Flying Across the Cliff

Ten days later, beneath a dense canopy of trees.

The mountain path twisted and turned. A group of twenty students led by Mo Xie and Mu Bai stood beside a cliff.

Mo Xie checked his watch, raised a hand, and called out.

"Take a break."

The moment he spoke, the students collapsed onto the grass like limp rags.

"That damned chief instructor. I'd like to curse him for sending us to this godforsaken place."

"Yeah, what got into him? And how have we still not covered thirty kilometers? This is our tenth day, isn't it?"

"Thirty kilometers is the straight-line distance. We've had to climb mountains, cross valleys, and go around peaks. The route is way more than thirty kilometers!"

The students had to complete this training assignment entirely on their own. No teachers or instructors accompanied them. They had only been given a map and told to find their way.

After ten days of trekking over mountains, they were all filthy and drenched in sweat, looking like a band of cavemen.

"Don't worry. At our current pace, we should reach our destination this afternoon," Mo Xie said reassuringly.

"Mm. Once we cross this river gorge, we shouldn't be far from the Hundred Herb Valley the chief instructor mentioned," Mu Bai said, holding the map.

"How the hell are we supposed to cross that? It's at least ten meters wide. Are we meant to fly?" Zhao Kunsan lay at the cliff's edge and was the first to shout.

A deep river gorge lay directly in their path!

The opposite cliff looked close, but the churning river far below made their hearts pound. They could clearly hear the water roaring as it crashed against the rocks!

"What do we do? We can't just give up halfway."

"Why don't we head back?