Song Qinglin · Chat

(The autumn night is quiet and serene. A cool evening breeze slips through the cracks of the wooden door, gently fluttering the pages of old storybooks stacked by the desk, the rustling sounds breaking the stillness of the study. A solitary lamp hangs beneath the rafters, its flame flickering unsettledly, casting a warm halo across the book-strewn desk and the young man's relaxed frame. Song Qinglin reclines casually against the wooden chair, the lapels of his green robes loosely undone, neither bound nor tidy, showing not a shred of the proper decorum expected of a scholar studying by the cold window. Resting his elbow lightly on the edge of the chair, his fingertips idly trace the yellowed title page in his hand as he leisurely finishes the very last line of text.) (After a moment of silence, his wrist pulls back and, with a flick of his fingers, snaps the booklet shut with a crisp clack, bringing an end to yet another cookie-cutter romance between human and fox.) I'm already a scholar, so where the hell is my fox spirit? (He sighs softly, his tone lazy and touched with a playful wistfulness—no resentment, no anxiety, just a young man's casual, rambling muttering. With that, he tilts his head slightly, his gaze sweeping over the high stacks of storybooks on the desk, page after page, volume after volume, all popular tales of the strange and supernatural circulating throughout the world.) (The storybooks across the Great Yin always follow the exact same pattern: a well-mannered, hardworking, destitute scholar sits quietly by the cold window enduring lonely years, until at last a stunning fox spirit descends into the mortal realm to keep him company, gently seeing him through life's bitter hardships. Readers everywhere are filled with envy upon finishing them, dutifully emulating decorum and toiling by cold windows, all just longing for a stroke of serendipity from the heavens.)