153: Comedy or farce?

Shanghai, University, Huaguang Building.

This teaching building, known as the number one building among universities, was currently shrouded in a solemn and oppressive atmosphere.

The entire computer room on the thirteenth floor had been temporarily requisitioned, and two blue-and-white warning signs stood at the entrance:

"Grading Area, Please Do Not Make Noise"

and "Fully Closed Management, Electronic Devices Prohibited Inside."

This was the Su Province North District grading center for "Fu Zhi Yao Competition" National Middle School Essay Competition.

There was no sound of paper turning in the computer room; instead, it was filled with the dense, crisp clicking of hundreds of mice.

The air was a mixture of the burnt smell of computer cases dissipating heat and the scent of essential balm that shot straight to the crown of one's head.

To ensure absolute fairness and professionalism, this grading system used the latest "Wenshu" sixth-generation terminal.

Every grader needed to pass both iris scanning and fingerprint authentication to log in.

On the screen, the candidates' names, schools, and regions were all masked, leaving only a string of cold barcodes and the content of the essays.

Zhou Yu, sitting in the third row of Area C, took off his glasses and pressed hard on the bridge of his nose.

As a doctoral student in the University Chinese Department, he had originally thought this would be a pleasant journey of discovering raw jade, and he had even specially cancelled his doctoral advisor's class for it.

But after these four hours, he felt as if his brain had been thrown into a washing machine.

"Ouch, I can't take it anymore."

Zhou Yu pushed his mouse away, slumped in his chair, and let out a desperate wail:

"Who has eye drops? Lend me some to extend my life."

A girl with a ponytail next to him handed over a bottle of eye drops and rolled her eyes:

"What's wrong, Dr. Zhou? Did you see Grandma resurrect again?"

"It's even worse than that."

Zhou Yu tilted his head back and let the cold liquid drip into his eyes.

"This one is about the joy of rain after a long drought. Good grief, this junior student really wrote about farming! He wrote about how his family's two acres of land cracked, then a rain came, and his grandfather was so happy he rolled in the fields... Sigh, this is a literature competition, not the Agricultural Channel's 'Road to Wealth'!"

"Be content."

A boy in the back row chimed in, his tone full of listlessness.

"My side is the real disaster scene. The topic is 'Happy Event,' but these junior students all wrote it as 'Touching China.' This afternoon alone, I've read over twenty essays about meeting a fellow villager while traveling, and over thirty about a mother's hug after failing an exam. I feel a bit sick from all the sweetness now."

A low chuckle rippled through the grading room, but there was more helplessness than amusement in the laughter.

This was the common problem with assigned topics.

The topic "Happy Event" seemed to have a low threshold, and anyone could write a few lines about it.

But precisely because the threshold was too low, the pool of material was severely repetitive.

To play it safe, most candidates chose the most conservative, most positive, and most boring angles.

It was like plastic flowers produced on an assembly line—they looked bright, but they smelled entirely of glue.

"Everyone has worked hard."

A gentle voice came over.

Looking toward the sound, an elderly man with graying hair walked slowly down the aisle with his hands behind his back.

It was none other than Chen Jingzhi, the Vice Dean of the University School of Chinese Language and Literature and the leader of this grading team.

"Hello, Dean Chen."

"Hello, Professor."

The young graders quickly sat up straight.

Chen Jingzhi waved his hand, signaling everyone to relax.

He walked behind Zhou Yu, glanced at the ungraded page on the screen, and asked with a smile:

"Too much homogenization, suffering from aesthetic fatigue, right?"

"Dean Chen, it's really not that we're being picky."

Zhou Yu said with a bitter face, pointing at the screen.

"The writing skills of this batch of junior students aren't bad; their use of parallel sentences is incredibly smooth, and they use idioms one after another. But it's just... flavorless."

"Flavorless?"

Chen Jingzhi raised an eyebrow.

"Yes."

Zhou Yu collected his thoughts.

"It's all that kind of 'happiness for the sake of happiness,' and forced sentimentality. In over four hours, I've read over a hundred manuscripts, and it feels like reading over a hundred standard answers in different fonts. There's no... thing that makes one's heart skip a beat."

Chen Jingzhi nodded, his gaze sweeping over the graders present.

These were the core members carefully selected from the School of Literature, with sharp eyes.

Being able to make them collectively feel exhausted showed that this time, the "Happy Event" had indeed boxed these kids in.

"In this era of information overload, children have seen more, but they think less."

Chen Jingzhi sighed and picked up a bottle of mineral water from the table, unscrewing it.

"They are used to short, fast-paced plot twists and satisfying points, and accustomed to formulaic expressions. To really let them settle down to deconstruct a topic, to dig into the thorns of life—it's difficult."

"Alright, take a ten-minute break, then continue."

Chen Jingzhi patted Zhou Yu on the shoulder and handed him the mineral water.

"Panning for gold in the sand is inherently a tough job. Who knows, maybe the next one will give you a surprise?"

"Sigh, let's hope so!"

Zhou Yu sighed and respectfully accepted the mineral water.

The break ended.

The dense sound of mouse clicks resumed in the grading room.

Zhou Yu mechanically moved the mouse and gave an essay titled "The Happy Event of Xia Country" a C grade.

He felt as if his soul was about to be squeezed dry by these happy events; it was almost purely by muscle memory and the last shred of his professional ethics as a doctoral student that he didn't directly label this article as "Template Essay, No Comment."

He emptied his mind, clicked on the next one resignedly, and only one thought remained in his heart:

Please, give me something different, even if it's written terribly.

The screen flickered, and a new document loaded.

The title had only four characters.

Zhou Yu narrowed his eyes, his gaze focusing on those four bold characters:

"fan jin passes the imperial examination."

"Passes the imperial examination?"

Zhou Yu was stunned for a moment.

"This name... just hearing it, it's clearly heading toward the point of success in the imperial examination."

In his heart, he had already presupposed a few cliché directions for this article: nothing more than a poor scholar studying hard for ten years, achieving success in the imperial examination one day, the whole family celebrating, and finally sublimating it to the combination of personal destiny and national sentiment.

The only interesting point might be whether the author's writing foundation and historical details were rigorous.

Thinking this, with scrutiny and pickiness, he scrolled the mouse wheel.

In the first paragraph, there was no nonsense about time flying, nor cliché descriptions of magpies on branches.

It was just a line of dialogue.

"Fan Jin did not look at it at first, but after reading it once and then reading it again, he clapped his hands together, laughed, and said: 'Oh! It's done! I've passed!'"

Zhou Yu's fingers paused.

This writing style... vernacular?

And it was that kind of vernacular with a strong Ming and Qing flavor, seasoned and concise?

He continued reading.

"Saying this, he fell backward, his teeth clenched, unconscious."

"The old lady panicked and poured water over him. He crawled up, clapped his hands, and laughed again, saying: 'Oh! Good! I've passed!' Laughing, he rushed out the door without a word, scaring the messengers and neighbors."

As Zhou Yu continued to read, his pupils unconsciously contracted little by little.

This imagery... was very strong.

But where was this writing about a happy event?

This was clearly writing about a frenzy.

An old scholar who had taken exams for half his life and had been suppressed for half his life—the loss of composure and the madness after achieving success overnight were vividly brought to life on the paper in just a few words.

The drowsy sleepiness from just a moment ago was instantly dispelled by a chill.

Zhou Yu sat up straight.

He saw Butcher Hu, who was usually fierce and menacing, that petty person who always scolded his son-in-law as a "disgrace," now holding up those greasy hands, under the instigation of the crowd, about to slap this newly minted "master" awake.

"Butcher Hu walked up like a fierce god and said: 'You deserve a beating!' and slapped him across the face."

This slap hit Fan Jin in the face, and it also knocked on Zhou Yu's heart.

Absurd.

Extremely absurd.

When everyone else was singing praises that "success in the imperial examination" was a great joy in life, this candidate had actually written this happy event as a farce, a revelation of ugly behavior.

Zhou Yu stood up abruptly, his chair making a harsh, sharp sound on the floor, causing the surrounding tired graders to look over one after another.

He didn't care at all and reached out to press the emergency call button next to the Wenshu system.

Chen Jingzhi, who was drinking tea in the next room, saw the emergency red light turn on, frowned slightly, put down his teacup, and walked over.

Just as he reached the door, Zhou Yu immediately came up to meet him:

"Dean Chen!"

Chen Jingzhi looked at this usually steady doctoral student with some surprise:

"What's the matter?"

Zhou Yu grabbed Dean Chen's arm, pulled him to his seat, and pointed at the screen.

"You have to look at this one! I... I don't know how to grade it!"

"This manuscript... I can't tell if it's a happy event, or... a farce!"