Encountering a Teammate

"Wine, wine!!"

In a window-side booth on the second floor of the Drunken Immortal Tower, Shao Hongzhang lay sprawled over the greasy wooden table without a trace of dignity. His cheeks were flushed from the alcohol, and his fingers tapped mindlessly against an empty cup as he mumbled incoherently.

Outside the window stretched Vermilion Bird Street, running through the Ghost Capital of Chang'an. At that moment, Chang'an was shrouded in a strange dusk light—not quite the false splendor of day, yet not fully fallen into the horrors of night. Farther up the street stood the forbidding shadow of the imperial palace. The examination grounds for this Imperial Examination, a government office temporarily designated as the "Imperial Examination Hall," lay not far from the palace.

Xiao Ran stood by the window, his gaze as sharp as a falcon's, fixed on the Imperial Examination Hall through the deepening dusk. Several times, he tried to extend his mental power toward it, like invisible tendrils reaching into the area. But each probe vanished as if it had sunk into the sea. The Imperial Examination Hall wasn't blocked by some force from his powerful mental perception. Instead, it presented a complete, unnerving "nothingness," as if nothing existed there at all—merely a conceptual black hole that swallowed all attempts to peer inside.

"Stop staring... hic..." Shao Hongzhang struggled to raise his heavy eyelids and glanced at Xiao Ran's tense back, his tongue stumbling over his words.

"Tomorrow... tomorrow I'm quitting drinking... Hurry up... give me some wine... Let me have a proper drink... Come on, come on..." He reached out like a child begging for candy, but the exhaustion and despair buried in his eyes were beyond anything a child could know.

Xiao Ran silently turned around. With a thought, a well-preserved bottle of Maotai Liquor