On Anxi Street outside Taiping Medical Hall, Yun Yang and Jiao Tu, both in tight black outfits, squatted side by side in front of Meng Ji, resting their chins on their hands. “He looks a bit in pain… does he always do this when he creates a dream?”

Yun Yang shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe this time the reward I’m paying is higher, so he’s putting more effort into creating the dream?”

Opposite them, Meng Ji’s expression was fiercely twisted, and his body twitched in spasms, as if he were a shaman possessed by a god during a ritual.

Yun Yang always felt this scene seemed familiar. He frowned and said, “Why does Meng Ji look like he’s being stabbed by me? No wonder he charges so much every time he creates a dream. The cost is indeed very high.”

Jiao Tu quickly nodded, indicating complete agreement. “Mm-hmm, the money is well spent. He deserves it!”

In the dream realm, Meng Ji, transformed into Zhou Cheng Yi, was being repeatedly stabbed by the fictionalized Jiao Tu and Yun Yang conjured by Chen Ji. The scene changed every three seconds, and his entire body was almost covered in stab wounds.

Chen Ji stood at a distance, pondering. He already knew this was a dream realm, but how did this dream realm come into being?

Yun Yang!

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

Only this strange behavior could explain his current peculiar situation!

Thinking this, Chen Ji decided to leave the dream realm.

In an instant, the Zhou Fu courtyard in his eyes became transparent, and behind the transparent Zhou Fu was another layer of a blurry picture… the main hall of the Medical Hall.

Two pictures overlapped. Chen Ji wanted to return to reality, but he was like a fly stuck in a huge spider web, unable to break through this layer of the dream realm.

Meng Ji sneered, “Want to leave? Come and play in the endless hell!”

As he spoke, Zhou Fu suddenly collapsed into an abyss, the sky and earth changed color, and Yun Yang and Jiao Tu also turned into wisps of green smoke and dissipated. The original dream realm was just a small courtyard, but now it was extremely vast.

In a daze, Chen Ji couldn’t quite distinguish which layer was reality and which was the dream realm, and he fell into confusion again.

Meng Ji reverted to his original appearance. He stood in the abyss, shaking his double-collared coat, smoothing his messy hair with both hands, and whispered in a sharp voice, “I almost fell for this little apprentice of yours, it really made our house angry… I didn’t expect you to actually have the ‘official’ potential. I had to create a first-grade dream to make it work!”

As Meng Ji’s words sounded, Chen Ji felt as if he were splitting, unable to distinguish left from right, or up from down. The world seemed to be turned upside down.

Suddenly, the ground of the abyss collapsed, and Chen Ji’s body fell towards the darkness. When he opened his eyes again, he was in a pool of lava, surrounded by tens of thousands of people struggling in the magma, suffering from burning pain.

The next moment, the lava world also disappeared. Chen Ji fell downwards again, into a cold pool, being suffocated and squeezed by the cold.

He wanted to maintain his sanity, but every time he tried to maintain sanity, he would fall into another layer of the world.

Every time he fell into a new world, it would make him lose a part of his perception of the real world, and he could no longer see the blurry picture of the Medical Hall’s main hall.

Just at this moment, the fire from the four lamp furnaces melted and poured out like a nest, infusing his whole body. Chen Ji discovered that his hands could move!

The melted flow supported him from the cold pool world back to the lava world, and from the lava world back to the abyss world, finally returning to Zhou Fu!

Then it slowly stopped.

But, what was the use of only moving his hands? He was still a step away from leaving this dream realm…

No, it was useful!

Chen Ji stretched out his arm and groped for the counter. He felt the Medical Art General Outline and quickly flipped through the book.

A moment later.

“Chen Ji?” Liu Qu Xing’s voice appeared, tearing apart the dream realm and pulling Chen Ji back to reality instantly.

The dream ended!

Chen Ji stood behind the counter, panting slightly. He turned his head to look at Liu Qu Xing. “Senior Brother Liu, why are you here?”

Liu Qu Xing, wearing a jacket, stood beside the counter and looked at the messily flipped Medical Art General Outline in front of Chen Ji, heartbroken. “Your late-night book flipping sound is deafening. I couldn’t sleep well, ah… Junior Brother Chen, can you please not read books late at night? I’m afraid…”

Chen Ji laughed and said, “Okay, I won’t.”

Liu Qu Xing’s eyebrows lifted and his eyes smiled. “That’s good. Master always says that you need to sleep peacefully during Hai time to nourish yourself!”

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

This time, he was truly grateful to Liu Qu Xing. If it weren’t for the other person, he would probably still be trapped in the dream realm.

Liu Qu Xing pulled Chen Ji’s arm. “Get some rest. We senior and junior brothers share blessings and difficulties. When Master beats people, we’ll bear it together!”

On the other side, Meng Ji also woke up from his cross-legged posture, his pupils rolling.

He looked at Yun Yang and Jiao Tu, his body trembled once, and then he immediately cursed angrily, “Didn’t you say he was just an ordinary person? Next time you need me to create a dream for someone with official talent, you must make it clear beforehand. That’s a different price!”

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

Meng Ji said angrily, “Can it be fake? A C-grade dream could only trap him for an incense time before he woke up, and a B-grade dream only trapped him for half an hour.”

However, he also had some doubts in his heart: How did Chen Ji leave the dream realm in the end?

Yun Yang waved his hand. “Let’s not talk about this for now. Let me ask you, is Chen Ji a Jing Dynasty spy?”

Meng Ji said ill-humoredly, “Determined he is not.”

Saying that, he stood up and patted his butt. “Reward? Double it, and I only accept Buddhist treasures.”

Yun Yang thought for a moment, and finally took off a string of Buddhist beads from his wrist. Each black-purple Buddhist bead had strange patterns and densely packed numbers engraved on it.

He said with heartache, “Five hundred taels of silver, any temple can take it.”

Seeing the Buddhist treasures, Meng Ji finally patted the dust off his body with satisfaction. “Deal. Next time you have interrogation work, remember to find me again.”

Jiao Tu said, “With so much money, how many new clothes and jade bracelets could I buy? Bao Hou’s reward is probably lower than yours. Next time, let’s find him.”

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

Jiao Tu curled his lips. “We’re still colleagues. All you know is collecting money, collecting money, collecting money.”

Meng Ji said disdainfully, “Why don’t you go help me kill Wu Xiu for free?”

Jiao Tu gave him a sidelong glance. “I’m not going.”

Meng Ji put the string of Buddhist beads on his wrist, turned around and waved his hand. “I’m leaving. The matter in Kaifeng Fu is finished. I’ll set off for Jinling tomorrow.”

Looking at his retreating back, Yun Yang said in a low voice, “Chen Ji actually has the potential to become an official. That makes it even more impossible to let Lord Inner Minister know about his existence… otherwise, he might really ride on our necks.”

…

…

Deep into the night, Chen Ji lay on his bunk, unable to sleep. His mind was filled with the events he had recently encountered.

Suddenly, there was a rustling sound from the next bunk. He slightly opened his eyes and saw Liu Qu Xing wearing a jacket, holding a book under his arm, tiptoeing out of bed and leaving.

In his doubt, Chen Ji looked through the crack in the door and saw Liu Qu Xing sneaking into the kitchen. Immediately, a lamp oil residue lamp was lit in the kitchen…

You motherfucker…

Chen Ji also sat up. He first lifted the quilt to check the five small silver ingots hidden in the gap in the wooden board, and then took out a book from under the quilt: Near Thoughts Record.

This was the book Wu Yun had helped him retrieve from Liu Shi Yu’s residence.

At that time, everyone’s attention was drawn by Chen Ji to the Four Books Chapter Sentence Notes, and they simply didn’t have time to look at the strangeness of other books.

But Chen Ji only looked at the book for two eyes before determining that it contained a secret code technique: Anti-Cut Method.

The so-called Anti-Cut Method is to combine the initial sound of the upper word and the rhyme of the lower word to form a new word. For example, the initial sounds and rhymes of the eight words Shi Zhang, Xiao Da, Zong Luo, Yi Jiu correspond to the four sounds of Upper, Down, Left, and Right, respectively.

Chen Ji borrowed the dim light outside the window, sat on the bunk, and flipped through the Near Thoughts Record word by word, sentence by sentence, arranging every combination that could form a new word one by one.

After flipping for a while, his heart suddenly pieced those words together: “Jing Dynasty does not believe that I represent Wang Fu in passing the message, and needs to confirm it with you personally.”

Chen Ji’s pupils slightly shrank. The information in this book was even more explosive than the Four Books Chapter Sentence Notes, and it actually directly involved Jing Wang Fu.

Zhou Cheng Yi was a Jing Dynasty spy, and he represented Jing Dynasty in passing messages to Liu Shi Yu.

And this book in Liu Shi Yu’s home was meant to be sent to a certain important figure in Wang Fu. Liu Shi Yu was just the intelligence hub between Jing Dynasty and a certain important figure in Jing Wang Fu!

Originally, when Yun Yang told Chen Ji to implicate Jing Wang Fu, Chen Ji thought the other party was trying to frame him, but he didn’t expect Yun Yang’s words to become a prophecy, and that Jing Wang Fu and Jing Dynasty were truly connected!

Chen Ji’s eyes were bright. Neither the Ning Dynasty nor the Jing Dynasty felt like home to him, so whatever happened was not important. What was important was that he himself could seize the first opportunity.

He continued to decipher the latter half of the book until the sky was almost light, and finally got the information: The spy inside Wang Fu will find an opportunity to meet with you.

Chen Ji was astonished.

There was a Military Affairs Division spy inside Wang Fu, who could it be?!

Wait, could the spy inside Wang Fu be someone from Taiping Medical Hall?

Earlier, Master used the six yao technique to divine, and the divination image said that going out for a visit was a great ominous sign, but Master left with the Liu family early that morning…

From this point of view, Master and the Liu family seemed to have a connection. Could it be that Master didn’t go to diagnose illness, but to exchange intelligence?

Could Master be a Jing Dynasty spy?!

Wait again, Liu Qu Xing doesn’t wash his dirty clothes and insists on bringing them back to his mother. It’s also possible that intelligence is hidden in the clothes…

Chen Ji was made to laugh and cry by his own deductions. These days, his nerves had been too tense, and now everyone looked like a spy.

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

At this time, Liu Qu Xing, holding a book in his hand, also poked his head out from the kitchen, quietly sizing up the apprentice’s bedroom to see if anyone had discovered him secretly studying…

Their eyes met.

Liu Qu Xing: “…”

Chen Ji: “…”

The two of them silently retracted their bodies. Only She Deng Ke was lying on the bed, snoring and sleeping, carefree.