to ignore.

"Sir, what do you mean when you say that a lot of people get lost in the woods?"

Turning his head to look at her with the sincere smile of a father, the man replied, "Youngsters from as far as Rishen City or the old Baijo town sometimes appear in these woods, lost like young sheeps in the same path as the one you took. This is partly why me and my son go up there to cut logs."

"Listen, young lady, I ain't one to ask questions, whatever brings all of you up here is none my problem" the man's rough speech sometimes betrayed his nature as a man of the country despite his best efforts to control his language. Self consciously focusing on his words, he continued, "I simply offer my assistance when I can, to make sure none of you get eaten by wolves at night."

The man's simple way of phrasing his thoughts somehow warmed Shin Sumi's heart. It was clear that this man and his son were not cultivators but Shin Sumi knew what the man meant by his words.

The direction she had taken had been in a straight line from the end of the stairs leading to the Dark Sky Starry Sect's lower valley. She remembered when she climbed these stairs a few years back and Fen Wudao's words that she could choose to leave at any time.

In all probability, the man next to her had seen many people who had turned back during their climb and ended up in the forest near his house. From what she knew, the Inner Sect disciples would often carry missions out of the sect and bring back young mortals with potential to become cultivators.

Only a small portion of them would end up becoming Honorary Disciples whereas the other would have to find their way back to their home.

Many of them had ended up walking in the same way she was now, relying on the hospitality of the lumberjack. Possibly many Liquid Realm disciples leaving the sect for missions had also taken the same path.

It was probably the strong auras of these individuals that had dissuaded the man from asking too many questions about his occasional sudden guests.

"I see. In this case I won't bother you for long, sir...?"

"People call me Wuije," the man replied. Shin Sumi noticed that he didn't ask for her name back on purpose. The less the man knew, the better he seemed to be.

Shin Sumi made a mental note to leave the man a spirit stone, a spirit plant or something to repay his kindness when she would leave.

They had followed the forest path for about half an hour when a small clearing appeared in sight. A rather crude but welcoming wooden house stood in the middle of the clearing. In front of it, the path suddenly became larger, telling of the fact that the man was often travelling to other cities.

A small extension on the side of the house was occupied by a small horse, next to which a cart full of logs was stationed, covered by a linen tarp.

The lumberjack most likely provided wood for the neighboring cities. Pointing to the cart, the man spoke to Shin Sumi, "if you wish to share our humble supper and roof, I can bring you to a city tomorrow. Old Ren is waiting for his monthly supply, which takes me as far as the Hoyan River."

Shin Sumi considered the offer. She was initially going to share their supper before leaving, but the proposition was tempting.

The Dark Sky Starry Sect was already looking for Bai Fulong after finding Elder Zhu's body, but nobody was looking for Shin Sumi. And even then, Fen Wudao had assured her that the Patriarch would delay the search outside the sect.

Seeing no reason to rush things for now, Shin Sumi graciously accepted the offer.

To a cultivator like her, it was almost exciting to spend a day as a mortal in the company of this man and his son.

The supper consisted of forest mushroom soup, a dried piece of meat and a large bowl of rice. Despite not containing an ounce of Shinsoo, the food felt good in her stomach, a consistency she hadn't experienced for a while.

After dinner, Shin Sumi helped the son, Wuike, clean the room and the wooden dishes while Wuije prepared the small hut for the night.

Gentle red embers crackled in the fireplace, casting long shadows on the two small beds. After a long day of woodworking, Wuije and Wuike fell asleep soundlessly in the man's bed while Shin Sumi laid flat on Wuike's bed.

She didn't sleep, meditating instead in a position that looked like she was sleeping. She wanted to spend some time as a mortal but she still needed to be alert in case people from the sect went to look for Bai Fulong near here.

"Wuije mentioned a lot of young people appearing in these woods. If all the rejected applicants for the sect end up here, surely the sect knows about it."

***

Spending a night in a stranger's hut was a new experience for Shin Sumi. Had she never entered the Immortal world, she would have never accepted Wuije's offer, instead preferring to spend the night walking in the forest, be there wolves or not. Besides, the man was a wood cutter used to carry logs and axes around. His strength was impressive for a mortal, leaving absolutely no chance to a seventeen year old girl, should his morals be low.

However for an unexplainable reason, she trusted the man. Maybe it was because his eight or nine year old boy was there too, or maybe because the man's eyes were serene. He was a simple lumberjack, happy with his simple life.

The three of them shared hot green leaves tea in the morning before Wuije prepared the cart. Wuike helped his father set the logs onto the cart behind the small horse.

"If no trouble arises, we will be near the Hoyan River by mid-day. Wuike my boy, hold the castle for me, okay? I will be back before the sun sets."

With a proud air, the young boy puffed his chest and stood straight in front of the door of their hut. Wuije laughed and Shin Sumi smiled. Wuike laughed as well.

"He is a good boy. He wants to be like his father when he grows up. I would rather he learned to read and became a scholar but it is up to him to decide."

Shin Sumi asked why he wanted him to become a scholar.

"A man like me with arms but no wits will never go out into the world. I might be strong enough to chop down trees, I might even be called the strongest around here but I know there are always stronger people out there."

The man hesitated before continuing in a low voice, "believe me or not but I have seen people in these woods not much older than Wuike who could-... Nevermind, it is not my place to say," Wuije finally decided against telling his story, instead changing the subject slightly.

"Strength can only carry you so far, but the brains are different. Scholars can experience the entire world from a book, can talk with kings and emperors. Real power and tranquility doesn't come from the muscles. The dukes and city regents are not strong and yet they are the more powerful. Only then can they live without bother, without spending a single day wondering if they are going to eat the next day, without hoping they won't need to use their arms."

The man's voice slowly trailed off into silence. Shin Sumi respected that silence, the man had said enough. She decided not to bring up the subject again.

Her next few words she kept to herself, "The Immortal world is very similar and very different from the mortal realm at the same time. Power and strength is everything, but cleverness and intelligence is most useful. The two opposite aspects have to progress together or else one will only have a grim future in cultivation."

She thought about the people she knew who were both clever and strong at the same time. Xiao Yue, Chu Erlong, Sui Lin, they were all on top of their level and had shown time and time again how strategy and brains mattered when the muscles were engaged.

However her best examples were definitely Patriarch Sen and Fen Wudao. The first had lived more than a few mortal lifespans and his eyes radiated wisdom. With his position in the Dark Sky Starry Sect, it was also impossible to deny his strength as a cultivator.

On the other hand, Fen Wudao was barely two year older than Shin Sumi but his cultivation level was unheard of for his age. A nineteen years old man at the eighth step of the Liquid Realm was a genius in the ways of cultivation but Fen Wudao was also cunning enough to hide it from everyone except maybe the Ghosts.

The cart pulled by the small horse shook on the bumby forest path, bringing Shin Sumi and Wuije out of their reveries. The bright morning sun peered through the leaves above their heads.

As the sun rose higher and higher, the forest seemed to become sparser and sparser, until the cart joined a larger road and they left the forest behind.

Turning her head to look at the scenery, Shin Sumi spotted the high peaks of Blue Fire mountain range in the distance. From their position, most of the peaks were enshrouded in heavy clouds. Shin Sumi was uncertain whether these clouds were due to high altitude or if they were a trace of Patriarch Mui's curse, the heavy darkness that perpetually covered the sect she came from.

Because of the Copper Bell in her bag of holding, Shin Sumi had not suffered from the darkness as much as most other disciples. One of the first tricks the small bell had shown to possess was its ability to make its master's surrounding clear and sharp in any situation. Even in the dark chasm Shin Sumi could see clear as day around here, the curse seemingly having no effect on her person.

Because of that, she wasn't as ecstatic as others would be when she felt the warm rays of the sun on her delicate skin. The same sun that seemed to never hang above the valleys of the sect was now high up in the sky. Shin Sumi calculated that it would probably be at its peak in two hours.

"Stay in the cart, little lady. It won't take more than a few minutes and we'll be on our way to Hoyan River" Wuije pulled on the reins, bringing his cart to a stop in front of an old but big house on the outskirts of a little town.

Wuije entered the house and spoke to an old man, the one surnamed Ren he told her about the previous night. Reappearing outside shortly after, Wuije unloaded the logs from the cart, refusing any help from Shin Sumi with a smile.

Wuije started counting his copper coins as soon as the empty cart pulled away from old Ren's house and onto the road.

The less than a dozen small copper coins seemed ridiculous in the man's large palm, but his smile was that of contentment. Shin Sumi could almost read his mind, "With that I can bring back at least five bits of meat, a few weeks' worth of rice and fresh eggs to Wuike! Maybe I will even find a toy or somethin' for him to play with."

Close to an hour later, Shin Sumi could hear the noise of a bustling city in the distance before Wuije could even spot it.

As they approached the city gates on the main road, Shin Sumi realized that many other carts in front of them waited in a line, almost at a standstill.

From the trips she had taken with her father from East Seaside village to the Big City, she knew that waiting for the guards was an unavoidable formality in cities as large as that one.

Patiently waiting, the better half of another hour went by before Wuije sighed with relief, the small horse finally at the gate.

A guard that didn't bother to hide his boredom eyed the empty cart briefly, leaning on his dull iron spear. He spoke in a mechanical voice, betraying how monotonous his job was.

"What business do you have in Hoyan River and what are your names?"

The guard looked above his spear-head at Wuije briefly then Shin Sumi, for a bit longer.

Wuije responded calmly, "We delivered wood at the last village, earning us enough to visit Hoyan market, my niece and me. I'm Wuije and that is Wumei."

"Be on your way by dusk, the streets are busy these days. That'll be a copper per head."

Wuije obeyed, parting with two of the precious coins he held. The whole time, a simple smile never left his face.

After passing the gates, when the guards were far behind them, Wuike turned to Shin Sumi, still smiling.

"I'm glad this is a big city and the guards never remember me. If they knew how many 'nieces and nephews' I have had over the last few years... Eh-eh-eh!"

Shin Sumi laughed as well at the man's clear sense of humor, thanking him for everything he had done for her. She then fumbled a bit with a hand in her bag of holding.

It was strange to use the bag of holding by opening it and physically putting her hand inside, but she didn't want to startle Wuije by having something simply appear in her hand at her will.

When she took her hand out, Shin Sumi exclaimed, "Ah! There it is," and promptly shoved whatever she held inside Wuije's large hand.