Volume Four: "An immortal dream carried me to Luofu" - Misty mountains, emerald emptiness-who would pledge to roam the world with me?

Now, when the rare young beast, forced to reveal her form beneath Xing Yan's Spirit Talisman, saw him reach toward her, her pale golden eyes showed a marked unease.

Somehow, Xing Yan seemed to sense the little creature's nervousness too. He chuckled and said:

"You naughty little girl. You're so adorable-how could you try to fool me by saying your true form was ugly?"

When Xing Yan finished speaking, the strange beast lying immobilized on the ground seemed to understand him, and a trace of bashfulness appeared in her eyes.

"Ha! Little sister, you really are adorable."

With that, Xing Yan recited an incantation and reached to peel away the talisman fixed firmly between the two horns on her head. Before removing it, however, he noticed that the pale red ram's horns of this young beast, whose snowy coat shimmered with light, were still incompletely grown, like a fawn's velvet antlers. Like two slender tubes of jade, they looked especially translucent and lovely in the sunlight.

Fondness welled up in him, and Xing Yan could not resist gently stroking one of her horns twice.

-The instant the boy stroked her velvet horns, the strange beast shuddered violently from head to foot. Shock and shame surged into her golden eyes, which immediately brimmed with tears.

"Huh? I'm sorry!"

He had never expected such a trifling gesture to terrify the former "little girl" so badly. Xing Yan hastily stopped and went straight to removing the talisman-and the Dao Talisman, which had seemed welded in place with molten iron, utterly immovable, now lifted beneath the young Daoist's fingers as lightly as a goose feather!

"Careful, Brother!"

It was Chen Ziping, standing nearby, who shouted sharply. This Shangqing disciple traveling with the boy feared that the monstrous beast might suddenly spring up and attack.