Journey to the West: The Mountain Shaker

Chapter 35 Lucid Dream

The saying goes, "Once you enter the Void, all things cease." The Void is unidirectional; it is a place where not only the soul can enter but also information.

The spirits of the dead cannot directly transmit information from the Void to the mortal world; the only way is through the dream world—what the secular world calls "dream transmission."

The dream world is bizarre and unpredictable; even with a connection of hearts, finding a specific person's dream still requires a great deal of luck.

"Heart Fragrance" refers to the feeling of longing. Feelings cannot be forced. Li Zhu and Cai Fei are only partners, and the heart fragrance between them is not strong enough. Fortunately, there is the "Seed of Divine Consciousness" that Li Zhu buried in Cai Fei's destiny.

On Wujia Ridge, Cai Fei set up an isolation array, fell asleep peacefully, and soon drifted into a dream.

Li Zhu's consciousness had already been wandering in the dream. As soon as Cai Fei entered the dream, Li Zhu immediately sensed the arrival of the seed of consciousness.

The distance is a bit far, which will increase the energy expenditure.

Li Zhu sighed, rallied his spirits, and left the cave where he had been resting. A chaotic dream rushed towards him, but he dodged it with a flash of his consciousness, using the emotional gusts that arose from the dream to rise to the surface.

After identifying the direction of the seed of consciousness, a wisp of consciousness stretched out and grabbed a fragment of consciousness below, pulling it forcefully. The consciousness immediately shot forward like an arrow, quickly climbing towards the location of the seed of consciousness, and soon arrived above Cai Fei's dream.

Cai Fei was having a wet dream at the moment—at eighteen, it was an age when wet dreams were common.

"Is he in heat...?" Li Zhu shook his head. Taking advantage of the moment when the two were having a secret rendezvous in the mountains in the dream, he used a little magic to conjure a ferocious beast and throw it into Cai Fei's dream.

The ferocious beast entered the dream, interrupting the pleasant dream. In the dream, the woman grabbed her clothes and fled in a disheveled state, leaving Cai Fei to fight the ferocious beast alone.

After a series of inexplicable battles, Cai Fei killed the ferocious beast, happily carried it to the market to sell it off, and then plunged into the casino.

The opportunity is here.

Li Zhu, disguised as a gambler, slowly approached Cai Fei. Seeing him win several rounds in a row, he asked, "Young man, can you win tens of thousands?"

"Tens of thousands?" Cai Fei was lost in his dream, completely oblivious to Li Zhu's reminder. "This is all small-scale stuff, how could we possibly win that much?"

"As long as you listen to me, you can win not only tens of thousands, but even a million!" Li Zhu emphasized the words "a million".

"Hmm?" Cai Fei seemed to sense something and looked up at Li Zhu.

The noisy gamblers around them quickly disappeared, and the gambling equipment, gambling tables, and even the entire casino, as well as the surrounding market, all vanished quietly.

In the time it takes to breathe, only two lonely people remain in the world, surrounded by a vast expanse of white.

"Let's talk up on the mountain." As Cai Fei said this, Wujia Ridge suddenly appeared beneath their feet. Tall ginkgo trees spread out like giant umbrellas overhead, yellow leaves carpeted the ground, and yellow leaves danced lightly around them.

A table and two stools appeared out of thin air. At first, they were blurry, but then the patterns became clear. Several small dishes and a pot of rice wine even appeared on the table.

This is lucid dreaming—the dreamer is in a state between dreaming and waking, both in a dream and maintaining a clear consciousness.

Over the past decade or so, under Li Zhu's guidance, Cai Fei has undergone highly effective training. At this moment, in his dream, he is like a creator; apart from Li Zhu, whom he cannot yet control, the appearance or non-appearance of everything else is entirely at his whim.

"You're in good shape, and the dream-building has improved; I can smell a hint of rice wine. However, the wine flavor is insufficient; you still need to keep working on it." Li Zhu didn't stand on ceremony, sitting down and taking a large gulp of wine before asking the most important question first: "Have you filled out the application form?"

"Filled in, the series is Deficit East - Gui Chou Group - No. 1203."

"Alright." Li Zhu noted it down, then said, "The main reason I summoned you this time is to confirm your level of divination. If the Heavenly Court were to test you on the book 'Mathematical Questions,' could you pass?"

"How could I not understand something at the elementary school level?" Cai Fei said casually.

Although Li Zhu was slightly puzzled by the term "elementary school," he did not delve into it, only saying, "Then I am relieved. However, you must not be careless; this divination exam is likely to be extremely difficult."

Cai Fei asked in surprise, "Although divination techniques are widely used among the four arts of cultivation, most cultivators only need to master them at a basic level. Why increase the difficulty?"

"I'll know in time; there's no time to explain now." Li Zhu pointed to the sky above, where the sky had begun to change color, indicating that the dream was becoming unstable.

Cai Fei immediately asked the question that concerned him most: "If I need to borrow money, more than a million, I'll have to make a scene to have any chance of getting it. But the demon hunters are still around. If I make too much of a fuss, like with the poem I wrote before, will I be in danger?"

He briefly recounted how the exorcists captured Chen Xuanbiao, and then listened attentively to Li Zhu's instructions.

"Such blatant collusion with local forces, the Heavenly Court is becoming increasingly corrupt." Li Zhu shook his head and sighed, then asked a seemingly unrelated question, "What's the date today?"

April 23.

"Then there are at most ten days left," Li Zhu explained. "It's common for officials to cling to their posts and delay things after leaving office, but according to the rules of the Heavenly Court, the maximum delay is three months."

Three months at most?

No wonder that scarred cultivator set a seven-day deadline! Exorcists are to leave their posts on the second day of the second lunar month, and can only stay until the second day of the fifth lunar month at the latest. Chen Xuanbiao is probably their last chance to make a killing before they leave.

Cai Fei felt slightly relieved.

But then Li Zhu said, "Our case hasn't been closed yet. Just to be on the safe side, you'd better plant a spy among the exorcists..." He hesitated for a moment, "You mentioned before that there's a female cultivator in the academy who stayed on as a teacher? I think we should choose her. Exorcists have blood on their hands, and these kinds of clerical workers are more likely to be soft-hearted. If you have the chance, you can do this and that... and then you can act more boldly."

Placing a spy on the exorcist is another difficult task.

However, Li Zhu was right: the escape of the spirits is a major case concerning the foundation of the Three Realms. Although the attention of the Underworld has been diverted, the threat above will not be eliminated until this case is resolved.

Although Fang Yingyue became a teacher at the academy, her roots should still be in the inspection department. If you can plant a spy on her, your safety will be greatly improved.

Cai Fei took notes carefully and asked some questions related to immigration. Li Zhu answered them one by one until the dream was on the verge of collapse, at which point she kicked Cai Fei away.

Startled, Cai Fei sat up abruptly.

He woke up from a lucid dream, remembering everything perfectly. He lay back down on the bed and silently reviewed what Li Zhu had said. Half an hour later, he finally fell asleep again.

The next day, the Sushanfang management office hung up a sign saying "out of town"—according to several staff members, Chen Jinglong knelt down and begged at the management office before dawn, which persuaded Zhang Jingzhai to come out and go to Fangcun Mountain early in the morning.

The Chen family finally took this step.

"Don't ask me, I don't know." In Chen's shop, when questioned, the shopkeeper, Lao Xiu, had a dark face throughout.

Apart from this old man, there were no other members of the Chen family in the market, not even a single ordinary citizen of the Chen clan.

Someone went to Chenjia Village to inquire about the situation, but was turned away.

Someone encountered Chen Jinghu in the mountains and offered some words of comfort regarding Chen Xuanbiao's situation. Unexpectedly, Chen Jinghu suddenly flew into a rage and started beating the person without saying a word. The person was inexplicably beaten and returned to the market town for treatment with a bruised and swollen face.

For a time, Sushanfang was abuzz with discussion, everyone knowing that something bad was about to happen.

Cai Fei, however, slept until the sun was high in the sky that day.

Guests arrived at Wujialing, but no one disturbed Cai Fei. The three guests greeted the old mountain master, and then set up an illusion array above the Flame Grass Spirit Land to chat.

Chu Huihui was among them.

In her early sixties, she had taken over as the chief of the Chu family stronghold. Over the years, she had taken good care of Cai Fei, giving him spirit stones and paper kites. Occasionally, she would even send people to help guard the spiritual plants at Wujia Ridge. She was the only person in Cai Fei's father's and mother's clans who treated him as family.

The other two, surnamed Zhou and Xu respectively, were the old mountain lord's last remaining connections.

They came here together to see what kind of ability Cai Fei had that made him dare to ask for a million yuan!