"Mei, look at me!" Ning Xing shouted. "Look me in the eyes!"

Mei realised she was breathing heavily.

"Your eyes are unfocused. Clear your mind."

"There was disciples chasing me, asking me to join... they sensed my 6th grade wood meridians."

Ning Xing shook her head.

"Come on, if they were that extreme, wouldn't they have tried to pursuade outside this residence as well? Or do you think you've somehow never met any disciples from here?"

"Um..."

Ning Xing had a point.

"Mei Xiu, I'm not sure what you were looking for me for, but I'm fairly certain you're having an episode with your inner demons!"

"But I've never had big problems with them in the past..."

Ning Xing grabbed her by the hand and led her out of the room.

"Here, follow me for a moment." she said.

Mei struggled against her, but Ning Xing's hand was surprisingly reassuring.

For 10 minutes, the two girls walked through the campus. No one paid much heed to them, save for a few disciples greeting Ning Xing.

"Think of it clearly. Even the sect elders need to send qi into your body to sense your talent, right? How can just a few disciples tell your talent at a glance?"

Ning Xing spoke reassuringly.

"I guess..." Mei said weakly. "So this disciples from earlier, they were-"

"Inner demons you were hallucinating." Ning Xing completed. "Well, it's not a small matter, but don't worry about it! Plenty of disciples have recovered from far worse!"

How reassuring...

"Tell me how it happened... I won't judge."

Mei told her about everything weakly for the next few minutes.

After pausing for a moment to take it in, Ning Xing laughed.

"Seriously? So that's what you thought horticulture would be like? And you repressed your inner demon for so long without side effects until now? That's really weird!"

"Yeah... maybe I just stopped caring about it."

"Until now, when you realised it's not as you thought?"

"Maybe..."

"Let me take you somewhere."

Mei was once again dragged off by Ning Xing, but this time she didn't resist.

They walked out and around the residence, and along a stone path.

Many strange herbs were grown alongside it, a few disciples controlling rain clouds to water them.

"Where are we going?" Mei asked.

"Hold on... he should be here somewhere..."

"Han Yun?"

"Not him. Oh, that reminds me. Why were you looking for him anyway?" Ning Xing asked curiously.

"He wanted my help with something."

"Huh? With what?"

"I don't think he'd want me to talk about it?"

"Whhaaat! Now I'm even more curious! Tell me, tell me!"

Wasn't Ning Xing over 30? She was acting like just any other teenager.

Mei thought to herself, thinking that perhaps, this was one of the many upsides of cultivations. When you had so many years ahead of you, there wasn't a need to stress about growing up and acting mature, more time to enjoy life.

As they talked, well, most of the the converasation carried by Ning Xing, the older girl suddenly seemed to have spotted someone.

"Ah! He's over there!"

She pointed at a teenaged boy.

He was knee deep in grass, digging up some sort of root. As he turned over to wave, Mei was hit by a strange feeling.

Had she seen him before?

Ah! When she first visited that cultivator city with the auction, he tagged along! Back then, she didn't question it, but who was he anyway?

"This is Shaohe! You probably haven't met him much, but he used to be one of Wang Wei's servants!"

"Um, hi?"

Shaohe scratched his head awkwardly.

"You are Mei Xiu, one of the young master's friends, aren't you?" he asked. "He's told me a little about you."

A little what?! How much she was slacking?! Mei suddenly felt self concious.

"Yeah..." she said.

"Wang Wei originally wanted the sect master to accept Shaohe as a disciple as well, but the stubborn old man said he wasn't fated!" Ning Xing went on. "But Wang Wei willfully brought him in anyway, hahaha!"

"It's not really a story worth telling..." Shaohe shook his head. "But I've been studying here since, just trying to be low profile. I'm really grateful the elders haven't kicked me out."

Mei used a little spirit sense on him and noticed he was still a 3rd stage qi gatherer. Hm...

"Oh yeah, I remember Xiuying wanted to get the sect master to accept her siblings too?" Mei asked. "Why doesn't she sneak them here as well?"

"Beats me." Ning Xing shrugged.

Mei stared at Shaohe's dirt covered hands.

"Well, you say the horticulture isn't as I imagined, but it seems like the more junior disciples still need to do the dirty work?"

Ning Xing sighed.

"You... what dirty work? Besides, what's he's doing is actually a plant identification assignment. We still need to be able to identify wild plants!"

"Oh."

"What we spend most of our time doing is researching plants with the Elders!" Ning Xing said proudly. "Besides, why are you afraid of a little dirt anyway? We just clean ourselves-"

She jumped into the grass and rolled around, staining her robes brown. Then after standing up again, she blasted the dirt clean off with qi!

"See? It's that easy- oh."

She stared sheepishly at Mei and Shaohe, who were wiping the dirt off their faces.

"My bad, haha!"

She cleaned the two of them off.

"So in the end, cultivator farming still requires you to do dirty work, but you also need to study a lot on top of that?" Mei frowned. "Then I don't want any part of it!"

Hmph, so she was still right in the first place in the end.

"Mei Xiu! You... Hnnnn, you're giving me such a headache!" Ning Xing grabbed her own head. "I'm not letting you off that easy! You need to properly overcome your inner demon!"

"But I'm not having any issues anymore! And I'm still supposed to be at the Buddhist sect!" Mei protested.

"No excuses!"

Just as Mei reached into her bag, Ning Xing snatched a token from her hands with a devious grin.

Mei stared at her in dismay.

"I'm confiscating your sect token! You won't get away so easily, hehe!" Ning Xing grinned.