195: You fell asleep just as it was starting to get going?

A brief silence fell over the command hall.

"Crushing?"

A young officer pushed up his glasses and spoke somewhat hesitantly.

"Elder Chen, isn't that word a bit too strong?

I see Number 092 over there writing about lovers reuniting when the Berlin Wall fell; the angle is also very clever."

The Old Professor didn't argue; he just gestured with his chin toward the ring of flickering screens around them:

"Look closer."

Everyone's eyes followed his lead.

Number 092 indeed had a delicate writing style, writing about the Wall of History.

Number 056 wrote about the Wall of the Heart between a father and son, with sincere emotions.

Someone else wrote about the offense and defense between firewalls and hackers, keeping up with the times.

"They're all good articles; in previous years, they could all win awards."

The Old Professor's voice was low.

"But have you noticed? The walls they write about are either built of brick and stone or imagined in the heart.

They are describing things that already exist in this world."

He turned his head sharply and pointed at screen Number 0816:

"But this kid, he is... defining!"

The originally rustling whispers completely vanished as the smooth, flowing text on the screen progressed.

Only dozens of eyes remained, staring fixedly at the screen belonging to Number 0816, with even their blinking frequency dropping to a minimum.

On the screen, that cruel world was bit by bit revealing its fangs.

[The earth begins to flip over.]

[First Space, with a population of five million, enjoys the twenty-four hours from six in the morning to six the next morning.

The air there smells of sweet vegetation, and sunlight is a free luxury.]

[And when the alarm sounds, these five million people along with their skyscrapers will fold into the ground like hibernating beasts.

Then, the earth flips, and only then can Second Space, with its twenty-five million people, and Third Space, with its fifty million people, flip to the surface like moss to divide the remaining twenty-four hours.]

Who needs bricks and rubble for this?

This wall, cast from time allocation and spatial folding, is invisible and intangible,

yet it's like a natural chasm, more despair-inducing than the electric fences of any high-security prison in the world.

"This isn't just writing a novel..."

The thermos in Tao Zhiyan's hand hung in mid-air, forgotten.

He stared at the setting about "inflation leading to time devaluation," murmuring to himself:

"This is a sociological surgery under a metallic shell."

He turned to look at Zhou Wenyuan beside him, his eyes full of disbelief:

"Old Zhou, this architectural ability... was our prompt leaked? Could he write this in such detail without months of planning?"

Zhou Wenyuan's expression was grave as he shook his head:

"The prompt was decided by the five elders half an hour before the competition; even if he found out immediately, he'd only have known ten minutes in advance.

So..."

He paused, his gaze deep:

"This only means that his mind was already filled with such a monster."

The director seemed to sense the atmosphere here and sensibly switched to a split-screen comparison.

On the left was Lin Que's "folding beijing," full of the smell of machine oil, sour rot, and suffocating rules of survival.

On the right was Xu Changge's "soul of the ancient wall."

It had to be said that the Young Master of the Xu family's writing was indeed sophisticated.

His description of the weeds growing in the cracks of the ancient city wall's bricks cited classics and oozed a style of a compassionate cultural journey.

Previously, it would have been an undisputed premium selection work.

On the screen, the plot was still progressing.

To scrape together the massive school choice fee for his adopted daughter Candy to attend kindergarten in First Space, the protagonist Old Knife decided to take a risk.

He intended to "smuggle" himself from Third Space to First Space during the gaps in the city's folding to deliver a letter.

It was a race against the Grim Reaper.

[Huge hydraulic rods began to retract, making a tooth-gritting sound of metal friction.

Old Knife pressed against the cold steel plate; above his head was a ten-thousand-ton building slowly pressing down.]

[If he was even a second slow, he would be crushed into a pulp by this precise urban machine, without even a scream getting out.]

The writing was extremely vivid.

The vibration of the interlocking gears and the pressure of being crushed to pieces if he were not careful surged through the screen straight to the viewers' heads.

In the command hall, several judges subconsciously gripped their armrests.

"It's too oppressive."

A Chairman from a southern province couldn't help but break the silence.

The Southern Chairman pushed up his glasses, his expression complex:

"Old Gu, this kid's writing is indeed sophisticated, no doubt about it, but isn't he cutting too deep?

Solidifying social classes directly into physical segregation—such an extreme socialist metaphor coming from a middle school student,

doesn't it seem too precocious, or even... a bit hostile?"

As soon as these words were spoken, several teaching assistants from the School of Liberal Arts who were watching also nodded.

Indeed, it was too real,

so real it was stinging.

Gu Changfeng was engrossed in reading; hearing this, he slowly turned his head.

He didn't rush to argue, but instead picked up his purple clay teapot and took a sip,

his eyes swept over the Southern Chairman, a smile hanging on his lips.

"Old Li."

Gu Changfeng chuckled; his voice wasn't loud, yet it was exceptionally clear in the quiet hall.

"You feel the sting, you feel the oppression—that's probably because you've been in 'First Space' for too long."

The Southern Chairman was stunned:

"Hey, Old Gu, what do you mean by that?"

Gu Changfeng pointed at Old Knife on the screen, who was currently rummaging through a garbage pile for food:

"What is the meaning of literature? Is it to whitewash peace and tell everyone the world is a giant playground?

Or is it to dig out the things folded away in the darkness and expose them to the sun?"

He stood up, walked to the screen, and with his hands behind his back, his tone suddenly became sharp.

"What this child is writing isn't darkness; it's reality.

It's just that this reality has been wrapped in a sci-fi shell by him, making you and your lot feel uncomfortable."

He scanned the teaching assistants from earlier and continued:

"But if we don't even have the courage to look directly at this 'discomfort,' then why are we selecting writers? We might as well just select eulogists!"

His words were powerful and resonant.

The Southern Chairman opened his mouth, his face flushing red, but for a long while, he couldn't squeeze out a single word.

Those around him who had originally wanted to agree also silently shut their mouths.

Everyone knew Gu Changfeng was protective of his own, but they didn't expect him to be so firm and so reasonable.

On the screen, the plot reached its first climax.

Ten o'clock at night.

Old Knife used every last bit of his strength, and in the second before the hydraulic rods closed,

he used the only connection between the spaces—the garbage station—to roll into the greenery of First Space.

[He smelled the fragrance of the soil.]

[There was no sour rot here, no crowded capsule rooms.

The wide roads were empty, and the streetlights were blindingly bright.

The trash cans here contained burgers with only one bite taken out, and the lawns were trimmed as neatly as carpets.]

[These five million people enjoy the city's finest twenty-four hours, yet at this moment, they are all asleep.]

Without excessive embellishment, the crowding and filth of Third Space were simply juxtaposed with the emptiness and waste of First Space.

This massive visual contrast struck everyone's heart.

Tao Zhiyan's eyes reddened as he watched, and he slapped his thigh hard:

"Good! This is a wall! Invisible and intangible, yet it divides people into two species!"

Just then.

The cursor on the screen suddenly stopped.

The line of text stopped at: [Old Knife looked at that clear full moon he had never seen before, and tears flowed down].

Then, the figure in the dark blue suit in the frame moved.

On the screen, the cursor flickered after "tears flowed down."

Lin Que's fingers left the keyboard.

He wasn't stuck; he just felt that the blank space here was more powerful than continuing to write.

Of course, mainly, he was sleepy.

Under the gaze of dozens of pairs of eyes eagerly waiting for Old Knife's "next move,"

Lin Que unhurriedly saved the document and turned off the monitor.

He stood up, stretched, got into bed, and covered his head.

The movements were smooth and natural.

"???"

In the command hall, the judges who had just been fired up by the plot

instantly felt as if they were being strangled.

"My goodness..."

Tao Zhiyan pointed at the screen, slapping his forehead in exasperation:

"This rascal!

Just as he got everyone fired up, he goes and...

...covers himself with a blanket and falls asleep?!"

...