"Hey! I'm here! Hey!"

The bandit yelled desperately as Feng Shen prepared to take off.

...

Forgotten yet again...

"Feng Shen. That blood on your feathers," Dian Ying said. "It's being traced."

"Hmph. That was on purpose. We'll find somewhere to stop and wait for Shi Xin to return." the bird said. "You guardians should take the disciples to another country, I'll serve as a decoy."

"Wait, couldn't we just go back to the sect?" Mei asked.

...

"Um, Mei Xiu... back at the Xiao Huo's briefing, it was mentioned we wouldn't be able to return to the sect during the trip," Xiuying said. "The sect has had a lot of cases where during trips, disciples would just go back to the sect to mess around, defeating the whole point..."

What?! Something so important was relayed by that tiny spirit? Tsk... she would have been paying attention if Qiao Shun had been the one doing the briefly... totally...

"Couldn't we just tell the elders that something really bad happened here?" Mei continued.

"I can handle it myself." Feng Shen said arrogantly.

"...can you please not take an incident like this so lightly?" Liu Qiang's guardian spirit complained. "You're having quite a bit of fun right now, aren't you?"

What.

The bird only harrumphed.

Xiuying was about to say something but Dian Ying stopped her.

"It's no use, we've already tried talking sense into him long ago."

Xiuying: ...

"Why do I keep getting interrupted recently..." she grumbled to herself.

Without saying much more, Feng Shen too off with a gust of wind, leaves scattering through the air.

"So... we just wait here... while hostile people from some sect try to hunt us down?" Liu Qiang said uncertainly.

"Apparently." Dian Ying said.

Before long, Xiuying and the others began to chat.

Dian Ying began playing some sort of board game with the other two guardian spirits present. Somewhen in between, Liu Qiang picked up a transmission jade and nodded a few times as he listened.

Mei wasn't really in the mood to partake. Some elders were actively trying to hunt them down while Feng Shen took the brunt of it, and they were just going to chill here? Well, even if that was his idea of fun, that seemed a bit wrong.

In the end, however, she got distracted by a trail of ants on the ground and began watching intently as they carried chunks of some massive bug to their nest.

...

2 hours passed.

"Huff, huff..."

"Oh, it's you, Shi Xin."

"Come join us, we were just playing a game of Battlegods." Liu Qiang's spirit said.

Shi Xin was still in his usual form, but cubical stone chunks were floating behind him.

"I was shaking off the elders while trying to make it out with these safes, and you guys were just having fun..."

"Don't worry, Feng Shen got the worst job, he's acting as a decoy for them right now." Dian Ying laughed.

"Pfft. That's his idea of fun."

"Why are you huffing anyway? I thought spirits didn't have lungs." Liu Qiang said.

"Oh, shut it! That's just how tiredness is expressed, isn't it? We don't naturally show emotion in our voices either, we learn it so you darn humans can tell how we feel." Shi Xing said defensively.

Hm. Su Qing didn't seem to have an issue with that. Maybe it was because his years of service as some training dummy let him see a lot of people?

After chatting for a little more, Shi Xin cracked the stone chunks open, revealing several safes and storing them in his jade.

Then he joined the other spirits in their game.

"Are we really just going to sit here...?" Mei asked. "Doesn't it seem... a bit dangerous?"

"Wait... we'll finish this match first..." Shi Xin said intently as he held a small wooden figure, thinking intently.

"Haha, I have a Dao Seeking cultivator on my side! Even with your 5 True Foundation cultivators, you don't stand a chance!" Liu Qiang's spirit laughed.

"I just need one more True Essense pill and one of my cultivators will break into Dao Seeking as well. Just you wait!" Shi Xin gritted his metaphoric teeth.

Wow... materialising teeth on a blob of grey energy was kinda creepy. Why didn't he just morph into a person if he was so intent on using human gestures?

Actually, this game seemed pretty cool??

Mei had never been all that interested in board games. Well, not that she really got a chance to play them anyway, so it was probably just sour grapes on her end. But one where you could control pieces that represented cultivators and also could rank up? That really piqued her interest...

Before she knew it, Mei began watching as well.

She had no clue what was going on but it seemed kind of cool.

Actually, wow, this game was... taking quite a while to finish. Mei was pretty sure it had been a few hours but it didn't seem like it was stopping any time soon...

"Isn't this taking a bit too long?" she asked.

"Hmph! You younger folk have no patience. Fine, we'll stop for now. Kid, you seem interested in this game?" Shi Xin said.

"I guess..."

"A typical game of Battlegod between masters can take over a day to finish! And I mean the full 24 hours when I say that."

"Eh?!"

"What's that, a cultivator like you can't take a day without sleeping? Haha!" Dian Ying laughed.

...

The spirits activated a sigil on the board, locking the pieces to the board before stashing it away.

"Now, to where?" Shi Xin asked. "Any of you disciples have somewhere you want to visit?"

"Well... actually," Liu Qiang said with a little unease. "Earlier, while we were here, my dad said he wanted me to come over by tomorrow. He didn't say why, but he said it was very urgent."