On Anxi Street, outside Taiping Medical Hall, Yun Yang and Jiao Tu, both dressed in black, squatted side-by-side in front of Meng Ji, propping their chins on their hands. “He looks like he’s in pain… Is it always like this when he creates a dream?”

Yun Yang shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe because I paid him more this time, he’s putting more effort into the dream?”

Across from them, Meng Ji’s face was contorted in a grotesque grimace, and his body twitched sporadically, as if a shaman had been possessed by a spirit.

Yun Yang felt a sense of déjà vu. He frowned, “Why does Meng Ji look like I’m giving him acupuncture? No wonder he charges so much for each dream; the cost must be immense.”

Jiao Tu nodded quickly, showing complete agreement. “Mhm, the money is well worth it. He deserves it!”

Inside the dream, Meng Ji, who had transformed into Zhou Chengyi, was being subjected to acupuncture by the fictional Jiao Tu and Yun Yang created by Chen Ji. They moved to a new spot every three seconds, having nearly covered his entire body.

Chen Ji stood far away, deep in thought. He knew this was a dream, but how had it been created?

Yun Yang!

He remembered that outside Liu Shiyu’s house earlier, Yun Yang had inexplicably cut off a lock of his hair!

Only that bizarre action could explain his current strange predicament!

Realizing this, Chen Ji decided to break free from the dream.

In an instant, the courtyard of the Zhou residence before his eyes became transparent. Behind the transparent Zhou residence, another blurred image appeared: the main hall of the medical clinic.

The two scenes overlapped. Chen Ji wanted to return to reality, but it was as if he were stuck in a giant spiderweb, unable to break through this layer of the dream.

Meng Ji sneered, “Trying to leave? Come play in the Avici Hell!”

As his voice faded, the Zhou residence suddenly collapsed into an abyss. The world changed colors, and Yun Yang and Jiao Tu dissipated into wisps of smoke. The original dream, a small courtyard, now stretched boundlessly.

In a daze, Chen Ji found himself unable to distinguish between reality and dream, falling into confusion once more.

Meng Ji reverted to his true form. Standing in the abyss, he shook out the lapels of his robe, smoothed his disheveled hair with both hands, and spoke in a high-pitched, delicate voice, “I nearly stumbled because of a mere apprentice like you; it truly angered me… I never expected you to have the potential to become an ‘official,’ forcing me to create an A-grade dream!”

With Meng Ji’s words, Chen Ji felt as if he were splitting apart, unable to distinguish left from right, or up from down, as if the world had turned upside down.

Suddenly, the ground of the abyss collapsed, and Chen Ji’s body plunged into darkness. When he opened his eyes again, he was in a sea of molten lava, surrounded by tens of thousands of people struggling in the magma, all suffering from the searing heat.

The next moment, the lava world vanished, and Chen Ji fell further, plummeting into a cold pool, constricted by suffocation and intense cold.

He tried to maintain his sanity, but each time he attempted to do so, he would fall into another layer of the world.

Each descent into a new world caused him to lose a bit more awareness of the real world, and he could no longer see the blurred image of the medical hall’s main room.

Just then, molten streams surged from the four furnaces, flowing into his entire body. Chen Ji discovered that he could move his hands!

The molten streams lifted him from the cold pool world back to the lava world, then from the lava world back to the abyss, and finally, back to the Zhou residence!

Then, they slowly stopped.

But what good was it to only be able to move his hands? He was still one step away from escaping the dream…

No, it was useful!

Chen Ji reached out his arm and fumbled across the counter. He found “The Compendium of Medical Arts” and flipped through its pages, creating a rustling sound.

A moment later.

“Chen Ji?” Liu Quxing’s voice appeared, tearing through the dream and instantly pulling Chen Ji back to reality.

The dream was over!

Chen Ji stood behind the counter, breathing slightly. He turned to Liu Quxing. “Senior Brother Liu, why are you here?”

Liu Quxing, wearing a padded jacket, stood beside the counter, looking at the disarranged “Compendium of Medical Arts” in front of Chen Ji with great distress. “The sound of you flipping through books in the middle of the night is deafening. It’s hard for me to sleep… Junior Brother Chen, could you please stop reading late at night? I’m scared…”

Chen Ji smiled. “Alright, I won’t read anymore.”

Liu Quxing beamed. “That’s better! Master always says that you need to sleep soundly by Hai Shi (9-11 PM) to nourish your body!”

Chen Ji sincerely said, “Thank you for the reminder, Senior Brother.”

This time, he was truly grateful to Liu Quxing. If not for him, Chen Ji might still be trapped in the dream.

Liu Quxing pulled Chen Ji’s arm. “Get some rest early. We, fellow disciples, share both good fortune and hardship. When Master punishes us, we’ll face it together!”

Meanwhile, Meng Ji also awoke from his cross-legged posture, his pupils rolling back.

He looked at Yun Yang and Jiao Tu, his body suddenly trembling. Then he angrily retorted, “Didn’t you say he was just an ordinary person? Next time you need me to create a dream for someone with the talent of an ‘official,’ you must specify it beforehand! That’s a different price!”

Yun Yang and Jiao Tu exchanged glances, puzzled. “We didn’t know either. Does he have the talent to become an official?”

Meng Ji fumed, “How could it be false? A C-grade dream only held him for the time it takes an incense stick to burn, and a B-grade dream could only hold him for half an hour.”

However, a question lingered in his mind: How did Chen Ji finally escape the dream?

Yun Yang waved his hand. “Let’s set that aside for now. I want to ask you, is Chen Ji a Jing Dynasty spy?”

Meng Ji huffed, “I’m certain he’s not.”

With that, he stood up and patted his backside. “What about my payment? Double the price, and I’ll only accept Buddhist currency.”

Yun Yang thought for a moment, then finally took a string of prayer beads from his wrist. Each black-purple bead was engraved with strange patterns and dense numbers.

He said reluctantly, “Five hundred taels of silver, retrievable at any temple.”

Seeing the Buddhist currency, Meng Ji finally patted the dust from his clothes with satisfaction. “Deal. Remember to find me next time you have an interrogation job.”

Jiao Tu said, “With so much money, we could buy so many new clothes and jade bracelets. Bao Hou’s fee is much lower than yours; we’ll find him next time.”

Meng Ji smoothed his hair, and slowly said, “Then go find him. He’s a bigmouth; he can’t keep a secret.”

Jiao Tu pouted. “We’re still colleagues, and all you ever do is talk about money, money, money.”

Meng Ji scoffed, “Why don’t you go kill Wu Xiu for me for free, then?”

Jiao Tu rolled her eyes at him. “I’m not going.”

Meng Ji put the string of prayer beads on his wrist, turned, and waved. “I’m off. My work in Kaifeng Prefecture is done, and I’m heading to Jinling tomorrow.”

Watching him leave, Yun Yang whispered, “Chen Ji actually has the potential to become an official. We absolutely cannot let Lord Internal Minister know of his existence… otherwise, he might truly walk all over us.”

Late into the night, Chen Ji lay on the communal bed, unable to sleep, his mind churning with every recent encounter.

Suddenly, a rustling sound came from the neighboring bunk. He slightly opened his eyes and saw Liu Quxing, wrapped in a padded jacket, with a book tucked under his armpit, tiptoeing out of bed and leaving the room.

Puzzled, Chen Ji peeked through the crack in the door and saw Liu Quxing slip into the kitchen, where he then lit a grease lamp…

You son of a…

Chen Ji also sat up. First, he lifted his mattress to check the five small silver ingots hidden in the wooden floorboards, then he pulled out a book from under the mattress: “Reflections on Things at Hand.”

This was the book Wu Yun had retrieved for him from Liu Shiyu’s residence.

At the time, everyone’s attention had been drawn to “Commentaries on the Four Books,” so there was no time to check other books for anything unusual.

But Chen Ji only glanced at it twice before confirming that the book contained a secret communication technique: the fanqie method.

The fanqie method involves combining the initial consonant of one character with the final rhyme of another to form a new character. For example, the initials and finals of the eight characters Shi Zhang, Xiao Da, Zong Luo, and Yi Jiu correspond respectively to the four sounds: shang (up), xia (down), zuo (left), and you (right).

Using the faint light from the window, Chen Ji sat on the communal bed, meticulously reading “Reflections on Things at Hand” character by character, arranging every combination that could form a new word.

After reading about half of it, the individual characters suddenly pieced together in his mind: “The Jing Dynasty does not believe my message on behalf of the Prince’s Residence; they require your personal confirmation.”

Chen Ji’s pupils constricted. The information this book sought to convey was even more explosive than “Commentaries on the Four Books,” directly implicating the Prince of Jing’s Residence.

Zhou Chengyi was a Jing Dynasty spy, relaying messages from the Jing Dynasty to Liu Shiyu.

And this book from Liu Shiyu’s home was intended for an important figure in the Prince’s Residence. Liu Shiyu was the intelligence hub between the Jing Dynasty and that key person in the Prince of Jing’s Residence!

Originally, when Yun Yang suggested Chen Ji implicate the Prince of Jing’s Residence, Chen Ji thought it was a setup to frame them. He never expected Yun Yang’s words to come true—there truly was a connection between the Prince of Jing’s Residence and the Jing Dynasty!

Chen Ji’s eyes shone brightly. Neither the Ning Dynasty nor the Jing Dynasty held any sense of belonging for him, so whatever happened was irrelevant. What mattered was for him to seize the initiative.

He continued to decipher the latter half of the book until dawn, finally obtaining the remaining information: “The spy within the Prince’s Residence will seek an opportunity to meet with you.”

Chen Ji was stunned.

There was a Military Intelligence Bureau spy inside the Prince’s Residence? Who could it be?!

Wait, could that spy inside the Prince’s Residence be someone from Taiping Medical Hall?

Earlier, Master had used hexagram divination, and the reading indicated that a house call would be a terrible omen. Yet, Master left with the Liu family that very morning…

This suggested Master had some connection with the Liu family. Was Master not going to treat an illness, but to exchange intelligence?

Could Master be the Jing Dynasty spy?!

And wait again, Liu Quxing’s behavior of saving dirty clothes instead of washing them, insisting on taking them back to his mother, might also be a way of hiding intelligence in the clothes…

Chen Ji was torn between laughter and tears by his own deductions. His nerves had been stretched too taut these past few days, making everyone seem like a spy.

Thinking this, he leaned half his body out of the communal bed and quietly pulled open the door crack to look at the kitchen opposite.

At that moment, Liu Quxing, holding a book, also peeked out from the kitchen, quietly observing the apprentices’ dormitory to see if anyone had noticed him secretly studying…

Their eyes met.

Liu Quxing: “…”

Chen Ji: “…”

Both silently retreated, leaving only She Dengke snoring loudly on his bed, free of worries.