Around her were swaths of luscious trees, strange plants and other greenery. Feng Shen had landed in a convenient clearing.

Mei looked down to the tall grass and half expected some of it to be smushed into the claw-prints of the bird, but the grass was only ruffled. She was a bit impressed by how gently something so big had landed.

While most people might not have paid much attention, Mei noticed the trees and plants were quite different from those at home, thanks to her experience foraging. She realised the bird must have flown her into a different country.

"Turn right a bit and keep walking forward." the bird said suddenly, startling her.

"Wait, I need to do something first!" Mei grinned.

While the main reason she bought her axe was for self-defence, that wasn't the only reason she had bought it.

During those idle days in the sect, she had plans to make a wooden body for Su Qing. But, 'shockingly', she wasn't allowed to just cut down random trees in the sect. There was also the option of just buying wood, but she didn't want to part with hard-earned Jade.

And now, there were tons of trees she was free to cut!

She walked up to a tree that emitted a gentle aura, a spirit tree. If she was going to make a puppet, she wanted to make it out of good materials!

Putting all her strength and focusing her qi into her swing, she slammed the axe violently into the tree. The bark was pulverised, sending fragments flying everywhere as it cut into the wood. A small amount of sap splattered on her robes.

But before she could be proud of herself, a strange groan of pain came from the tree, full of anguish. Mei almost jumped as green sappy eyes suddenly opened on the bark.

"OOOOOaaaa!" the tree groaned.

She turned and realised to her horror that some other trees had opened their eyes too. From their jagged leaves, she could see they were the same species.

Su Qing squeaked and hid behind her, cowering.

"You idiot!"

Feng Shen yelled angrily into her head, making her recoil.

"Master Han told you not to get into trouble-"

A branch swung towards Mei, but she quickly dodged to the side.

"-but here you are-"

She jumped as a root tried to grab her foot.

"-getting into trouble the moment we get here!"

"How am I supposed to know the trees are like that?" Mei said, feeling a bit wronged.

She swung her axe at one of the branches that flew towards her, making the tree groan again. But from behind, a branch hit her, making her wince.

"Urgh. This is why I hate it when Master Han loans us out..."

As trees started to hit her repeatedly, a powerful aura came out of the ring. Immediately, the trees stopped groaning and reverted back into their original forms.

"There. Now you can chop them if you want."

Mei was speechless. After standing around for a bit, she walked over to the first tree and chopped lightly at it again for good measure. An eye opened up and started leaking green sap, as if crying.

Now she felt bad.

"Sorry, tree." she tried to use soulsense on it.

"Leave me alone!" the tree conveyed back with the help of the link, much to her surprise.

"Okay..."

She decided the least she could do was to try to give the tree something, so she pushed a few qi pills into the dirt near its roots. Then she crushed a mending pill over the gash. Unsurprisingly, it did nothing. It was intended for human use, not plants.

After trying to apologise to the angry tree a few more times, she walked according to Feng Shen's directions sulkily. She didn't walk particularly fast, though. Part of the reason was because the blows from the trees still hurt, but the other reason was because she knew tall grass often had snakes, so she was careful to check for them.

She sighed. Now her plans for making a body for Su Qing was ruined. But after thinking to herself for a minute, her eyes lit up.

The solution was simple: all she needed to do was to use soulsense on the tree before chopping!

"Feng Shen... I'm going to chop another tree, but this time, I will use soulsense first?" she said unsurely.

"Hmph. Shouldn't you have done that from the start? Use your brain next time!"

Mei felt a bit upset. How was she supposed to know the plants could come alive? Okay, to be fair, in the books she had read, sometimes spirit plants did come alive, but she didn't think of that because of how uncommon it was. Plus, a lot of things were different in real life anyway.

She walked up to a tree that didn't have jagged leaves.

"Hello? Can you hear me?"

The tree didn't reply with words, but she felt curiosity from it. It almost reminded her of how Su Qing 'talked' at first.

Okay, not touching that one. She committed of the leaves of that tree to memory; they were oval with a sharp tip, had many veins and felt rather fleshy for a tree's. She plucked the leaf reflexively and panicked out for a moment, but the tree didn't seem to mind, much to her relief.

Next, she went for a spirit tree with small oblong leaves the size of her thumbs. They had an oddly minty smell to them.

Thankfully, this one was normal. She swung her axe and made a small dent in the bark. That was surprisingly tough.

She braced herself for a sudden attack anyway , but there was none.

For the next few minutes, she chopped at the tree constantly. Exhausted, she slumped into the grass. After all that effort, she had only managed to cut a few inches deep. She looked at how thick the trunk was and felt discouraged. How many hours would it take to cut it down?

"Feng Shen, can you help me?" she said sheepishly.

There was silence for a bit. She got the feeling the bird was rather exasperated.

"Why do I have to babysit you..."

A powerful blast of qi flew out of the ring with extreme speed. Before her eyes, it hit the tree and tore it in half, making a horrible snapping sound. Mei was stunned by the sheer power of it.

Then, the top of the tree fell onto one of the jagged-leaved trees. It let out its signature groan and opened its eyes.

"Ah. My bad."

Mei wasn't sure if she imagined it but Feng Shen sounded a bit embarrassed.