356: Chapter 356 Birds and Mountains (Part 2)

Before the final stroke of the marker had even dried, the reaction from the audience could no longer be suppressed.

The four characters for 'The Mountain of Social Class' were simultaneously magnified and projected onto the big screen, every ink stroke clearly visible.

In the front row formation, the pen in Fang Zhiyuan's hand slipped, hitting the desk with a crisp clatter.

He stared blankly at the big screen, suddenly feeling that his desk-mate on stage in the school uniform was incredibly unfamiliar.

A natural philosophy question that seemingly called for lyrical scenery was dragged into the deep waters of social realism by a single stroke from Lin Que.

Coupled with the cold analysis of class barriers in folding beijing,

this title felt like a precision strike specifically tailored for the occasion.

Wu Di stared at those five words for a long time before finally squeezing out a sentence:

"Brother Que, oh Brother Que, just how is your brain wired!"

The students nearby didn't respond, because everyone's gaze was pinned firmly to the stage.

In the teaching and research section, Zhou Min unconsciously closed the notebook in front of her.

She pressed her palms flat against the cover, as if she needed a physical weight to help stabilize her heartbeat.

Teacher Wu's lips moved twice, as if he wanted to say something but swallowed it back down.

Finally, he just slowly took off the rimless glasses on the bridge of his nose and pinched the space between his eyebrows with his thumb and index finger.

Lin Que put down the pen, turned to face the audience, and walked to the side of the diagram in front of the first step of the whiteboard.

"After the title sets the direction, we enter the thirty-second structural framework."

He wrote a line of words on the first step:

"Wind is both an aid and a resistance."

"This is the common sense layer; everyone knows this.

If you use this as your core argument, the grader will guess your ending after reading the first paragraph.

At most, you'll get a passing grade."

The tip of the pen moved up to the second step.

"Give examples of ancients who adapted to the times, or examples of those who went against the current. Use factual evidence to support your viewpoint."

He marked a number next to it:

"Forty points is the ceiling."

In the middle of the inner field, the boy from No. 8 Middle School who had been sharp-tongued just moments ago now slumped back into his chair in dejection.

He had originally been staring at the big screen, trying to find a logical loophole,

but a few seconds later, he grabbed his pen as if resigning himself to fate.

His upper body was almost flat against the desk, the tip of his pen making a rapid rustling sound on the paper,

fearing he would miss a single word spoken by the person on stage.

Lin Que's pen tip hovered above the thick dividing line between the second and third steps.

He stopped.

The pen didn't move, and the person didn't move.

Tens of thousands of eyes in the venue stared at that marker suspended in mid-air.

Three seconds later, Lin Que's voice lowered.

"But if you only write up to this point, you will still be pinned to the ground by the test-makers."

His gaze swept from the teaching and research section to the student section, and then to the furthest corner of the third-floor stands.

"Because you are still spinning within the logic of the wind."

The sound of breathing in the entire venue was suppressed to the limit.

Lin Que heavily drew a solid circle on the third step.

The Reflection Layer.

"True problem-solving is jumping out of the binary opposition."

He held the microphone, his voice kept very low,

but the venue's sound system faithfully delivered every vibration of airflow deep into the eardrums of everyone present.

"The wind doesn't care about the bird at all, and the high mountain doesn't care either. The wind and the high mountain are just objectively existing systemic barriers.

Whether you praise it or hate it, it won't disappear just because you wrote eight hundred words."

He turned and, in the last blank area of the whiteboard, wrote down the core argument stroke by stroke.

The marker squeaked against the board's surface.

The moment each word formed, countless eyes followed the trajectory of the pen tip, reading silently.

Finished writing.

Lin Que stepped aside, allowing the camera on the big screen to fully capture that line of text.

"A bird crosses a high mountain relying neither on the grace of the wind nor on hatred for the wind.

It relies on its own absolute desire to cross this mountain, and the wings it evolved so as not to be left at the bottom of the valley."

This line of text was projected onto the LED screen over ten meters high; every stroke looked as if it had been carved with a knife.

In the furthest corner of the third-floor stands, the originally nonchalant boy slowly sat up straight.

In the massive venue, the breathing of tens of thousands of people seemed to be collectively cut off at this moment.

Lin Que faced the audience again and lightly set the marker on the desk.

"Don't discuss whether the wind is good or bad. Discuss why the bird must cross that mountain."

The silence lasted for four seconds.

Then, applause began to erupt.

But it wasn't from the student section; it was from the teaching and research section.

Zhang Chaowei stood up; he was the first teacher to stand.

Zhou Min followed suit, her hands clapping heavily and slowly.

Teacher Wu was the third to stand.

Then came the second row, the third row, as the sound of chair backs snapping back into place merged into one.

The students in the inner field were stunned for a moment, then began to stand up in swathes.

There was no command, no verbal transition,

the applause in the entire student section doubled within a second, turning from clapping to slapping tables, and from slapping tables to stomping feet.

Under the dome of the Olympic Sports Center, the applause of tens of thousands converged into a tangible torrent.

No one cared about the strict venue discipline at this moment;

this was not just a cheer for a high school student, but the highest tribute to that sharp spirit that split through ideological barriers.

Lin Que felt the overwhelming waves of sound behind him.

He picked up the marker again, walked to the last empty space on the whiteboard,

and wrote the concluding hook in the 'final 15 seconds' time axis interval.

The handwriting was clean and neat, without a single redundant stroke.

"When the bird finally crosses the high mountain, it will not thank the wind, nor will it thank the mountain.

It will only look down at its own wings, strengthened by the ordeal,

and then fly toward the next, even higher peak."

...