The master said not to judge people by their appearance

After Xie Yunlan sat up from the bed, she remained motionless for a long time.

He recalled the dream last night, he was very concerned about many things that happened in the dream, and he was particularly concerned about the last paragraph, the shadow under the candlelight and Shen Fan's attitude.

That was a very strange Shen Fan, so strange that it would make people feel frightened.

Xie Yunlan thought for a long time, but decided to meet Shen Fan first, he didn't have time to say anything in the dream, he wanted to talk to Shen Fan in reality.

He opened the door, and the dazzling sunlight poured into the room, Xie Yunlan couldn't help squinting his eyes, only then did he realize that the sun was already high, and he got up very late today.

Xie Yunlan faced the sunlight and watched for a moment. In that long dream, there was an unchanging darkness for thousands of years, and Shen Fan had been alone in such eternal darkness for so long.

He seemed to finally understand why Shen Fan was so indifferent, and why he liked these little things in the world.

He walked towards the courtyard where Shen Fan lived. Shen Fan always got up later than him. When he woke up, Shen Fan was usually still in bed, but because Xie Yunlan got up very late today, Shen Fan was already awake at this moment. Sitting in the house having breakfast.

There was another person in the room, Wang Tai, who had been very mean to Shen Fan since the incident in the capital, and he hadn't changed all the way to Yazhou. He was even more attentive than serving Xie Yunlan, and today he came to deliver breakfast to Shen Fan again.

Seeing Xie Yunlan approaching, he asked strangely, "Master Hou, why did you get up so late today?"

"Didn't sleep well last night." Xie Yunlan said perfunctorily, and then pushed Wang Tai away, "Go get me some breakfast."

"Alright!" Wang Tai got up immediately.

After he left the room, Xie Yunlan walked over to Shen Fan and sat down.

Shen Fan ate the pastry by himself, his expression remained the same as usual.

"Last night..." Xie Yunlan was about to speak, but was interrupted directly by Shen Fan.

"What happened last night?" Shen Fan had a simple and puzzled expression, as if he didn't remember what happened in his dream last night.

Xie Yunlan was startled, he looked at Shen Fan fixedly, and was about to say something, but Wang Tai came back suddenly, and he shouted at the door: "Master Huang, Master Huang has something to do with you!"

"I'll go later." Xie Yunlan replied.

"He seems to be in a hurry!" Wang Tai said again.

Xie Yunlan: "Understood."

Wang Tai left again, Xie Yunlan thought for a moment, swallowed all the questions he wanted to ask, and only smiled at Shen Fan and said: "It's nothing, I just had a dream last night."

"Oh." Shen Fan replied lightly.

His attitude was already obvious, Xie Yunlan stood up and wanted to leave, but Shen Fan suddenly stopped him.

"Thank you Yunlan."

Xie Yunlan looked back at him.

Shen Fan walked up to Xie Yunlan, holding a piece of pastry in his hand, and handed it to Xie Yunlan's mouth, as if he wanted to give it to him.

Xie Yunlan hesitantly opened his mouth and bit it, but Shen Fan didn't retract his finger, he took advantage of the opportunity to press Xie Yunlan's lips, as if making a "shh" gesture.

"When you wake up from the dream, just forget about it." His voice was low, like a kind of advice, but also like a threat.

Xie Yunlan looked at him silently, and after a while, turned around and left without saying a word.

Shen Fan watched the back of him leaving in the room, his eyes were dark, unable to reflect the sunlight outside the room.

Xie Yunlan came to the main hall of the eunuch's mansion, where Huang Yaowu was busy, when he saw Xie Yunlan, he said: "Brother Xie, you are here, I have something to tell you!"

"Is it about smuggling horses?" Xie Yunlan asked.

The incident in Mengyu didn't affect the reality. It didn't take a long time to clean up the aftermath like in Beijing and Cangzhou. Huang Yaowu is busy these days with thoroughly investigating the horse smuggling. Besides Cao Jinyu, how many other people are engaged in this kind of business.

"Yes!" Huang Yaowu explained in detail his investigations these days. In fact, horse smuggling has always happened, and there are huge interests in front of it. This kind of thing has been repeatedly prohibited.

But in fact, the scale of smuggling horses is not large. After all, not many people need such good horses.

Until more than a month ago, according to the data investigated by Huang Yaowu, the number of smuggled horses increased several times. In just one month, hundreds of good horses from outside the pass were smuggled into the pass. Most of the destinations are Yunzhou.

"Yunzhou..." Xie Yunlan murmured, the second prince Yuan Yi's fief is in Yunzhou, why does Yunzhou need so many good horses?

The answer is almost obvious. This kind of horse outside the customs is not suitable for farming, and ordinary people don't need that many. The only thing that needs a lot is the army. They are the most suitable horse breed for war horses.

"Brother Xie, what do you think of this Yunzhou king? Is this matter related to him?" Huang Yaowu asked.

Xie Yunlan didn't answer directly, but said: "A few days ago, the embankment embezzlement case that shocked the south of the Yangtze River. Although the late emperor punished those officials who committed the crime, the money was not recovered."

Huang Yaowu understood as soon as he heard it, that Yuan Yi was the mastermind behind this corruption case. Although the verdict was not announced publicly, it was well known to all. In such a remote and barren place, there is only one person who can afford to buy so many horses. Looking around, there is only one person who can have such financial resources.

"What should we do?" Huang Yaowu asked.

After all, Yuan Yi is Yuan Lang's younger brother. Even if Yuan Lang has a bad relationship with him, because of his reputation, he can't directly do anything to his younger brother. Besides, they are just guessing now, without evidence, and they are talking nonsense that Yuan Yi wants to Rebellion, if you don't do it well, you will hurt yourself.

"Don't talk too much, I will write a secret letter and report the matter to His Majesty truthfully." Xie Yunlan thought for a moment and said, he only reported the horse smuggling incident, as for whether someone wants to rebel, it is up to Yuan Lang to decide up.

"In addition, you are relatively close to Yunzhou in Yazhou, so you should pay more attention to the movements in Yunzhou, and..." Xie Yunlan murmured, "You should also pay more attention to things outside the pass."

The number of horses smuggled by the Xia people suddenly increased. It is impossible for the Yuanrong people who provided the horses not to notice the strangeness. They reached an agreement with Yuan Yi in all likelihood.

Yuanrong's new Shanyu Dabalagan is not a mediocre person. The existing peace is only obtained under the condition that Yuanrong needs to pay a lot of tribute every year. He also has the ambition to attack the Central Plains. He must be happy to see the civil strife in Great Xia. Even if Yuan Yi doesn't look for him, he may not find Yuan Yi.

Xie Yunlan discussed some matters with Huang Yaowu again. Regarding the distribution of the garrison troops in Daxia territory and the existing strength of the various ministries of the Yuan Rong, they should make preparations for Yuan Yili to communicate with foreign enemies.

In the blink of an eye, it was night again. Xie Yunlan had been busy all day and had never seen Shen Fan again, but he couldn't help but think about the other party before going to bed, thinking about the words the other party said to him, and the person who encouraged him to go to Shen Fan's dream for a while. The god of dreams to find out.

Shen Fan found that Xie Yunlan broke into his dream and did nothing, but tapped Xie Yunlan's forehead with his cool fingers.

But Meng Zejun, who also broke in, was discovered by Shen Fan, but was attacked by an extremely powerful force, and his whereabouts were unknown.

Xie Yunlan wasn't particularly worried about the other party's life or death. After all, he was the god of dreams. The dream world was his home field, so nothing would happen. He just had some questions he wanted to ask the other party, but he didn't know if he would see him again.

He sighed and fell asleep preoccupied.

As soon as he fell asleep, he was pulled into a dream.

It was still Yazhou City, and a fat snowman taller than the city tower was holding a staff in the center of the city, guarding this dreamland that had just been restored.

Meng Zejun stood in front of him, different from yesterday's neat dress, he was a bit embarrassed today, his clothes were full of holes caused by burning, his face was pitch black, and even a section of his hair was burned by the fire.

Meng Zejun complained: "I'm exhausted, and Zhu Yin is too vengeful, he surrounded me in the dream all day!"

Black smoke was still rising from his mouth as he spoke.

Xie Yunlan: "...Are you okay?"

"Me?" Jun Mengze seemed to have just realized it. He looked down at his charred appearance, waved his hand indifferently, and said, "This is not important!"

He snapped his fingers, and all the charred holes on his body disappeared, and he returned to his original state. "Did you see what happened last night?" Jun Mengze said.

"Hmm." Xie Yunlan looked a little dignified, and he asked, "What is the shadow under the candlelight?" Is it related to the inner demon?

As if he didn't want to accept the result, Xie Yunlan didn't ask the second half of the sentence.

"I can't tell..." Mr. Mengze thought about it, before he could see clearly, he was discovered by Zhuyin, who was trapped in a dream by Zhuyin and chased him for a day.

"However..." Mr. Mengze saw Xie Yunlan's thoughts and said, "It stands to reason that there are two soul fires in Zhuyin, and one of them is the most intense fire in the world. Appearing, he is also the one who is least likely to be enchanted."

But what about the shadows under the candlelight?Zhuyin is the least likely god to be possessed by demons, but there shouldn't be shadows that cannot be illuminated under the soul fire.

Xie Yunlan and Meng Zejun were silent for a while, and after a while, Mengze Jun raised his hand and drew a few strokes in the air, and golden lights appeared in the void, and the golden lights outlined a mark-like thing, he flicked it, The imprint flew to Xie Yunlan's palm and disappeared in the blink of an eye.

"I grant you the power to dream," Meng Zejun said in a complicated tone, "I hope you won't use it."

"Okay, I should go." He raised his finger again, as if he wanted to send Xie Yunlan away.

Xie Yunlan quickly stopped: "Wait!"

"What else is there?" Meng Zejun paused.

"Is there a way for mortals to defeat their demons?" Xie Yunlan asked.

He actually asked Shen Fan a similar question once. At that time, Shen Fan was drunk with wine, but he answered without hesitation. Meng Zejun also answered without hesitation at this moment, but the answer was completely different.

"Yes." Meng Zejun said, "The soul fire bestowed by heaven can restrain demons, but you must be extremely firm."

Extremely firm... Xie Yunlan had nothing to ask, Meng Zejun snapped his fingers, the dream disappeared, and when he woke up, it was daytime again.

Xie Yunlan has been in Yazhou for a long time, and the Yazhou matter has basically been dealt with. The incident of the demon in the dream has also been reported to the court together with the incident of smuggling the horses. After all, they should leave again.

There is only the last one of the four demons left, and they are very close to the goal of completely conquering the demons, but Xie Yunlan feels that the road ahead is still long and full of crises.

He didn't show his inner worries, just asked Shen Fan where they should go next as usual.

Shen Fan threw a branch as usual, but everyone was silent after seeing the direction of the branch, because the branch was inserted straight into the snow without any direction.

"What does this mean?" Wang Tai rubbed his head, puzzled.

"I don't know either..." Shen Fan looked at the sky hesitantly, this time, Heavenly Dao didn't give him any guidance.

"Then where should we go?" Wang Tai said, "Hou Ye, what do you think?"

Shen Fan didn't know, and Xie Yunlan didn't know, but... the end of the year was approaching, he thought of the promise he made to Xie Yuzhen when they parted, and said: "Since you don't know where to go, why not go to Jeju to celebrate the New Year first."

"Okay, I haven't seen Miss for a long time!" Wang Tai was the first to applaud.

The others also had no objections, and Shen Fan agreed after pondering for a moment.

The group packed their bags and prepared to go on the road.

Wei Chengzhi was also packing his luggage, but he didn't want to go with them, he wanted to go outside the pass.

Gesang's remains were hastily buried underground in the backyard by Cao Jinyu and his gang. Wei Chengzhi could find another good place to bury him, but Gesang did not belong here after all.

Her biggest obsession is to go home, which she couldn't achieve while she was alive, but Wei Chengzhi wanted to help her achieve it after death.

After cremating Gesang's bones, he put them in the altar and prepared to go outside the customs to find Gesang's tribe and bury him under the grass in his homeland.

Before parting, he deliberately approached Xie Yunlan and told him to be careful of the king of Yunzhou. According to the current signs, Yuan Yi is very likely to rebel. If he rebels, Xie Yunlan will definitely be the one who leads the army to stop him. Great hindrance.

Moreover, Xie Yunlan had already become enmity with the other party in the Cangzhou incident, and the two superimposed, Yuan Yi couldn't guarantee that he would not attack Xie Yunlan before raising the issue.Xie Yunlan nodded, he would naturally be careful.

After Wei Chengzhi finished speaking, he should have said his goodbyes and left, but he hesitated for a long time, and still said that sentence that might not be appropriate.

"Master Hou, in the Dream Realm that night, Gesang told me one thing besides her past." Wei Chengzhi said, "About Master Shen Fan."

When they went to the deep dreamland to look for Wei Cheng, Gesang showed fear towards Xie Yunlan. The next day they wanted to look for Gesang in the dreamland, but Gesang never showed up until Wei Chengzhi separated from Xie Yunlan.

But what Gesang was actually afraid of was not Xie Yunlan, but Shen Fan who had been with Xie Yunlan all along.

Wei Chengzhi recalled what Gesang told him at that time.

"His dream hides something ominous," Gesang said tremblingly, "he's scary..."

Wei Chengzhi said: "I'm not doubting Master Shen Fan, it's just... I've been thinking about this matter, it's better to let Lord Hou know."

Xie Yunlan was silent for a moment, then said, "I see, thank you sir."

Wei Chengzhi cupped his hands and bid him farewell.

"Master Hou, we should go too!" Wang Tai's urging voice came from behind.

Xie Yunlan didn't stay any longer either, he rode his horse to join the crowd, Shen Fan sat behind his horse as usual, Huang Yaowu led people to see him off at the gate of the city, and after toasting each other with bowls of wine, Xie Yunlan rode his horse and raised his whip, leading a group of people to wait , stepping on the end of the new year, in a joyous atmosphere of celebrating the festival, I rushed to Jeju with a heavy heart.Xie Yunlan nodded, he would naturally be careful.