The carriage with the indigo curtain slowly moved away along the stone path by the wetland. The seemingly flat slate was uneven, so the soles of the shoes would not slip easily, but the hard wheels would be violently shaken. In the carriage, Li Yu, the Fourth Princess of the Tang Empire, was in a daze, holding her chin. She was a little annoyed, so she increasingly felt that Ning Que was very annoying.
She came to the Academy today for nothing else but to see Ning Que.
She wanted to see how the lad who had accompanied her back from the grassland had become. She wanted to know what was so special about the guy who had refused her recruitment, but had followed Old Chao from the Spring Breeze Pavilion to kill on a rainy night and caught the attention of Xu Chongshan.
The most direct reason was that two freshmen in the Academy had entered the second floor of the old library for more than ten days in a row. This strange thing had spread out of the Academy and reached her ears. When she knew that one of the freshmen was Ning Que and thought of Lyu Qingchen's evaluation, she could no longer suppress her curiosity and decided to come and have a look.
At first glance, it was still that ordinary, but childish and clean face. There were still a few freckles and shallow dimples, but his face was much paler than before and looked extremely unhealthy.
She did not know why, looking at Ning Que's pale face and the stubborn and sarcastic expression on his face, she was a little annoyed. If it were not for Zhong Dajun's sarcasm, which irritated her, perhaps she would not have asked him to come.
…
…
Ning Que walked into the old library, and the eyes of the surrounding students were completely different from before. They were full of shock and confusion. Everyone thought silently in their hearts, "Could it be that the record on the Academy's roster is wrong? This person is not a soldier from the City of Wei, but a disciple of a big family in Qinghe Prefecture as the original legend says?" If not, how could the Fourth Princess know him and even specially summon him to the carriage for a few words?
Situ Yilan slightly tilted her head and curiously looked at him, probably also guessing the relationship between him and the Princess. Jin Wucai hid half of her body behind Situ Yilan and was a little ashamed to look at him. Princess Li Yu had personally ridiculed Ning Que, who dared to continue to question him? The embarrassed Zhong Dajun had hidden somewhere at this time, while Xie Chengyun stood outside the crowd with a pale face, looking a little lonely.
Chu Youxian walked to Ning Que's side and looked at him in surprise. He said in a low voice, "No wonder Mistress Jian didn't want to take your money. I didn't expect you to have such a strong background. According to the temperament of Situ Yilan and the other girls, even if you bring out the Prince today, it may not work. Only the Fourth Princess can deal with them. "
Upon hearing this, Ning Que became interested and asked, "What's the reason?"
Chu Youxian laughed and said, "The reason is simple. The so-called Chang 'an Army of Women … was originally created by the Fourth Princess when she was bored. Noble ladies like Situ and the others were all brought up by the Princess."
Ning Que smiled and did not explain the relationship between him and Princess Lee Yu. He did not have the thought of using the tiger's skin to make a coat, but he was willing to make this relationship even more ambiguous.
Seeing Ning Que walking to the second floor, Xie Chengyun finally moved. He slowly walked into the building, ignoring the obstruction of the people around him. He held the railing with his hands, and his body kept shaking, moving up step by step with difficulty.
Ning Que held the thin book "A Preliminary Exploration of Ocean of Qi and Mountain of Snow" but did not open it. After Xie Chengyun walked past him to the deepest part of the bookshelf and sat down cross-legged as usual, he suddenly said, "You may have your pride, but I also have my own needs. You're the God's favored one, while I'm just a desperado who wants to live. There's a big difference between the two. I suggest you don't lose your life in order to compete with me for a short time."
When Xie Chengyun walked past him, he saw the book in Ning Que's hands tightly closed. He thought that Ning Que was angry at his previous silence downstairs, so he wanted to continue to gamble with his life. But he did not expect that Ning Que would say such words. The gifted scholar from the South Jin Kingdom, who had been intelligent since childhood, kept silent for a long time and stared blankly at the pages on his knees. No one knew what he was thinking. Then he stood up with difficulty by holding the wall, made a deep bow, and slowly walked downstairs.
The deepest part of the bookshelf was close to the west window, where the sun could be seen in the afternoon. Ning Que walked there with the thin book and sat down in the warm sunset. He sat down cross-legged on the floor where Xie Chengyun had sat for many days. After closing his eyes for a long time, he gently rubbed his pale and thin cheeks, opened the book with a smile and continued to read.
"You can make some notes. Although they can't be copied or taken away, they may be helpful."
The female professor in a light-colored robe was standing beside the new branches of an old tree by the east window. She did not even raise her head. She was concentrating on her Small Regular Script. If Ning Que had not confirmed that he had heard her, he would have suspected that she had not spoken.
He was slightly startled and stood up. He walked to the table beside the west window and looked at the writing brush, ink, paper, and inkstone on the table. He sat down after thinking for a long time. He picked up the ink block with his fingers and began to grind it in the clear water.
The books in the building were strictly forbidden to copy. Even if you wanted to filter the Divine Talisman characters on those cultivation books in your mind and copy them on the white paper, it was not feasible. Ning Que tried to meditate: When the fragments of memories flashing through his mind were turned into characters and left on the white paper, the characters in his mind would disperse like smoke and could not appear at all.
And according to the rules of the old library, no traces could be left on the books. Ning Que did not know whether the instructor would find out if he played tricks on the books. But he had never tried to play this kind of trick these days. Countless battles of life and death over the years had long made him understand that in the face of the mountains that had to be crossed, any trick would be very stupid. At that time and place, what you needed was the kind of great wisdom that was close to foolishness.
What should I write? In this case, what kind of words could be considered as notes? Ning Que held the writing brush for a long time, but he could not write anything on the paper. Because he had forgotten what he had read in the thin book before, he did not know what to write on the paper at this time.
"Maybe these things that I have been doing with my life are meaningless in themselves?"
He smiled slightly self-mockingly. Thinking of the hard work these days, the painful tossing and turning every night, and Sangsang applying a hot towel to his forehead every night, he inevitably felt a little sad and lost. It was really so difficult for an ordinary person to step into the world of cultivation. No matter how hard you tried, it seemed that failure would only make it more tragic.
With a light "pa" sound, the brush that was full of ink hovered in the air for too long. A drop of ink dripped down and landed on the snow-white paper. The ink quickly spread along the fibers of the paper, blossoming into a ball of irregular beauty.
Ning Que lowered his head and looked at the ink stain. Suddenly, his heart fluttered. The sadness and disappointment in the deepest part of his heart were washed away and turned into absolute calmness. At this moment, he understood everything: not every love story had a beautiful memory, not every fairy tale had a happy ending, and not all efforts would be rewarded. Even if he tried his best, it was difficult to decide what he would get in the end. Then, he should just enjoy the process.
If the writing brush could not write down any profound words, then there was no need to write them down. If he did not know what to write, then he would write something else, such as his mood, his own experience, his feeling in the building, the picture of the quiet female professor by the east window, the old tree with new branches, the sunset by the west window, the momentary afterglow when the candle was cut off …
"A higher floor, a higher floor. All the previous worries are over now. I was originally a woodchopping lad by the Shubi Lake. Why should I imitate others to say that the weather is cold? You should know that it is not autumn yet."
He picked up the brush and began to write casually on the paper. He didn't have any specific thoughts in mind. He was just writing according to his thoughts at this moment. As the tip of the brush wrote clear and beautiful words on the paper, the feeling of extreme annoyance in his chest seemed to be gradually erased by the brush, disappearing without a trace.
"I have been in the building for 17 days. I have practiced hard every day, but I could not cultivate the words into my heart. I could only watch them slip away. I have been sober and have fallen into a dark and sweet dream for no reason, but they are always not there."
"If they are illusory on the paper, why can I see them? If they are real, why can't I remember them? If they exist between reality and illusory, is the ink that wrote them real or illusory? Is the paper that carries them real or illusory? "
Since he was just casually expressing his mood, Ning Que suddenly did not want to write anymore. So he put down the brush and looked at the words on the paper quietly. When the paper was dry, he gently put it into the thin book and put the book back on the bookshelf. He turned around and bowed respectfully to the female professor by the east window before walking downstairs.
For the first time in many days, he walked downstairs by himself instead of being carried downstairs.
The female professor looked up at the young man's somewhat disappointed back and sighed softly. She silently thought of the rule set by her teacher in the old library: Among thousands of trees and thousands of sails, students were only allowed to choose one branch and one wind. Although this student was strong-willed and the Psyche Power accumulated in meditation was not weak, his Snow Mountain and Ocean of Qi acupoints were blocked. In the end, he could only end up vomiting blood and lying in bed weakly. Even if Haotian pitied his tenacity and granted him health, what was the use of watching him like this for another 80 years?
The dusk gradually deepened and the night was coming. No one else went up to the second floor. The female professor packed up the ink, paper and inkstone in front of her and walked along a side path in the building toward the back of the mountain.
After a long time, the Academy and the mountain behind the Academy were shrouded in darkness. The Academy buildings in the wide meadow were lit up and scattered everywhere like stars in the sky.
In the depths of the silent second floor of the old library, a few strands of intricate carvings on the bookshelf against the north wall suddenly brightened for a moment and then slowly slid to the side silently.
A fat young student in a dark cyan Academy robe squeezed out from the gap, panting. He angrily looked back at the bookshelf and complained, "I don't know who designed this thing. Didn't they know to make the exit bigger? Didn't they think that the Academy would also recruit a few fatties? "
The fat lad mumbled to the bookshelf and mumbled, "Second Brother is a bad guy. He insisted on using the entry-level books as a bet. Although I, Chen Pipi, am a rare genius, how can I still remember the things I read when I was young?"
Talking to himself, he pulled out a thin book from the bookshelf and looked at the words "A Preliminary Exploration of Ocean of Qi and Mountain of Snow" on the cover. With satisfaction, he gently patted it. As he patted, a very thin white paper flew out.
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