After pondering for a moment, Lady Chu retrieved her phone and dialed a number.
"Good evening, esteemed father. I am currently in a difficult situation and I need your help," she said.
Immediately, a frantic voice resounded from the phone, "What happened?! Are you in danger?! Where are you?! I will immediately send support!"
"Calm down, father. I am fine. Anyways, you told me to stay away from the Six Spiritual Families, but I might have to see them, and I was hoping you'd let me go."
"…"
Her father didn't immediately respond and took a long moment to ponder.
Sometime later, he asked her in a solemn voice, "Does this have anything to do with the person you are looking for?"
"Yes, it does. According to the intelligence agency, he is inside the Jaded Garden, and I have to go see him."
After another moment of silence, her father released a low sigh, "I promised you that if you manage to endure your training that lasted over a decade, I would let you meet this person. Although I would have preferred that you stayed away from the Six Spiritual Families since there's no other way… Go ahead. Just try to keep your identity hidden."
"I will have people on standby near that place just in case you encounter any trouble with them."
"Thank you, father! I love you! Muah!"
After kissing her father through the phone, Lady Chu hung up and turned to look at her caretaker with a smile on her face.
"We are going to Jaded Garden!" She declared.
"I understand." The old man nodded.
The following morning, they boarded a private helicopter and made their way to the Jaded Garden.
Meanwhile, Yuan and Meixiu had just finished eating breakfast.
"There's going to be a competition between the archery disciples and I am going to participate in it, so I might be a little later than usual today," Meixiu said to him as they walked to the training area.
"Really? Can I watch it? I need a break from training as well," Yuan asked her.
"I think so. I will ask the instructor."
"Okay."
After arriving at the training area, Yuan said, "Give me a minute to speak with Wang Ming since he's probably expecting to train with me today."
He then went inside the gymnasium on the first floor, and as he'd expected, Wang Ming approached him with a sword in his grasp.
"Ya ready?" Wang Ming asked him in a casual manner, feeling completely familiar with Yuan after sparring with him for the past few days.
"Sorry, but I am going to take a break today to watch Me— Feng participate in an archery tournament," Yuan said to him.
"Oh, right, there was something like that going on today. Alright. I guess I will take a break as well. To tell you the truth, my body has been aching for a while now ever since we started sparring, but this means I am getting good training, so I don't mind it."
"And since I have nothing else to do, allow me to follow you."
Thus, Wang Ming tagged alongside Yuan to watch Meixiu's competition.
A few minutes later, they arrive on the fourth floor, where the instructor was already waiting for them.
'That's Player Yuan, huh… He certainly gives off an unfathomable aura…'
The archery instructor who was a mid-level Spirit Warrior stared at Yuan for a moment before turning to look at Meixiu, "The competition won't begin until the afternoon, but we can start making our way there now."
Meixiu nodded, and they followed the instructor to the outdoor training area, but they continued walking a little further down the path, where they arrive before a massive grassland with many people already setting up the targets for the competition.
The moment they arrived, the disciples there turned to look at them.
"Hey, look. Is that her? That 'genius' who can spar with an instructor after a few days?" One of the disciples there whispered to another.
"I think so. My instructor had been talking about her with another instructor and I happened to overhear them."
"Is she really that good? Has anybody here seen her archery skills?"
"Nope."
"Me neither."
After a disciple reaches a certain skill level, they would rarely visit the training building since they would receive new and more professional instructors that will teach them privately, hence why nobody there recognized Meixiu.
"Since we have some time, allow me to explain the competition to you." The instructor said to Meixiu.
"There will be four different exercises, each testing your archery skills. For the first exercise, you simply need to shoot a still target to earn points, and the further target you hit, the more points you will receive."
"For the second exercise, you will have to shoot a moving target, but it won't be any ordinary targets. They change things up every year so I can't go too deep into this one. You will understand what I mean during the competition."
"For the third exercise, you will be standing on a moving platform while trying to shoot your target."
"And for the last exercise, you will have to hunt some live targets using only your bow and arrow, but there's a catch— you cannot kill these targets, or that will result in a loss of points."
Meixiu raised her eyebrows. How is she supposed to hunt something without killing it? It didn't make any sense to her.
"You probably have a few questions, but you don't need to worry, since they will all be answered later when they give more details about the competition. Until then, sit back, relax, and clear your mind."
The instructor left them alone afterward to prepare for the competition.
"What do you think? You confident in winning?" Yuan asked her.
"I can't really say for sure since I don't know how good the others are, but I will definitely try my best to win this competition," she said.