Behind the beaded curtain in the room on the red-sleeved rooftop, Miss Jane stared at the portrait beside the bed. Her smooth forehead furrowed into a brow, looking at the portrait of the young scholar riding a donkey, his raised eyebrows, his cheerful and even arrogant laughter. She slowly shed tears and murmured. "Ke Haoran, you bastard. At that time, I made chicken soup and waited for you to come back every day, but you refused. Are you happy now? You can't drink it even if you want to. I don't even know if... You're doing well in another world.

She frowned suddenly, and clenched the handkerchief in her hand tightly. She walked quickly to the handrail and looked out at the yard below. She knew the guests of Dewdrop, but didn't seem to be scared at all. On the contrary, she was annoyed and angrily scolded: "What a rude old man! Why did you come to my brothel to evoke memories of that villain?

Under the shade of bamboo in the courtyard, the dew drops washed up, put on a light layer of makeup, and returned to the room. Her body stiffened when she saw the guests shaking their heads at the table. She stepped forward to take a look, frowned and asked, "Sir, I always thought I smelled chicken soup." Why is that?

"It's not the taste of chicken soup. It's the taste of home.

Yan Se shook his head and pointed to the twenty-nine scribbled words on the accounting paper. "When the man wrote this note, he desperately wanted to go home and drink that bowl of chicken soup. This does not mean that the soup is delicious. I'm curious about Sangsang. He does this, not knowing if she is his fierce wife or a stern mother?

"That's... Wasn't that written by Ning Que? Dewdrop's delicate face was full of confusion. "At that time he didn't seem to want to go home. Sangsang is not his wife either. It's his little maid.

"Little maid? In this way, this is even more illogical.

Yan Se shook his head again, ignoring this. He had been a bachelor all his life, because he had seen too many fierce wives in the Tang Empire, especially in Chang'an. He prefers brothels and the company of different women. Therefore, he could not understand the writer's desire for a little maid and a bowl of chicken soup.

The next morning, the tall, thin Taoist priest drove away in a carriage without asking what Ning Que, who had scribbled 29 garbled words, looked like. After a while, Dew appeared with a half-yawn and rubbed her sleepy eyes. The feelings of last night escaped her mind. She took the warm teacup from the maid's hand and took a sip. She subconsciously glanced at the table, only to find that Ning Que's tattered memo was missing for some reason. The messy script that her guests had copied on the mahogany table last night had dried up and vanished.

She smiled and shook her head. When she put down the cup, she accidentally hit her green jade bracelet on the mahogany table. She heard a soft thud and saw a thin layer of red, fine powder fluttering on the table.

Dewdrop was stunned, her eyes widening in curiosity. She hesitated for a moment before pulling out her handkerchief and gently wiping off the powder. Unexpectedly, she found a line of scribbled words under the red powder. They may seem shallow, but they are actually carved deep into the wood and cannot be erased at all.

"Sangsang, your master is drunk today and won't go home to sleep. Remember to drink the chicken broth left over from the pot.

Dewdrop's eyes widened, staring at the words. She had a vague realization. She didn't know that her guest was a legendary rune, and she couldn't predict what Ning Que would achieve in the future. But she knew very well that this Taoist was not an ordinary person, and she really hoped that Ning Que would have a good future. On top of that, she is instinctively sensitive to opportunity after meeting all kinds of people in her life in brothels. So she immediately instructed the maid to carefully put away the table and take care of it for future use.

On the other side, Yan Se left the brothel and boarded a dilapidated carriage. It didn't take long for him to meet a young Taoist priest with a yellow paper umbrella under his arm. The young Taoist priest greeted him respectfully and said, "Uncle, I found the information you were looking for. This person's name is Ning Que, and he escorted the princess all the way...... Lu Qingchen had already confirmed that he had no potential at all. The academy also tested him some time ago, but he failed even in terms of magic skills.

Yan Se sighed. Not to mention the relationship between this person and the princess, his acupuncture points are blocked, it is all a problem. Could it be that he would ask the Xishan Shrine to gather the power of the Great God Priest and forcibly break his acupuncture points with the Great Soul Technique? It is not easy to find a successor to the amulet's superb martial arts. He finally found one last night, but it was a man who was born with a flaw. What a pity.

Ning Que didn't know that he had missed another huge opportunity, and of course, he didn't know that a rune master had seen his cursive script on a ledger that he had torn up in a brothel, on which were written two famous calligraphy notes, "Yan Mu Grinding" and "Chicken Soup Calligraphy". To this day, he is still an obscure young boss on Lin 47th Street, and an ordinary but hardworking student at the college.

The next morning, he woke up from a drunken slumber and drank a bowl of chicken soup, perhaps heated again and again, frowning. Then, he stopped Sangsang, who was about to wash the pots and dishes. He looked at her swarthy face and said seriously, "Last night, I drank too much because I was so happy. I didn't have time to tell you because I passed out.

Sang Sang raised his head, raised his thin eyebrows, opened his bright eyes, and asked curiously, "Young Master, what makes you so happy?" I've never seen you drink so much.

"I think I've found a way to make sense of those books in the college's old library.

Ning Que stretched out a finger, shook it in front of his nose, smiled, and said, "Although it is only a glimmer of hope, it is hope after all." I figured I had to take my chances if I could.

The so-called hope is the casual denial of despair. Because denial is arbitrary, it doesn't last long. As a person who has been played with by fate, Ning Que knows this better than anyone. Alas, hope often turns into disappointment, and then despair. The more hope you have, the deeper your regret and pity.

Whether it was a cultivator in the Yanyu Mountains, an examiner in the military department, or a gentle old man Lu Qingchen during the journey, or the magic course selection round during the academy's entrance exam, he had all experienced hope that was ruthlessly stifled again and again. As a result, he became more and more calm, even numb. As for entering the Demon Cultivation Realm, he never gave up hope in his heart, although he didn't seem to care much about appearances.

Because he knew that in order to survive in this world, live well, serve his revenge, and leave his name on this black soil called the Tang Dynasty, he had to enter that world. Once he has given up all hope, he ends not with disappointment, but with despair.

In order to grasp the faint hope, Ning Que adjusted his mental state to the most generous and positive state. He left Chang'an in a carriage early in the morning and returned to Lin 47th Street in a carriage late at night. In the morning, when he studied six courses, he always felt sleepy. After the third bell, he would jump up from his seat in high spirits, rush out of the study, rush into the cafeteria, slowly chew and swallow two meals, walk around the lake, and then climb up to the library over and over again, reading books without stopping.

He sat by the west window, enjoying the sun and reading calligraphy. He used the Eight Strokes Calligraphy to disassemble each word in the book into strokes, and then carefully understood the direction and meaning of these strokes, deliberately forgetting their meanings.

The female professor was also quietly writing small orthography in the hairpin style near the east window. Her hair was untied and the glow of spring shone on her smooth wavy hips that just covered her ears, making her look gentle and silent. No matter how sincere Ning Que was, she didn't give any instructions.

One afternoon a few days later, he read half of "A Beginner's Exploration of the Sea of Qi and the Snowy Mountains." The characters were disassembled into thousands of strokes and then reassembled into thousands of characters with different shapes and meanings, which took almost all of his energy.

Ning Que rubbed his tired eyes, and then silently turned his head to look at the increasingly dense green leaves outside the window. He knew that there was no point in forcing himself to read. Even if he had expended all his energy, he could only grasp more meaning from the talisman master who copied the book, which did not help him in his initial state.

To his disappointment, the notes left by the mysterious instructor on the thin paper in the middle of the book never appeared again, not even a few words. It was as if he had just disappeared.

The chirping of cicadas, which had annoyed the students of the academy for a thousand years, sounded again this afternoon without warning. Ning Que quietly listened to the chirping of cicadas outside the window for a long time, and then he turned around suddenly, closed the thin book on his lap, closed his eyes and began to meditate.