409: Chapter 409 Can you write a character like Sun Shao-ping? —Extra Chapter from <Rebel Against the Tide>

After Xu Zhengqing's voice fell, the lecture hall became so quiet that only the soft rustle of paper being flipped by the wind remained.

ordinary world lay in the center of the podium.

The gazes of the thirty students moved back and forth between that book and Lin Que.

This question was too sharp.

If Lin Que said his own work was deeper, he would be asserting dominance over Jian Shen right in front of Xu Zhengqing.

Naturally, he should say Jian Shen was deeper, but if not phrased well, it could easily come across as hypocritical humility.

Especially now, after Xu Zhengqing had spent an entire class pushing Jian Shen's "eyes" in front of everyone.

Chen Jiahao's palms were pressed hard against his knees, his fingertips almost digging into the fabric of his pants.

On one side was Master Que, and on the other was Teacher Jian Shen.

He was even more nervous than Lin Que himself.

Xu Changge's pencil stopped between his fingers; he didn't spin it or put it down, but simply turned his head to look at Lin Que's profile.

Everyone else in the classroom went still.

Those with low hat brims, those whose pens froze in their grip—all were waiting for the same thing.

How would a youth who wrote folding beijing speak when facing the towering mountain that was Jian Shen?

Lin Que finally stood up.

He stood very slowly, not in a rush to speak.

Nor did he put on a posture for debate.

He just looked up at the book on the podium, its edges curled from use, and then at Xu Zhengqing.

"If we only talk about the depth of the narrative of suffering..."

Lin Que spoke, his voice steady.

"Between me and Teacher Jian Shen, there is a very wide chasm."

The tension in the classroom eased slightly.

Some lowered their heads to take notes.

Others showed expressions that said, "As expected."

Chen Jiahao's shoulders had just relaxed a bit when they immediately tensed up again.

Because Xu Zhengqing didn't respond.

The old man just stood there, his palm resting on the book cover, his gaze still fixed on Lin Que.

Lin Que continued:

"The people in ordinary world lived for decades.

Their suffering has years, seasons, families, and debts of gratitude and obligation that can't be repaid in a lifetime.

Sun Shaoping isn't just a poor youth; standing behind him is a piece of land, a family,

and everyone in an era who couldn't lift their heads to eat."

He paused here.

"folding beijing writes about a cross-section.

The night Old Knife spent traveling through the folded space was heavy, but it is, after all, only the weight compressed into a single night.

Teacher Jian Shen writes about how days grind a person thin over time."

Many people nodded.

Admitting the gap while also clearly explaining the textual differences.

But the old man unscrewed his thermos and took a sip of water.

When the lid was screwed back on, it made a dry clicking sound.

"Lin Que."

Xu Zhengqing's tone remained gentle.

"These words sound good, but they are too much like a standard answer in a classroom."

The string that had just loosened in the classroom was pulled taut once more.

Chen Jiahao almost jumped out of his seat but forced himself to endure.

Xu Zhengqing looked at Lin Que.

"I'm not asking about length, or eras, or the thickness of the source material."

He raised his hand and tapped the corner of his eye.

"I'm asking about the eyes."

"Both of you write about the bottom rung of society. One writes about the yellow earth, the other about the folded city.

Setting aside the polite talk, you tell me: where exactly is the difference between those two pairs of eyes?"

At this, even Xu Changge sat up a bit straighter.

He was all too familiar with his grandfather's way of questioning.

Gentleness was only on the surface.

When he truly struck a point, no one could bypass it.

Lin Que was silent for two seconds.

He could actually continue to back down.

Continue to praise Jian Shen, continue to lower himself.

Safe.

Proper.

Impossible to get wrong.

But what Xu Zhengqing wanted to hear was clearly never the safe answer.

Lin Que's gaze fell on that book.

The corners of the cover were curled, as if it had been repeatedly rubbed by many hands.

He thought of the rain in that old apartment in Sarajevo, of Mrs. Zola's white shirt, and of those few seconds his pen tip had paused when he wrote that inscription.

Jian Shen was him.

Lin Que was also him.

But the eyes of these two identities were indeed different.

He looked up.

"Teacher Jian Shen has his feet planted in the mud."

"I, however, am looking from within the crevices of the folded steel."

Someone in the classroom raised their head.

"Crops can grow from soil, but only rust can be born in the crevices of steel."

Xu Zhengqing's fingers resting on the book cover stopped.

Xu Changge looked at Lin Que, his breathing skipping a beat.

Chen Jiahao's mouth was open, his face practically screaming with the urge to shout but not daring to.

Dan Yi's hat brim lifted a little more.

Lin Que didn't stop.

"ordinary world writes about the bloodline between humans and the land.

No matter how much the people in it suffer, they know where they came from.

Beneath their feet are villages, cave dwellings, relatives, ancestral graves, and a road back home."

"No matter how far Sun Shaoping goes, he still has the yellow earth on him. When he is beaten down by life, he can still look back and see his roots."

Lin Que looked at the book.

"So Teacher Jian Shen's compassion is inward-facing."

"He writes about suffering, but not by pulling someone out of the mud to show the readers.

He makes the readers crouch down to see that this person and the soil grow together.

If you want to save him, you have to understand that land along with him."

The sound of pens in the classroom ceased.

Everyone was listening.

Lin Que's voice wasn't loud, but every word was crystal clear.

"folding beijing is different."

"Old Knife has no land. His home is just a small leftover scrap in the spatial allocation system."

Xu Zhengqing's hand holding the thermos stopped.

He didn't speak.

He just gently placed the cup back on the podium, his palm pressing on the cover of ordinary world.

Lin Que didn't stop.

"In the places he walks, even time isn't his own.

First Space, Second Space, Third Space—it looks like the city is being folded, but in reality, it is human existence being folded."

"He isn't someone who grew out of the soil; instead, he is more like a screw that fell out of a machine."

Someone took a soft breath.

"So the coldness of folding beijing isn't in poverty itself."

He paused, choosing a more accurate word.

"It's in the stripping away."

"He raises a child, saves money, takes risks, and crosses gears—what he does is very much like a traditional father.

But the system won't recognize him as a father; it only recognizes him as an inefficient labor population in a certain space."

"It's about whether a person can still retain a bit of human selfishness after being dismantled by the system down to just their functions."

He pointed at the worn book on the podium.

"Whereas ordinary world writes about whether a person can still uphold their dignity after being bent by suffering."

As these words struck the classroom, many people sat up straighter.

Tang He looked down at her manuscript.

In her story glass, she had also written about urban isolation.

But Lin Que's words made her suddenly realize that what she wrote was more of a landscape.

glass, curtain walls, reflections, neon lights.

Beautiful.

But too thin.

Xu Changge stared at Lin Que, the pencil in his hand hovering over the paper for a long time.

In the end, he only wrote one line, pressing it at the very top of all his notes.

One is thick. One is cold.

A ruler cannot measure them.

Xu Zhengqing looked at Lin Que longer than he had anyone before.

The old man had no exaggerated reaction on his face.

He just tapped his finger lightly on the book cover.

"Continue."

Lin Que nodded.

"If you must ask whose eyes are deeper, that only shows the question itself contains a trap."

Several people in the front row looked up at the same time.

Daring to say Xu Zhengqing's question had a trap?

Chen Jiahao almost stood at attention on the spot, his leg halfway up before he forced it back onto his knee.

Xu Zhengqing wasn't angry.

On the contrary, he pushed his thermos half an inch to the side.

Seeing that the old man had no intention of speaking, Lin Que continued:

"Teacher Jian Shen sees how suffering accumulates in a person.

Year after year, it settles into character, into fate, into a way of life for a generation that refuses to bow their heads."

"What I see in folding beijing is something else."

"The modern system doesn't need you to bow your head. It only needs you to accept your position by default."

"Old Knife doesn't need to be scolded by anyone, nor does he need to be humiliated.

He only needs to wake up on time, sleep on time, and labor in the space that belongs to him on time, and he has already been arranged."

"This is also a wall."

"More transparent, and also harder to smash."

Someone in the classroom instinctively looked out the window.

The Qingbei campus was very quiet.

Tree shadows fell on the steps, clean and decent.

But after Lin Que finished those words, this silence suddenly took on a different weight.

Xu Zhengqing nodded slightly.

This time, everyone saw it.

It wasn't the polite acknowledgment from before.

It was the confirmation after hearing a truly valid answer.

Chen Jiahao held it in for a long time before finally whispering:

"Master Que has dismantled and reassembled the question."

"Hurry and write it down; it'll definitely come in handy later!"

Xu Changge had already started writing.

He wrote very fast.

With every sentence Lin Que dropped, his pen tip chased after it.

Dan Yi didn't write.

He looked at Lin Que, his knuckles gripping the edge of his hat brim.

He had learned to accept outcasts from the cthulhu mythos, seen transformed people from the metamorphosis, and seen people layered by the system from folding beijing.

Now Lin Que had explained it all so clearly.

It was as if he were telling him that all those who couldn't be categorized were not isolated monsters.

They were just blocked in different places by different walls.

Xu Zhengqing closed ordinary world.

The pages made a soft sound.

"So, your answer is that depth cannot be compared; one can only look at the position."

"Yes."

He added a sentence.

"If a comparison must be made, where I lose to Teacher Jian Shen is in the thickness of time."

"Where I do not lose is in the vigilance toward modern structures."

There was finally an irrepressible stir in the classroom.

Hearing the last sentence, Chen Jiahao sat up even straighter.

Xu Changge glanced up at Lin Que.

At this moment, he was suddenly glad he lived in 303 with someone like this.

When some people stand there, others have no choice but to revise their manuscripts once more.

Xu Zhengqing looked at Lin Que and was silent for a moment.

There was a trace of faint admiration in the old man's eyes, but he quickly suppressed it.

He didn't follow up with praise based on this answer.

Instead, he pushed the question one step further.

"A fine 'losing yet not losing'."

Xu Zhengqing said.

"But pretty words also carry risks; they can make young people mistakenly believe they have already arrived."

Lin Que didn't sit down.

He knew the conversation wasn't over.

Xu Zhengqing's palm rested on the book again.

"Then let me ask you something more concrete."

The entire classroom fell silent again.

Chen Jiahao's Adam's apple bobbed.

The pencil in Xu Changge's hand stopped on the paper.

Dan Yi's eyes also turned from Lin Que to the podium.

Xu Zhengqing looked at Lin Que, emphasizing every word.

"If you were put in Jian Shen's position, to write about the yellow earth of that era."

He paused for half a beat.

"Could you write someone like Sun Shaoping?"

Not even the sound of breathing remained in the classroom.

Lin Que stood in place, not speaking immediately.

He looked up at the worn book on the podium, then looked up again.

His gaze was very flat.

So flat that one couldn't tell if he already had an answer or was still searching for one.

...