12:34 (Afternoon)

BOOM!

A pot had blown up most violently, sending shards and soot all over the room. Wang Wei winced as the shards bounced off his helmet. He waved the smoke away, coughing.

But he was filled with excitement. As the smoke cleared, 2 murky green pills were revealed.

Almost shouting in joy, he barely managed to hold back. He didn't want any other disciples to know yet. They looked plain and were perhaps even disgusting, but right now, they were the most beautiful things in the world to him.

He jumped around the room excitedly for a minute. After calming down, he put his helmet into his bag, combed the soot out of his hair and swept up the debris.

"Where did you find this little guy?"

Mei was sitting on the stone path outside Li Xuan's residence. A few spirits had surrounded her, apparently interested by Su Qing.

The little cyan spirit seemed nervous, hiding behind her. She wasn't too sure how to respond. Most likely, she wasn't even supposed to recruit the spirits in charge of the dummies.

"I guess I just found him by chance?" she said.

"So you're telling me, you found this little child by chance. And the first thing you think of is to make a contract?" the same spirit that spoke, a red one, seemed rather angry.

"She must have kidnapped it." another spirit, a blue one said. "Come here, you poor thing!"

Su Qing refused to budge behind Mei. She wasn't sure what to do. The little spirit was apparently a child?

She only came here to help Su Qing cultivate, how did this happen?

"I really just found it by chance! I'm not lying!" Mei said.

Well, it technically wasn't a lie. It was by chance that she happened to choose Su Qing out of all the other spirits.

"You didn't see its parents?" the blue one asked.

"No."

"Suspicious! Too suspicious!" a green spirit said. "But the human doesn't seem to be lying. Little one, can you attest?"

Su Qing continued to hide.

"I don't think it knows how to talk..." Mei said.

"What?!" the spirits all seemed shocked.

"Excuse us for a moment." the red one said.

They cut off their connections with her and seemed to discuss for a moment. Mei sighed. How did the other apprentices even contract spirits with how 'aggressive' they were?

"We will believe you for now." the green one said. "But you need to let us teach the child."

"Teach what?" Mei asked.

"Language. Common sense. Stuff like that." said greeny.

"Okay..."

Odd. She thought they didn't need to learn language because of how they could convey their intentions directly? Or maybe that was actually some kind of language.

"Come here... pst pst." the blue one tried to coax Su Qing out from behind Mei's back.

"Hmph. To me, you are the suspicious ones!" she said to them. "I'll ask the elder if you guys can be trusted."

Mei didn't say it until now, but she was getting sick of their attitude. What was giving them the right to boss her around and accuse her?

"You! The auda-"

"Hush!" the green spirit interrupted the red one. "I understand how the human feels. Let's just go along with it."

Mei was even more annoyed now.

She led the three nosy spirits into the residence and to the elder's room. She knocked.

Li Xuan looked rather annoyed as she emerged.

"What?"

"Uh, these spirits want to teach my contracted spirit stuff."

The elder didn't seem very interested and just quickly explained these 3 spirits were part of a group of spirits in charge of teaching other spirits.

"So do you trust us now?" the red one asked, smugly.

"Whatever," Mei said. "You can teach Su Qing if you want."

It was convenient that some spirits offered to teach her spirit language anyway.

Mei returned to the dorms later, without Su Qing. She had not been together with the spirit for long, but it was surprisingly lonely to not have the little cyan thing whizz around.

As she opened the door, she was surprised to see a piece of folded paper under it. There was a lump inside.

Unfolding it, she found a gross green pill that smelled of burnt sap. Yuck... There was writing on the paper too.

"Mei Xiu:

Thanks for the advice. After taking a break and cooling my head, I managed to come up with ideas on what I could have done better. With that, I finally managed to succeed in making the pills.

Don't eat it though, it's made of random weeds I found in the sect.

Thanks,

Wang Wei"

Mei was a bit stunned by how neat his handwriting was. Her handwriting was dog poop in comparison.

Though... sending her this...

She was a bit touched sure, but was there a need to say she shouldn't eat it? Who in their right mind would even eat it?

After sniffing the pill closer and recoiling, she wrapped it up with the same letter. Then she opened the drawer, planning to put it in-

Wait.

Inside, there was a mouldy fruit. More specifically, the fruit Xiuying gave her.

Mei froze. Then she screamed internally.

From a pretty glowing yellow fruit... to this. It was now brown, wrinkled and covered in disgusting mould. Mei picked it up and threw it out of the window, hoping it wouldn't hit anyone.

How did she forget about it? Why did she put it in there? Urgh... what if it was really good for cultivation? Maybe the reason why her friends were so fast was because of them?

It wasn't actually the reason, but Mei was horrified, yet comforted by the thought that it could be. That would mean her being behind wasn't purely because of her laziness.

She spent the rest of the day reading novels in an attempt to take her mind off the fruit. When it came time to sleep, she laid in bed, wondering how Su Qing was doing. She had only spent 2 days with the spirit, but it was still a little lonely without it.