Chapter 925: Gathering Information

Pan Yun's eyes lit up, and she actually stepped forward two more places despite the increasingly heavy pressure: "Senior, you're awake?"

That fawning look made the great beast pause, and Master Xuanmiao also glanced at her.

Pan Yun's eyes held only the great beast. She stepped up, bore the pressure, cupped her fists, and bowed with precise, earnest formality, introducing herself: "Senior, this junior is Pan Yun. I've long admired your great name and came especially to pay my respects."

The great beast: …

Master Xuanmiao: …

Master Xuanmiao watched the great beast warily, but saw it merely lift its eyelid to glance at Pan Yun without getting angry, so she relaxed and walked to one side to sit cross-legged.

She had actually only wanted to bring Pan Yun to see it, so she could get an early understanding of the great beast, the Dragon Diagram, and this suppression array.

She hadn't expected Pan Yun to strike up a chat with a yao-beast.

But thinking of the black cat and the fox by her side, she silently said nothing and quietly waited for her move.

Pan Yun stood not far in front of the great beast's head, took a table straight out of her spirit-realm space, and then brought out a basin of meat.

The great beast jerked its head up, eyes bright, and stared at her.

Pan Yun beamed and asked warmly: "Senior, want some meat?"

The great beast stretched out a paw directly.

Pan Yun picked a big shank bone and placed it in its hand.

This was stewed big shank bone, stewed with heavy spices, extremely fragrant.

Pan Yun herself took a big shank, sat cross-legged, and gnawed on it facing it.

The great beast chewed and swallowed, saw that Pan Yun was actually eating very smoothly, and the more she ate the faster she got, and couldn't help glancing at Master Xuanmiao, who sat leaning against the wall.

"Your resistance to pressure isn't bad. You're surnamed Pan, not a member of the Zhang family. Why would the Zhang family let you in here?"

Pan Yun smiled: "This Daoist Zhang is my own senior martial sister. I came in through her back door."

"Even this can go through the back door? Is the Zhang family about to decline?"

Pan Yun: "At the height of its glory."

The great beast gave a cold laugh: "Things at their peak must decline. Whether family or dynasty, all are the same. I see the dragon-vein power draining away. The Great Ming has met with great calamity and is on the decline, isn't it? The Zhang family is bound together with the Great Ming imperial house — share in glory, share in ruin. Its present prosperity is just a smokescreen. They are surely going to fall."

Pan Yun tossed the gnawed-clean shank bone aside, picked up another piece of meat and handed it over, smiling: "Even if the Zhang family falls, you lot still can't get out. The Daoist order has talented people coming up generation after generation; someone will always step in to take over."

"Like you?" The great beast looked Pan Yun up and down, crunched a couple of times, and said carelessly: "With that little frame of yours, you want to suppress me? You couldn't do it in another hundred years."

Pan Yun wagged her finger: "I'll bet you I can hold you down within fifty years."

The great beast gave a cold laugh, and a silent pressure spread out. Master Xuanmiao gave a muffled grunt, struggling to endure, and a thread of blood still seeped from the corner of her mouth.

Pan Yun's face also went pale, her back slightly bent, but she still looked at the great beast with a smiling gaze.

One human and one beast regarded each other for a long while.

Master Xuanmiao's heart rose, afraid that the great beast might flare up in anger and really crush them to death.

She wondered what dharma instruments and talismans she had prepared.

Master Xuanmiao's fingers moved with difficulty, wanting to draw out the talisman in her sleeve, when the pressure receded like a tide, leaving only a not-too-light, not-too-heavy force pressing on her body.

Master Xuanmiao was startled and looked up.

After all, she was the first person to come in and bring it meat, and it had once eaten her things. If it killed her in a fit of rage, it would only mean one more ingredient — and raw at that, since human flesh doesn't taste good.

The great beast scraped the basin in front of itself, paws flying: "You came to see me. What do you want?"

Pan Yun: "Before coming I only wanted to see the sights and make a friend of you, Senior. After meeting you, I've gained one more goal."

Pan Yun took out the other meat from her space and set it before it, smiling slightly: "I rarely come, so I've prepared a little extra for you, Senior."

Seeing so many good things to eat, the great beast's remaining anger also vanished without a trace.

It expressed great welcome for Pan Yun's arrival: "You can come more often in the future. My cave is an excellent place for cultivation. Whatever pressure you want to use, I can give it to you."

Pan Yun's eyes sparkled, her heart greatly stirred.

But she couldn't linger long at Long Hushan, and besides, Reflection Cliff wasn't a place she could come and go as she pleased.

However, the world didn't only have this one great beast. Hadn't her senior martial sister said there were thirteen great beasts under suppression, and Long Hushan held three — that meant ten more were out there.

Pan Yun stared at it with bright eyes: "Senior, I'm showing such sincerity. Won't you give me some sincerity in return?"

"What do you want?"

"Intelligence! For instance, intelligence on your other friends — what they're good at, what they like, what they dislike, what their cultivation levels are…"

"I have no friends."

"That's even better. Those yao-beasts who always pester you and oppose you — what they're good at, what they like, what they dislike, what their cultivation levels are…"

The great beast: "Haven't they all been killed or suppressed by you humans? Why ask me?"

"The way they look in human eyes and the way they look in yao-beast eyes are different."

The great beast had nothing it couldn't say, and besides, it was bored. Having someone to chat with was rare, so it simply recounted in detail the love-hate entanglements of years past with the various yao-beasts.

Pan Yun took out a brush and notebook, listening and recording earnestly.

Master Xuanmiao: …

She glared at Pan Yun, steadied her breath, and in the end did not show it in front of the great beast. But she still felt Pan Yun was making trouble out of nothing. Since they had already met and talked, shouldn't they leave at this point?

One speaking and one listening lasted three days and three nights.

Fortunately Pan Yun's space held plenty of food, so neither she nor Master Xuanmiao went hungry.

The great beast was also very happy. In those three days it felt it had dispelled at least thirty years' worth of pent-up frustration, and so it looked forward even more to Pan Yun's next visit.

Pan Yun, glowing with health, made a date with it for next time: "Don't worry, Senior. Next time I come, I'll bring even more good food to see you."

The great beast watched Pan Yun and Master Xuanmiao leave with great reluctance.

Brother Cheng Lingzi lay bored on the cliff edge, peering down. When he sensed the array's fluctuation, he immediately lowered the big basket used to pull people up and hauled the two of them up.

He looked at the two of them in astonishment: "I thought you'd been eaten by it. Three days and three nights, not a sound."

Pan Yun said happily: "That's my friend. How could it eat us?"

Brother Cheng Lingzi looked at Master Xuanmiao: "Friends?"

Master Xuanmiao was silent.

Brother Cheng Lingzi savored the moment for a beat, clicked his tongue and shook his head: "Your efficiency at making friends is truly extraordinary."

Pan Yun: "Mainly because I'm a good person."

Brother Cheng Lingzi snorted a laugh and said: "You two should head down now. The imperial edict conferring the title of True Person has arrived, and the Laozu Sect elders are about to enter closed-door cultivation. They want to see you and this National Preceptor one last time. Thanks to the True Person's cover, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to hide the matter of you two going to see the Great Beast without permission."

Master Xuanmiao agreed and led Pan Yun down the mountain.

She took Pan Yun straight out of the Academy, heading down along the mountain path.

Upper Clarity Palace was about four li from Upper Clarity Town. Using lightness kung fu, one could fly to town in roughly a quarter of an hour; walking, it would take about half an hour.

Seeing that Master Xuanmiao had no intention of walking faster, Pan Yun also slowed her pace and walked beside her.

At this moment, the entire mountain path was empty of people, very quiet.