Eh?

From the distance, it almost seemed like the figure of the beast was getting closer.

Mei squinted a little at it. No, it was indeed approaching!

"Su Qing, it's coming! Run!" Mei said, weakly.

"Eeek!" the puppet jumped.

Su Qing began running as fast as he could, at the expense of Mei, unfortunately. She began to feel rather dizzy as her head shook up and down.

Loud footsteps echoed, the ground shaking. Seeing that they were trying to get away, the beast charged! Leaves began to fall from the trees, birds flying away into the open skies.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Despite Su Qing's efforts, the mysterious beast caught up in a moment, looming over them.

"Eeek!" he squeaked.

The little spirit ducked behind a tree. Unfortunately, from how he was holding her horizontally, Mei found her head, arms and legs in plain sight.

She stared at the beast in a daze.

It was a huge gorilla that stood about 4 metres tall, wearing clean white shorts. It was fastened rather tightly by a drawstring, which was tied into a neat little bow.

"Don't worry! I'm not here to hurt you!" the ape said.

"So your friends abandoned you? That's sad."

"Yeah..." Mei mumbled.

The last thing she expected after entering a tournament was sitting with a giant gorilla before a massive pot on a campfire. She found it a little uncomfortable.

Su Qing, however, was very enthusiastic, chattering with the gorilla constantly.

"Oh! I almost forgot to introduce myself. My name is Xing Da! But you can call me Da Xing." the ape said. "What's your name?"

"I'm Mei Xiu," she said.

Da Xing nodded, chopping up a strange purple fruit and tossing it into the pot. He scooped up a ladleful of the goopy soup to a bowl before taking a sip.

"I think it's ready." the gorilla said, letting out a content sigh. "Do you want some?"

"Okay..."

Mei wasn't really all that interested, having found the smell weird, but thought it would be rude to decline.

Da Xing scooped out a bowl of soup and handed it to her.

It was a goopy liquid filled with nothing but fruit and bamboo shoot chunks. Mei tasted it gingerly, before scrunching her face.

The soup... it was way too sweet! The amalgamation of flavours from various cooked fruit danced across her tongue, blending together into a disgusting tangle of dissonance.

"On second thought, I'm not really that hungry," Mei said, putting the bowl aside.

She didn't know why she expected more from an ape's cooking. Even if it was sentient.

"Oh. That's fine." Da Xing said, sounding a little sad.

He ate in silence for a few minutes.

"So, you and the animals in this tournament are from the real world?" Mei asked.

She wasn't actually all that curious, but she found the silence awkward.

"Yeah." Da Xing said, putting down his bowl, wiping his mouth. "Usually, the sect master tells us to play roles in this segment, but today, he told us to just do whatever we felt like doing."

Da Xing scratched his head sheepishly.

"So I decided I wanted to try to talk to one of you humans! Since usually, I don't get to talk to you guys much."

"Ah..." Mei said.

Seriously?

"Well, I'm not really the best at holding a conversation? Maybe you can find someone else?"

"Eh?"

"I still want to get a place in the tournament, especially since I'm feeling much better now. Sorry, but do you mind if I leave first?" Mei put on an awkward smile.

"Oh. I see." Da Xing said, looking down. "That's fine. Good luck..."

Mei thanked the gorilla for his help, before heading off. Behind her, Su Qing waved goodbye to the gorilla.

That was weird. Definitely, the last thing she expected to encounter in a tournament.

As the gorilla's camp grew further away, Mei looked to the skies, hoping to spot Wang Wei's beacon. It seemed to have expired, unfortunately.

Did that mean Wang Wei had been hunted down, along with the rest of the team? Mei hoped not.

"Su Qing, can you tell me if you see any people?" Mei asked.

Since she didn't have any leads on where her friends were, she decided to find people to hunt down instead. Her first thought was to use soulsense, but with how tiring it was, she figured it would be better to leave it to Su Qing.

"Okay!" the little spirit said, before pointing to the distance. "There's people over there!"

So close?

Mei let out her soul sense for a moment, spotting them in the distance, around 30 metres away.

"We don't want them to hear us, so try to run quietly, Su Qing!"

She began running as quietly as she could along, the grass, until she grew close, then began to stalk quietly along the grass. A few people came into sight, a boy and two girls.

Mei couldn't tell what their cultivation levels were, but they looked tired, probably from fending off beasts. From this distance, she could vaguely hear what they were saying.

"This isn't fun, when is the tournament going to be over?" one of the girls complained.

"Do you need my help?" the other girl grinned, brandishing her sword jokingly.

"You'll lose points for team killing." the first girl laughed.

It was at this moment when a padded axe soared through the air, striking her on the forehead.

"Ah," she said with a dazed look, before vanishing.

"AHH! An attacker!" the other girl shouted.

Mei grinned. She had been planning to wait for a better chance to attack, but after overhearing their conversation, she couldn't help herself.

"Eh? Mei, why you do that?" Su Qing said, shocked. "It's not nice!"

Mei: ...

"The attacker is over there!" the boy shouted, pointing to her.

From the tips of his finger, lightning sparked. Mei quickly activated her defensive body art as thin bolts of lightning struck her.

For a moment she winced but realised she didn't even feel numb.

She charged towards him, barreling through the lightning. Mei kicked with all her strength, using Harmonic Strength. With a panicked look on his face, the boy soared upwards into the air for a moment, before vanishing.

That was easier than she-

A shroud of sand struck her face, blinding her. It was swiftly followed by a fist-sized rock that slammed into her head, knocking her to the ground. With not even a moment to spare, fists of earth rose from the ground, pummelling her.

Mei activated soulsense and saw that the girl was trying to climb a tree, in an attempt to take advantage of her being blinded. Not a bad plan.

Mei punched and kicked the fists away and leapt towards the tree, clambering up it after the girl.

"What the hell?!" the girl shouted.

Mei punched her foe, who promptly vanished.

"Urgh..." she coughed.

The deed done, she hopped to the ground and began spitting out sand. That was awful!

A little of the sand had gotten into her nose too, so she began blowing her nose as hard as she could.

As she tried to get the sand out of her eyes, Mei shuddered, having thought of something horrifying. If she had been slower, could that girl have stopped her from breathing entirely by stuffing sand down her mouth and nose? Maybe even into her lungs?

Earth cultivators were terrifying...