“I'm sorry, I can't contact Master right now, so I have no way to verify your words.”
Qin Yue's gaze was calm as she asked in return, “Do you happen to have any token, fellow Daoist, to prove your identity?”
“Identity? I only came back this time for other matters, and Senior Sister Ma didn't tell me anything either—”
Nan Zhi thought for a moment. With a flick of her wrist, a large, red-skinned gourd with a scorched tip suddenly appeared out of thin air.
“I only had a brief meeting with Senior Sister. Knowing that I cultivate Gu, she specially gifted me a pair of Golden-Winged Flying Centipede eggs. They only hatched two days ago.”
As soon as she finished speaking, the mouth of the gourd opened, and two plump, fat insects with transparent wings on their backs crawled out.
“Ji! Ji!”
“Ji! Ji!”
As soon as the two insects touched the ground, they suddenly grew to one chi in size. They clung to Nan Zhi's calves, scrambling for food.
“I don't have any other tokens. Besides, why would I lie to you? Is anyone really so bored nowadays that they'd pretend to be someone else to scam people?”
Nan Zhi casually pulled out two bloody strips of red meat, torn to the thickness of toothpicks, crushed them slightly, and fed them to the insects bit by bit.
“When I came back, Senior Sister knew I was from Qianli City, so she asked me to bring something to you—”
Qin Yue did not speak. Her gaze was locked onto the flesh. She caught a faint scent of blood, and immediately, the blood in her own body surged, her veins throbbing.
For those who practiced body tempering, their consumption of blood food was naturally immense.
Moreover, with the spiritual energy in the modern world being so thin, she usually had to consume a full sixty jin of meat every day to meet her daily cultivation needs.
Yet the tiny sliver of bloody raw meat before her made her throat bob, a boundless craving rising in her heart.
She wanted to eat it!
Devour it!
The Golden-Winged Flying Centipede had been killed by Ma Jiu; many had witnessed this with their own eyes.
Now that things had come to this, no proof was needed. Qin Yue calmly accepted the reality.
Qin Yue forced her gaze away from the strips of meat in Nan Zhi's hand to avoid appearing too rude. She stood up straight and called out respectfully:
“Little Aunt.”
Her expression was calm, without any awkwardness, and her voice was firm and powerful, as if she had just said the word “comrade.”
Nan Zhi: “...”
How should she put it? She had wanted to tease this young disciple of her senior sister's, but it felt like punching cotton.
“I won't tease you anymore. I came this time to tell you two pieces of good news.”
Nan Zhi smiled.
“First, Master slew an evil dragon in the South Sea. With the evil dragon dead, the entire Demon Suppression Division is sharing the blessing and celebrating together.
“Senior Sister Ma received a piece of dragon meat and naturally didn't forget you, her disciple. However, another secret realm is about to open, so she is truly stretched too thin. Knowing I was returning to Qianli City, she entrusted me to bring it to you.
“I was originally worried about where to find you, but by a stroke of luck, you found me first.”
“An evil dragon?”
Qin Yue couldn't help but lean forward, almost failing to maintain her composure.
“The Commissioner... did Lord Commissioner really kill a dragon? A living one, like the dragons in our Huaxia history?”
【Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit!!】
A man's sharp voice came through her earpiece, nearly piercing her eardrum. Qin Yue pulled the earpiece off, tossed it aside, and waited intently for Nan Zhi's answer.
“Of course. Master is a living True Immortal. What's so hard about killing a dragon?”
Nan Zhi glanced at Qin Yue and patted the large gourd.
With a loud thud, a piece of bloody, bright-red dragon meat about half the size of a palm landed on the desk. It instantly crushed the solid mahogany desk to splinters and smashed a deep pit into the floor.
Standing close by, Qin Yue could even faintly feel the ground shake.
The Dragon Clan truly deserved their mythological reputation for having incredibly powerful physical bodies.
A Jiao-dragon was a hundred and fifty meters long and weighed twenty-four thousand tons. Excluding the head and claws, a half-meter-long section of dragon meat would average a whopping seventy tons.
Its density was simply terrifying.
Even Nan Zhi had to go through immense trouble, casting over a dozen Sharp Gold Curses on the Fish-Dragon Guillotine, just to chop off this tiny bit.
A dragon!
There really were dragons in this world!
Although this piece of meat had been skinned and deboned, leaving only three or four scattered dragon scales on it, Qin Yue could still feel waves of terrifying pressure radiating from it.
Just stepping slightly closer made her feel dizzy, her brow throbbing.
For the flesh of such a top predator to still affect humans even after death!
It was more than enough to make one imagine how ferocious, powerful, and overbearing it must have been when it was alive.
Yet such a creature had actually been slain so effortlessly by that mysterious Commissioner?!
What level of cultivation must one possess to view an apex predator like a dragon as mere food?
An untrammeled True Immortal? A Daluo Golden Immortal capable of raising the dead and regrowing flesh on bones?
Qin Yue felt more and more that the Demon Suppression Division was unfathomably deep. When she glanced at the male secretary beside her, he was already drenched in sweat, his eyes filled with sheer terror as he stared at the meat.
If Nan Zhi hadn't been there, he would probably have collapsed to his knees on the floor in utter disgrace.
It was a fear written into human genes, originating from ancient times—a primal dread and submission toward colossal entities and mythical creatures.
“I'm sorry, I almost forgot there was someone else here.”
Nan Zhi casually picked up the dragon meat and gestured to Qin Yue:
“Do you have a storage bag? The spiritual energy in the outside world is thin. If you leave this dragon meat out for half a year or a year, it will lose all of its spiritual essence.
“I heard from Senior Sister that you practice the 《Small Twelve Bone Forging Method》 to temper your bones and blood and refine your physique. Dragon meat is the perfect choice for that.
“Consuming even a tiny shred of dragon meat is far more potent than a Bear-Snake Pill. Though this piece of dragon meat is small, it's enough to last you until the Qi Refinement Great Circle.”
That piece of meat had literally smashed a hole in the floor, yet she just casually picked it up like that?!
“I don't have a storage bag.”
Qin Yue hesitated for a moment, but still decided to tell the truth:
“Strictly speaking, I don't count as a member of the Demon Suppression Division yet. Master said that before I reach Foundation Establishment, I don't have the qualifications to formally disciple under her.”
Despite saying this, a wave of warmth still rose in Qin Yue's heart.
Dragon meat was not something easily obtained.
Yet Ma Guniang still remembered her.
“That's nothing. There are always exceptions to everything. Senior Sister cares about you, and she had me bring this dragon meat to encourage you to cultivate well, so you can join the Demon Suppression Division as soon as possible.”
Nan Zhi pulled a pouch-style storage bag from her waist and said with a grin:
“Since I'm your Little Aunt, let this be my greeting gift to you.
“I was originally worried that the Demon Suppression Monastery would be filled with nothing but demons and monsters, leaving me as the only modern person. But this is great! We're about the same age and have similar cultivation levels, so we can explore secret realms and train together in the future!”
“Thank you, Little Aunt.”
Qin Yue did not refuse. She accepted the storage bag and, following Nan Zhi's instructions, stored away the bloody piece of dragon meat.
Only when the food vanished did the Golden-Winged Flying Centipede pups stop their commotion, clinging tightly to Nan Zhi's calves:
“Ji! Ji! Ji!”
“Ji! Ji!”
Taking this opportunity, Qin Yue suggested changing rooms, and Nan Zhi readily agreed.
The moment the two of them left, people in white hazmat suits immediately sealed off the area, entering the room in orderly batches.
“Hurry, hurry! Collect the samples immediately!!”
“Not a single drop—no, not even half a drop can be wasted!”
“Lock down this entire floor of conference rooms! Lock it down! No one is allowed to leave until the sampling is finished! Report this, write up a report and submit it immediately! Hurry and have Zhang Yue transcribe the conversation from earlier!”
Fang Zijiang shouted at the top of his lungs, his eyes shining with such excitement that he looked ready to pounce forward.
A dragon!!
No joke, that was a real dragon!
It was the ultimate romance buried deep in the bones of every Huaxia person!
They might not get to eat dragon meat, but they could at least study the dragon blood, right?!
If they were any slower and word of the dragon blood got out, who knew how many drops the Special Investigation Bureau would actually get to keep?
Snooze and you lose!!
...
“By the way, Little Aunt, you mentioned earlier that there were two pieces of good news.”
Once they had moved to a different room, Qin Yue finally resumed their earlier conversation. “What is the other one?”
“Oh, that.”
Nan Zhi scratched her cheek and said frankly:
“Master told me to get more experience. It just so happens that a secret realm is about to open to the south, so I was thinking of going with you.
“After all, working together might yield a greater harvest. Besides gathering some rare spirit herbs, we might even encounter some secret realm demon beasts and stumble upon a fortune or two.”
Qin Yue instantly perked up. She turned around and had someone bring over a real-time map, pointing her finger at the section representing Huaxia:
“The south? Where exactly? Liangguang?”
Nan Zhi shook her head.
“Haibei City?”
Nan Zhi continued to shake her head.
“Taiwan? The South Sea?”
Now it was Qin Yue's turn to fall silent:
Little Aunt, any further south, and we'll be leaving the country.
Nan Zhi gave a bashful smile and pointed her finger at the capital of a certain Southeast Asian country: “The *hai Peninsula, the capital of Tailande, Manggu.”
Rate on N.U.
