Mei woke up with a start on the stone floor, groaning.

She got out of the shade and looked to the skies, squinting from the brightness. From the glare of the sun, it seemed it was around noon.

Since she was still a bit groggy, she decided to sit around for a bit before heading back to her room.

Just as Mei opened the door to her room, a streak of cyan light shot to her, startling her.

"Where you? Where go? Sad!"

Ah... Su Qing must have been rather upset by her absence. Honestly, she wasn't even sure why it was so attached to her. While she did try to play with Su Qing occasionally, most of the time, she would just be reading, lazing around or even cultivating. Maybe it was a bit like how ducklings imprinted on the first thing they saw?

Feeling a strange mix of annoyance and guilt, Mei ended up spending the hour trying to play and talk with Su Qing despite the awkwardness. While Su Qing still wasn't very good at forming proper sentences, its vocabulary had certainly improved tremendously.

As she talked, Mei decided she would need to contract another spirit so Su Qing would have a friend to play with while she wasn't around.

"Qiu Qiu said you fight! Many people! Scary..."

Hmm? The teacher spirits talked about the tournament?

"No, not scary. We will get rewards!" Mei said, trying to simplify her speech.

"Nnnnnn..." the little spirit didn't sound convinced. "Qiu Qiu said Qing Qing can help. Big man can make puppet nice..."

Su Qing liked to refer to itself as Qing Qing, something which Mei found rather cute. Though, she wondered why the teacher spirits didn't teach it "Me" and "I" yet. Qiu Qiu was apparently the nickname it gave one of the teachers, though Mei had no idea which one it was.

As it spoke, Su Qing conveyed to Mei an image of a burly man carving a large piece of wood into a puppet. A carpenter? Well that made sense, the blocky puppet was barely functional as it is.

Wait...

She could bring it into the tournament? Mei was a bit doubtful, but then again, the teacher spirits probably knew more about how the tournaments worked than she did. She began to get excited at the thought of having an "indestructible" regenerating puppet on her side.

"Okay, let's go! We'll make your puppet nice nice." she said.

The carpentry workshop wasn't too far from the Task Pavillion.

While most of the architecture in the sect were made with brick, stone or jade as the main focus, the workshop was made entirely out of wood, save for the glass windows, making it stand out a lot. The wood was oiled a pleasant dark brown, the roof painted black.

On a large board nailed above its doors, "Song Woodworks" was carved elegantly.

It was almost like a form of advertisement, to show off the skills of the carpenters before customers even entered the workshop.

"Big man inside!" Su Qing said happily.

Pushing the wooden doors open, Mei saw a burly man hunched over the counter. Sweat flowed down his face, soaking into his black uniform. While it didn't stink because he was a cultivator, that didn't stop her from finding it gross. Why couldn't he just use a towel?

"Welcome to Song Woodworks. Anything I can do for-" his eyes turned to look at the blocky puppet. "Ah, looking to make a wooden puppet?"

"Yeah... I'm looking to make a puppet for my contracted spirit." Mei said, gesturing to Su Qing. "How much will it cost?"

"It depends." the man stopped hunching and stood up straight. "What type of puppet do you want us to make?"

Be more specific! Did she look like she knew anything about puppets?

"Uh... like the training dummies at the temple? Able to move well and regenerate?"

"I see. From the looks of it, your puppet is made of... pearl eucalyptus wood. How unusual..."

He put his hand to his chin and thought for a moment.

"100 Jade should do," he said. "Assuming you don't want any features or decoration on it."

"Eh? That's so expensive! Why is it so expensive?" Mei panicked a little. "And I don't need decorations!"

She still had to pay off the debt she owed to Senior Han!

"Expensive? Our workshop is one of the cheapest in the sect!" the man frowned, slightly offended. "If you're not satisfied with the price, you can get out and look for another workshop!"

So aggressive! Was this really the customer service in a virtuous sect?

Mei was a bit angry but she tried to be more polite.

"Sorry... I just don't have a lot of money... can you downgrade it a bit or something?" Mei said nervously. "Maybe something like 70 Jade?"

"We could use inferior materials to make it cheaper, but are you sure? Your puppet will only heal half as fast and the qi expenditure would be a lot worse."

Half?! That was terrible for only a 30% price reduction! After hesitating for around a minute, she resolutely scrunched her face.

"Fine! I'll just go with the 100 Jade option." she grumbled.

She dug the green Jade out of her bag and placed it on the counter gingerly, holding back her urge to slam it. She still had Jade on her despite her debt, as Senior Han hadn't asked for payment yet.

Now she only had 10 Jade on her... while somehow having to earn 350 Jade to repay Senior Han. She hoped he would be okay with her taking her time to pay it back.

The man nodded, taking the crude puppet from Mei. Seeing her "agony", he decided to comfort her.

"Don't be disheartened!" the man said. "Right now you're new to the sect, so 100 Jade seems like a lot, but in a few years, 100 will be nothing!"

Well, right now, that was at least a week of hard work! His words did make her feel a little better, but she still felt like her heart was bleeding.

He entered one of the staff rooms with the puppet to store it, then returned with a slip of paper. On it, the details of the transaction and "23" were written on it.

"Your order should be complete by tomorrow," he said.

"Okay, thanks..." Mei mumbled.

She left the building, her spirits low. Right now, she should be training for the competition, but after thinking about the hard work Luye forced her to put in last night, she decided to just take the rest of the day off and read.