190: Advanced confinement cell

The beam of light extinguished, and darkness reclaimed the auditorium.

Chen Jiahao froze in his seat, his eyes darting around, not daring to meet Lin Que's gaze.

"Bi... Big shot..."

Chen Jiahao swallowed hard.

"What I said just now was... artistic license! Yes! Artistic license! Please, whatever you do, don't switch personalities..."

Lin Que slowly adjusted his cuffs and glanced at him sideways with a faint, inscrutable smile.

"Don't worry, my emotions are very stable right now. However, if the exam questions are too difficult later, I can't make any guarantees."

The onlookers who had been listening with great interest just now were all sitting up straight,

staring straight ahead as if they weren't the ones gossiping about the 'psychiatric patient' moments ago.

Front row, core area.

Xu Changge withdrew his gaze, his thumb unconsciously rubbing the frog fastener of his Tang suit.

His face remained calm, but his eyes scanned the surroundings rapidly.

It was too clean.

In this massive auditorium, besides the rows of red velvet seats, there wasn't even a spare scrap of paper.

No long tables for distributing exam papers, no vertical signal jammers, not even a spare pen in sight.

This was the national finals!

Were they expected to write with the papers balanced on their laps?

Or was this exam not about writing at all, but... an oral exam?

An inexplicable premonition rose in Xu Changge's heart.

This final had probably changed in nature the moment they stepped through these doors.

On stage, Professor Liu Zuoqing was in no hurry to read the rules.

The titan of the literary world leaned his hands on the edge of the podium, his eyes narrowing into slits behind his reading glasses.

With a smile, he tossed out a seemingly irrelevant question.

"How did everyone sleep last night?"

The audience was stunned.

Hundreds of question marks popped up over their heads simultaneously.

They were about to fight a decisive battle at the summit, yet this elder was concerned about their hotel experience?

"It was... okay?"

Someone muttered softly.

"What are your impressions of the hotels arranged by the organizing committee?"

Professor Liu Zuoqing continued to press, his tone so gentle it was almost eerie.

Chen Jiahao pushed up the glasses sliding down his nose and leaned in to whisper in Lin Que's ear.

"Does the Old Professor want us to write good reviews for a discount?"

The environment was nice, but it was a bit too quiet, like staying in a high-end confinement room."

Lin Que didn't speak, but his brow furrowed slightly.

High-end confinement room?

The phrase was like a bolt of lightning flashing through his mind.

"It seems everyone stayed quite comfortably."

Professor Liu Zuoqing seemed to see through everyone's thoughts, and the smile on his face became somewhat meaningful.

"Then did you not notice anything unusual?

For instance... why was it that whether you were from a remote province or the capital itself,

every single contestant, without exception, was assigned a single room?"

This sentence was like a stone thrown into a calm lake.

The students, who were still confused, instantly erupted into a frenzy.

"Right! I was wondering about that at the time!"

A girl in the back row cried out.

"In previous years, to save money, these competitions always had two people to a standard room. My teacher and I wanted to share a room to save money, but the hotel wouldn't allow it!"

"Me too! The front desk told me it was a special state appropriation; students must stay alone and on designated floors."

"I thought the benefits for this final were just good, that the country was treating us like giant pandas. Turns out there's a catch?"

The sound of discussion rose and fell.

They were all smart people; with a little nudge, they immediately sensed something was off.

While a free lunch is delicious, if that lunch is forced into your mouth,

you have to consider if there's a hook hidden inside.

Lin Que leaned back in his chair, his mind quickly replaying every detail of checking into the Wenjin Pavilion Hotel.

On that entire floor, the corridors were covered in thick carpets, so quiet he could only hear his own breathing.

Every room door was equipped with the kind of electronic access control system only seen in classified units.

Even... Lin Que remembered the feel of opening the window last night.

That floor-to-ceiling window, which looked large, was actually locked by a limiter. It could only open a gap of less than fifteen degrees—just enough for ventilation, but absolutely impossible for a person to crawl through.

At the time, he thought the security level was high to prevent accidents involving students.

Now it seemed that wasn't just protection, but a form of 'isolation'.

"And there's something even more important."

Professor Liu Zuoqing looked at the crowd as they came to their realizations, the smile at the corner of his mouth deepening.

"Not only were they single rooms, but you should have also noticed that the rooms for accompanying teachers and parents were kept far away on other floors, or even in other buildings.

In other words, from the moment you checked in last night, you were already in a state of 'semi-isolation'."

The once noisy auditorium instantly fell silent, leaving only the faint hum of the central air conditioning vents.

Lin Que looked out the window.

Through the stained glass high in the auditorium, he could vaguely see the gate of Tsinghua-Peking University, which stood facing the Wenjin Pavilion from a distance.

An auditorium without tables.

Carefully designed single rooms.

Strict identity verification.

All these clues connected to point toward a hair-raising conclusion.

"Heh, it seems some clever students have already guessed it."

Professor Liu Zuoqing stopped smiling.

In that instant, his kindly neighborly grandpa persona vanished,

replaced by the majesty and solemnity belonging to a titan of the literary world.

His voice became deep and powerful, echoing under the dome of the Great Hall, making eardrums buzz.

"To show the importance the state places on Fu Zhi Yao Competition, we booked the best hotel near Tsinghua-Peking University for you."

But it wasn't so you could go on vacation, nor was it for you to enjoy some five-star service."

Professor Liu Zuoqing waved a hand, pointing to the giant LED screen behind him.

*Sizzle—*

The screen display instantly switched.

It was no longer the 'Fu Zhi Yao Competition' logo, but had become split-screen displays of surveillance footage!

The images showed the very hotel rooms they had stayed in last night.

The beds were tidy, the desks empty, with only a laptop not connected to the internet sitting there quietly.

Over a thousand small squares densely covered the entire screen.

The massive auditorium was silent; the excitement of the thousand-plus candidates was instantly extinguished by this display.

Many felt a chill run down their spines.

"I officially announce!"

Professor Liu Zuoqing's voice boomed like thunder.

"The hotel rooms you walked out of this morning, which are currently empty, are the official exam venues for this 'Fu Zhi Yao Competition' final!"

"There will be no proctors patrolling beside you!"

"There will be no unified bell for the end of the exam!"

"There aren't even rules for when you sleep or when you eat!"

"Go back to those rooms; that is your battlefield!"

*Whoosh—*

The audience below completely boiled over.

What kind of crazy rule was this?

Taking an exam in a hotel room?

"Pro... Professor Liu!"

A boy with glasses in the front row couldn't help but stand up, his voice trembling.

"Then... what's the exam? Is it still an essay? How much time do we have?"

Professor Liu Zuoqing looked at the boy and shook his head, a trace of pity in his eyes.

"An essay?"

He gave a light scoff.

"The preliminary round tested essays to see if you had talent."

"The Semifinals tested novellas to see if you had character."

"Now that you've reached the finals, right at the gates of the Tsinghua-Peking Campus,"

if we still had you write some thousand-word filler, wouldn't that make us old fogies look completely incompetent?"

Professor Liu Zuoqing leaned forward, his hands on the podium.

His gaze swept the room like lightning as he dropped the final bombshell, word by word.

"The final exam is about architecture."

"It tests whether you can construct a world from nothing, and whether you can hold onto that spark of inspiration through long periods of solitude."

...