Wang Li was gnawing on a chicken leg, not daring to get too close to Ji Yuan. He kept a certain distance to appreciate Ji Yuan's calligraphy. Although he was a storyteller, he also considered himself a scholar. He used to think that his handwriting was actually quite good. After all, the storyteller's profession required a lot of talking and recording. But obviously it could not be compared with Mr. Ji's handwriting. He was worthy of being a god.
Although in Wang Li's opinion Mr. Ji was just writing calligraphy works, he had heard him say before that this was actually a wonderful method of deducing, which he called the method of derivative calligraphy.
Wang Li didn't understand this kind of profound and mysterious thing, but he had his own thoughts: a proud scholar was in prison, and shared the same adversity with a Taoist master. He thought that the master was just a master, but who would have thought that he turned out to be a god...
The plot of the story emerged in Wang Li's mind bit by bit, and this time the protagonist was himself. Thinking of this, Wang Li became a little excited, and an irrepressible smile of excitement appeared on his face naturally. With his mouth full of shiny chicken fat and chicken skin hanging at the corners of his mouth, he looked weird and evil no matter how he looked at it.
In the corridor of the prison cell in the distance, the jailer who was carefully watching Wang Li’s cell shuddered suddenly.
"Hiss..."
The jailer looked at the surrounding cells, especially the three cells opposite Wang Li's cell. The prisoners inside were all huddled in the corners, some of them covered with straw, obviously feeling a little scared. After watching for a while, the jailer, who felt his scalp tingling, could not bear it any longer and left this place and walked towards the outer hall.
After a while, the jailer returned to the outer hall, finally breathing a sigh of relief. He stretched out his hands and rubbed his arms to make himself warmer.
"Why did you come back? Did he eat the food?"
The old man sitting at the table drinking wine saw the jailer coming back rubbing his hands, so he asked a question. The latter forced a smile and nodded.
"I've eaten all the food and drinks, but I still don't have diarrhea. But here, it's getting worse and worse."
The jailer nodded his head to indicate Wang Li’s mental problems, hesitated for a moment and added.
"Boss, Wang Li's current condition is becoming more and more frightening..."
The old man frowned and took a sip of wine. He was of course aware of Wang Li's situation. To be honest, he was also a little scared.
"Boss, Wang Li's situation is too weird. I heard from the older generation that if such a person dies and turns into a ghost, it will be very powerful..."
"Hiss..."
The jailer also shuddered, reached out to pick up the wine jug and poured some into the empty bowl beside him.
"Come on, have a drink to calm your nerves."
"Why!"
…
More than two months have passed, and Wang Li's "madness" has become truly normalized. No prison guards come here to listen to his books anymore, and they haven't delivered those food boxes for a long time, and no ingredients are added to the meals in the prison.
On this day, Ji Yuan put down his writing brush. A pile of rice papers on the table were covered with tiny handwriting, some overlapping and some spread out. Although the pages were not connected, there was a feeling that all the words were connected as one, echoing each other faintly as if there were clouds and smoke connecting the words.
Of course, Wang Li couldn't see all of this. He just thought that Mr. Ji's words were beautiful and harmonious, but reading them for too long made one feel sleepy for some reason.
"Uh, Mr. Ji, have you finished writing?"
Ji Yuan placed the wolf-hair brush on the pen holder, stretched his arms and legs, looked at the words on the paper on the coffee table, and nodded with a smile.
"Well, it's almost done. I just need to polish it a little bit. I have to thank you for your help in completing this "Dream Travel"."
"I?"
Wang Li pointed at his nose and smiled awkwardly.
"Mr. Ji, please stop making fun of me. How can I teach you how to practice calligraphy? It's true that I'm just eating and drinking beside you and making trouble..."
At this point, Wang Li glanced outside and saw that no jailer came over from the end of the corridor of this cell. When he turned his gaze back, he found that the prisoner in the cell opposite immediately shrank into a corner after making eye contact with him.
"Mr. Ji, they haven't sent wine and food for a while, and I don't know when Miss Zhang will come..."
Ji Yuan shook his head and smiled.
"Why, are you still expecting them to send you?"
Wang Li smiled a little embarrassedly and answered truthfully.
"Well, you're here, sir. They can't poison me. Although the wine and food there aren't as good as Miss Zhang's, they're still much better than prison food..."
At this point, Wang Li seemed to finally realize something and said alertly.
"Sir, do you think they have given up on drugging me? Are they planning to use other methods to deal with me, such as stabbing me while I'm asleep? I don't have much time left before I'm released from prison!"
"If an enemy comes, we will stop him. If a flood comes, we will block it with earth. What are you afraid of? Because of the Yin family's reputation, they will never dare to attack you openly. Just stay there peacefully. Maybe they think that you don't need to be killed now."
Wang Li scratched his head.
"That is to say, a small person like me is just a fart to the Xiao family's master."
Just as he was saying this, footsteps were heard at the end of the corridor, and soon the jailer and the guard came to Wang Li's cell. Although Wang Li had a sense of mastery when he was telling stories, under normal circumstances he was just like an ordinary scholar, secretly looking at Ji Yuan several times to see how the teacher would react.
Wang Li's self-concealed actions were clearly visible to the old man and the jailer, but this made it even more terrifying. During this period, some jailers had wondered if Wang Li's cell was haunted, and now every jailer carried a talisman.
"Hey, Wang Li, your sentence has expired, you can leave now!"
"ah?"
Wang Li subconsciously looked at Ji Yuan, and then at the jailer.
"No, my two officers, I should have at least half a month left, right?"
"Hey, you storyteller, you still think you haven't been in jail long enough? You got the date wrong!"
"Did I remember it wrongly?"
Wang Li subconsciously glanced at Ji Yuan again, but the latter didn't say anything.
"Yeah, I remembered it wrong. You can be released from prison now."
Ji Yuan sneered and nodded at Wang Li, who quickly responded to the jailer.
"Oh, I see, I see. I uh..."
Wang Li glanced around the cell and saw nothing to pack, but Mr. Ji had already taken away all the study items on the low table with a wave of his sleeves.
"Let's go now!"
After saying this, Wang Li had no choice but to walk out of the cell. Then he saw several other jailers opening the doors of several cells nearby.
"It's out, it's out. You two can be released from prison now!"
"Come out, your sentence is complete!"
Seeing that prisoners in four or five cells around him were being released, Wang Li breathed a sigh of relief. He thought that there should be no problem for everyone to be released from prison together.
"Um, officers, is this the emperor's decree of amnesty or some other good news?"
Wang Li asked the prison boss in a somewhat flattering manner, and the latter looked at him.
"Oh, you are indeed a scholar, you think clearly!"
Wang Li completely relaxed, and the other inmates who came out with him were also very happy, but they subconsciously kept a distance from Wang Li after they came out, even some of the jailers nearby did the same. Only Ji Yuan looked at everyone with a half-smile.
The location where these prisoners were held seemed to be rather remote, but in fact it was not far from the prison gate and not deep in the dungeon. However, on the way out, I found that there were not many prisoners in the cells along the way. I didn't know whether they had all been transferred to other cells or had been released.
When the prisoners arrived at the open area in the lobby, they found several other jailers standing there. When they saw them coming out, they suddenly shouted in surprise.
"A prisoner has escaped!"
"Close the outer door, close the outer door, a prisoner has escaped!"
"Zheng" "Zheng" "Zheng"...
The jailers drew their swords one by one in an instant, leaving Wang Li and the other prisoners stunned.
"Sir! It's unfair!" "Officer, officer! We didn't escape from prison!"
"It was these officers who said we could..."
One of the jailers looked back and found that all the jailers around them, including the ones who escorted them out, had weapons in their hands, with the blades waving.
"You want to kill me!?"
"If any prisoner escapes and dares to resist, arrest them all!"
Although they said they would capture him, the jailers with ferocious faces swung their knives and chopped him without hesitation.
"Puff puff… "
“Ouch…” “Ah…”
The knife flashed a few times, and a few screams were heard. At this moment, the jailer felt a tearing pain in his back. He turned around and found that the jailer had slashed him with a knife.
"Stop! Everyone stop!"
The jailer's loud shout of pain made all the jailers stop. Many of them had blood on their knives, but their faces showed horror. Everyone looked left and right and then at each other.
There were no prisoners, nor was there any sign of Wang Li. There were only the jailers, almost all of whom were injured, and one of them was even lying on the ground, seriously injured.
"What are we... doing?"
"Wang, where is Wang Li?"
After a long time, except for the seriously injured one who was bandaged and lying on the side, all the jailers, after simple bandages, stayed in the front hall as if they had seen a ghost, each of them pale, not only because of excessive blood loss, but also because of fear. Because Wang Li and the prisoners were all staying in the cell, the chains were not opened, but the jailers clearly remembered what happened just now.
"Boss...are we going to see a ghost?"
The jailer took a deep breath but couldn't refute.
"Then Wang Li, are you still going to kill him?"
The prison boss twitched his mouth and looked at the subordinate who was asking the question.
"Kill? You're going to kill?"
Of course money is a good thing, and this may also bring some convenience in the future, but you have to be destined to receive it!
…
Half a month later, Ji Yuan and Wang Li walked out of the Changyang prison together, carefully escorted by one or two jailers. Zhang Rui was already waiting outside with a smile on her face.