338: Chapter 338 Good writing doesn't discriminate between classrooms

The middle-aged man stood where he was, his lips moving slightly, but no sound came out.

After a full three seconds, he finally raised his hand and gave a powerful clap.

"What a transparent wall!"

His voice suddenly rose, startling several reporters nearby who were secretly taking photos.

"Brilliant!"

He turned and shouted to the Writers Association staffer, Xiao Liu, behind him:

"Give me twenty copies!"

This time it was Xiao Liu's turn to be stunned.

The calculator in his hand was still calculating the inventory balance as he looked up to confirm:

"Did you say... twenty copies?"

"That's right, twenty copies."

"This book must be placed in our School's Modern and Contemporary Literature Seminar Room,

so my graduate students can take a good look at what true realism that pierces the era looks like!"

School? Seminar room? Graduate students?

Xiao Liu was startled by this momentum and hurriedly counted the physical books.

Twenty copies of folding beijing with cold gray covers were stuffed into two paper bags, hanging heavily on the middle-aged man's arm.

"Dean Chen?"

A leisurely voice came from behind the crowd.

Chairman Lu had come down from the second floor at some point and was walking toward them across the red carpet.

His pace wasn't fast, but the people around him automatically cleared a path.

"Chairman Lu."

The middle-aged man turned around, the academic seriousness on his face replaced by ill-concealed admiration.

"I didn't expect to run into you here."

Chairman Lu shook hands with him, then turned to the curious young faces behind the signing table and took the initiative to introduce him.

"This is the Vice Dean of the University School of Liberal Arts, Professor Chen Jingzhi."

He paused for a beat.

"He is also the leader of the grading group for our Fu Zhi Yao Competition Magic City competition zone."

The contestants behind the signing table all gasped in unison.

The pen in Zhang Hao's hand almost fell to the floor, and Tang He stood up, her eyes wide.

The leader of the grading group for the Magic City sub-competition zone.

Personally coming to the signing event to wait in line for books, and buying twenty copies at once.

For the contestants present, the impact of this information was even more powerful than the long line outside that stretched to the curb.

Every word they had written stroke by stroke during the competition had passed under this man's hands.

Chen Jingzhi ignored those shocked gazes.

He walked around the signing table, went up to Lin Que, and reached out his hand.

Lin Que immediately stood up, shook the other man's hand with both of his, and bowed slightly in a clean gesture of respect for an elder.

"Hello, Dean Chen."

Chen Jingzhi laughed heartily and patted Lin Que's shoulder twice with his free hand, giving him quite a solid pat.

"Do you know why I came all this way to wait in line?"

Lin Que didn't respond, waiting for him to continue.

"After looking through hundreds of manuscripts back then, the affected student tone tortured me to the point of nearly despairing for this generation of young people."

Chen Jingzhi's tone was casual, but the content was anything but.

"Until I saw your fan jin passes the imperial examination."

He withdrew his hand, and the look in his eyes as he watched Lin Que changed.

"That penetrating, cold, plain-sketching style stripped bare the absurdity and cruelty of the imperial examination system's alienation of human nature.

At that moment, I knew that someone had emerged who truly dared to use words to debone the era."

Beside him, Chairman Lu added with a smile.

"Lin Que, you don't know the situation back then.

Several old judges were completely shocked by the writing style of that piece of yours; they couldn't believe it was written by a high school student within the time limit of the exam room.

They even specifically pulled the surveillance footage of your exam room to review it."

"Dean Chen was the first to slam the table. What were your exact words again?"

Chairman Lu turned his gaze toward him.

Chen Jingzhi nodded.

"What I said was, if this kind of article can't get a perfect score, it's the grading group's embarrassment, not the candidate's problem."

These words were so forceful that the shutters of the surrounding reporters clicked incessantly.

"Thank you, Dean Chen."

Lin Que didn't say any other polite formalities.

With so many people watching, those pretty social platitudes would have felt cheap.

Chen Jingzhi wasn't there to hear pleasantries either.

His gaze fell on the stack of physical books on the table, which was getting thinner and thinner, and he suddenly let out a very genuine sigh.

"It's a pity you've already secured a guaranteed admission to Tsinghua and Peking Universities."

"Otherwise, I would have found a way to get you into the University School of Liberal Arts no matter what.

The new Comparative Literature direction I've started over there is in dire need of a talent like you who can blend realism with genre narrative."

Hearing this, Lin Que bowed slightly again.

"Dean Chen overpraises me. Being recognized by you makes me feel more grounded than winning any award."

He paused for a beat.

He looked up, his gaze passing through the dense crowd in front of the signing table, looking at the early autumn sunlight outside the Book City doors.

"But in my view, good writing doesn't pick classrooms.

No matter which University classroom you sit in, as long as what you write is the real thing, it will eventually find its readers."

Chen Jingzhi was stunned for a moment.

Then he let go of Lin Que's hand, took half a step back, and looked at the youth seriously for three seconds.

"Well said."

Chen Jingzhi's tone changed, from the casualness of an elder to the solemnity between peers.

"I'll be waiting for your next work."

The sound of shutters around the signing table almost never stopped.

Several reporters who had sensed the news value early on

aimed their lenses at the entire process of the University Vice Dean queuing to buy books,

not even missing a close-up of the paper bag on Chen Jingzhi's arm containing twenty books.

The movements of several contestants behind the signing table froze almost simultaneously.

Zhang Hao's pen tip stayed on the paper without lifting, and Liu Yu's hand pushing his glasses froze in mid-air.

Tang He had stood up at some point.

The signing pen in her hand hung loosely between her fingers.

Her gaze was fixed tightly on Lin Que, her mouth silently repeating

—"good writing doesn't pick classrooms."

This sentence pierced into a corner of her heart that she had always avoided.

Lowering her eyelashes, she flipped through the thin copy of glass in front of her page by page, as if re-examining every word inside.

When she reached the third chapter, her finger stopped,

her thumb pressing on the passage she was once most proud of, her fingertip unconsciously applying pressure.

As Chen Jingzhi walked out of the signing area carrying the paper bags, several passing media reporters hurriedly chased after him.

"Professor Chen! How would you evaluate the literary value of folding beijing?"

"Dean Chen, will you really include this book in the University curriculum?"

"Dean Chen, do you have any expectations for Student Lin?"

Chen Jingzhi stopped and remained silent for two seconds in front of the camera.

"Someone who can write something like this at seventeen—the entire Chinese Literary World might not produce another in twenty years."

He paused for a beat, his tone suddenly becoming heavy.

"But the more talented they are, the easier it is for them to be swallowed by the vanity fair.

I only hope he can always hold his pen well and not fail this talent."

After saying that, he patted the paper bag on his arm and walked out of the Book City doors without looking back.

The sound of shutters behind him chased him to the steps outside before gradually fading.

At this moment,

standing behind the signing table, Lin Que withdrew his gaze from Chen Jingzhi's disappearing back.

He sat down again, picked up his signing pen, and opened the title page of the next book in front of him.

Chairman Lu stood at the edge of the red carpet and finished watching the scene.

He didn't offer any evaluation, only nodding slightly with his hands behind his back, then turned to walk toward the second floor.

Just as his foot stepped onto the stairs, Hu Yizhao caught up from behind.

"Chairman Lu."

Hu Yizhao lowered his voice, but it couldn't stop trembling.

"The inventory of folding beijing—"

He swallowed hard.

"There are less than a hundred copies left."

...