Chapter 27 Inner Prison
Los Angeles is full of vitality in the early morning, with people bustling about.

Ox carts went to the East Market, and were often jammed in the small roads. The drivers chewed the bread in their mouths while cursing and shouting at people to make way.

Laughter, cursing, and hawking were heard everywhere.

You can't seem to see its decline over the past few hundred years, the city seems to still be in its most glorious moment.

Inside the Taiping Clinic, Chen Ji stood behind the counter with his sleeves rolled up, smiling as he carried a copper scale to dispense medicine for patients. His smile was pure and innocent, and no one would ever associate him with something like "catching a spy."

On the other side, Old Man Yao was taking an academic test.

She Dengke sat upright behind the counter, feeling the patient's pulse with his eyes closed. Old Man Yao stood by with a bamboo stick in his hand and asked in a deep voice, "Tell me quickly, what is this pulse?"

She Dengke placed three fingers on the patient's wrist and asked tentatively, "Hong pulse?"

With a snap, the bamboo stick hit She Dengke's back, scaring the middle-aged male patient sitting opposite the counter.

Old man Yao raised his hand to signal the patient to calm down, and continued to ask She Dengke: "What's the pulse?"

She Dengke bared his teeth and said, "Solid pulse!"

Snap! Another one!
She Dengke hurriedly said: "Shen pulse!"

Snap! Another one!
The patient quickly stood up and grabbed old man Yao: "Don't hit the child, Doctor Yao, please calm down first. I can have a deep pulse, so let it be a deep pulse!"

Old man Yao slowly turned his head to look at the patient, and for a long time he was speechless: "...If this pulse is positive, will you accept it?!"

After saying that, he turned his head and glanced at Chen Ji and Liu Quxing, thinking about who to beat next. As his eyes swept past them, they suddenly stopped outside the door.

At this time, a little black cat was dodging left and right in the crowd outside the clinic. It carefully raised its head to observe the human footsteps and then avoided them.

Arriving at the door of the clinic, Wuyun leaned on the door sill and looked inside furtively, but happened to meet the gaze of Old Man Yao.

Old man Yao looked at it expressionlessly. Chen Ji's heart tightened. His master didn't seem like someone who liked small animals. He must not drive the dark cloud away.

However, when Wuyun met Old Man Yao's gaze, he simply shrank his neck, then he mustered up the courage to climb over the threshold and approached little by little.

But Wuyun jumped onto the counter, came in front of Old Man Yao, and lay directly on his hands!

Old man Yao was stunned for a long time, and his originally serious expression slowly changed, and he actually smiled. She Dengke and his three fellow disciples were all stunned. It was the first time for them to see their master being so friendly!

It turns out this old man can laugh!

Old Man Yao realized something was wrong and immediately became serious. He said indifferently, "This little thing is quite likable."

Liu Quxing came over and tried to touch the dark cloud, but Old Man Yao immediately pushed his hand away: "Get lost!"

Liu Quxing: “…”

The next moment, Wuyun's head nodded in Old Man Yao's hand. Old Man Yao was silent for a moment, then turned to She Dengke and said, "Go and get the purple wooden box in my room."

Old Man Yao gently tapped Wuyun's head with his other hand and said nonchalantly, "Your name is Wuyun, right?"

Chen Ji's pupils suddenly contracted and his heart became tense as if someone was pinching it.

Only he and Wuyun knew that he had given Wuyun a name, so how did Old Man Yao know about it? Did he already know everything?
At this moment, Chen Ji recalled the time when Old Man Yao went to Zhou's house to pick him up, when the Buddha and Bodhisattva pulled him back to the clinic during their tour, and when he went to Wanxing Garden for a medical consultation. Each and every one of them seemed to have a deep meaning hidden in it.

Chen Ji was thinking, but he saw Old Man Yao glanced at him silently, and this glance seemed to see through him.

Old Man Yao only glanced at him, then turned his gaze back to Wuyun. She Dengke came over and asked, "Master, this is the cat from Wanxing Garden, right? I remember you haven't been to the palace for a long time, how do you know it's called Wuyun?"

Old Man Yao glanced at him and said, "I figured it out through fortune-telling, isn't that okay?"

Liu Quxing, who was standing by, was stunned for a moment: "You can calculate this? Then can you calculate what my childhood nickname was?"

Old man Yao took out six copper coins from his sleeves and scattered them on the counter with a calm face. Then he said to Liu Quxing expressionlessly: "Your nickname is Retarded."

Chen Ji: "..."

Liu Quxing: “…”

She Dengke brought the purple wooden box over and opened the drawer, revealing pieces of exquisite snacks.

Liu Quxing exclaimed: "Zhengxinzhai's dim sum!"

Old Man Yao held a piece of dessert in his palm and placed it in front of Wuyun: "Eat it."

After showing off a few bites, Wuyun set his eyes on the box again.

Old man Yao was not stingy and took out another piece and said, "It's a good thing to have snacks. Stupid cat slaves only know how to eat meat, and only smart cat slaves know the benefits of snacks."

After eating two pieces of snacks, Wuyun ran to Chen Ji and lay down in front of him without looking back, showing no reluctance to leave.

Seeing this, Old Man Yao simply slapped the snack crumbs in his hand into his mouth without getting angry.

He looked at Chen Ji and said casually, "It likes you very much."

After saying that, he continued to test She Dengke's academic performance.

Seeing that everyone's attention had turned away, Chen Ji asked in a low voice, "Why are you here during the day?"

Wuyun responded, "I don't know where Concubine Jing went after leaving Prince Jing's Mansion. No one is in charge of Star Garden now, and the maids are all slacking off, so I came out to play with you!"

Chen Ji smiled and said, "Then you stay in the clinic. I will weigh the medicine for the patient first."

As they were talking, a middle-aged man in elegant clothes came to the door, holding a prescription in his hand: "Doctor Yao, I'm here to get the medicine, but I was in a hurry to go out this morning and forgot to bring enough money. Can you let me get the medicine and take it back to treat my mother first, and you can send a young apprentice to accompany me home to get the money. I won't let the apprentice work in vain, I'll give him 20 cents as a fee." Old man Yao took a look at the prescription: "These medicines are not cheap, are you sure you have money at home?"

The middle-aged man nodded: "Sure!"

Liu Quxing hurriedly said: "Master, I'll go!"

Old man Yao smiled grimly: "You don't want me to test your academic performance, right? Chen Ji, you go!"

Liu Quxing's face suddenly turned pale and he watched Chen Ji leave with someone else!

When they arrived at the door, the middle-aged man led Chen Ji into a carriage.

After lowering the curtain, the middle-aged man slowly tore off the beard and wrinkles on his face, revealing Yun Yang's original appearance: "You sent someone to tell me that you want to go to the inner prison?"

"That's right," Chen Ji nodded, "I think Liu Shiyu's case is not simple. It doesn't seem like Liu Shiyu's personal behavior. There must be a big fish behind it."

"Hey, you actually took the initiative to help me make merit? Are you short of money?" Yun Yang was suspicious: "You just earned fifty taels of silver. Even if you go to Red Clothes Lane, you can't spend it all in a month. Did you go to White Clothes Lane? Listen to my advice, those skinny horses in Yangzhou have been trained to play chess, calligraphy and painting since childhood, and they are charming when they walk, lie down, sit or stand. They are not something that a junior apprentice like you can afford."

Chen Ji smiled and said, "Lord Yunyang, aren't you happy that I want to help you make achievements? If one day you take a high position, maybe you can help me get a position in the Secret Service."

Yun Yang did not comment: "Do you think the remaining Liu family members also have problems?"

“You’ll know it only if you see it.”

Yun Yang stopped talking nonsense and took out a black blindfold: "Close your eyes. The location of the inner prison is confidential. You can't know it. You have to plug your ears too."

He closed his eyes and plugged his ears. The world of Chen Ji became quiet. The bustle of Los Angeles seemed to have nothing to do with him anymore.

Yunyang lifted the curtain and went out to drive the carriage. The carriage was moving slowly on the bluestone road. No one noticed that a small black cat had been squatting on the roof of the carriage, swaying with the carriage as it drove towards the south.

Old man Yao stopped testing and stood at the door of the clinic with his hands behind his back, watching the carriage leave, wondering what he was thinking.

……

……

"arrive!"

Yun Yang took the cotton out of Chen Ji's ears and pulled his arm out of the car. He saw Chen Ji take out a piece of gray cloth from his arms and cover his mouth and nose, and said with a curled lip: "You are quite cautious."

Chen Ji smiled and said, "This Luocheng Prison must have been infiltrated by the Liu family. Otherwise, how could they know about Liu Shiyu's death so quickly? Coming to a place like this to investigate the Liu family's case, one must be cautious. Speaking of which... the Secret Service Prison has been infiltrated like this, wouldn't Lord Yunyang be angry?"

Yun Yang sneered: "All the jailers in Luocheng were exiled to Lingnan last night, and now the people here are all transferred from other places."

Chen Ji was blindfolded, stumbling along as Yun Yang pulled him. He could hear that there was silence and no one around, with nothing unusual except the sound of birds chirping.

Arriving at an iron gate, Yun Yang knocked three times quickly and twice slowly, and the iron gate slowly opened inward.

When the heavy and rotten door opened, there was a harsh sound of rotten iron rubbing against each other, which made one's teeth ache.

Inside the door, a young spy was waiting.

After entering the inner prison, Yun Yang said, "You can take off the blindfold now."

Chen Ji opened his eyes, slightly blocked the light in front of him with his right hand, and looked around with squinted eyes.

But I saw a narrow staircase slanting downwards, extending deep into the ground.

On the wall beside the stairs, there was an oil residue lamp hung every fifteen steps, like a ghost lamp to summon souls and guide the way.

The strange thing is that under each oil residue lamp, there is a Bagua pattern engraved on the lamp holder. Chen Ji asked curiously: "What are these Bagua patterns?"

Yun Yang recalled: "It is said that seven years ago, the internal minister found an 'official' who was proficient in Qimen Dunjia and drew it in every inner prison. It is said that... a lamp is a prison. As long as the Bagua diagram is there, the lamp will not go out and the people will not die."

Chen Ji frowned: "What do you mean?"

Yun Yang shrugged: "How would I know?"

The young spy led Yun Yang and Chen Ji underground. When they reached the flat ground, they saw a stone corridor leading to the darkness in the distance. On both sides of the corridor were dark cages "embedded" in the stone walls.

When the two figures appeared, someone immediately clung to the iron railing and cried, "Sir, I am innocent. I have absolutely no connection with the Jing Dynasty spies. My mother is over 60 years old and I have two children to feed. Please let me go back!"

There were endless cries of injustice, but Yun Yang seemed not to hear them: "Let's go, the files are inside."

However, as soon as Chen Ji took a step behind him, he froze in place.

In the dim inner prison, two gray-white streams of ice flew out from the cage in front of him and penetrated into Chen Ji's body through his eyebrows.

Yun Yang turned around: "What's wrong?"

Chen Ji looked calm and said, "It's okay. This is my first time in the inner prison. I'm a little uncomfortable seeing these emaciated prisoners."

Yun Yang smiled and said, "I was also scared at first, but I got used to it slowly."

Chen Ji took another step, and as he and Yun Yang walked deeper into the inner prison, streams of gray-white ice flew out from each cell.

They seemed to sense Chen Ji's presence and swam over in a rush, like dragons tumbling in the air.

Chen Ji looked at this scene in shock. Hundreds of icy streams penetrated into his body from between his eyebrows, and finally merged together, lingering in his dantian.

The ice flow was so powerful that it seemed to be extinguishing the fire!
(End of this chapter)