354: Chapter 354 Birds and Mountains (Part 1)

The essay topic for this year's National Paper had just been projected onto the large screen, and Student Lin was about to pick up a marker to make notes on the whiteboard.

In the front row of the inner field, within the Jiangcheng No. 8 Middle School formation, a tall, thin boy wearing black-rimmed glasses suddenly raised his hand.

He didn't wait for the staff to hand him a microphone; he stood up directly, his voice sounding particularly abrupt in the quiet venue.

"Student Lin, sorry to interrupt."

Student Lin stopped writing and turned to look at him.

The boy pushed the frames up the bridge of his nose. His tone sounded polite, but the sharp edge in his words couldn't be hidden.

"Regarding this year's exam topic, from the day the scores were released, the Chinese Language Teachers at every school have already gone over it countless times in class."

"Whether it's positive and negative arguments or dialectical unity, everyone's ears are calloused from hearing it."

"If you deconstruct this topic now, even if you explain it brilliantly, everyone will just think it's a pre-memorized standard answer."

A slight commotion broke out in the inner field student area.

Wu Di frowned and turned to whisper to Fang Zhiyuan:

"Who is this guy? Is he looking for trouble on purpose?"

Fang Zhiyuan stared at the boy for a moment and replied in a lowered voice:

"Seems like he's from No. 8 Middle School. Don't worry yet, let's see what this kid wants to do."

The boy ignored the surrounding chatter and looked straight at Student Lin on the stage.

"Since Student Lin said you'd teach us how to get high scores in the exam room, I'd like to see you deconstruct the Su Province College Entrance Examination essay topic from five years ago."

As soon as these words came out, the entire inner field student area felt as if a bomb had been dropped into it.

Suppressed gasps of surprise spread from the various formations.

The faces of several top students from No. 2 Middle School and No. 8 Middle School changed.

They knew the weight of that topic all too well.

In the specialized training for the third year of high school, this topic had been brought out as a negative example; at the time, more than half of the entire grade was judged to have gone off-topic.

"The one from five years ago?! It's over, it's over..."

"Is that the one that was later revealed to be a variation of an original question from a university philosophy class?!"

"This isn't a joke, is it..."

The students' discussions popped out from the various formations like air escaping a punctured balloon.

In the teaching and research area, the atmosphere changed abruptly the moment the boy mentioned the year.

The fountain pen in Zhang Chaowei's hand froze in mid-air. The drop of ink that had been hanging from the nib for a long time finally couldn't hold on anymore,

Landing on the paper with a 'splat' and spreading into an irregular black blotch.

He looked down at the ink stain as if recalling some dormant memory, then slowly turned his head to look at Zhou Min beside him.

Zhou Min's expression was very grim. She lowered her voice and said:

"That topic five years ago—I remember we argued for two hours when our teaching and research group met to discuss it."

"That wasn't testing the students' writing ability at all; it was testing word games!"

Teacher Wu, who was nearby, slammed his thermos heavily onto the desk.

"Indeed. That year, the average score for the provincial essay was only thirty-nine points! It was a full six points lower than a normal year."

"So many good students who could usually get into top-tier universities fell through the cracks just because of this topic."

"Isn't this pushing the kid into a fire pit?"

Zhang Chaowei didn't speak, but he completely agreed with Teacher Wu's view.

The College Entrance Examination five years ago was simply a nightmare for the entire Su Province education sector.

The angle of that topic was extremely tricky, with a huge logical trap between the two sentences. One slight slip would lead into the dead end preset by the question-setter.

The boy with the black-rimmed glasses stood his ground, facing the complex gazes of the entire audience, and threw out his core demand.

"That topic caused countless people to go off-topic and even triggered huge controversy in the education world."

"I'd very much like to know, if Student Lin were faced with such a tricky topic, how would you use your 'Three Steps' theory to handle it?"

The buzzing in the venue grew even louder.

Some students felt the boy was purely jealous of Student Lin's limelight and was deliberately looking for trouble.

"This is clearly making things difficult for him. It's a topic from five years ago; he might not have even seen it."

Others watched with a spectator's mindset, wanting to see if this national champion, who had been praised to the skies by officials, would crash under the gaze of tens of thousands of people.

"If he can't deconstruct it today, then..."

"Then everything he just said was all just for show."

The teachers in the teaching and research area all looked toward Student Lin on the stage.

Principal Jiang Changfeng, sitting in the first row, already had sweaty palms.

He glanced at Fei Yuncheng, whose face was equally tense.

The thing they worried about most had happened after all.

The top students from other schools had come with scrutiny and defiance, throwing out the hardest touchstone in public.

Student Lin stood in the spotlight at the center of the stage, his expression showing no fluctuation.

He looked at the boy standing tall and straight, and all the information regarding that topic flashed quickly through his mind.

When he was preparing his lesson and decided to talk about exam-room essays, he had pulled out and studied all the Su Province College Entrance Examination topics from the last ten years.

The reason he chose this year's topic was that, by comparing the topics over the years, he had discovered something.

Influenced by the storm stirred up by his two personas, 'Jian Shen' and 'Hell Dream Weaver,' in both the online and real worlds,

The College Entrance Examination question-setting committees in this world had begun to lean toward deeper social realities and the analysis of human nature in their selection of materials and themes.

This year's topic had a grand theme and space for exploration, making it the most suitable for demonstrating the argumentative depth of the 'Three Steps.'

As for the topic from five years ago, Student Lin had given it an evaluation the first time he saw it.

It was a waste of a question.

The question-setter had deliberately raised the difficulty by playing word games,

Wrapping what could have been clearly expressed speculative logic in obscure imagery, causing a large number of students to walk into a dead end during the prompt-reading stage.

This kind of question didn't test thought; it tested riddle-solving.

But now, since someone had brought this topic to the table and challenged him in front of tens of thousands of people in the city,

Student Lin smiled.

It wasn't a polite smile, nor was it a cold laugh after being offended.

It was the kind of eagerness that came from the bones of a craftsman when someone asked him to show off his skills on the spot.

He picked up the microphone without even a pause.

"Since a classmate has called out this topic, then let's change things up a bit."

The sound in the venue was cut off at that moment.

Zhang Chaowei's eyes widened. He hadn't expected Student Lin to accept it so casually, without even saying a word of polite refusal.

Student Lin didn't look at the stunned expressions below. He turned to the director's booth at the side of the stage and nodded toward the control console.

Three seconds later, the image on the large screen switched.

The topic for this year's National Paper disappeared, replaced by a segment of reformatted text.

The prompt consisted of only a few lines of text.

[A bird flies over a snow-capped mountain that reaches the clouds. Some say it relies on the lift of the strong winds spiraling up through the canyons.

Others say it relies on the solitary courage in its blood and bones that is unafraid of the gale's obstruction.]

[Requirements: Synthesize the content and meaning of the material, choose a good angle, determine the theme, clarify the literary style, and create your own title; do not use templates or plagiarize; no less than 800 words.]

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