With the door closed behind her Hei Mei quickly mounted her flight talisman a small round disk and flew away, anxiously biting her lower lip. She had prepared this girl as good as she could, still, she could not help but feel a little anxious. There were many perils in front of Kou and the help Hei Mai could give had all been used up. Most people in the Hei family were a righteous and big-hearted bunch, not naive or stupid - just not as egoistic as some cultivators often are, but she might’ve dropped the ball a little, even leaving her own cultivation behind a little.

But what should she have done?! The girl had sickly skin and showed clear sign’s of being poor, everyone could see that! She would be eaten alive by all those little sharks and snakes that came in… And so she had did what she did, the imminent breakthrough of Kou’s body would hopefully get rid of the sickly appearance that the girl had, which would help her blend in with other commoners for now. Her flying treasure swiftly carried her away from the outer sect - to one of the mountains, entering a cave entrance her steps quickly carried her inside to meet her grandfather.

Hei Tianyou had mixed feelings about Hei Mei’s care of that street child, while it was good to nurture new generations of helpers - he was unsure of the worth of that girl. At first he was lenient about the whole thing but when Hei Mei started to drop in cultivation speed he sat an ultimatum - Hei Mei would be allowed to raise that little girl until just before the outer sect opened but had to go into closed-door cultivation right after to breakthrough to the 3rd realm.

He had already a suitable cultivation ground prepared. The Hei family was one of the biggest in the sect so doing this was no problem at all. And as Hei Mei finally arrived he had a gentle smile on his face looking down on the girl. “Little Mei - everything is prepared, grandfather has acquired some pills and put them inside, spend the next half a year inside, having you in the 3rd realm at 18 will be another boon to our family and yourself, I hope you understand.”

The girl fidgeted a little under his gaze - displaying some unusual nervousness which made him crack a smile. “Is there something else?” His grand-daughter looked up “Could you check on her .. from time to time? I fear the other children will eat her alive.” Hei Tianyou was taken aback for a moment, this girl… she was not nervous about her breakthrough but about this little street girl. “If it puts your mind at ease I shall take a look at her from time to time so that things won’t get too difficult, but the outer sect is a trail in itself so I won’t interfere if it’s not necessary” The girl nodded, a simple bow followed “Thank you very much, I shall not disappoint your benevolence grandfather.” These words made the old man grin and he waved her inside “Now now, I look forward to it.” The girl stepped inside and the heavy stone door of the cultivation room closed, and would probably not open for a while.

__________

Golden eyes peeked out of the forest. In the last few months, there had been something interesting indeed, a little meat-bag had entered the sect - and way before the normal time. This little meat-bag also smelled rather bad - and looked like a little rat from the street would look like. But there was little else of interest to observe - and so these golden eyes followed the child around. Her training with the inner sect girl was a bit boring - but it made the little dirty rat become a little clean rat. Also, a rat that knew that there would be a lot of snakes coming for her soon.

What did, however, pique the eyes interest was how this little rat quickly became a thieving fox, going from house to house unearthing secret stash after stash. The older outer sect people often left hidden stones for their family members, while the sect did not allow influencing the happenings in the outer sect much, this was overlooked.

The little thief had quite quickly amassed a sizeable stash off her own and smartly hid it in her little stone house away from any eyes. Even after learning what these shiny rocks were she never brought them back - earning her a hum of acknowledgment from the eyes. They would keep an eye on this one for a bit, maybe it would bring more interesting times in the future. Grass shuffled as the golden eyes backed off into the forest - all the little snakes and sharks would come soon - and they did not want to get tangled up with them at all.