Chapter 25: Decoding

On Anxi Street outside Taiping Medical Hall, Yun Yang and Jiao Tu, dressed in black, squatted side by side in front of Meng Ji, propping their chins. “He looks like he’s in pain... does he always create dreams like this?”

Yun Yang shook his head. “I don’t know, maybe this time I paid more, so he put more effort into creating the dream?”

Opposite them, Meng Ji’s expression was ferociously distorted, and his body twitched in waves, as if possessed by a shaman performing a ritual.

Yun Yang always felt this scene seemed familiar. He frowned and said, “Why does Meng Ji look like I stabbed him? 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 mm, the money is well worth it, he deserves to earn it!”

In the dream realm, Meng Ji, in the guise of Zhou Cheng Yi, was being jabbed by Chen Ji's fictionalized Jiao Tu and Yun Yang. They changed positions every three seconds, almost stabbing him all over his body.

Chen Ji stood in the distance, pondering. He already knew this was a dream realm, but how was this dream realm produced?

Yun Yang!

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

Only this strange behavior could explain his current strange situation!

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

In an instant, the Zhou Fu courtyard in front of his eyes became transparent, and behind the transparent Zhou Fu appeared another layer of fuzzy imagery... the Medical Hall’s main hall.

The two images overlapped. Chen Ji wanted to return to reality, but it was as if he was stuck in a huge spider web, always unable to break through this layer of the dream realm.

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

As he spoke, the Zhou Fu courtyard 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 only 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 back into confusion.

Meng Ji returned to his own appearance. He stood in the abyss, shaking his double-collared robe, smoothing his slightly messy hair with both hands, and whispered in a sharp voice, “Almost fell for this little apprentice of yours, truly makes our family angry... didn’t expect you to actually have the potential of an ‘official,’ forcing me to create a first-grade dream to make it work!”

As Meng Ji’s words sounded, Chen Ji felt as if he was splitting, unable to distinguish left from right, or up from down, as if the world had been turned upside down.

Suddenly, the ground of the abyss collapsed, and Chen Ji’s body fell towards the darkness. When he reopened his eyes, he was already in lava, with tens of thousands of people densely packed together in the lava, struggling and enduring burning pain.

The next moment, the lava world also disappeared, and Chen Ji fell further, into a cold pool, squeezed by suffocation and cold.

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

Each time he fell into a new world, it made him lose a part of his perception of the real world, and he could no longer see the fuzzy image of the Medical Hall’s main hall.

Just then, the molten flow from the four lamp furnaces poured out of its nest and into his whole body. Chen Ji discovered that he could move his hands!

The molten flow supported him from the cold pool world back to the lava world, then from the lava world back to the abyss world, and finally back to the Zhou Fu courtyard!

Then it slowly stopped.

But what was the use of just moving his hands? To leave this dream realm, he was still a step away...

No, it was useful!

Chen Ji stretched out his arm and fumbled on the counter. He felt the Medical Art General Outline and flipped through the book with a rustling sound.

A moment later.

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

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 Medical Art General Outline that Chen Ji had flipped through and messed up. His heart ached. “Your midnight book flipping sound was deafening, I couldn’t sleep. Ah... Junior Brother Chen, please don’t read books at midnight again, okay? I’m afraid...”

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

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

Chen Ji said sincerely, “Thank you for reminding me, Senior Brother.”

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

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

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

He looked at Yun Yang and Jiao Tu, his body trembling suddenly, then he immediately scolded 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 in advance, that’s a different price!”

Yun Yang and Jiao Tu looked at each other, and said doubtfully, “We didn’t know either, does he have official talent?”

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

Only he was also a little doubtful: How did Chen Ji leave the dream realm in the end?

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

Meng Ji said in a bad mood, “Determined he is not.”

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

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

He said with heartache, “Five hundred taels of silver, all temples can accept it.”

Meng Ji saw the Buddhist sect’s general treasure, and only then did he pat the dust off his body with satisfaction. “Deal, remember to find me next time you have interrogation work.”

Jiao Tu said, “So much money, how many new clothes and jade bracelets can you buy? Bao Monkey’s payment might be lower than yours, we’ll find him next time.”

Meng Ji stroked his hair and said slowly and methodically, “Then you can find him, he’s a big mouth and can’t keep secrets.”

Jiao Tu curled his lip. “We’re still colleagues, you just know how to collect money, collect money, collect money all day.”

Meng Ji said disdainfully, “Go help me kill Wu Xiu for free then.”

Jiao Tu rolled his eyes at him. “I won’t go.”

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

Looking at his retreating back, Yun Yang said in a low voice, “Chen Ji actually has official talent, that’s even more reason not to let the Inner Minister know of his existence... otherwise, he might really ride on our backs.”

......

......

Deep in the night, Chen Ji lay on the communal bed, unable to sleep, his mind filled with everything that had happened recently.

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

Chen Ji, in doubt, looked through the crack in the door and saw Liu Qu Xing sneak into the kitchen, then immediately light up an oil lamp in the kitchen...

You motherfucker...

Chen Ji also sat up, first lifting the quilt to check the five small silver ingots hidden in the gap in the wooden board, then taking 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 to the Four Books Chapter Sentence Notes by Chen Ji, and they simply didn’t have time to examine the strangeness of other books.

But Chen Ji only flipped through it twice and determined that this book contained a secret letter technique: Reverse Cutting Method.

The so-called Reverse Cutting Method is to recompose a new word using the initial sound of the upper word and the rhyme of the lower word. For example, the initial sounds and rhymes of the eight words Shi Zhang, Xiao Da, Zong Luo, and Yi Jiu correspond to the four directions: up, down, left, and right respectively.

Chen Ji borrowed the faint light from outside the window, sat on the communal bed, 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 through for a short while, his heart suddenly pieced those words together: “Jing Dynasty does not believe that I pass on words on behalf of Wang Fu, it needs you to personally confirm.”

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

Zhou Cheng Yi was a Jing Dynasty spy, and he was passing a message from the Jing Dynasty to Liu Shi Yu.

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

When Yun Yang had told Chen Ji to frame the Jing Wang Fu earlier, Chen Ji had thought he was trying to frame him, but he didn’t expect Yun Yang’s words to become a prophecy, the Jing Wang Fu and the Jing Dynasty were truly connected!

Chen Ji’s eyes brightened. The Ning Dynasty and the Jing Dynasty held no sense of belonging for him, so no matter what happened, it wasn’t 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 bright, and finally got the information: The spy in the Wang Fu will find an opportunity to meet with you.

Chen Ji was astonished.

Who was the Military Affairs Department spy in the Wang Fu?!

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

Earlier, Master had used the Six Yao technique to divine, and the divine image said that going out for a visit was a big ominous sign, yet Master left with the Liu family people early that morning...

From this point of view, Master and the Liu family seemed to have a friendship, 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 not washing his dirty clothes and insisting on bringing them back to his mother, it was also possible that he was hiding intelligence in his clothes...

Chen Ji was made to laugh and cry by his own inferences. He had been so on edge these past few days that everyone looked like a spy.

Thinking of this, he half-leaned out of the communal bed, quietly pulled open the crack in the door, and looked towards the kitchen opposite.

At this moment, Liu Qu Xing, holding a book, also leaned out of the kitchen, quietly sizing up the apprentice bedroom, looking to see if anyone had discovered him secretly studying...

Their eyes met.

Liu Qu Xing: “......”

Chen Ji: “......”

The two silently withdrew their bodies, only She Deng Ke lay on the bed snoring, without a care in the world.