The anisotropic environment of the thermotropic nematic liquid crystal (LC), 4-cyano-4 '-pentylbiphenyl (5CB), is probed by using Xe-129 NMR spectroscopy. The temperature versus Xe-129 nuclear shielding of the xenon gas dissolved in 5CB LC has clearly shown the nematic-isotropic phase transition. The observed linear and non-linear behavior of Xe-129 chemical shifts in the isotropic and nematic phases, respectively, are explained by using the pair-wise additive model. Furthermore, the parameters such as Xe-129 shielding constant (sigma(0)), the anisotropy of the shielding tensor (sigma(0)), the temperature dependence of the isotropic shielding (epsilon), and the shielding anisotropy (chi), are derived.