I shook my head.
"You're my benefactor. You saved me... So I'm just paying everything back... So don't berate yourself..." I looked away, a small smile creeping into my face.
"Plus. You're my first and only friend.. so of course I would do this for you... I'm very grateful for you. So don't even thank me when we get out of this place okay?"
She sighed, as she looked at me she started smiling as well, she muttered saying "how could I not thank you? ... You're my first and only friend too you know..."
My eyes widened with surprise. "Really!? ... But you're so pretty! How could you not have friends?!"
She blushed a bit hearing my words, she started seeing the helpless boy she saved that day, as my serious expression went away. She looked away from embarrassment.. and said in a soft voice. "Well... I don't have friends because I mostly only stay inside and practice..." She never revealed, how she was living in the palace under being pressured by everyone in the imperial family.
After resting, Xia Xue got up alone "we should get moving.."
I nodded, I got up as well then look at our surroundings. Then I looked at Xue, "can you move now?"
She nodded. We both started walking in the opposite direction of where the river was flowing. We saw many different plants that we never saw before, and as we kept moving we saw a herd of beasts, that were similar to a horse but also had wings, following their leader, their leader was bigger and had an aura around it that looked light blue, we secretly followed the herd observing them, only the minions ate grass and some weird fruit that had a weird orange glow to them, I could feel that those fruits were filled with spiritual energy. But the leader of the pack never ate anything, it just looked after it's minions. Then I noticed...
I looked at Xue and whispered "all of them individually has at least the strength of a rank 4 beast... Luckily they don't seem hostile.. if we don't provoke them, they might not attack.."
Xue looked surprised "are you.. sure?"
I nodded. "This place is dangerous... We need to get out of here as soon as possible..."
She looked at me understanding and asked. "But how?"..
There was a bit of silence as I kept thinking.
"The only way is to tame one of those beasts... It's dangerous... Yes... But there's no other way... Unless one of us reach golden core formation realm.."
"Well... True" she sighed with resignation.