Chapter 251: Calculation Formula

Pan Yun: "Don't rush, I've already thought of where to put this money. Relax, I love money, but I value my life even more—I wouldn't joke around with my own life."

Pan Yun pulled a pair of gloves from her Ling Realm space and put them on. These were gloves prepared for refining medicine at Mount Sanqing—some medicinal ingredients were toxic and couldn't be touched with bare hands, so Mount Sanqing always kept plenty of gloves on hand.

Pan Yun went to tug at Zhu Zixun's waist sash with a look of utter disgust.

Pan Xiaohei also felt the scene was a bit hard on the eyes. Turning his cat face away, he asked, "Can't you just brush it a couple of times with your Yuan Force, like how you shredded Song Bei's clothes—shred his clothes too?"

Pan Yun looked at him with an expression that said 'idiot.' "And then the sea chart gets shredded along with it, and I piece it back together bit by bit? How bored do you think I am?"

Pan Xiaohei immediately fell silent.

Pan Yun pulled open Zhu Zixun's clothing sash, then felt all over his lapels, sleeves, trousers, and shoes. Finding nothing, she couldn't help but frown.

Pan Xiaohei helped by pressing down a few times with his cat paws, then shook his head. "Didn't find anything hidden on him."

Pan Xiaohei looked at her sympathetically. "You…didn't miscalculate, did you? He might not have brought it on him. You killed him too early."

Pan Yun looked down at the thoroughly dead Zhu Zixun, then shook her head after a moment. "Impossible."

"My father wrote to me saying that every time my eldest and second brothers came back from the battlefield, they'd bring every bit of loot home. Not just on their persons—even in camp, they wouldn't leave anything worth more than five hundred coins, for fear that if something happened to them, the things wouldn't reach their family."

"Pirates and soldiers are actually the same. A-Xin and the others carried very little money on them, but Zhu Zixun actually carried this much on him—eight hundred taels, enough for him to find a nice place to retire."

Pan Yun said, "What does that tell us?"

Pan Xiaohei: "That he has no family."

Pan Yun glanced at him, then said, "That he doesn't trust anyone besides himself, including his own family. So the sea chart must be on him."

Having said that, Pan Yun stripped him naked.

Then she picked up his clothes and felt them inch by inch, finding nothing.

Outer robe, middle garment, inner garment, the sash, the trousers—she spread them all out and felt every inch.

Finally, she wrinkled her nose and went to feel his shoes.

As she felt around, her eyes lit up slightly, and she grabbed her sword to pry open the shoe.

The sword tilted and almost stabbed Pan Yun's hand. She immediately stopped and lowered her gaze to look at her precious sword.

After thinking for a moment, she put the sword away and rummaged through her Ling Realm space for tools, finally finding a pair of scissors.

Pan Xiaohei treated it as a grave matter and pressed, "Why did the sword slip just now? Is it about to develop a spirit?"

Pan Yun said, "No. I just suddenly remembered that I'm going to cultivate the Sword Dao in the future. This sword is one with me—using the sword tip to pry open a shoe is no different from using my mouth to bite his shoe."

Just thinking about it is disgusting.

Pan Xiaohei: "Is that so?"

Pan Yun nodded. "Yes. Is it really that easy for a magic artifact to develop a spirit? I haven't even properly tempered this sword of mine yet."

"Of course it's not easy," Pan Xiaohei meowed loudly. "It took me many years to develop a spirit. Your sword was only recently refined—if it wants to develop a spirit, wait a few hundred years."

Pan Yun: "Then what are you worried about?"

"Not to mention it hasn't developed a spirit now—even if it did, given our first-come-first-served bond and the many years of affection we've built, it still couldn't compare to you. Of course, unless you do something wrong in the middle, make me angry, and damage our relationship."

Pan Xiaohei started muttering to himself.

Pan Yun paid him no more attention and began focusing on prying open the shoe.

The scissors worked even better than the sword and soon pried the shoe open. She took out one, two, three, four gold flakes from the sole.

Pan Yun was so angry she tossed the gold flakes into her Ling Realm space and cursed, "Is this man sick? Hiding gold flakes in his shoe soles—couldn't he have hidden the sea chart instead?"

Pan Xiaohei, seeing her frustrated, grinned broadly and meowed, "Anyone with half a brain would know you can't pry open a shoe every time you need the sea chart."

Pan Yun heard this and fell into thought.

Her gaze traveled inch by inch from the soles of Zhu Zixun's feet upward, finally landing on the top of his head.

She walked over. His hair was wrapped in a piece of headcloth, then tied with a hair ribbon—looking casual and cheap.

Even someone looting a corpse wouldn't think to snatch a dead man's headcloth.

Pan Yun took off the headcloth and began feeling it bit by bit. She sensed for herself and seemed to feel a hidden layer.

Pan Yun immediately grabbed the scissors and carefully cut along the edge.

When one layer of the cloth was cut open, Pan Yun pulled out an almost transparent sheet of paper from inside.

The paper was thin as a cicada's wing, translucent yet seemingly waterproof.

She held it up against the morning sun rising over the sea and could clearly see the distribution of islands and various routes marked on it.

It recorded in detail the reefs at sea, the locations of islands, the populations on each island, and the weapons deployed.

Pan Yun spread it out—the paper was a full meter long, just folded up.

The range extended from the coastline of Great Ming all the way to the regions of Japan and Korea.

What surprised Pan Yun most was that it also roughly recorded the border defenses, populations, and weapons situation in the southern reaches of Japan.

There were also several routes marked on it, one of which was highlighted in red, located in the northwestern sea area, neither close to Japan nor to Great Ming. Pan Yun felt the endpoint of this route was the island where the treasure was hidden.

Pan Yun exclaimed in astonishment, "This isn't just a treasure map—if you filled in the details, you could use it as a reference chart for military deployment."

Pan Yun glanced down at Zhu Zixun and snorted coldly. "This even has Great Ming's defense deployment on it. A Han man who runs off to be a dog for the Japanese—he deserved his death, no injustice at all."

Pan Yun carefully folded the sea chart and found a small box from her Ling Realm space to put it in.

Pan Yun was about to leave, but passing by the naked Zhu Zixun, she still turned back and covered him with his clothes, even covering his head.

Then she placed her hands before her abdomen and recited the "Taishang Jiuku Jing." After finishing, she sank her consciousness into her Niwan Palace to check—and the violently deducted merit points were still standing there in glaring red, not a single one returned.

Pan Yun sighed, "Looks like everyone is normal—they won't forgive a murderer even one bit just because he recited the 'Taishang Jiuku Jing.'"

Pan Xiaohei: "You recited it for nothing."

Pan Yun said indifferently, "Not quite—just a bit of wasted mood. Besides, I needed time to calm down anyway."

Pan Xiaohei: "Calm down for what?"

!. Read

"Calmly thinking—who exactly should I hand this sea chart over to?"

Pan Xiaohei: "Why turn it in?"

Pan Yun glanced at it and said, "If it were only the treasure map portion, I wouldn't hand it over—but there's so much more on it. Now that the Great Ming navy has begun taking piracy seriously and is launching anti-pirate operations, this sea chart shouldn't remain in one person's hands."

Pan Yun said, "I'll find a suitable person later to trade for the merit."

Pan Xiaohei leapt up with a *ceng! * and jumped straight into her arms.

Pan Yun pinched its neck with distaste and lifted it up. "What are you doing?"

Pan Xiaohei: "I'm tired—what's wrong with you holding me for a bit?"

Pan Yun, still disgusted, carried it back, "You're too dirty—you need a wash first."

"You're dirtier than me—your whole body reeks of blood, and your unshed malice won't fade. If you don't find a way to purge these impurities, you'll start suffering bad luck soon. Also, you've gained over eight hundred taels."

"I know, I know—I'll chant sutras to cleanse the impurities when we get back."

Pan Yun returned to the path; the corpses had already been cleared away. They had dug one large pit and buried all the dead Japanese pirates inside.

Of those who entered the formation, only two Qingyi Guards suffered serious injuries; the rest had only minor wounds.

Pan Yun returned to the scene; everyone turned to look. Seeing Miao Zhen glanced behind her and hurried over. "Little Master Uncle, where's Zhu Zixun?"

Pan Yun said, "I chased him to the forest's edge but saw no one. There seemed to be someone on the beach—I didn't dare go out."

Seeing Miao Zhen stamped her foot. "So he got away? Will he bring others back to rescue them?"

Pan Yun: "Are we afraid he'll come back?"

Seeing Miao Zhen thought about it. "Well, we're not afraid."

But Zhang Ning was afraid: "If they bring cannons, our talisman array won't matter."

Seeing Miao Zhen and Seeing Miao He didn't know what cannons were, so they asked, "What do cannons look like? Are they that powerful?"

Pan Yun asked, "The Great Ming navy isn't just for show—how dare they now bring cannons ashore?"

Zhang Ning thought for a moment and also found it unlikely. "But our people are still lying in wait at sea. Zhu Zixun heard every interrogation—he must know this plan. Isn't our ambush ruined?"

Pan Yun said, "Their reinforcements have already lost over a hundred men here. Let it be ruined. The harbor's only so wide—if deception fails, we use open force."

She pointed to the morning sun on the horizon. "See? The sky's light. The ambush should've happened last night or this dawn. They haven't caught anyone yet—don't you think they'll come back to look?"

"One group returns, one group leaves—they'll collide mid-route," Pan Yun said. "Now it comes down to who fights better at sea, who fights more bravely. In a narrow path, the brave prevail. I trust our three allied forces."

Zhang Ning: "But…"

Pan Yun snapped: "If you say 'but' again, I'll demand the Jianghu Alliance hand over Zhu Zixun—how did he get lost?"

Zhang Ning immediately fell silent.

Li Ji hid far away, listening, not daring to approach.

The two newly awakened fools said, "She's so young—why is she so fierce?"

"Shh—" Li Ji nearly covered their mouths, begging them not to speak.

Pan Yun's joy over the sea chart had been dampened; she was already annoyed by the constant deduction of merit points. Hearing this, she turned and glared at the two.

Pan Yun handed the battlefield over to them for cleanup, then pulled out a small notebook to tally accounts. She had noticed: killing one person deducted one hundred merit points, but killing ten didn't deduct a thousand.

Heaven seemed to have categorized her as a special case—once she killed more than three people, the merit deduction skyrocketed like a rocket.

Coincidentally, she had counted the numbers both times. She first separated the first kill count from the second, then tried formulas—but something was wrong. Considering the short time between the two killings, she combined them into one calculation and compared it to the deducted merit points. Hey—it actually yielded a formula.

Pan Yun smiled. "Heaven's Elder is surprisingly advanced."

(End of Chapter)