Despite the wooden statue being motionless, Xiao Mei could sense it examining her with qi sense.

Was it being inhabited by some kind of spirit? Looking at it with soulsense, she found to her shock that there was a human soul inside! Why was there a human soul sealed inside?

"Wait." the statue said. "The Sleepwalking Charm is active! How are you awake and about?"

Eh?

Dammit! She was distracted and didn't realise she had been discovered!

Awkwardly, she pretended to make puppet-like motions, before sitting on the ground and cultivating.

"What's wrong, Wood Man?"

From a jade pendant around his neck, a white spirit floated out, speaking.

"Do you always have to call me that? Have some delicacy..." the statue grumbled, before turning to Mei. "It's this disciple. She's under the influence of the Sleepingwalking Charm, but was sent flying at me. I'm guessing she tried to crawl into the tree gash like a dumbass."

"Are you sure you didn't just get confused? I've never heard of disciples walking under the charm's influence. They just sit down and cultivate without moving, don't they?"

Xiao Mei began to sweat. Damn it! Hong Ling had tricked her by not telling her! No wonder disciples were looking at her weird! Stupid spirit was trying to get her caught... and she was even feeling grateful earlier!

"Don't accuse me of that! Didn't you hear that loud crash? Maybe she was sleepwalking!" the statue argued.

The white spirit laughed.

"Sleepwalking with the sleepwalking charm! Mu Ying! Are you listening to your own words?"

The statue let out an audible sigh from its mouth, to Mei's surprise. Up til now, it had only been speaking in soulsense.

"This sucks... I wish I never took Ironwood path. Worst decision of my life." Wood Man complained.

Ironwood? That sounded familiar.

"You're already almost at the Flesh Reforming stage! Just suck it up for another month and you'll be able to walk again! What's that compared to the years you've been through in this state?"

"I know, but..."

Wait...

Suddenly, Xiao Mei remembered something. Back when she was choosing body arts, wasn't one of them called Ironwood Body? This man wasn't even a statue! He was a victim of his own cultivation technique!

Looking at the poor man bantering with his contracted spirit, she couldn't help but feel bad for him.

Most likely, while he was working on his body cultivation, he had a constipated look from sheer focus... only to break through into a completely wooden body... while keeping his unsightly expression. Xiao Mei figured he was only coming here at night in fear of people making fun of him.

Seeing that they didn't care about her odd behaviour earlier, she let out a sigh of relief.

...

Suddenly, Wood Man and the spirit grew quiet.

Xiao Mei grew panicked. Did they pick up on that sigh?

"Shit! He's here again!" Wood Man suddenly shouted.

In terror, he and his spirit worked in conjunction, awkwardly floating his body away slowly.

A white blur ran amidst the many sleep-cultivating disciples, before leaping towards the screaming man.

It was a slender white cat with arrogant blue eyes, the one Axe Elder Xuefang was terrified of!

Eyes gleaming, the cat clawed repeatedly at the "statue", tearing cloth apart and leaving scratches in the "wood".

"Nooooo! I'm not a scratching post!"

"Those clothes are expensive, you asshole!" the spirit added angrily.

Xiao Mei watched speechlessly as the man fled.

About an hour had passed cultivating miserably. Throughout the whole "ordeal", Hong Ling was strangely quiet. Just as Xiao Mei decided it was about time to call it a night, a white blur landed before her, making her sweat.

Why was it bothering her? It couldn't be that the cat thought Vital Body was similar enough, was it?

"Hey, you." the cat said. "You're not actually the owner of this body, are you?"

Xiao Mei's first instinct was to run, but she knew she didn't have a chance. Instead, she continued to cultivate, acting dumb.

"You're not fooling anyone. Hm... so you're one of those sentient nascent souls? And using the Sleepwalking charm to hide your sentience from your owner... hoho! Ain't that devious?" the cat sneered.

Why was she this unlucky? She could only curse to herself.

"Oh! You have Hong Ling's jade there. I see, I see. Haha, you old bastard! You got sealed again? No wonder I've not seen you in a bit!"

"Tsk. Stupid cat! How do you keep finding me? I'm not in the mood for your antics, so get out of here!"

"How cold, to treat your old friend like that! Well, I won't bother you. Have your fun!"

Letting out strange laughter, the cat ran off in a blur of white.

"You know that cat?" Xiao Mei asked, surprised.

"Hmph. I would rather not talk about that rascal. But we go way back, yes."

Being friends with a cat that was able to even scare one of the sect elders... Hong Ling seemed like a way bigger deal than she thought. No wonder he was so rich...

Xiao Mei thought of going back for a moment, but she thought of something, Back then, she sort of wanted to climb the tree for no good reason. And now... was there a better chance than ever? Wood Man would probably be here to witness her suspicious behaviour by tomorrow, and there might be other disciples that weren't sleep-cultivating.

Hnnn...

Xiao Mei decided to tell Hong Ling about it, making him laugh.

"Hoho! Real adventurous of you, trying to beat your host to the chase!"

"So... is there anything that would keep me safe in the meanwhile?"

While Hong Ling felt shady, she felt like at the very least, he wouldn't let a disciple die... right?

Okay... after considering that, Xiao Mei suddenly felt a lot less confident.

But before she could weasel her way out of it, Hong Ling produced a pair of climbing gloves and a strange vest that floated upwards with a lot of force, weighted down by metal weights.

That spirit was able to take things out of storage space while in the jade? Mei didn't expect that.

"Here, use these. They should keep you safe while you climb."

"Okay..."

Why did Hong Ling even own those? Couldn't he just fly?

...

Pausing to think for a moment, she suddenly imagined something. In her mind, she envisioned Hong Ling, in a previous sentence, buying the equipment from the Grand Array Spirit, convincing a disciple to break into somewhere and getting him into trouble...

Naturally, this probably wasn't what actually happened, but she felt like it had to be something like that! Why else would he have such gear stashed?

"On second thoughts, I'm going back home to read."

"Hey! What's with the sudden change in mind?"