140: Listening to the Snow

Though the Major Cold solar term had passed, the flying snow had not stopped.

Inside Xisheng Mansion, it was warm and cozy.

On the dining table, a plate of Carp with Garlic Sauce looked oily and smooth under the reflection of the chandelier.

That bottle of red wine, which had been around since before they moved, was heroically poured by Comrade Wang Xiulian into a glass pitcher usually used for plain boiled water.

She called it "decanting," though it looked just like grape juice.

"149 points!"

"Old Lin, look at this! I told you our son has finally seen the light!"

Lin Jianguo picked up a piece of fish with his chopsticks.

He tried his best to keep a straight face, but the crow's feet at the corners of his eyes had already betrayed him.

"That's enough."

Lin Jianguo took a sip of the "Pitcher Red" and smacked his lips.

"This is just a mock exam. He still needs to keep working hard in the future and can't get cocky."

"Oh, please!"

Wang Xiulian turned and placed a large piece of fish into Lin Que's bowl.

"Son, eat more; it's good for your brain. Your dad is just being stubborn. Believe it or not, by this time tomorrow, even the security guard at the gate will know you scored 149."

"Just eat your food!"

Lin Jianguo felt a bit embarrassed and could only take his frustration out on the fish.

"Did you put too much salt in the fish today? And this rice, is it undercooked?"

Lin Que held his bowl, doing nothing but grinning.

While Lin Jianguo nitpicked that the fish was overcooked,

he honestly picked out all the bones and placed the clean meat into Lin Que's bowl.

Lin Que chewed the fish and didn't say a word,

he simply shoveled the rice in his bowl even cleaner.

There were some flavors he hadn't appreciated in his last life,

so in this life, he had to chew slowly and savor them.

After the meal,

Lin Que returned to his studio.

He pulled a somewhat crumpled registration form from a compartment in his backpack.

The form Shen Qingqiu had given him had a black QR code printed on it,

with a line of small text written next to it:

"Scan the code to obtain the preliminary round prompt."

Lin Que turned on the desk lamp, the light cutting through the surrounding darkness.

He aimed his phone camera at the QR code. With a "beep," the page redirected.

There were no flashy animations or stirring background music.

The screen displayed a minimalist gray-and-white interface with only a single black ink dot in the center.

As it loaded, the ink gradually bled out, finally transforming into two lines of small Songti font.

【Preliminary Round Topic: Silent Thunder】

【Description: The ancients said, 'Great music has the faintest notes.'】

【In this era of information explosion and clamorous noise,】

【we can hear the roar of engines, the tapping of keyboards, and the flow of data,】

【yet we often fail to hear those truly deafening sounds.】

【Please use 'The Unheard Sound' as the core concept. Choose your own title. Any genre is allowed (except poetry). Word count: 800-3000 words.】

Lin Que looked at the screen, his fingers unconsciously spinning his phone.

This topic was quite interesting.

Tricky.

It seemed broad, but it was actually full of traps.

If an ordinary high school student saw this topic,

they would most likely lean toward clichés like "silence is better than sound," "listening to nature," or "listening to one's inner voice."

They would write about the silent love of grandparents or the rustling of pen tips in an exam hall.

Safe, but mediocre.

In a top-tier national competition like this, judges had to read thousands of manuscripts every day.

Those cookie-cutter lyrical essays would likely be tossed into the trash after just the opening.

To break through, one had to take an unconventional path—or perhaps, use a blade so heavy it needed no edge.

Lin Que leaned back in his chair, his gaze passing through the window and landing on the pitch-black night.

The stock of knowledge in his head rustled like pages of a book blown open by the wind.

The ink marks from the brush of Sima Qian,

the blue smoke rising from Mr. Lu Xun's pipe,

and the silhouette in the wheelchair in the Temple of Earth...

silent images interlaced before his eyes one by one.

The cultural soil of this world was too superficial.

People were used to the fast pace of short videos and the instant gratification of direct thrills.

They could hear laughter and they could hear crying,

but they couldn't hear the crisp sound of the wheels of history crushing the dust.

If he wanted to "soar up to ninety thousand li," he needed some weight.

Lin Que opened his eyes, his gaze landing outside the window.

The snow was still falling.

The snow in Jiangcheng wasn't as violent as in the north.

It was fine and moist, melting as soon as it hit the ground,

or silently accumulating on the tips of branches, weighing them down.

This snow was falling so quietly.

An idea suddenly exploded in his mind.

He sat up straight and created a new document.

In the title bar, without the slightest hesitation, he typed two words:

"Listening to the Snow".

What he wanted to write about wasn't the whiteness of the snow, nor the joy of a timely snow promising a good harvest.

He wanted to use this snow

to write about those heavy sounds buried by time that were absent from this world.

Lin Que's fingers hovered over the keyboard, pausing for a moment,

as if searching for the coldness and fervor Mr. Lu Xun felt when writing "Snow" in that other world,

and as if borrowing that sense of desolation unique to the North found in Chi Zijian's writing.

Finally, he typed the first paragraph.

【The snow in Jiangnan is dead rain, a wound that hasn't had time to scab over.】

【When they fall, there is no sound, only a damp sigh.】

The cursor flickered, and words flowed out like water.

【People always love to talk about listening to the snow, but what is there to hear in snow?】

【It lacks the crispness of rain hitting banana leaves and the howl of wind through pine forests.】

【The sound of snow is the sound of oppression.】

【It is millions of tons of weight,】

【pressing down on rooftops, on withered grass, and on the eyelids of this noisy world in the lightest of postures.】

【It forces all things to be silent, forcing this land back to its original vastness.】

Lin Que wrote very slowly.

He didn't use any flowery language to describe the snow scene; instead, he extended his pen to the land beneath the snow.

He wrote about the sound of wheat seedlings covered by heavy snow, gritting their teeth to grow in the darkness.

He wrote about the cracking sounds made by frozen stones in the dead of night.

He wrote about the battlefields buried by snow in the pages of history, where the clashing of weapons finally turned into a vast, clean, and deathly silence.

【Our era is too noisy.】

【We laugh in the background audio of short videos and rage in the trending topics.】

【Our ears are filled with all kinds of decibels, yet we alone cannot hear this massive silence from heaven and earth.】

【True thunder is often mute.】

【It doesn't explode in the sky; it explodes in seeds, under the ice,】

【and in the heart of everyone trying to find a sense of reality amidst the void.】

...Time passed minute by minute.

The snow outside grew heavier, and the heating in the room seemed to become a bit stifling.

Lin Que was completely immersed in that solemn yet life-filled artistic conception.

This wasn't just a competition essay; it was his subtle critique and monologue as a "Fire-bringer" regarding the current state of culture in this world.

When he typed the final period, Lin Que felt his palms were covered in sweat.

In the bottom left corner, the word count settled at 2,400 words.

It wasn't long, but every word carried weight.

He read it through once.

No melodrama, no "chicken soup for the soul."

"Whew—"

Lin Que let out a long breath and took a large gulp of the plain boiled water next to him.

He checked the time; it was 11:30 PM.

Teacher Shen probably wasn't asleep yet.

Lin Que opened WeChat and found Shen Qingqiu's avatar.

He clicked to send the file.

【Mu Xia】: Teacher Shen, the preliminary draft for the competition is finished. Please take a look...