Ji Qi really praised the cooking skills of the cook Chunyan, and the whole bowl of braised pork went directly into his stomach. Le Jing felt that if he hadn't been watching, Ji Qi would have licked the whole bowl.

Since ancient times, it has been easy to build relationships over a table of wine in China. Although Le Jing cannot drink at the moment, the relationship between the two of them has become closer and closer over the course of a meal (with the help of braised pork). At the end of the meal, Ji Qi made a direct decision: "We are so familiar with each other, so don't call me Mr. Director or something like that, it's too unfamiliar. My name is Ji An, you can just call me Ji Jian."

So Le Jing said, "I am not yet twenty years old, and I don't even have a name. You can just call me by my name."

"Well, Jingran." Ji Qi said earnestly, "Since we call each other by our first names, I would like to ask you for a favor."

Le Jing said calmly, "You go first." Is there something wrong with the script? Or do you want to reduce the copyright fee?

If it was the former, he would negotiate it, but he would never give in on issues of principle. As for the latter, he didn't care about the amount of money, as long as Ji Qi could spend all the money he saved on movies.

"Your cook's cooking skills are amazing! This is the first time I've eaten such delicious braised pork!" Ji Qi pleaded with a red face: "Can you call the cook out for a while? I want to discuss cooking with her."

Le*Habitually think too much* Scene:……

Boss Ji, it turns out that your personality is a foodie?

Le Jing revealed his thoughts, "You don't want to ask the cook for the secret recipe of braised pork directly, do you?"

Ji Qi quickly said: "Of course it's not for nothing, I will pay for it!"

Le Jing said, "Her recipe for making braised pork was a dowry brought by her mother. It has been passed down through the family. I'm afraid she won't sell it to you easily."

Ji Qi was unwilling to give up. "Why don't you just call the person over and ask him? What if?"

"Let me make it clear first, I won't speak for you. This is Chunyan's recipe, so we have to follow her opinion."

"Hey, do you need to tell me that? It's their recipe, so naturally they have the final say!"

After Chunyan came over and listened to Ji Qi's request, she frowned slightly and looked at Le Jing with some entanglement. Le Jing immediately said, "Don't worry about me. You are the one who decides your prescription."

Chunyan then shook her head and replied embarrassedly: "This recipe is a secret recipe passed down from my mother's family. It is only circulated within the family. My family was so poor that we could barely make ends meet, but my mother didn't sell the recipe. If I sell it now, she will definitely not forgive me."

Although Ji Qi was a little disappointed, he was not unreasonable. He expressed his understanding on the spot and joked, "Girl, you can open a restaurant with your cooking skills. It's a pity for you to be a cook."

Chunyan's face flushed immediately, and she said embarrassedly, "Sir, you are joking. My mediocre cooking skills are not good enough to open a restaurant."

Le Jing continued, "I think what Jian said is right. Chunyan's craftsmanship is already first-class in my opinion. If you open a shop, your business will definitely be very good."

Le Jing did not lie.

Influenced by the wave of globalization, Le Jing's tongue can be said to have tasted delicacies from all over the world. In this era without seasonings, Chunyan can convince his battle-hardened tongue, which is the best proof of her excellent cooking skills. In his opinion, the food made by some modern restaurants with the name of century-old shops is not as delicious as Chunyan's!

Chunyan was half-believing and half-doubting their flattery, "Sir, are you telling the truth? Are you trying to frame me?"

Although he knew that this would make him lose an excellent cook, Le Jing still said sincerely: "This is true, I have eaten in some foreign restaurants, and the steaks they make are not as delicious as your braised pork!"

Ji Qi also chimed in, "That's right. With Miss Chunyan's cooking skills, your restaurant will surely be popular throughout the city of Beiping. By then, you will be able to become a great female entrepreneur."

Chunyan felt dizzy from the flattery and her heart was beating so fast that it seemed like it was going to jump out of her throat.

Le Jing quickly cooled down the girl's feverish head: "If you want to open a restaurant, you must at least save enough capital."

Chunyan immediately regained her composure, laughing at herself in her heart for not even starting over. She was just starting to think about it. Even if she really had the skill, it would be useless without money. No matter what, she had to continue saving money.

Seeing her regain her composure so quickly, Le Jing felt a flash of admiration in his heart.

So he added a few more words: "In fact, it doesn't cost a lot of money. With Chunyan's current financial strength, she can set up a small breakfast stall on the roadside and sell some simple and delicious food to save enough funds for opening a store in the future." Seeing Chunyan's eyes getting brighter and brighter, Le Jing simply gave her a helping hand: "We have a small family, so it doesn't take much effort. You can set up a stall on the road directly after you prepare breakfast for us."

Chunyan was so excited that she almost cried. She just kept bowing to Le Jing and thanking him: "Thank you, thank you sir, thank you so much, you are such a good person!"

Le Jing laughed: "Don't thank me, the craft is your own, I just said a few more words, whether it will work in the end depends on you. Happiness is not given by God, but created by your own hands."

Chunyan nodded heavily, looking at Le Jing with sparkling gratitude in her dark eyes, "I understand what you mean, sir. I will prepare well for this matter and will not let you down!"

Now she realized that she had lived in vain before! It was as if a hand helped her dispel the fog in front of her eyes. For the first time, she saw the direction she was heading so clearly, and for the first time, she had a clear plan for the future. The road ahead might be tortuous, bumpy and difficult, but she knew how delicious and sweet the fruit at the end would be.

At this moment, Le Jing would not know what kind of surprise his few unintentional words of advice would bring him in the future. In fact, in the final analysis, it is just that those who refuse to accept their fate will hold on to the opportunities given by fate more tightly.

…

After Le Jing and Ji Qi talked for a while, Ji Qi said goodbye and said he would take the train back to Shanghai this afternoon. He couldn't wait to make a big splash in Shanghai and bring Memoirs of a Famous Courtesan to the big screen for more people to see.

Le Jing sent him to the station. When they were about to leave, Ji Qi suddenly smiled and said, "It looks like I will be able to read an excellent article soon."

Le Jing: “?”

Ji Qi pointed at his eyes and smiled, "Since we met those beggars at noon, your eyes have been filled with the anger of a lion. A man with such eyes will not remain silent. He will definitely take up arms and do something." He lowered his eyes and looked at the white, soft, harmless hands of the young man that naturally fell by his side. They were so fragile that they seemed to be broken with a little effort, but he knew it was just an illusion. These were the hands of a scholar. These hands would take up the most terrible weapons in the world, just like the countless predecessors in history. His thoughts would turn into words that would never be extinguished and fall on the sky of human justice and conscience.

Le Jing was silent for a few seconds, then replied with a wry smile: "I thought I hid it very well, but I didn't expect to be seen through so quickly."

"Thoughts are the most terrible weapons in the world, but they are not so easy to hide." Ji Qi looked up at the clear eyes of the young man in front of him, smiling with great joy and satisfaction: "I guess we will have the opportunity to cooperate again soon."

Le Jing smiled and stretched out his hand: "Then I look forward to our next cooperation."

Ji Qi shook his hand back tightly, with a fire that never went out in his eyes, and a lion hidden in his eyes. He said seriously: "I know that what I said may sound a bit like bragging, but I really think that our cooperation will go down in history. People like you and me are destined not to be content with being ordinary. We must always make a big fuss to live up to our life in this world."

Le Jing also smiled and said, "I don't know what my reputation will be like after my death, but I am sure that you, Ji Jian, will be remembered in history books and admired by countless future generations." You will become a signpost of the times, guiding the direction of an era. Even if future generations only take a brief glimpse of you in history books, they will be obsessed with you and yearn for you.

Ji Qi smiled, taking it as a compliment, and gave Le Jing a big hug. "I'm leaving now. I'll wait for you in Shanghai."

Le Jing also knew that if he continued to do this, he would sooner or later have to hide in the Shanghai concession. Although Tianjin also had concessions, and it was the city with the most concessions in the country, Tianjin was too close to Beijing, and the concessions were full of people of all kinds, so there must be spies and intelligence agencies from the Beijing government. So naturally, Shanghai, where the sky is high and the emperor is far away, is safer, and it is also very convenient to sneak into foreign countries from Shanghai.

Le Jing said earnestly: "I hope we can meet later."

…

It was past five in the afternoon when Le Jing sent Ji Qi home. It was already dark, and bright lanterns were hung on both sides of the street. From time to time, shop owners in long gowns could be seen sitting at the door of their shops with their sleeves tucked in, their faces covered with rough lines like tree bark. A few beggars with crutches sang "Pear Blossoms Falling" at the door of a restaurant, but were rudely driven away by the waiter.

The rickshaw turned a corner and passed the back door of the restaurant. The worker poured a bucket of stinking swill into the trash can, and a few stray dogs greedily buried their heads in it and swallowed it in big gulps. A few skeleton-like children shouted loudly and beat the stray dogs away with sticks, which gave them the opportunity to squeeze in front of the trash can and swallow the swill like dogs.

The rickshaw continued to move forward. A prostitute with her breasts exposed stood at the entrance of the alley and loudly solicited for business. She cast a wink at Le Jing who passed by. A tired mother hugged her child tightly and huddled in the corner. Her tattered clothes made her shiver in the cold wind of late autumn. Several children's bodies were thrown into a night train leaving the city. Their final destination was a mass grave outside the city...

at the same time.

A man with a big belly hugged a graceful woman and got into a vintage car; a boy wearing a schoolbag and a fine school uniform sat on a rickshaw and ate snacks; a gentleman and a lady in elegant clothes got up with each other, leaving behind a mess of dishes on the table...

This is the best of times, this is the worst of times; this is an age of wisdom, this is an age of foolishness; this is an epoch of belief, this is an epoch of incredulity; this is the season of Light, this is the season of Darkness; this is the spring of hope, this is the winter of despair; people have everything before them, people have nothing before them; people are on the road to heaven, people are heading straight for the gates of hell.

This is what Dickens wrote in A Tale of Two Cities in 1859, but it is still applicable today as 1925 is almost over.

So the angry French people in "A Tale of Two Cities" sent the king and queen to the guillotine, and so some young idealists in the Republic of China started a change in China that had not happened in 3,000 years.

Le Jing sat in a rickshaw, the old street scenes on both sides of the road quickly receding amid the driver's panting, but he knew that the spark of revolution had been ignited and the fire of revolution was about to come.

On the way home, Le Jing thought a lot.

His disgust for the Republic of China originated from a domestic animation called "Sanmao Wanderings".

"My mouth is bitter, my heart is hot, who will wipe the tears from my eyes? Neon lights accompany high-rise buildings, a rickshaw pulls a flower, the alleys are so small, the streets are so big, countless lanes are not my home, three strands of hair face the wind and rain, a pair of small feet are printed on the beach of Shanghai. The sun is my father, the moon is my mother, the world is so big, where is my home? The bed is made of bricks, the pillow is made of tiles, and the body is covered with sunset glow..."

This song has brought tears to the eyes of countless children. It was through this animation that Le Jing, who was six years old at the time, learned that not every child can sleep with a quilt, and not every child can have enough food to eat.

Le Jing had always thought that the little girl next door was stupid. She just smiled foolishly every day and she didn’t know how to read adults’ expressions even at the age of six.

At the age of two, Le Jing was able to sense his parents' emotions and learned to be quiet when they were in a bad mood. At the age of three, he learned to ask his father for pocket money in front of guests.

He always thought she was too stupid before, but the girl's father was Le Zhengye's boss, so Le Jing was very nice to the girl.

It was this little girl who Le Jing had always looked down upon, who sighed after reading Sanmao's Wanderings and said very maturely: "Children of poor families are all like this. My cousin is in the countryside, and like Sanmao, she has never even eaten chocolate."

It was at that moment that Le Jing suddenly realized that it was not the little girl who was stupid, but himself.

He relied on his intelligence and thought he had the whole world at his fingertips, and was very proud of it. But the world he thought was just his family and school. He took a tiny corner of the world as the whole world.

His knowledge is not even as good as that of a little girl whose IQ is lower than his.

At that moment, Le Jing felt inexplicably ashamed.

It was not until a long, long time later, after Le Jing had read many books and visited many places, that he understood why he was ashamed at that time - he was ashamed of his ignorance and narrow-mindedness in owning the "I am the world".

There is a saying that poverty limits our imagination, but wealth also limits our imagination. Children who are picked up by school buses cannot imagine that there are children who have to walk dozens of miles on mountain roads to go to school before dawn, and people who spend one dollar on the bus cannot understand that there are people who walk more than ten kilometers in the sun to save one dollar.

That's why Le Jing likes "Sanmao Wanderings" so much. This animation opens a window for children in peaceful and prosperous times, allowing them to understand that their current lives are not taken for granted and the world they live in does not represent the entire world.

It was only after that that Le Jing put away his sharp edge and became more and more peaceful.

All his positive changes were caused by Sanmao, and now that he has become relatively mature, he has traveled back to Sanmao's era.

This is such an interesting cycle.

In this case, as a beneficiary, he should do something for the Sanmao of this era.

As a weak scholar who is not even capable of tying a chicken, the only thing Le Jing can do is to use his pen to paint a warm and bright fairy tale world for the street children of this era.

This will most likely change nothing and could even be considered hypocrisy.

Because a story will not stop wars, nor natural disasters and man-made disasters, and it is even less likely to become food to fill the stomachs of hungry children. It is just a match that the little match girl lit before she died, generating nothing but some false fantasies and a weak heat.

But, it shines.

In the pitch-black night when you can't see your hand in front of you, the light of a match can illuminate the road under your feet; in the cold winter with ice and snow, the warmth of a flame can support a frozen person to keep moving forward.

Those who have never seen the light cannot yearn for it, because it is impossible for people to yearn for something they cannot understand.

Le Jing wanted to use the fairy tale story of a homeless child who fought back against adversity and eventually became successful to tell tens of millions of children in old China that no one is born to be hungry, and no one is born to be poor all his life.

They can have enough food to eat, go to school, and find a job to make a living... As long as they are hardworking, tenacious, brave and fearless like lions and as ambitious as wolves, they will definitely survive.

Le Jing knew that this was just a bowl of chicken soup, but as long as this bowl of chicken soup could rekindle hope for the future for a desperate child, then this bowl of chicken soup would be valuable.

When he got home, it was already past six o'clock. Chunyan had already prepared the meal, and Li Shuran was sitting at the dining table waiting for him. Le Jing picked up the bowl and asked Li Shuran, "How is your study recently?"

Li Shuran said excitedly: "The teacher praised me, saying that I made rapid progress and studied hard. Today the teacher taught us a poem that he said was written by an emperor in the Song Dynasty. I can already recite it!"

Le Jing said, "That's amazing, recite it to me."

Soon, the room was filled with the sound of Li Shuran reciting aloud: "A wealthy family does not need to buy good farmland, for books contain thousands of bushels of grain. A comfortable home does not need to build a tall building, for books contain a golden house. Do not be sad that you do not have a good matchmaker to marry, for books contain beautiful women. Do not be sad that you do not have anyone to accompany you when you go out, for books contain carriages and horses as numerous as clusters. A man who wants to fulfill his life's ambition should study the Five Classics diligently in front of the window."

Le Jing nodded and asked, "What do you think of this poem?"

"Of course the poem is good. The emperor is trying to persuade people to study. But I think the third and last lines of the poem should be changed now."

"How do you want to change it?"

Li Shuran smiled and recited: "It should be changed to 'Don't hate the lack of a good matchmaker for marriage, there are beautiful women in books' and 'Men and women who want to fulfill their life's ambitions should study the Five Classics diligently in front of the window'." She smiled and said: "Now is a new era, men and women should study hard."

Le Jing felt relieved, thinking that at the beginning of the year the little girl still believed that a woman's virtue lies in her lack of talent. It turned out that reading could enlighten one's mind and enlighten one's reason.

"You're right to change." Le Jing smiled and said, "I don't need me to tell you the benefits of studying. I hope that no matter what happens in the future, no matter how difficult the situation is, you will not give up studying."

Li Shuran nodded vigorously, "I will definitely do it." She already understood the meaning of "living soberly" in her brother's words that day. Although she still couldn't explain it clearly, she felt happy to read and the process of learning new knowledge was very interesting. She felt that she was getting better and better, and that was enough.

…

After dinner, Le Jing came to the study and started writing a new series.

He first wrote a few elegant cursive characters on the white manuscript paper: Wandering Adventures.

This is the title of his new book.

He planned to set the protagonist as a seven-year-old boy who was lost from his family while fleeing famine. Out of some bad taste, he named him Damao.

Damao wandered alone in the huge city of Peking, and encountered many bizarre and strange people and things. The whole text has a strong sense of magical realism.

The novel begins with a hungry Da Mao sitting at the door of a rich man's house, communicating with a stone lion that is about to be demolished. The stone lion was once placed at the door of the family by the ancestors during the Qing Dynasty to protect the house. Later, the stone lion's owner has gone through many hardships and has not fallen, and the stone lion has also been stationed in front of the door silently as always.

Later, when the Qing Dynasty collapsed and a new government was established, the stone lions remained as new as ever.

"Because I have become a monster, monsters have a very long lifespan." The stone lion told Damao.

Da Mao asked curiously: "If that's the case, why don't you run away? They are about to tear you down!"

The stone lion said, "The ancestor of this house has done me a favor. I promised him that I would guard the door of his house for 300 years after his death to protect his descendants. I cannot leave before the 300-year period is up."

Da Mao was anxious: "If you don't run away, you will die!" He thought for a while and said, "They must not know that you are a monster, so they did this. If you tell them, they will definitely not tear you down!"

The stone lion was silent for a moment, but then said, "If I am alive, I will have to protect this family because of the agreement. Only when I die and this family loses my protection will they suffer the retribution they deserve."

So the stone lion told Damao a long story about the evil deeds of this family.

Some people raped women, some abducted children, some killed people without warning, and some forced women of good families into slavery...all these evil deeds can only be described as completely unscrupulous and worse than beasts.

Damao was so angry that he couldn't help cursing, "It's really a pity that such a person is still alive today!"

The stone lion was silent for a while, then said to Damao, "Go away, stay away from here, and come back in a week. The things buried under my feet are given to you. Dig them at night and don't let anyone see you."

Da Mao left. When he came back a week later, he found that the house had become a ruin.

I heard from the neighbors that the day after Damao left, when the workers were dismantling the stone lions that night, a purple lightning bolt struck the house fiercely, and the house soon caught fire.

The fire burned for three days and three nights without being extinguished, burning down all the carved beams and painted buildings, pavilions and towers that were built with the blood and sweat of the people.

The neighbors said, "I told them a long time ago that removing the stone lions would bring disaster, but they just wouldn't listen!"

Damao cried very sadly. He was the only one who knew that this was not a disaster but the retribution of karma for the stone lion's death.

Da Mao cried for a long time before he remembered what the stone lion had told him before it died. He waited patiently until night, and then dug out a bag of orange copper coins from where the stone lion had stood.

Damao cried again. The stone lion didn't know that these ancient coins from the Qing Dynasty could not be spent in the Republic of China.