Looking down, Mei was greeted not by barren rocky walls, but cliffs teeming with vegetation.

Even trees were growing along the side and she could see flocks of birds flying about, curious apes peeking from within the trees. Stuck to the walls, many grandiose buildings stood on stone brackets, huge metal supports binding them to the walls.

There were even platforms completely disconnected from any form of accessibility like stairs, as perches for guards who had sufficient cultivation base to fly. Some of them were even munching on biscuits as they stood guard.

She had heard of canyons in the past, but this was something else entirely.

Xiuying and the others began to talk excitedly, pointing at various exotic birds that flew by. And judging from Wang Wei's expression, he seemed on the verge of jumping over the edge just to harvest herbs.

...

"We're taking the lift." Shan Qiang said.

And just like that, Wang Wei's plans were dashed.

As he followed sadly, Shan Qiang nodded to a few guards near the lift entrance, who nodded back.

"You need to tap your Stone Sigils on that interface, so it authorises you and lets you leave later." he said.

Three sides of the lift were entirely glass, the metal one attached to two huge tracks that ran down the immensely high wall, metallic cables attached to the top and running off into some mechanism.

Mei started to feel a little sick as she got in and saw the heights down below...

As it turned out, Liu Qiang and Xiuying were similarly affected. Mei and the other two ended up closing their eyes and facing the metal wall, trying not to think about the heights below.

Mei imagining a huge bird flying over to snap the cable like a twig didn't help. And Shan Qiang nagging them the entire time about having guts didn't either.

Finally, after an agonising wait, the lift stopped.

"There. Our stop is here. You wusses can get up now." the gruff man harrumphed.

The disciples got out of the lift, only to be greeted by the sound of a roaring river. The ground, strangely, was not composed of rocks, but huge swaths of huge vines as thick as tree trunks, growing across the entire gap of the canyon in a tangled mass and sealing the bottom off.

Mei was amazed by how such huge vines could be so watertight, to even allow such a huge river to rage above them.

"The water comes from all the rivers that intersect with the canyon as huge waterfalls. It would be a miracle if no rivers were cut off, with the canyon cutting through the entirety of Xiagu!" Shan Qiang said.

"You guys didn't say anything about this sight?" Xiuying asked in shock.

"Well, you said something about not telling you what we saw outside, so you wouldn't feel as sick..." Wang Wei said.

As he said that, he stared at a massive leaf an entire metre long that dangled close by. He coughed awkwardly.

"You wouldn't mind if I took this, right?" he asked.

"Go ahead, we even hire gardeners to trim the vines so they don't grow too tall. Would be a disaster if they climbed all the way up and damaged our buildings, haha!" Shan Qiang said.

Wang Wei took out his sabre and hacked at the stem happily, finally dislodging the leaf. He sliced it into smaller chunks with some difficulty, before wrapping them up in wax paper and stuffing the package into his storage bag.

"Honestly, we almost never have problems with spirit beasts escaping because of these vines." Shan Qiang said. "If any do get through, they'd probably need to be skilled at climbing, swimming and tunnelling! And most spirit beasts prefer the underground with its denser qi anyway."

They followed the burly man along meshed metal platforms as the river raged beneath them. It was almost like a tour, Shan Qiang telling the disciples on all sorts of random info, while Wang Wei happily grabbed samples of any weird plants he saw.

Suddenly, Yingyi grabbed a huge spider with incredibly long legs off the metal platform. It was as half as long as his arm!

"Look, Wang Wei, it's a White Striped Fisherspider!" he said, holding the struggling bug towards Wang Wei. "I heard these were used in the recipe of some water qi pills!"

"Eeeek!" Wang Wei screamed in terror. "No! No! Take it away! Throw it away! Ahhhhhhh!"

Yingyi, a fellow apprentice had been sulky over how monstrous Wang Wei was at alchemy. Today, he finally saw an opportunity for "revenge"!

"S-stop! Insectophobia isn't funny!" Xiuying said, but she herself wasn't willing to approach either.

"It's Arachnophobia!" Wang Wei somehow still had the presence of mind to retort.

As Yingyi slowly walked closer, grinning, Wang Wei tried to hide behind Shan Qiang only for him to be pushed away.

"Firm up your dao heart!" the burly man said.

"Noooo!" Wang Wei cried.

Liu Qiang looked between Yingyi and his father speechlessly, then decided not to intervene.

For a moment, Mei sensed qi flowing from Wang Wei and had a bad feeling. Wang Wei's fire was really really nasty, wasn't it? She suddenly imagined him letting loose and burning the spider to a crisp... along with Yingyi.

After thinking about it for a moment, Mei walked up to Yingyi and slapped the spider out of his hands. The spider fell into the river, flailing as it was swept away by the currents. Moments later, it shot a strand of web towards the platform on the opposite side and clamoured on.

"Cheh. No fun." Yingyi said.

Finally, the group continued to head on, Wang Wei shooting him a resentful look.

After a brief walk, Shan Qiang stopped before a gate in the cliff, guarded by two men. After an exchange of nods like previously, they opened the gates, revealing a passage that greedily guzzled water from the river. One of the guards took a boat out of a storage device and placed it on the platform, beckoning for them to enter.

"Huh?"

The disciples were confused.

"Heheh, our disciples and elders underground need water too, for drinking and for agriculture! But when building the water passages, our engineers found it could double as a mode of transport as well!

As Shan Qiang blabbered endlessly about the accomplishment of the sect engineers, Mei and the others got into the boat, the guards pushing them off into the passage. With slow creaks, the gates began to close behind them, finally shutting with a slam.

Pitch darkness enveloped them. Well, that wasn't ominous at all.

As Shan Qiang lit up the boat lanterns, Mei thought about the spider incident for a moment. Had she been overthinking it?