370: Chapter 370 If it were me, I'd also like to see it clearly.

Su Xiaotang's phrase “even more painful” landed on the steps like a stone dropped into calm water.

Before the ripples could spread, the surrounding air stiffened.

The expressions of the few students scattered on the steps subtly shifted at the same second.

The baseball cap boy leaning against the stone pillar stopped halfway through unscrewing the cap of his mineral water bottle.

His gaze darted back and forth between Su Xiaotang and Lin Que.

The two other girls who had been whispering earlier simultaneously fell silent.

One of them instinctively took half a step back, as if afraid of being swept by the aftershock of the aura.

Others lowered their eyes, pretending to look at their phone screens, but their fingertips weren't scrolling.

Su Xiaotang's words were too direct.

They directly stripped away, skin and flesh, the carefully hidden things in everyone's hearts present.

Thirty people, only two pieces would be dissected.

Those who were dissected stood under the spotlight, and even if they were utterly exposed, at least it proved they were worth seeing.

But what about the remaining twenty-eight people?

Sitting below, watching the ceiling being measured to a precise height, and then silently calculating how far they still had to go against that number.

This feeling was even more unbearable than being dissected.

Su Xiaotang spoke for them.

Lin Que looked at the girl in front of him.

Her back was as straight as a taut string, the outline of her shoulder blades vaguely visible through her dark blue shirt.

Her jawline was tight, and her lips were pressed into a thin, straight line.

Her entire posture conveyed a single message:

I'm not afraid of you.

However, the unconscious movement of her right hand touching the button on her shirt cuff betrayed her.

Her fingertip repeatedly rubbed the edge of the button, the frequency increasing rapidly.

It was as if she was confirming something to herself through this tiny action.

Lin Que chuckled inwardly.

Not in mockery.

He was too familiar with this expression.

In his previous life in the screenwriting industry, those who almost got an S-rank project but didn't, looked exactly like this when they bit down and swallowed their frustration.

Failure is clean; you can accept your fate.

But “almost” isn't.

“Almost” means you've touched the doorknob, felt the light peeking through the crack.

Then the door closed.

Su Xiaotang was knocking on the door.

And the door she chose to knock on happened to be Lin Que.

Lin Que didn't assume any posture of a victor.

His shoulders were relaxed, his hands naturally hung by his sides, his stance no different from when he shook hands with Wei Yiming earlier.

His gaze rested evenly on Su Xiaotang's face, neither high nor low, not condescending, nor deliberately at eye level.

He was just looking at her, as if at someone worth taking seriously.

“Su Xiaotang.”

He spoke.

His voice just covered the distance between the two of them, not clear enough for others on the steps to hear too distinctly, but also not deliberately lowered to a private level.

“A target is a target because it stands at the highest point, visible to everyone, with all arrows flying towards it.”

Su Xiaotang's fingers stopped on the button.

Lin Que's tone held no hint of lecturing, as if stating a simple fact.

“But if the arrows can't pierce the target, the target will become a shield.”

The wind blew from the direction of the main building, rustling the few ginkgo leaves at the top of the tree that had begun to turn yellow.

Sunlight fell on the granite surface of the steps, cutting out irregular patches of light.

Lin Que paused for a second.

“Tomorrow, Professor Liu will be dissecting Xu Changge and me. What you should be watching isn't how we break.”

His voice descended with a peculiar weight, not oppressive.

It was the solid tactile sensation you get when you place a stone on a tabletop.

“It's what remains after we break.”

He looked into Su Xiaotang's eyes.

“That's the distance you're talking about.”

The steps fell silent.

It wasn't the tense standoff from before, but a different kind of quiet.

It was as if something had been gently pushed open, and most of the acrid gunpowder smell in the air dissipated.

Su Xiaotang stood rooted to the spot, as if struck by something.

She had prepared for everything.

To be looked at coldly, to be ignored, or even to be mocked.

But Lin Que didn't stand in the position of a champion, looking down on her, nor did he dismiss her with words like “you're still young” or “there will be plenty of opportunities later.”

He caught her unwillingness, catching it steadily and gracefully.

Then, from an angle she had not anticipated, he flipped that unwillingness over.

Target. Shield.

Break. Remain.

Four words, a complete chain of logic.

That wasn't comfort; he was telling her:

If you want to shorten the distance, don't focus on others' heights, but on the core that still stands after others are destroyed.

That core is what you need to grow.

Su Xiaotang's throat moved.

She opened her mouth but couldn't utter a single word.

She lowered her head, looking at her fingers clutching her cuff.

Wei Yiming stood beside them, his calloused hands in his pockets, silently listening to the entire exchange.

He didn't interject, but the curve of his lips had subtly changed.

From the initial warmth when they first met, it had transformed into a deeper scrutiny.

He looked at Lin Que, his eyes revealing an inexpressible shock.

Higher up on the steps, the baseball cap boy finally unscrewed his mineral water bottle and tilted his head back to drink.

His gaze, over the bottle's rim, fell on Lin Que.

The earlier feeling of “why him?” had dissipated.

It was replaced by a relieved “so that's how it is.”

Song Yuan dragged Lin Que's heavy suitcase up the steps, the wheels clattering a series of crisp sounds on the granite.

His arrival was like a key, accurately inserted into the lock of this silence, opening the deadlock with a “click.”

He pushed up his glasses, scanned the crowd on the steps, and maintained the appropriate tone for a teaching assistant.

“Everyone, for the Qinglan Project over the next few months, you'll all be enduring three rounds of devilish special training in the same trench.”

He paused for a beat, a restrained smile on his lips.

“There will be plenty of opportunities to compete. Save your energy for tomorrow's class.”

Everyone understood the subtext of that sentence.

All this probing and testing each other on the steps wouldn't even count as an appetizer in Professor Liu's class tomorrow.

Su Xiaotang's face flushed instantly.

It wasn't because of Song Yuan's words, but because she herself had snapped back to reality.

The courage driven by emotion was rapidly receding, revealing only embarrassment in its wake.

She realized that she had just exposed her most vulnerable part, unreservedly, on the ground in front of everyone.

Her fingers tightly clutched the hem of her shirt, the tendons on her knuckles protruding.

Her teeth bit her lower lip, leaving a pale indentation around its edge.

Her feet instinctively shifted back half a step.

The movement was very small, but everyone on the steps saw it.

The baseball cap boy tilted his head slightly, then looked away.

The girl next to him also lowered her eyes.

No one spoke, but that silent gaze was more humiliating than any words.

Lin Que saw Su Xiaotang's half-step back.

He also saw her biting her lip, desperately trying to maintain her composure.

Seventeen years old, almost didn't make it into the top ten.

She bravely walked forward in front of thirty geniuses, laying her unwillingness bare.

Then realized she had laid too much bare.

He knew how heavy that feeling of regret was, that “why did I do that?”

Heavy enough to break a person's spine.

He didn't let Su Xiaotang stew in that emotion any longer.

Lin Que smiled and waved his hand.

The gesture was relaxed and casual, like chatting with a long-time friend.

“Student Su is not wrong either.”

Su Xiaotang's steps halted.

Lin Que's tone carried a perfectly fitting sense of affirmation, taking her earlier words and bringing them back, steady and sure.

“To be used as a target by Professor Liu for dissection is itself a rare opportunity.

If it were me, I'd also want to see clearly.”

...