418: Chapter 418 "The Rural Teacher"

The taxi came to a smooth stop in front of a commercial building near the Second Ring Road in Haidian District.

This was his secret studio, for which he had signed a four-year lease at a high price after using his guaranteed admission to Tsinghua and Peking University to strike a deal for the privilege of living off-campus.

Pushing open the heavy metal door, this secret studio could be described as a digital fortress.

It featured top-tier soundproof walls, one-way privacy film, and an independent encrypted network line.

Any attempt to reverse-trace the IP would result in a mess of illogical garbled code here.

Lin Que sat in his chair and pressed the power button on the computer tower.

The screen lit up to reveal a plain interface with only a single notepad icon on it.

Double-clicking the notepad, Lin Que looked directly into the external miniature camera above the screen, and a very thin red light quickly scanned his eyes.

With a soft beep, the pupil scan authentication passed, and he officially entered the main interface.

All the trump cards, manuscripts, and future outlines of "Jian Shen" and "Hell Dream Weaver" were perfectly encased within this indestructible digital fortress.

Having completed the security verification, Lin Que leaned back in his chair, fingers interlaced over his stomach.

The short story assignment Professor Liu Zuoqing had given in the training camp's lecture hall now surfaced clearly in his mind.

Grounded science fiction.

In the eyes of the top geniuses from other provinces, these words...

...were an irreconcilable paradox, an absurd stitching together of spaceships and the Loess Plateau.

But in Lin Que's treasure trove of memories...

...there had long existed a masterpiece that perfectly fused the ultimate grandeur of the universe with the most barren loess countryside.

Lin Que sat up straight, placing both hands flat on the mechanical keyboard.

His fingertips tapped the keys, and the crisp sound of mechanical switches colliding echoed in the quiet room.

In the new document on the screen, four large bold characters appeared.

"rural teacher."

The moment those words were written...

...the skeleton of the story in his mind became so clear that it required no time for brainstorming.

One line was rooted in the soil, while the other was suspended in the starry sky.

Twenty thousand light-years of vacuum separated the two lines, yet they were to collide within the same novella.

Others might think this a paradox.

But Lin Que knew that this was the answer.

He didn't waste much ink on the background.

A few lines at the beginning were enough to pin that Northwest village firmly before the reader's eyes.

He reserved all his remaining energy for the dying teacher and the group of children who knew nothing.

The clicking of the keyboard merged into a dense downpour.

Lin Que's gaze was intensely focused, and the words poured onto the screen like flowing water.

He wrote very fast.

His fingertips raced across the keyboard like a traveler in a hurry.

The teacher in the story was also in a hurry—

—hurrying to cram the last bits of knowledge into those children's heads before he died.

The story alternated between the adobe classroom and the interstellar fleet; with each switch, the temperature difference between the two worlds was harshly split open for all to see.

When he reached the climax, Lin Que's fingers paused for two seconds.

It wasn't writer's block; it was just that the imagery was too heavy.

He closed his eyes briefly, then lowered his fingers again, typing the most shocking contrast of the entire book onto the screen.

In the dilapidated, drafty adobe house, Teacher Li, knowing his days were numbered, exhausted his last drop of lifeblood to write physical laws on the blackboard.

["When an object is not acted upon by an external force, it remains at rest or in a state of uniform motion in a straight line..."]

The teacher was using his life to pass on fundamental understanding to the children—

—that the world follows laws; do not believe in ghosts or gods!

At that same moment, the interstellar fleet's cannons of destruction were already aimed at Earth.

["Commencing civilization level test."]

["3C Civilization Test Question No. 1: Please state Newton's First Law."]

...

Lin Que's fingers raced across the keyboard.

Dawn arrived.

The cold fleet randomly selected this group of children from the mountain village.

Amidst the crisp, tender voices of recitation, the children correctly answered all three of Newton's Laws of Motion—the sole proof of the civilization's survival.

["3C-level civilization knowledge inheritance detected. Terminating destruction sequence."]

The advanced civilization revoked the purge order, and all of humanity was saved in silence.

There were no superheroes and no high-tech weapons.

The one who saved the entire human civilization was a mundane, impoverished, and unknown village teacher.

Lin Que typed the soul of the work:

["The rules of the universe are cold and cruel, but the warmth of human civilization stems from the perseverance of ordinary people."]

["The smallest, poorest, and most nameless ordinary people carry the sparks of human civilization."]

As he reached the end, his typing speed slowed.

Because that teacher, after hearing the children's tender answers, had peacefully closed his eyes in that drafty adobe house.

He ended with a single period, adding no further evaluative statements.

After typing the final period, Lin Que exhaled a long breath of turbid air.

He leaned back against the chair, raising his arms to give a vigorous stretch,

His stiff and aching neck and shoulder joints let out a slight creaking sound.

The high-intensity immersive writing had taken a heavy toll on his physical energy, but the light in his eyes was exceptionally daunting.

Looking at the finished manuscript of "rural teacher" on the screen,

Lin Que couldn't help but recall the conversation he had with Xu Zhengqing in the Xu Family courtyard house a few hours ago.

That titan who had seen through half a century of storms in the literary world...

...worried that traditional literature was losing its foundation and that no one was willing to write about the suffering of those at the bottom.

At that time, standing at the courtyard gate, he told Elder Xu that the storytellers had always been on that land and had never left.

This story, "rural teacher," was the best proof.

Unnamed grassroots educators like Teacher Li were the ones most deeply rooted in the soil.

They were humanity's final barrier between the barren land and the vast starry sky.

If Xu Zhengqing were to see this assignment, to see this writing that perfectly combined the lowest soil with the highest starry sky,

and see this ultimate tribute to ordinary people, he would likely fully understand the weight of that promise.

Lin Que reined in his thoughts, gripped the mouse, and saved the document into an encrypted archive.

Then, his gaze swept past the folder list on the screen and rested on two independent icons in the deepest part of the encrypted hard drive.

To the left was the traditional literature outline library belonging to "Jian Shen," and to the right was the web novel inspiration library belonging to "Hell Dream Weaver."

After this period of rest and reflection,

the coarseness brought by the yellow earth in "ordinary world" and the sanity-stripping madness of the "cthulhu mythos"

had both brewed to a new critical point.

Lin Que tapped his fingers lightly on the desk and smiled silently.

Since Elder Xu had already offered a protective umbrella and the waters of the literary world had been thoroughly stirred,

it was time to add a new fire that would scorch half the sky to both the traditional literary world and the web novel world.

...