The sage was determined to die.

Xie Bi'an slapped the chubby boy on the head and said irritably, "What do you mean by 'scamming money'? Do you think I'm the kind of person who would scam people out of money? Besides, he doesn't have any money for me to scam."

Seeing that his disguise had been exposed, the pale-faced jailer who had eaten with Ji Bai yesterday—now Xie Bi'an—took his football and smirked, saying, "That's strange. I've never been discovered before. How did you recognize me?"

Ji Bai looked at the other person's face. Although the facial features had changed drastically, it was difficult to change a person's micro-expressions and demeanor. In particular, the person's arrogance was unique.

So he told the truth: "Actually, I was just guessing, I didn't expect you to actually admit it. Do you really think your easily exposed acting skills can make money?"

Xie Bi'an: "..."

The chubby boy: "..."

"However, there is one thing I really want to know."

Ji Bai was full of doubts, practically wearing his suspicions on his face, and asked, "You're not some legitimate prison guard, are you? How could you get me out of jail?"

Xie Bi'an picked at his ear with his little finger and sighed, "It's all because I'm broke."

"The Grand Secretary of the Kui Xing Pavilion sent his students to bail you out of prison, but they felt that the time spent trying to bail you out was enough to review the classics again."

Xie Bi'an stretched out his leg and kicked the football into the air. Without blushing or panting, he said, "Of course they didn't want to do something that was neither conducive to studying nor to the path of sainthood, so they outsourced it to my brother and me."

"Speaking of which, you should thank us. If I hadn't been professional and quick to escape, you'd probably still be in jail eating prison food."

"They paid them, didn't they?" Ji Bai exposed.

Xie Bi'an's smile froze. He reached up and smacked his face, saying, "How about calling it labor income fee?"

Seeing that the two weren't arguing, the chubby boy lying on the ground got bored. His ball-like body slowly bounced up, but before he could get up, Ji Bai reached out and pressed him back down. The other boy squatted down, keeping his gaze at about the same level as Ji Bai's, and asked curiously, "Is this also my senior brother? He looks quite young."

Xie Bi'an skillfully took on the role of introduction, saying to Ji Bai, "This fatso has quite an unusual background. His name is Ji Tianyuan. He obtained a literary heart ten years ago and was once a prince."

Ji Tianyuan was constantly being called "fatso" by Xie Bi'an. It was rare to meet someone as polite as Ji Bai. Just as his impression of Ji Bai was about to improve, he saw the other give him an encouraging look and sincerely say, "Senior brother looks to be only in his early thirties, yet he has already..." been admitted to a mental hospital.

Ji Tianyuan touched the fat on her chin and said seriously, "First of all, I'm only sixteen years old."

The chubby boy gritted his teeth, made a snap decision, and sprang up from the ground. He brushed the mud off his sleeves, raised his non-existent chin, and said to Ji Bai, "Secondly, I came to study under Master Xu on my own initiative. Do you know what it means to be hidden among the crowd? I might be an oddball in other places, but among oddballs, I've become a normal person."

Ji Bai nodded.

Compared to the senior brother who had problems everywhere and the senior sister who treated herself like a stone, Ji Tianyuan seemed to be the most normal. At least on the surface, her biggest problem should be her weight.

"However, your timing is quite perfect."

Ji Tianyuan bit his lip, his shifty eyes making him look like someone considering whether to recruit another person before committing a crime. He whispered, "Ji Bai, I've heard about you. Even I only dare to secretly put a sack over Wei Zhiyuan's head and beat him up. You just broke his leg in the street like that. You're too reckless."

The chubby boy peeked out a pair of bright eyes from his slit-like eyelids, becoming more and more excited as he spoke: "Do you know how many treasures are in the Imperial Preceptor's mansion? That's the residence of the biggest corrupt official in Qi! You've already become friends with that idiot, can't you wait until you've swindled all his money before trying to kill him?"

"That idiot is so easy to fool. Just coax him a bit and get him to come into the Book Mountain with you. Not only will you have extra protection then, but if you can't stand him, just find a way to kill him in the Book Mountain."

Ji Tianyuan crossed his arms, speaking with the wisdom of someone who had been through it all: "Even if you killed him in the street, what's the use of just breaking a leg without taking his life? If you hadn't been admitted to the Academy of Books ahead of time, wouldn't you still have to pay with your own life? You should have hidden him away first, then broken him into pieces, and then extorted a large sum of money from the Imperial Preceptor's Mansion. To keep you in check, the Imperial Preceptor's Mansion would definitely give you a sum of gold and silver first, and then you could lie in a pile of money and happily end your own life."

The chubby sixteen-year-old boy sighed in a precocious manner.

"You're incompetent; you're too soft-hearted."

Ji Bai remained silent for a long time: "..."

He couldn't help but recall when he volunteered at a mental hospital, the director specifically told him to pay extra attention to patients who looked normal, because these patients were often the most seriously ill.

He tugged at Xie Bi'an's sleeve and whispered in his ear, "Wasn't he a prince before? Why does he seem so greedy for money?"

Xie Bi'an sighed and whispered, "Do you know what 'literary heart' is?"

Ji Bai shook his head.

He hadn't been in this world for long, and only had time to get a general understanding of it. Before that, he had no chance to come into contact with the Wenxin scholars, and his most general understanding of Wenxin was that it was a kind of existence similar to extraordinary abilities.

Xie Bi'an pointed to his face and said, "My literary heart is not of a high grade, just an ordinary sixth grade. This literary heart is called Thousand Faces for a Thousand People. This literary heart can make my appearance change to any shape I want. Naturally, I can also help others change."

"But using this literary heart doesn't come without a price." Xie Bi'an's smile was tinged with bitterness. "Every time I use the literary heart, even a few times within a month, I will experience a corresponding period of excruciating pain, like having my tendons and skin peeled off."

"And that fatso—"

He pointed at Ji Tianyuan and said, "His literary heart is very special, called 'Heart Moves at Will.' He used his literary heart when he was very young, and the price for using it was that he spent all his money and still couldn't get it back."

"Of course, he didn't know at the time that using his literary talent would come at such a price."

"Until one day, he went into his own treasury and found that all the gold and silver treasures inside had vanished."

Ji Bai hissed, feeling the physical pain as if it were his own, but the pain of losing money made him want to vomit blood.

"So, he was driven mad by his own poverty."