The ravine was the most uninteresting place Lin Songmei had gone to in her whole life. Given, she hadn’t been to a lot of places, there was school where she suffered, the orphanage where she suffered, the library she frequented as a child, the orphanage she lived in as a child, and the sect.

But really, this place was really a take a picture and leave type of place... The ravines, although nice, beautiful, stunning, sublime even, were boring past their initial “WOW” factor. Sure, it was amazing the first time Songmei looked at it, the spiky walls that were like the maw of a gargantuan being as it cracked open its mighty gullet, ready to swallow the sun.

Once down there though, Songmei realized the truth of it all. It was just wading through dark corridors with tall walls. These dark pathways also, to the annoyance of literally everyone everywhere, had what could be considered enough puddles to be used in a puddle-making game... maybe a sequel to bricklaying?

Songmei swore, if the water from here was all drained, or evaporated somehow, not only would this place be more structurally stable, but the agriculture industry would be given a new lease on life!

There wouldn’t be a thing called “the water bill” anymore!

Other than that though, not much had happened after they had descended into the ravine. The three of them had walked around, made some verbal observations of their surroundings—the majority of which was actually random conversation though—and walked around some more.

Well... one thing of sheer coincidence happened, though.

After Han Youhong had finished talking about Mr. Sunboy Wang Taigang, they rounded a corner, changing from one ravine to another that would lead further inward. As Yan Mingqing, who was taking on the position of rearguard, rounded the corner, they ran into Han Youhong’s disciple-mate coming from a different fork.

Not Mr. Sunny though... sadly...

What had transpired after was what could only be called an awkward conversation. Very awkward. Painfully so.

It had begun with a brief hello from both Han Youhong and the opposing party, who Songmei now knew was Liu Liping.

Liu Liping was surrounded by a posse of FIVE people! FIVE! It was pretty much her harem. From what Songmei could tell, they were either inner disciples of the larger sects or direct disciples of some of the second-tier sects.

From what Mingqing then whispered into Songmei’s ear, Songmei learned that this posse was actually all rich and famous young masters and mistresses who just... didn’t quite have enough talent to make it to the top...

Anyhow, that conversation had less life to it than the puddles they were stepping through all day, pushing it to end after a few minutes.

“How did you convince them to go back?” Songmei asked, looking at the shrinking figures of the party of 6. “I know it would’ve been awkward since we’re traveling in the same direction and the path is narrow, but it isn’t like we couldn’t have done it...”

“I’m magical, that’s why,” Han Youhong laughed, eating some of his lychee jelly. “In actuality, she just left without me saying anything.”

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

“Interesting...” Mingqing murmured, shrugging her shoulders, her face still frozen from that interaction.

It was frozen stiff!! Songmei had turned to look at Mingqing in the middle of the conversation and... and... it was like the TUNDRA!

The smile was gone! The eyes weren’t bright! Mingqing’s eyes had settled into a natural glare that told you to kneel and kiss her feet!

And with her crossing her arms and shifting onto one leg, she looked a little like a model... n-no... no.... wait. Not that way... in a uhh... like... like a powerful pose...

Coughing and clearing her thoughts, getting two sets of concerned gazes gathering towards her, Songmei waved the two of them off. “I’m fine, I’m fine! No need to worry.”

Her eyes flickering around, her brain spinning faster than it had ever before, Songmei searched for a conversation topic. “So... so... s-so... uh... You all saw the thing, right?”

“What thing?” Mingqing asked, quirking an eyebrow as her expression began to melt the further they walked from the retreating group. “‘Saw the thing’ isn’t very specific, Songmei...”

“The rankings?” Han Youhong asked, pulling them up on his terminal. “This is the only thing I could really think of...”

“Yeah, the rankings! What do you two think of it?” Songmei nodded, letting out a sigh of relief now that the topic had been shifted. She could just sit back now and let the other two talk, she wasn’t good enough at this conversation thing...

“Hmmm...” Han Youhong murmured out loud as he thought, stroking his chin and eating some lychee jelly. “Well it's based on contribution points by party. So... I’m a little conflicted. On the one hand, this does increase the risk for us and the chances of getting sabotaged quite a bit. On the other hand... I really like how my name is at the top now that I’m in a squad with you two.”

Snorting with a bright laugh, Mingqing nodded, pointing to Han Youhong. “I’ll give you credit on the name part. It is very nice. Also, the leaderboards do spur a sense of competition in a certain sense so that’s good. And... we do have a pretty commanding lead as we were the first ones to discover the plants.”

“True...” Songmei nodded, pulling up the leaderboard on her terminal to look at it herself. One of the great things about these fancy terminals was that she could use them anywhere there was Qi! Which was... everywhere!

Songmei had heard ancient devices used waves on the EM spectrum to communicate and... damn, that sounded unreliable at times...

Sounded like something her orphanage would have...

The leaderboard though, as of now, was pretty fancy, she could tell it wasn’t put together in the best way and was a rush job, but it worked.

[--- Leaderboard ---

(Based on contribution points. Contribution points are awarded by contributing to the extermination or investigation of the harmful flora invading Westriver.)

1. 1168 Points, Members: Han Youhong/Lin Songmei/Yan Mingqing (party of three) [Collapse?]

2. 547 Points, Members: [Expand?]

3. 520 Points, Members: [Expand?]

...

Your ranking:

1. 1168 Points]

“Contribution points are awarded by contributing,” Songmei read aloud to herself under her breath. Who would’ve thought?

This was some HIGHLY informative, critical information here.

It was quite nice seeing her name at the top though.

To sum it up in a concise manner though, now the contribution was public! So they’d actually have to do some more work. As of now, there were two ways to get more contribution points: dig up plants or find plants.

Obviously, from the fact she was walking in a RAVINE, the plan wasn’t to dig up plants. Getting contribution points from that was painful too. It was like 10 for one point or something? Based on size too? She wasn’t sure...

Anyhow, maybe they’d find some fancy-pants secret laboratory or something...

Well, before that... getting to the crater.