The banquet ended in high spirits. With no date set for another meeting, they each went their separate ways; in the cultivation world, sentimentality was a deadly emotion.
Jiang Nanying and Yu Xinglie walked together with the two women. The two men had similar temperaments, and their lineages were also related by marriage, so they were close friends.
Looking at the two silent women, Jiang Nanying smiled. "Well, you've finally met the hero of the Heavenly Fragrance Tower. What is it? Did meeting him fall a little short of his reputation?"
Baozhu covered her mouth and laughed. "What a fool. Everyone knew it was a trap, yet he insisted on jumping into it. And even after jumping in, he didn't know enough to cover it up a little. Did he think something like that was glorious? Someone like him, however formidable his swordsmanship, will ultimately become nothing more than a blade in someone else's hand!"
Nan Zhi was a woman with an orchid's purity and a fragrant herb's discerning heart. "He wasn't entirely without merit, was he? At least he dared to own up to what he'd done.
"His experiences meant he was sorely lacking in what seemed like ordinary common knowledge, but those things could be made up for eventually. All it took was reading a few more books and talking to more people. Spend enough time in this circle, and he'd naturally learn. That doesn't take talent!
"But true swordsmanship does take talent! Brother, you've reached Foundation Cultivation now, and you can cast techniques in succession and bring out some of the power of the sword-and-spell branch. If you faced an Extreme Sword practitioner like him now, do you think you'd still crumble at a single blow as you did in Qi Gathering?"
Jiang Nanying thought for a