"Oh? Looking for me again?"

Mei felt awkward as the turtle stared at her expectantly.

It would probably be a waste of time if she and Wang Wei looked around aimlessly, so she decided to ask the turtle first.

After hearing about her plans, it gave her a strange look.

"Are you disatisfied with the chestnuts I gave you? Going into the wilds to look for treasure is awfully risky."

"No, it's not that, it's just that, um..."

"Well, whatever. Give me a moment."

The turtle seemed deep in thought.

"Ah! The Sanyang Mountains!" it suddenly said. "It should be safe enough even for a pup like you."

Mei wasn't sure what to say.

"If you're ready, I can send you there with a dimensional tear."

"Wait, let me get a friend first..."

...

Panting slightly, Mei ran over with Su Qing and Wang Wei! She wasn't going to forget the little spirit again!"

"Okay, I'm ready now!" she said.

With a nod, the turtle toseed them into a rift.

The three of them landed on their feet, slightly disorientated.

"Where are we?" Su Qing mumbled.

The first thing that struck Mei was the sunlight. It was a faint green for some reason, instead of the warm light she was used to.

Under her feet, the grass felt strange. Mei squatted down and plucked out some of it only to find it was... oddly juicy?

Each of the blades were thick and fleshy, and as she pinched hard, green sap oozed onto her finger.

"Whoa! Look at that!" Wang Wei suddenly shouted while pointing.

Mei turned and saw a strange pale pillar as tall as a tree, with a huge grey ball on it, covered in countless pores.

In fact, there were no trees at all, only those bizarre pillars!

Wang Wei ran up to the nearest one, Mei and Su Qing following.

After taking out gloves, he cut off a large chunk with his sword and grabbed it.

He stared at it with squinted eyes before sniffing it.

"I think these weird trees are like giant mushrooms?" he said.

"Right..." Mei said.

At such a strange looking place, Mei wasn't sure if she should be excited or uneasy.

Was this on yet another different planet?

"Mei Mei! Look!" Su Qing said excitedly.

Another?

A little distance away, there was a herd of weird green round things...?

The puppet started running over excitedly. Wasn't that kind of dangerous without knowing what they were?

But as he drew close, they began hopping away. Curious, Mei decided to take a look as well.

As it turned out, they were cat-sized insects with long antennas. With how rotound they were and their beady eyes, they were almost kind of cute.

They were guzzling greedily from the grass, reducing them into shrivelled husks.

"I think they're some kind of aphid!" Wang Wei said.

"Eh? Those freaky little things?"

In the past, she had to go through so much trouble to get rid of them...

The boy quickly grabbed one of them, laughing as it squirmed. The rest of the aphids quickly ran off at the sight.

Suddenly, clear white liquid began to ooze out of its bottom.

"It's peeing?" Mei said, recoiling in disgust.

Wang Wei quickly let it go, before bottling it the "juice" up.

"You're making pills with that?" she grimaced.

"It's probably honeydew... they excrete the sugars of the sap they drink..." he mused. "Though I don't dare to give it a try."

Who the hell was the one who first figured out they pooped "honey"?

"Weren't you afraid of insects?" she asked.

"A-afraid? Since when? They reminded me of bunnies for some reason..."

As he wandered off, sampling all kind of weird plants, Mei followed him. None of them seemed that rich in qi, making her rather disappointed.

Maybe she should have just waited it out back in the Buddhist sect...

"Mei Mei! Look at that!" Su Qing suddenly said again.

"What is it?" she asked, annoyed.

How many times was he going to call out to her whenever he saw something weird?

"Eeek!" Wang Wei screamed.

Mei finally turned over and saw a giant black centipede as big as a grown man charging over, baring its red mandibles!

"See? You're scared of bugs after all?" Mei suddenly felt the urge to tease him.

"Now's not the time!"

Mei realised in retrospect she should probably have been watching with soulsense carefully... as she was intending to do until she forgot.

It's cultivation... wait, Peak Foundational!? She lost to even some Qi Gathering bandits!

Mei froze, unable to decide if she should teleport away. Not wanting to waste 50 jade, she decided to see if Wang Wei could do something about it first.

"Why are you hiding behind me? Aren't you the one not scared of bugs?" he wailed.

"I'm not! But you're the one who can fight, not me!" Mei argued. "Whoa-"

As the centipede leapt over, she grabbed Wang Wei by the hand reflexively and rolled, the two of them tumbling down a nearby slope.

"T-thanks..." he said weakly.

She could feel his heart thumping through his wrist. But even without that, she could tell he was terrified from how pale he was.

"We should teleport away!" she urged.

"N-no! I can't let myself be afraid of something like this! People will laugh at me if my inner demons were a bunch of bugs!"

Mei: ...

From uphill, she heard a squeak from Su Qing as the centipede chomped on him.

From the force of its bite, the insect seemed stunned for a bit, not expecting to sink into wood instead of tender flesh.

Su Qing hurried fetched chunks of vine wood from his storage jade and smashed it against its head, completely encasing its face in wood.

Holy crap!

Suffocating with your head stuck in a block of wood seemed like a horrible way to go... Su Qing was more formidable than she expected.

She almost felt bad for the centipede until she remembered Foundational cultivators didn't actually need to breathe. Right.

"Die!" Wang Wei screamed shrilly as he ran over, blasting white hot flames at it.

Su Qing screamed in terror and tumbled down the hill as he scrambled away from the fire, crashing onto Mei who yelped in pain.

Mei wanted to go home...