"Are you friends with that woman?" Li Yang asked.
"We're not particularly close. She's a merchant, and merchants aren't people you should get too close to." Ning Xi shook her head and asked, "Why? Did she make you uncomfortable?"
"More or less," Li Yang answered casually. "Like you said, she's not worth getting close to. Unlike you. I feel comfortable when I'm with you."
Ning Xi didn't know what had gotten into her.
Li Yang had clearly said something perfectly ordinary, yet her mind had gone astray.
"You're making dirty jokes again! What happened back then was an accident. Didn't I already say we should pretend it never happened?"
Li Yang was speechless. "Someone with a filthy mind hears filth in everything. I meant your personality. Once you chose to trust me, you dared to face danger alongside me, without regret even if it meant death."
Ning Xi's face flushed scarlet, but she stubbornly retorted, "It's still all your fault, senior brother!"
"Fine, fine. My fault, my fault." The old Li Yang would certainly have answered with blunt, tactless logic.
But now, when dealing with Ning Xi, he was always patient and no longer sought the satisfaction of winning an argument.
In short, his tolerance for Ning Xi had grown considerably.
"I'm going to refine pills and make talismans. There's no harm in making more. They should be a big help."
Ning Xi went into seclusion as well.
Li Yang had intended to cultivate too, but as the sword chief of the Heavenly Gang Demon-Suppressing Battalion, he ought to at least check on the sword cultivators.
They were all stationed with the Heavenly Origin Dynasty's cultivator army, enjoying the resources the dynasty supplied.
This stretch of mountains had been allocated to the sword cultivators, who had carved out cave abodes