405: Chapter 405 I'm not reading the article today

Two days later. 7:30 AM.

Half an hour before class, the lecture hall was already full.

On the thirty desks, there were manuscripts messy with pencil marks and then rewritten.

"What draft are you on?"

"Fourth draft."

"I wrote until three in the morning the night before last, read through it once, and ended up scrapping the whole thing."

"I'm on my fifth."

The entire classroom was so quiet it felt stifling.

The corners of the manuscripts on the desks were curled, with layers upon layers of pencil marks.

Some had dark circles under their eyes; others still clutched erasers, as if they might rub out a freshly transcribed sentence at any second.

Chen Jiahao crept up from the back row, squeezing sideways against the armrest next to Lin Que.

He leaned his head forward, keeping his voice very low.

"Master Que, give me the inside scoop. Who exactly is the person coming to class today?

How many people in the whole country could make Professor Liu specifically set aside three days of 'digestion time' just to pave the way?

I've been revising my draft so much these past two days I'm going bald; at least give me a heads-up."

Lin Que flipped through a book of essays borrowed from the Qingbei Library, not even looking up.

"Today, you'll be able to make all the hair you lost these past two days stand on end."

Chen Jiahao opened his mouth, but the bellyful of words he had was rendered useless by that one sentence.

Lin Que glanced up at Xu Changge on his right.

The fourth draft of "the tailor," wrapped in kraft paper, was pressed against the corner of the desk; a faint mark had been worn into the bottom right corner of the cover by repeated thumbing.

He withdrew his gaze and lowered his head to flip through the poetry collection again.

"You'll know in a bit."

Chen Jiahao's mouth opened and closed, his bellyful of words completely blocked by those seven characters.

He slunk back to his seat resentfully, his hand tightening unconsciously around the stack of manuscripts he'd revised countless times.

7:55 AM.

Five minutes until class.

The heavy wooden door of the lecture hall was slowly pushed open, the hinges letting out a low creak.

As the door opened, the cold light from the hallway spilled in diagonally, but the whispers in the classroom had already ceased.

Thirty pairs of eyes turned in unison toward the doorway.

Walking in was an old man in his sixties.

His navy-blue button-down cloth shirt was washed until the collar was slightly faded, and there was a small ink stain on the inside of his right cuff.

It looked as if he had rested his wrist on some manuscript and accidentally smudged it.

He wore black cloth shoes with soles worn thin, making almost no sound as he stepped on the floor.

His hair was gray and neatly combed; his face was lean, with cheekbones and a jawline so sharp they didn't seem to belong to someone his age.

In his right hand, he carried a dark green thermos with peeling paint; the threads on the lid had been worn smooth.

His left hand held an old, closed book whose title was hidden, his four fingers supporting it from below the spine.

His thumb was pressed against a page under the cover, as if he had just been reading right before entering and couldn't bear to let go.

He walked up to the podium and placed the thermos on the right corner of the desk; the bottom of the cup hit the surface with a soft "clack."

He placed the old book, its title still invisible, beside the cup.

A few students from other provinces in the front row glanced at each other, their eyes filled with confusion.

Who is this?

Judging by his appearance, he looked more like a retired logistics worker from the school.

Where was the slightest air of a literary giant?

Right after that sound, Zhang Yiyu, sitting on the side of the second row, suddenly bolted upright from his chair...

The draft of air he created blew two pages of the manuscripts on the desk askew.

Two other students from the Beijing circles beside him stood up almost simultaneously, their chair legs scraping the floor with a sharp, short screech.

The three of them stood with backs as straight as if drawn by a ruler, hands hanging at their sides, chins slightly tucked.

The casualness and relaxation in their eyes vanished instantly.

Zhang Yiyu's voice squeezed out of his throat, carrying an irrepressible respect.

"Hello, Grandpa Xu."

Four words.

It was as if the entire classroom had been seized by the throat.

A second later, the rest of the students seemed to finally realize what was happening and stood up from their seats one after another.

Chair legs scraped the floor in succession, the short sounds traveling from the front row all the way to the back.

Chen Jiahao sucked in a breath of cold air and stood much straighter than usual, his manuscript crumpling under his grip.

Xu Zhengqing.

The cornerstone of the Beijing School of Literature.

Right now, he was standing on the podium, holding a thermos with peeling paint.

"Greetings, Elder Xu!"

Everyone spoke in unison, with the kind of over-the-top respect characteristic of young people.

Lin Que and Xu Changge also stood up.

Lin Que's bow was proper but not exaggerated.

He noticed that Xu Changge beside him was a bit more solemn than usual.

Xu Zhengqing unscrewed the lid of the thermos and took a slow, deliberate sip of water.

His gaze swept across the room; it wasn't fast, but no one could say for sure whether it had paused on them.

That look didn't carry any sense of scrutiny; it was more like an old farmer looking at newly planted seedlings in his yard—

He saw them, noted them, but was in no hurry to say anything.

When it reached Xu Changge's position, that gaze lingered for a beat.

Very briefly.

Like a fingertip lingering a bit longer on a certain page while flipping through a book, before moving on.

It was even lighter when passing Lin Que, almost just a brush from the edge of his peripheral vision before returning to the podium.

Xu Zhengqing raised his hand and pressed down slightly, signaling everyone to sit.

The sound of chairs being sat in was uneven, like the final clatter of a row of falling dominoes.

Everyone's first action after sitting down was to look down at the manuscripts on their desks, subconsciously smoothing the edges,

or turning the covers face up, as if that could give them a bit more of a sense of security.

Xu Zhengqing stood in the center of the podium; he didn't flip through the book or turn on the projector.

With both hands behind his back, his gaze swept across the desks covered in manuscripts.

He spoke.

"Put away the manuscripts on your desks; we're not looking at articles today."

His voice wasn't loud, yet it commanded the entire room.

Every word landed clearly, carrying the gentle warmth characteristic of an old-school scholar.

The air in the classroom seemed to freeze.

Almost all the students were stunned where they sat.

Chen Jiahao's breath hitched for a beat.

He instinctively glanced at the stack of manuscripts on his desk that he'd revised countless times, then quickly pulled his gaze back, not daring to look again.

Over twenty pairs of eyes met, all seeing the same confusion on each other's faces.

Revised for two days. Scrapped and rewritten completely.

They had stayed up for two nights, bringing everything from the first draft to the fifth,

only to be met with Xu Zhengqing saying: We're not looking at articles today.

Xu Zhengqing remained noncommittal toward the reaction below.

He walked out from behind the podium and slowly made his way to the edge, stopping only two steps away from the first row.

"Professor Liu dismantled the bones for you the day before yesterday and taught you how to build the frame.

Today, I won't talk about those dry theories and structures. Let's do something different."

His tone was gentle, like he was chatting with juniors.

But what was pressed beneath that gentleness was entirely different from Professor Liu Zuoqing's sharpness.

Professor Liu Zuoqing's classes were sharp, with direct points of impact.

Xu Zhengqing was different; he didn't rush his words, yet he left people unable to guess where his next step would land.

One by one, the students put their manuscripts into their desk compartments, their movements sluggish and their faces full of reluctance.

Xu Zhengqing waited until everyone had finished before speaking again.

"Now, everyone close your eyes."

The thirty people looked at each other in bewilderment.

"Close them first."

Xu Zhengqing said it again; his tone didn't intensify, but those words seemed to gain weight.

Chen Jiahao hesitated for half a second before closing his eyes.

Xu Changge sat up straighter; as his eyelashes lowered, his fingers still rested on the edge of the cover.

Lin Que, however, closed his eyes very quickly.

A strange silence fell over the classroom.

Someone rode a bicycle past the window outside; the sound of the chain drifted in from afar and then faded away.

Xu Zhengqing's voice dropped into this silence.

"From the moment you opened your eyes this morning until you walked into this classroom just now.

In that time, one tiny moment that you can remember."

He paused for two seconds.

"No need for a grand narrative.

Describe it in one sentence. I'll give you five minutes; if you think of something, you can say it directly."

The sound of breathing in the classroom became faint and fragmented.

Xu Changge's eyes were closed, a shallow frown appearing between his brows.

A few phrases habitually flashed through his mind:

"Morning light entering the window," "Autumn sounds passing the steps," "The fragrance of paper and ink."

Every one was neat and beautiful, but every one seemed as if it had been copied from some essay collection.

He extinguished these words one by one, trying to reach for something deeper.

Lin Que also had his eyes closed.

His fingers rested on the desk, tapping twice unconsciously before stopping.

The first image that flashed in his mind wasn't from this morning.

It was from a long time ago. So long ago it didn't belong to the memories of this body.

He pushed that image down and returned to today.

This morning, there was indeed a moment that had stayed with him.

But he was in no rush to speak.

One minute passed; no one spoke.

Two minutes.

The air grew thick; the sound of someone swallowing hard came from a corner.

Xu Zhengqing stood at the edge of the podium with his thermos, his gaze leisurely sliding from Xu Changge's face to Lin Que's, then moving away.

Four minutes.

The sound of a chair scraping the floor suddenly rang out.

It was light, but in the absolute silence, it was like a pebble hitting the surface of water.

Xu Zhengqing's gaze shifted over.

In a seat in the very last row, in a corner against the wall, a tall, thin figure stood up.

He wore a black baseball cap, the brim pulled very low.

The hood of his sweatshirt rested on the back of his neck, with the two drawstrings hanging down his chest.

He pulled his hands out of his pockets, his knuckles tightening first, then slowly relaxing.

Dan Yi.

When he opened his eyes,

his gray-blue pupils reflected the morning light coming through the window, the color at the edges of his pupils so pale it was almost transparent.

He stared at Xu Zhengqing on the podium, his lips moving slightly.

His voice was very low, and when the first sentence came out,

every student in the classroom opened their eyes and looked at him in unison.

...