No matter what he tried, Ye Haolong wouldn't wake up, and Li Banfeng was on the verge of falling asleep himself.
The old teapot barely held on. "Brother, how about you go outside the city first to clear your head?"
Leaving Pillow City would indeed shake off the drowsiness, but that wouldn't solve the underlying problem. The next time he came to Pillow City, the situation would be the same, and Li Banfeng still wouldn't be able to wake Ye Haolong.
"Or maybe... go home and rest a bit... that works too..." The old teapot fell asleep.
Returning to the companion dwelling was the same—it still didn't solve the problem, but Li Banfeng truly couldn't hold out any longer.
After sitting in the companion dwelling for a while, Li Banfeng cleared his head somewhat, and the magical treasures around him woke up as well.
Rubbing his forehead, Li Banfeng asked the gramophone, "Darling wife, in Pillow City, is there any way to wake someone up?"
His wife set down the clay doll in her hands and pondered for a moment. "Trying to wake someone who has fallen asleep is exceedingly difficult. But making that person wake up on his own—there are a few ways. One is to rely on Mind Cultivator skills to force a thought of waking into his mind."
The liquor gourd said, "Big Sister, I already tried that. It doesn't work. The people in Pillow City sleep too deeply; they can't form a thought at all."
The gourd always made its moves without anyone noticing, but unfortunately, it hadn't worked this time.
The pendulum was also a Mind Cultivator. "Madam, I tried as well. It truly doesn't work."
The gramophone grew somewhat annoyed. "I fed you so many good things for nothing, pampering every one of you fat and fair, yet when the time comes to pull your weight, none of you are of any use! If Mind Cultivators are no good, we'll have to rely on a Dream Cultivator. Mengde, you go give it a try!"
Mengde stepped down from the wall, transforming from a calendar poster into a pocket watch, and said to Li Banfeng, "Master, once we're in front of him, I will enter his dream and persuade him to wake up from within."
Li Banfeng took Mengde out of the companion dwelling and walked up to Ye Haolong.
Mengde let out a yawn. "This place really makes one sleepy..."
Before she finished speaking, Mengde had already entered a dream—she had slipped into Ye Haolong's dream.
A Dream Cultivator wasn't afraid of falling asleep here; even inside a dream, she remained lucid. Li Banfeng forced himself to stay awake, waiting for word from Mengde. After waiting about ten minutes without Mengde emerging, Li Banfeng sat down beside Ye Haolong and fell asleep.
He dreamed that he was holding his wife, dancing on the grand dance floor of Xiaoyaowu. An orchestra accompanied them from the stage, and a songstress was singing in their midst.
Song after song went by. Li Banfeng gently wiped away the beads of sweat on the bell of her horn. "Darling wife, are you tired?"
"If my husband isn't tired, your humble servant isn't tired either."
"Darling wife, let's dance another cha-cha-cha!"
"Not that one. My bones ache after dancing it."
"Do they really hurt? Let me give you a good rub..."
Just as Li Banfeng was rubbing the gramophone's hip, the songstress on stage suddenly called out, "Master, you can't keep dancing! It's time to wake up!"
"Don't interrupt, can't you see I'm busy?" Li Banfeng gently kneaded his wife's hip.
"You really can't dance any longer! If you keep dancing, you'll fall into a deep sleep and won't be able to wake up easily!"
"Let it be deep, then. I'll just keep my wife company for a good long sleep!"
"Master!" Mengde gave a petulant cry and pulled Li Banfeng out of the dream.
Li Banfeng was jolted awake in annoyance. "Couldn't you have waited a moment longer? I was rubbing my wife, and she was feeling so comfortable..."
"Master, don't forget our actual business."
Li Banfeng stretched and looked at Ye Haolong on the bed.
He was still lying in his original position, barely having moved.
"You didn't wake him?" Li Banfeng frowned at Mengde. "If he didn't wake up, why did you wake me?"
"Master, I went into his dream, but I truly couldn't get close to him. He's been locked in combat with others the entire time. If I approach recklessly, I'll definitely be gravely injured—I might even lose my life."
"You can be harmed by him inside a dream?" Li Banfeng didn't know much about Dream Cultivator skills.
Mengde explained, "Entering an ordinary person's dream might not result in injury, but entering another Dream Cultivator's dream is equivalent to stepping into his territory. Every strike and technique can become real."
Her explanation was somewhat convoluted. Li Banfeng asked, "Are you saying Ye Haolong is a Dream Cultivator?"
Mengde hesitated slightly. "His cultivation cannot be seen, but from how lucid he is in the dream, he should be a Dream Cultivator."
Ye Haolong possessed cultivation above the clouds; having Mengde face a cultivator above the clouds alone was indeed asking too much of her.
For the moment, Li Banfeng couldn't think of a plan, and drowsiness was overtaking him again.
Seeing him yawn, Mengde suggested, "Master, would you be willing to take a trip into his dream?"
Li Banfeng said in surprise, "You have a method for that?"
Mengde replied, "With my meager cultivation alone, I certainly wouldn't. But among the foreigners I ate before, one was a master of dream control. Having consumed his flesh and blood, I learned a bit of the dream bridge technique. Perhaps we could give it a try."
Before Mengde could explain what a dream bridge was in detail, Li Banfeng felt his eyelids grow heavy and quickly drifted into dreamland.
In his dream, Li Banfeng was leaning against his wife's belly, listening quietly.
His wife asked gingerly, "Husband, can you tell if it's a boy or a girl?"
Beside them, Mengde gave a cold snort. "As if she could actually bear children."
After lingering intimately with his wife for a few moments, Li Banfeng was led by Mengde to the side of a suspension bridge.
Even though Mengde had reminded him that he was in a dream, the bridge before him still struck Li Banfeng as extraordinary.
He didn't know what the suspension bridge was anchored to; he only saw dozens of ropes dropping down from the sky, suspending the wobbling walkway, yet the origin of those ropes remained invisible.
Li Banfeng looked at Mengde and asked, "If I step onto this suspension bridge and fall off, will I really plummet to my death?"
With neither the gramophone nor Hong Ying present, Mengde clung tightly to Li Banfeng's arm and said softly, "Don't be afraid. With me here, Master won't come to the slightest harm."
Li Banfeng followed Mengde onto the bridge. With every step, the suspension bridge swayed three times. Beneath it, mist rose from a bottomless void.
After taking two steps, Li Banfeng flexed his ankles from time to time. He kept his skill of riding the wind and clouds ready at all moments; even if he fell, he would be able to fly up.
No, his legs couldn't summon strength. It seemed he couldn't fly.
Mengde reminded him, "Master, inside a dream, only Dream Cultivators can use their full power. Cultivators of other pathways are all subject to restrictions. When you see Ye Haolong in a moment, you mustn't use force. You might not be a match for him in his dream."
Halfway across the suspension bridge, Li Banfeng faintly heard battle cries and the clashing of blades—sounds coming from within Ye Haolong's dream.
Once across the bridge, Li Banfeng arrived first at a bamboo grove. The bamboo stood dense and thick, marked with numerous blade gashes and spatters of blood; some stalks had been cleaved clean in two at the middle, lending an air of tragic desolation to the wreckage.
The further forward he walked, the fiercer the shouts of combat became. Upon reaching the edge of the bamboo grove, Li Banfeng finally laid eyes on Ye Haolong.
Clutching a longsword, Ye Haolong was fighting furiously against a group of masked men. Parked behind him was a peddler's cart, and beside the cart lay the Peddler, breathing his last.
Was this the scene from when the Peddler and the man from heaven fought their decisive battle?
Had that scene actually been reproduced inside the dream?
Around Ye Haolong circled over a dozen masked men; which of them was the man from heaven?
Seeing that they all looked roughly the same, could they all be clones of the man from heaven?
Judging from the circumstances in the dream, after the Peddler was defeated by the man from heaven, Ye Haolong had held the line for him for a time. From this, one could infer that Ye Haolong's cultivation and combat prowess were remarkably high—making him one of the top figures in Puluo Province.
Was that really so?
Mengde gripped Li Banfeng's hand tightly and gently reminded him, "Master, this is a dream. You cannot take it as real."
Scenes in dreams differed from reality—differed greatly.
Even so, Li Banfeng didn't dare be careless. Taking Mengde with him, he hid in the bamboo grove, watching the two sides clash in silence.
Ye Haolong's swordsmanship was exceptionally graceful. Surrounded by a dozen-odd men trying to kill him, he attacked and defended at will, advancing and retreating with ease, devoid of any obvious flaws.
After over thirty bouts, Ye Haolong's longsword whirled, flashing over a dozen gleams of sword light that knocked the swords from the hands of the dozen-odd men in black one after another.
Every one of the black-clad men bore wounds, and Ye Haolong seemed to stagger slightly from the immense exertion.
Yet why did every black-clad man use a sword, and why were all their sword routines so similar?
These sword forms seemed familiar, as though they had appeared in movies filmed in Zhengjing Village.
Indeed—they were the exact swordplay routines from the movies.
Just how much truth was there to Ye Haolong's dream?
The concept of time in a dream was very hazy, but fortunately Mengde possessed the ability to keep precise time. After half an hour, this tedious battle finally concluded. From beginning to end, neither side had used any skills; they were simply sparring with swords.
Ye Haolong drove off the group of men in black by a narrow margin, then stumbled toward the Peddler.
"Senior, how are you holding up?" Ye Haolong gathered the Peddler into his arms.
Looking at Ye Haolong, the Peddler gasped with difficulty, "Brother Ye, you did good."
With tears in his eyes, Ye Haolong choked, "I came too late."
"Puluo Province... I entrust it to you from now on!"
"Please don't say that, Senior! Rest a bit. I have healing medicine here. As long as you take it, you'll definitely get better!"
The Peddler shook his head. "You must protect Puluo Province. Do not let it be bullied by the Inner and Outer States. This heavy burden... I leave to you."
With that, the Peddler's head lolled to the side, his eyes closed, and he ceased breathing.
Ye Haolong sat beside the Peddler and wept for a long time.
The ground slowly caved in, forming a pit, and the Peddler's body slid into it on its own.
Just like that, the Peddler was buried. Evidently, this process wasn't very important to Ye Haolong—just as unimportant as the villains' faces.
After burying the Peddler, Ye Haolong took up the handles of the cart, preparing to embark on a new journey. Li Banfeng walked up to Ye Haolong and asked with a chuckle, "Are you the Lord of Puluo?"
Ye Haolong puffed out his chest and said with a serene expression, "Do not address me that way. I merely wish to do everything in my power to protect Puluo Province. This was Senior's entrustment; this is my mission."
"Is the senior you speak of the Peddler?"
Ye Haolong nodded.
Li Banfeng asked, "What exactly happened to the Peddler?"
"He fought a duel against the man from heaven and succumbed to severe injuries." As he said this, glistening tears welled in Ye Haolong's eyes.
Li Banfeng asked, "What did the man from heaven look like? I want to avenge the Peddler."
Ye Haolong looked at Li Banfeng, shook his head, and sighed. "Young man, such sentiment is commendable, but the combat prowess of the man from heaven is far beyond anything you could reach."
"Just tell me what he looks like. Even if I can't kill him today, once I have completed my cultivation in the future, I will avenge the Peddler!"
Ye Haolong shook his head with a sigh. "You are still young. This blood feud is not something you should carry. Cultivate diligently and contribute your strength to the great cause of Puluo Province!"
Li Banfeng stared at Ye Haolong. "Did you not see the man from heaven at all?"
Ye Haolong took offense. "Lad, how can you speak like that? I witnessed the decisive battle between the man from heaven and the Peddler with my own eyes."
"Then why can't you describe what he looks like?"
"It's not that I can't, but that I cannot tell you! I'm doing this for your own good!"
"If you saw the man from heaven, you'd be able to describe his appearance. If you can't say it, then naturally you never saw him. What's there to argue about in such an obvious truth?" Li Banfeng fixed his gaze on Ye Haolong, unsure whether Fool Cultivator skills worked in a dream.
"I... I did see him..." Ye Haolong stammered, his thoughts falling into slight disarray.
"If you saw him, then spit it out!"
He looked at Li Banfeng, raised his longsword, and said, "Who are you? Why do you pester me so?"
Mengde warned, "Master, he is a Dream Cultivator above the clouds. Do not fight him inside his dream."
Having questioned him to this point, how could Li Banfeng back down?
His feet couldn't exert force, restricting his Traveler Cultivator skills; the companion dwelling couldn't enter the dream, restricting his Homestead Cultivator skills. Li Banfeng checked the weapons and magical treasures on him; it seemed the only thing he could bring into the dream was Mengde.
"I'll stall for time as best I can. You force him to speak the truth."
Having instructed Mengde, Li Banfeng glared angrily at Ye Haolong. "You fraud hunting for unearned fame! You never saw that decisive battle at all—why lie?"
Ye Haolong's hands trembled slightly. "I saw it! I saw it with my own eyes!"
Mengde murmured, "I don't hear any lie in him."
If he wasn't lying, did that mean it was real?
Li Banfeng said, "Then tell me properly about the battle! What skills did both sides use? What methods? And don't tell me the Peddler and the man from heaven were just doing sword routines in front of you!"
Ye Haolong stuttered, "Their skills... I saw all of them!"
"If you saw them, then explain them!"
"Why... why should I tell you—" Ye Haolong raised his longsword, his entire body trembling.
Mengde found it strange. Why was this man getting so furious?
Seeing Ye Haolong so enraged, a fierce fight was definitely unavoidable. Mengde hurried to prepare an escape route for Li Banfeng.
Li Banfeng also knew a fight was inevitable. He forced strength into his feet, preparing to use Treading Ten Thousand Rivers to catch the opponent off guard.
If he could injure him, he would take the chance to press further; if he couldn't hurt him, he'd find another way to deal with him.
Ye Haolong stood in place, his body still shaking, seemingly prepared to clash head-on with Li Banfeng.
Li Banfeng charged forward first. Just as he was about to unleash his skill, he tripped over something and nearly tumbled to the ground.
Was this Ye Haolong's doing?
Did he alter the terrain to make me stumble?
Li Banfeng glanced at the ground, but saw no change in the terrain.
Suddenly, the weed-choked ground loosened slightly, startling Li Banfeng into stepping back two paces. Ye Haolong grew nervous as well.
*Pfft!*
A hand burst out from the ground.
What was this? A clone of Ye Haolong?
Mengde didn't know where the hand came from either. The soil cracked continuously as the arm stretched longer and longer, its fingers scrabbling against the ground, pulling an entire body out of the dirt.
The one who crawled out was a man. His face was obscured beneath an overgrown tangle of hair and beard, making it impossible to tell his age.
He wore a grey cloth robe—neither thick nor thin, suitable enough to make do in spring, summer, autumn, or winter alike.
The robe was caked in dirt, but with a single pat, it became as clean as new. There was no telling what fabric it was made of.
He lifted his head, looked at Li Banfeng, and turned to look at Ye Haolong.
Ye Haolong raised his sword, pointing at Li Banfeng. "Are you an accomplice of the man from heaven? Have you come looking for this old man to silence me? Do you seek to eradicate the very roots of Puluo Province?"
The man who had crawled out of the dirt looked at Ye Haolong. After keeping silent for over a minute, he uttered just one word: "Scram!"
Hearing this, Ye Haolong was incensed. He lowered his sword, trembled with rage, and then left.
He just left like that?
This was his dream, yet he didn't dare say another word?
The man looked at Li Banfeng. After another minute or so passed, he spoke: "Want to kill?"
What did he mean by that?
Was he saying Li Banfeng wanted to kill Ye Haolong?
When facing an enemy in combat, life hung by a thread; one certainly wouldn't pull punches.
Wait, he couldn't answer like that.
Li Banfeng recalled the old teapot's warning: during the sleeping season in Pillow City, one must not enter the city to kill, or they would face punishment from the local spirit.
Was this man the local spirit?
Li Banfeng answered, "I didn't plan on killing him."
This wasn't false; Li Banfeng truly hadn't intended to kill Ye Haolong.
The man looked at Li Banfeng's feet. "Killing skill!"
He meant Li Banfeng had used a killing technique.
This basically confirmed it: this person was the local spirit.
The old teapot had said that Pillow City's local spirit was a Lazy Cultivator. Judging from his attitude of being too lazy to utter a single extra word, he was practically identical to the Judge's Brush.
Li Banfeng explained patiently, "This is Ye Haolong's dream. I'm restricted at every turn, while Ye Haolong holds every advantage. A single strike of Treading Ten Thousand Rivers couldn't possibly kill him."
The man shook his head. "Not necessarily."
Li Banfeng gave a helpless smile. "I truly didn't want to kill him. A Dream Cultivator above the clouds isn't so easy to kill anyway. I just wanted to ask him some things."
"Ask!" The man meant Li Banfeng could ask him, and he would answer.
Li Banfeng said, "I want to ask whether Ye Haolong has ever actually seen the Peddler."
"Yes!" The man thought about how to describe it, but he was too lazy to think and even lazier to speak. Then he thought of a good method.
In an open space ahead, the scenery shifted, turning into a narrow alley. A boy of around ten stood at the alley entrance wearing a long gown and a skullcap. He walked up to the Peddler, lifted his head, and said earnestly, "I want Martial Cultivator medicine powder."
"Martial Cultivator?" The Peddler chuckled. "Your build isn't suited to being a Martial Cultivator."
The boy said, "Then I choose Literary Cultivator."
"Do you like studying?"
The boy shook his head honestly. "Then what do you say I choose?"
The Peddler squatted down and looked at the boy. "Since you live in Pillow City, choose Dream Cultivator. You sleep for three seasons a year, and three seasons are good for cultivation."
The boy agreed. The Peddler gave him a handful of medicine powder and carefully applied it to his belly. The boy cried from the pain, weeping for a long time.
Li Banfeng said, "Is this the scene from when he entered his pathway?"
The man nodded. "Seen Peddler!"
Indeed, when entering a pathway, one would certainly have seen the Peddler. This Lazy Cultivator local spirit used the dream to present Ye Haolong's memories, so that there was no need to speak or explain—the scene was completely intuitive.
That he could use Dream Cultivator skills proved that he most likely possessed Dream Cultivator cultivation.
Li Banfeng sighed. "I reckon he only ever saw the Peddler once in his entire life."
"No!" With a wave of his hand, the Lazy Cultivator local spirit conjured another dream scene.
A white-haired Ye Haolong stood at the alley entrance, seeing the Peddler once again.
The Peddler's appearance hadn't changed. He looked at Ye Haolong and smiled. "Eighty years old?"
"Yes!" Ye Haolong nodded.
The Peddler sighed. "Cultivating for seventy years and finally reaching tier nine—that can be considered achieving full merit."
Under normal cultivation circumstances, it took ten years to advance one tier of cultivation. Ye Haolong entered the pathway at age ten and cultivated for seventy years, advancing from tier one to tier nine—promoting eight times in total. Spending seventy years to gain one extra promotion was the crowning achievement of his entire life.
The Peddler asked him, "Do you still want to advance?"
Ye Haolong nodded repeatedly.
"Do you want to go to the Inner States to become a servant?"
Ye Haolong shook his head.
"Let me point you toward a path, then. I have a friend named Zhao Lanmeng. I'll have him give you a plot of land so you can force a breakthrough above the clouds. You can do some odd jobs for him on regular days and earn some human presence from him. How does that sound?"
Ye Haolong thanked him profusely.
So his cultivation above the clouds was arranged with the Peddler's help after all.
"Who is Zhao Lanmeng?"
The man lifted his head with visible effort. "Me!"
What a name—could it be he was even too lazy to dream?
Ye Haolong had been able to rise from tier nine at ground level to tier one above the clouds all thanks to the Peddler's recommendation and Zhao Lanmeng's assistance.
Li Banfeng nodded. "Given Ye Haolong's strength, it seems impossible that he witnessed the duel between the Peddler and the man from heaven."
"You mean that?" Zhao Lanmeng squatted on the ground, rummaging through layer after layer of dreams for Ye Haolong's memories.
After ten-odd minutes, he seemed to find something.
In the same open space, the scenery shifted once more: someone jolted awake from sleep and rushed onto the street.
The street looked familiar—it was Pillow City's main street.
Li Banfeng saw the Peddler pushing his cart, charging straight from the street into the sky.
Above the sky, an intense glare erupted, and a blurry figure met the Peddler amidst the blinding light. When the intense light dispersed, the blurry silhouette remained, but the Peddler was gone, and the Peddler's cart lay shattered into pieces across the ground.
Was this the decisive battle between the Peddler and the man from heaven?
Intense light flared once more, and the scene jolted and swayed—presumably from Ye Haolong's perspective as he fled.
There really was such a memory!
Li Banfeng stared blankly. "He really saw it?"
"No." Zhao Lanmeng lay flat on the ground; he had grown tired of standing.
Fearing he might fall asleep, Li Banfeng asked hurriedly, "If he didn't see it with his own eyes, where did this memory come from?"
Zhao Lanmeng rested for a good while before squeezing out two words: "Compensation."
"What compensation?"
Zhao Lanmeng offered no explanation. With a wave of his hand, he read Ye Haolong's memories once more.
At age fifteen, Ye Haolong was bullied by several youths. He was a tier one Dream Cultivator and wanted to use his skills, but because he was shaking with rage, he couldn't execute them and was beaten brutally.
At age twenty-two, Ye Haolong traded blows with a Food Cultivator. According to the dream's depiction, Ye Haolong was a tier two Dream Cultivator at the time, while the opposing Food Cultivator had just reached tier one.
Ye Haolong wanted to seize the initiative by pulling his opponent into a dream. The opponent indeed entered the dream, but Ye Haolong couldn't control it, and the opponent woke up again.
Once awake, the Food Cultivator ate two jin of dry rations and thrashed Ye Haolong thoroughly.
Mengde whispered, "A tier two Dream Cultivator who can't even control a dream... his talent is mediocre at best."
At age thirty-seven, Ye Haolong encountered bandits on the road. Wanting to act heroically, his panic caused him to bungle his moves; he was ganged up on and beaten by the bandits, barely escaping with his life.
At age forty-six, Ye Haolong was at tier five and fought a match against a tier three Martial Cultivator. The Martial Cultivator moved too quickly, leaving Ye Haolong unable to react in time, and he suffered defeat yet again.
After advancing above the clouds, he happened upon a tier six Traveler Cultivator at ground level. Provoked by the man's mocking words, Ye Haolong faltered, and consecutive strikes of Treading Ten Thousand Rivers left him gravely wounded.
Someone above the clouds beaten to near death by a tier six at ground level—that incident had undoubtedly become a laughingstock.
Zhao Lanmeng looked back at Li Banfeng. "Just now... did you want to kill him?"
Li Banfeng waved his hands repeatedly. "I truly had no such intention."
Zhao Lanmeng's suspicion wasn't without merit. Judging by Ye Haolong's past battle record, even though they had been inside his dream just now, with him shaking with cold fury like that, a kick of Treading Ten Thousand Rivers from Li Banfeng really might have kicked him to death.
Li Banfeng continued watching Ye Haolong's battle records, gradually understanding what Zhao Lanmeng meant.
"Never won," Zhao Lanmeng sighed softly.
Cultivators above the clouds were all paragons among mortals, one-in-a-million luminaries.
Yet even among luminaries, there existed mediocrities, and Ye Haolong was one of them.
In the battle records of his entire life, one could hardly find a single decent victory.
Li Banfeng asked, "How did someone like this ever rise above the clouds?"
Zhao Lanmeng uttered two words: "Diligence. Longevity."
This was the secret to Ye Haolong's success. He had cultivated painstakingly his whole life, never once slacking off.
His physical constitution wasn't particularly great, but he was hardy. Even at the ripe old age of eighty, he remained in decent shape. Relying on those two precious qualities, he had finally endured his way above the clouds.
He yearned to fight and wage war, yearned to look down upon the masses; as a cultivator above the clouds, he craved the status and respect he felt he deserved.
Yet because he was terrible at combat, his past battles were an unmitigated disaster, creating an extreme imbalance in his psyche. Thus, this memory had been concocted as a form of self-compensation.
Zhao Lanmeng brought up Ye Haolong's memories again to make some comparisons before Li Banfeng.
Just as before, each of Ye Haolong's battles was crystal clear. Though buried deep in his memories, they would never vanish in this lifetime.
However, scenes like the Peddler being surrounded, Ye Haolong fending off the bandits, and receiving the mandate in the hour of peril—these were classic cases of compensatory memory, as the images were somewhat hazy and the plot in the dream felt contrived.
As for Ye Haolong witnessing the decisive duel between the Peddler and the man from heaven, that memory appeared slightly clearer, but there was still a gap compared to true memories. One could only say Ye Haolong had put quite a bit of effort into fabricating them.
Zhao Lanmeng gathered his strength for a long while before managing a rare, relatively complete sentence: "They definitely didn't fight here."
This sentence provided the definitive conclusion.
Zhao Lanmeng was the local spirit. If this ferocious battle between the Peddler and the man from heaven had truly taken place in Pillow City, it would have been impossible for Zhao Lanmeng not to know.
This was equivalent to telling Li Banfeng that this so-called duel simply did not exist.
Thanks to Zhao Lanmeng's clarification, otherwise no matter how hard Li Banfeng pressed him, Ye Haolong would have believed this self-invented memory to be the truth.
The absence of this duel meant the Peddler wasn't in mortal danger, lifting Li Banfeng's spirits immensely.
"Leave." Zhao Lanmeng brought Li Banfeng out of the dream and back to Ye Haolong's bedroom.
Li Banfeng said, "Even though the matter of the decisive battle is cleared up, I still need to find the Peddler as soon as possible."
Zhao Lanmeng didn't answer Li Banfeng's question. He looked at Li Banfeng and said, "Talented."
"You say I'm talented?" Li Banfeng was taken aback. "Do you mean as a Dream Cultivator?"
Zhao Lanmeng nodded.
Li Banfeng shook his head. "I don't have any talent for Dream Cultivation. It was all thanks to Mengde's help."
Li Banfeng summoned Mengde from the pocket watch, and Mengde gave Zhao Lanmeng a respectful curtsy.
Zhao Lanmeng sized Mengde up and shook his head. "No real talent. Just eats well."
After waiting so long for a complete evaluation, she hadn't expected it to be this. Mengde was deeply disappointed, yet dared not say anything more.
Zhao Lanmeng looked toward Li Banfeng's pocket. He sensed the projector and saw the projector's dream.
"Too stubborn. Inflexible." This was his assessment of the projector. It wasn't that the projector truly lacked talent, but rather that it lacked talent in its two pathways.
Zhao Lanmeng then sensed the liquor gourd. "Schemes too much. Wastes its spirit."
This was spot on. The liquor gourd was thorough in everything it did; though it seemed drunk and careless all day, its mind was actually exceptionally meticulous.
Zhao Lanmeng sensed the teapot. "Big ambitions. Deserves hardship."
He then sensed the earring. "Never closes an eye. Destined to toil."
The earring was responsible for keeping watch and spent most of its time without resting.
"Deep resentment. Hard to let go." This referred to the pendulum.
Zhao Lanmeng looked at the Tang dao and offered a two-word assessment: "Brute."
The various magical treasures were all asleep, so none retorted.
Zhao Lanmeng couldn't sense the glove, because before falling asleep, the glove had hidden itself away.
However, he sensed an existence that surprised him. He invaded the dream of the Judge's Brush.
In its dream, the Judge's Brush was wrapped in newspaper, fast asleep.
Zhao Lanmeng's brow twitched as he entered the Judge's Brush's dream within a dream.
Inside that dream within a dream, the Judge's Brush was wrapped in two layers of newspaper, still fast asleep.
"Immense talent..." Zhao Lanmeng marveled.
"Hmph!" Whether asleep or awake, the Judge's Brush gave a grunt in reply.
Li Banfeng said, "You've been watching for half a day now. Shouldn't you point me in the right direction? Where can I find the Peddler?"
Zhao Lanmeng took out a slip of paper, sluggishly wrote two lines of characters, and handed it to Li Banfeng. After brewing his words for nearly half an hour, he squeezed out a long string of speech: "Go to Jiaoqichuan. Find the Peddler's sweetheart. Don't say I sent you. After you find the Peddler, come back to my place. I want to trade a couple of moves with that fellow beside you."
Chapter 577