"Hey hey hey!"

"What? Why are you bothering me so soon again?"

Mei was once again harassing Myriad Heavens.

"There's these bunch of baby spirits here living in a magma pool and we want to harvest some lotuses in it, so can you help teleport them to the sect for those teacher spirits to adopt them?"

The ancient spirit let out an exasperated sigh.

"You humans... Fine, I'll send them to the spirit elder's magma pools for a teleport charge. Are you or the boy paying?"

"Um, him." she coughed awkwardly.

"Done. Now stop bothering me."

In the next moment, all the fire spirits were sucked into a portal. Including Wang Wei's new contracted spirit.

Su Qing cried out in alarm.

"What happened?" Wang Wei asked.

"I got Myriad Heavens to send the spirits to the sect, but he used up one of your teleportation charges."

"Oh, I see. I guess they were in the same situation as you when you first joined!" Wang Wei laughed.

"Eh?"

"You know... as in when you were kind of kidnapped by the sect master, but became a disciple?" Wang Wei deflated a little. "I'm not good with jokes..."

"Right..."

"I'll just go dig the tunnel now..." Wang Wei said awkwardly. "Su Qing, can you help me store the dust? My storage bag isn't very big."

"Okay! Let's go!"

Su Qing summoned his puppet body again, and the two of them headed back into the hole to dig, drilling sounds echoing.

Mei glanced at towards the tunnel before sitting down by the lava pool, her legs crossed. Was she supposed to follow them?

Oh well, not that she'd be able to do much anyway.

She stared at the bubbling magma with a slightly vacant look before taking out the teleportation token again with a mischievous grin.

"Hey, Myriad Heavens! My friend contracted one of those spirits and you sucked him up as well! Can you hand him back?"

There was no reponse for half a minute, making her think he had given up, when an unfamiliar voice spoke into her head; the voice of a refined man who sounded in his twenties.

"Hello, this is Myriad Heaven Emporium's support centre. How may I help you?"

Mei was stunned. That grumpy old spirit decided to let someone deal with her instead?

"Um, sorry to bother you. Bye."

"Have a pleasant day!"

Oh well, half the reason why she called him again was to hear his annoyed reaction. Wang Wei could always just make a trip there later anyway.

As she waited, she suddenly heard the sound of rumbling nearing. Oh, were they coming back up?

With a bang, a segment of rock was shattered. Instead of seeing the tip of a drill emerge, what greeted her were the mandibles of a very angry centipede.

"Ahhhh!" Mei shouted.

That stupid insect! Why the hell was it chasing her? Wasn't Wang Wei the one it was fighting with?

"If you want the boy, he's down there!" she tried to use soulsense on it.

Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be coherent thought in its mind. It conveyed confusion, hunger and anger, while thinking about red crystals disappearing.

Great... an unintelligent spirit beast. Come to think of it, all the beasts she met up til this point were smart.

She hopped to the side as the centipede lunged past her, into the molten pool.

The very disgruntled insect crawled back out, uninjured, but coated with lava.

Great.

The centipede shook the lava off, sending droplets flying everywhere. Mei quickly ran into the tunnel. If even just touching lava could vapourise water, she had no confidence the cooling talisman could protect her!

With a raspy sound, it leapt into the tunnel as well.

The thick layer of stone dust melted and clung to it as it crawled, slowing it down. Mei was very thankful, as it would have caught up in an instant otherwise.

The centipede tried to spit fire at her, but was once again stopped by rock dust.

Seeing a split in the tunnel that previously wasn't there, most likely the new tunnel Wang Wei was digging, Mei ran down it.

"Wang Wei! The centipede is chasing me!" she yelled.

With soulsense, she could feel the centipede was preparing to lunge at her.

Damn it! This tunnel was too narrow to dodge!

She turned around, kicking with all her might. Somehow, she managed to kick it under its chin, sending it crashing into the ceiling.

"Ahhh!" she cried out in pain.

It felt like she kicked an iron plate, her toes numb from the impact!

With a bang, mandicles clamped shut into tunnel rock, instantly crushung it. Mei felt cold sweat drip down her cheek. If she had been bitten by that...

She should have just teleported away! Her heart racing, she tried to activate the token again...

"Hello, this is Myriad Heaven Emporium's support centre. How m-"

"Fuck!" she yelled.

"Madam? Please calm down and tell me-"

That stupid Myriad Heavens! He was actually going to get her killed! She ignored the confused support agent trying to talk to her and ran as fast as she could.

She could hear the centipede dislodging itself, landing back on its feet.

In a bid of desperation, she used soulsense on it, trying to convince the darn insect Wang Wei was behind it.

The centipede stopped in its tracks, and she once again felt confusion from it.

It... it worked?

She quickly conveyed more and more images of Wang Wei behind it, and the centipede dug into the walls, turning around to snap at them.

Mei let out a weak laugh, full of relief. This thing was too stupid to differentiate its own thoughts from hers!

It snapped at the "Wang Wei"s over and over, not understanding why they weren't getting hurt.

Then to its shock, all of them were now holding buckets full of water!

With a shrill sound, it tunnelled away into the depths of the earth.

Mei plopped herself on the ground weakly, trying to stop herself from panting into the wooden mask.

Never again. Mei told herself she would never let herself be left unsupervised outside the sect again.

"Are you okay?" the support agent asked.

"NO!"