345: Chapter 345 Training Before the Blue-Green Project

Huo Yan stood beside the chair, her posture ramrod straight.

Her gaze swept across the faces of Jiang Changfeng and Fei Yuncheng, finally landing on Lin Que.

"Just now, hearing Principal Jiang talk about Zhao Zichen, I've been doing some mental math."

She paused before continuing.

"Lin Que had a casual chat with Zhao Zichen at the hotel, and it indirectly catalyzed a top scholar in liberal arts."

"This kind of dissemination efficiency, to put it bluntly, is more effective than the training projects our education system spends millions on."

Jiang Changfeng's hand holding the teacup paused slightly, and the habitual smile on his face froze for half a second.

Huo Yan's words were like a stone thrown into a calm lake; the ripples they stirred made him forget to respond for a moment.

"An s-level reprint order, personally signed and approved by the Chairman of the Writers Association."

"Specifications like these—there are hardly any examples in the entire history of publishing."

"What outsiders see is the figure of one hundred thousand copies; what I see is the charisma of the seventeen-year-old boy standing behind that number."

She raised her hand and gave the tabletop a light tap.

"Confining the sharing session to the auditorium of No. 1 High School means a few thousand students listen once and then disperse."

Chairman Lv Songran set down his teacup. The bottom of the cup met the tray with a crisp clink.

He lifted his eyelids slightly, his gaze lingering on Huo Yan's face for a moment.

The sharpness cultivated through years of navigating the Municipal Writers Association allowed him to immediately grasp the deeper intentions behind this proposal.

Huo Yan didn't beat around the bush.

"My idea is to have the Municipal Education Bureau take the lead directly and upgrade this sharing session into the 'Jiangcheng Youth Literature Public Class'."

"The venue will be the main hall of the Municipal Olympic Sports Center, and a simultaneous live video broadcast signal will be opened to all key high schools in the city."

The moment these words landed, the entire room fell into a brief silence.

The main hall of the Olympic Sports Center.

A venue that could hold tens of thousands of people.

"Good!"

Chairman Lv Songran was the first to follow up, his speaking speed significantly faster than usual.

He stood up from his chair and slapped his palm hard against the table.

"Director Huo's proposal coincides exactly with what I was thinking. The Municipal Writers Association will provide full cooperation, and I will coordinate Jiangcheng's print and online media."

Before his voice had even faded, he had already turned his head to give a look to the accompanying staff officer beside him.

The staff member understood immediately and quickly flipped open the notebook he always carried with him.

The tip of his pen rustled against the paper, rapidly outlining the key points.

"Not only that. I have some connections over at the Provincial TV Education Channel; I can definitely secure a professional team for a full recording."

"The recorded content can be edited into a series of programs and broadcast repeatedly later on."

Chairman Lv Songran grew more excited as he spoke, his fingers tapping a rhythm on the table.

"Since Jiangcheng was founded, we've never held a literary event of this caliber. Lin Que came out of our Jiangcheng; we must make this cultural calling card a success!"

The two powerful figures echoed each other, and within three sentences, they had elevated the specifications of a school sharing session to the height of a city-level cultural event.

Wang De'an, sitting in the corner, had remained silent.

His hands were folded over his knees, and his eyelids were slightly lowered as if he were spacing out.

But his thumb was constantly rubbing his cufflink.

The Olympic Sports Center, a city-wide live broadcast, and recordings by both provincial and municipal television stations.

All for a high school student who hadn't even graduated yet.

Wang De'an calculated silently in his heart; the determination and boldness of the Jiangcheng authorities to bet on Lin Que were even greater than he had imagined.

The density of the momentum gathering behind this young man could no longer be explained by mere literary talent.

In just a few minutes, the air in the meeting room seemed to be stirred thick by an invisible hand.

The aroma of tea mixed with everyone's increasingly fervent breathing, making the originally spacious room feel faintly hot.

But within this heatwave, the expressions of two people gradually changed from excitement to solemnity.

Principal Jiang Changfeng and Fei Yuncheng frowned almost simultaneously.

The two exchanged a look, both reading the same concern in the depths of the other's eyes.

"Director Huo, Chairman Lv."

Jiang Changfeng deliberated for several seconds before speaking up to interrupt their planning.

"I completely agree with the starting point of this plan. The city is willing to build such a large stage for Lin Que; as a principal, I couldn't be more grateful."

He paused for a beat, his voice dropping half a notch.

"But there is a practical problem I must mention."

"Once it's held in the main hall of the Olympic Sports Center, the people sitting below won't just be students from No. 1 High School."

"At that time, top students from various schools and backbone teachers from the Chinese language teaching and research groups might all appear in the audience."

Jiang Changfeng glanced at Lin Que, his tone hiding an old educator's instinctive cherish for a prized pupil.

"No matter how outstanding Lin Que is, he's only seventeen."

"Standing on a podium of that level, with tens of thousands of eyes staring from below and cameras following him..."

"This kind of pressure is something even a seasoned adult might not be able to withstand."

Fei Yuncheng followed up immediately.

"There is another hidden concern."

"Many senior Chinese teachers from other schools are old scholars who have taught for twenty or thirty years; they naturally bring a yardstick of scrutiny toward the creative methodology of the younger generation."

"If Lin Que gets stuck at any point on stage, or if the content he talks about is publicly nitpicked and questioned,"

"this public class will not only fail to serve as a benchmark, but it will also put the child in the line of fire."

Jiang Changfeng took off his glasses to wipe them, his voice sinking.

"What a good seedling fears is not the lack of a stage, but being pushed onto a stage they aren't ready for."

"Taking a fall isn't scary; what's scary is falling in front of the whole city."

"That kind of psychological blow is too heavy for a seventeen-year-old child."

The words of the two school leaders were entirely reasonable.

They weren't opposing it; they were using their most basic educational instincts to protect their student.

These words indeed caused the fervor of Huo Yan and Chairman Lv Songran to cool down a few degrees.

Huo Yan sat back in her chair and picked up her teacup but didn't drink, her fingers pinching the rim as she gave it a half-turn.

Chairman Lv Songran also reined in his previous excitement, a layer of caution appearing between his brows.

The gazes in the meeting room once again converged on Lin Que from all directions.

Huo, Hu, Lv, Jiang, Fei, plus Wang De'an who had been watching coldly from the side. Six gazes of varying weight—carrying expectation, worry, scrutiny, and curiosity—all pressed down on the shoulders of a seventeen-year-old boy simultaneously.

Lin Que stood by the side of the long mahogany table, his hands hanging naturally at his sides.

The rhythm of his breathing hadn't changed once; from the moment he entered until now, it was even and steady, like a calibrated metronome.

He had heard all of Jiang Changfeng and Fei Yuncheng's concerns.

From their perspective, this protection was completely fair and reasonable.

But what they didn't know was that in another time and space they couldn't see,

the scenes this young man before them had faced were far more complex than a few thousand people at the Olympic Sports Center.

In his past life at Party A's film review meetings, twenty or so investor representatives would sit in a circle,

each holding a vote that could determine the life or death of a project.

He had stood alone before the projection screen, using two hours to revive a script that had been rejected three times from the grave.

That kind of knife-at-the-throat pressure was worlds apart from giving a writing lesson to high schoolers.

Lin Que looked at Principal Jiang Changfeng.

"Principal, Director, I understand your concerns."

His tone was calm.

"But since I'm going to speak, it doesn't hurt to have a few more people listen."

He paused.

"Think of it as training before heading to the capital for the Qinglan Project."

When these words fell in the meeting room, there was no sense of forced effort or deliberately raised volume.

But it was precisely this understatement that was more persuasive than any impassioned statement.

Jiang Changfeng opened his mouth, but the words of rebuttal were stuck in his throat and simply wouldn't come out.

He stared into Lin Que's eyes, which didn't flicker in the slightest, for three seconds before finally nodding and leaning back into his chair.

Fei Yuncheng pushed up his glasses and looked down at his open notebook.

Huo Yan slowly finished the warm tea in her cup, set it down, and then stood up briskly.

She clapped her hands together crisply in front of her, with a finality that settled the matter.

"Then, it's settled."

She turned to Director Hu Wenbin:

"Old Hu, as soon as you get back, immediately initiate the venue approval for the Olympic Sports Center. The Bureau of Education will issue a letter to coordinate the attendance quotas and broadcast terminals for each key high school."

"Keep the schedule tight; it must be completed before Lin Que leaves school to head north."

Hu Wenbin had already filled the blank pages of his folder with dense notes; he nodded in agreement upon hearing this.

Chairman Lv Songran also stood up and straightened his cuffs:

"I'll arrange for someone to coordinate with the media this afternoon, and I'll personally talk about the recording team."

...