419: Part 41, Chapter 2

"rural teacher" completed and archived.

Eyes moved to the encrypted folder labeled "Js" on the left side of the desk.

Double-click, enter the sixteen-digit mixed password, and the folders unfolded layer by layer.

Inside were the core outlines, volume structures, and some drafts written a few days ago under the "Jian Shen" alias.

Lin Que dragged the scroll bar, precisely locating the exclusive subdirectory for the second part of ordinary world.

The moment the outline file opened, dense character relationship diagrams and timelines filled the entire screen.

Sun Shaoan, Sun Shaoping, Tian Runye, Tian Xiaoxia...

Behind every name was a timeline filled with destiny nodes.

The focus of the second part would fall on the two Sun brothers.

Sun Shaoan opened a brick kiln in Shuangshui Village, while Sun Shaoping left home to work odd jobs in Huangyuan City.

One took root in the yellow earth, the other surged into the city.

Two paths, two ways of living, both eventually crushed forward by the wheels of the same era.

When reading this part in his past life, Lin Que remembered most clearly not those dramatic conflicts of ups and downs,

but the almost suffocating realism when Mr. Lu wrote about labor scenes.

Sun Shaoping carried stones on a construction site, his back cut with two bloody grooves by the hemp rope; after work, he crouched in a corner of the shed, gnawing on dry steamed buns with cold water.

He didn't feel it was bitter, or rather, he treated bitterness as something as natural as breathing.

This kind of thing, if written too lightly, becomes sentimental; if written too heavily, it becomes an accusation.

Mr. Lu's sense of proportion was to let the characters live themselves, while the author was only responsible for following behind and recording.

But Lin Que wrote extremely fast.

The sound of typing echoed within the soundproof walls, the rhythm steady, with almost no pauses in between.

He wasn't organizing language, but restoring a memory already etched into his bones onto the screen, word by word.

Sun Shaoan carried the capital gathered by the whole village to buy brick kiln equipment, but had half of the deposit swindled away at the county bus station.

He crouched on the steps of the station, clutching the remaining money with both hands, without saying a word.

People waiting for the bus came and went nearby, and no one gave him a second look.

When Lin Que wrote to this point, his typing speed slowed down by half a beat.

He thought of his past life, those few years at the beginning when he crouched on film sets waiting for scripts.

Once, while having dinner with a producer to discuss cooperation,

the other party threw the script he handed over onto the ground in front of everyone at the table, saying such a thing was too coarse even to wipe the table.

He hadn't said a word then, either.

His fingers fell again, and his speed returned to what it was.

Two hours later, Lin Que stopped and read through it from beginning to end.

After checking the last punctuation mark, Lin Que packaged and compressed the entire document, applied triple encryption, and sent it to Wang De'an's secure mailbox.

Two minutes after the successful sent notification popped up, a new message jumped out in the bottom right corner of the mailbox.

Wang De'an replied extremely fast.

"Teacher Jian Shen, I've been waiting for a long time!"

Followed by the second message.

"I know you've been in seclusion and didn't dare to disturb you. Just as you sent the manuscript, there's something I want to report to you."

Lin Que leaned back in his chair, fingers resting on the edge of the keyboard, waiting.

When the third message popped up, it was much longer than the first two.

"Mr. Dai Shengzong, the dean of the Qingbei School of Literature, contacted our New Tide through official channels a few days ago to convey a request.

He and the China Writers Association intend to invite you to the Qinglan Training Camp,

to give a Master Class to thirty of the top literary buds in the country."

Lin Que's finger tapped lightly on the edge of the keyboard.

The fourth message followed immediately.

"Dean Dai's original words were:

The entire ecology of traditional literature is currently undergoing a dramatic change,

the creative level of the younger generation has seen a cliff-like improvement in the past two years, but the foundation remains unstable.

Those writing about the countryside, the bottom rungs of society, and realistic pain still lack someone who truly dares to lead the way forward.

Teacher Jian Shen has used his works to pry open that door, and now someone is needed to help these young people walk the path more solidly."

Lin Que looked at the text on the screen and didn't reply immediately.

Wang De'an sent another message.

"Dean Dai also mentioned that the elder Mr. Su Mubai expressed the same concern.

He said that in the past thirty years of traditional literature, the accumulation of resource tilt, award trends, the escape of young people... for various reasons, the stronghold of grassroots narrative is about to be lost.

The entire literary world is just short of a leader who dares to stand at the forefront."

His fingers hovered over the keyboard for two seconds.

Lin Que typed a reply.

"It's not convenient for me to show my face recently.

But since it's something for the young people, I can compile a set of creative notes. I'll trouble President Wang to pass them on."

After sending it, he paused for a beat and added another sentence.

"When the words arrive, it's as if the person has arrived."

Wang De'an's reply was almost instantaneous.

"Great! Teacher Jian Shen, don't worry, I will definitely convey it exactly as it is!

Dean Dai and Old Mr. Su will then have peace of mind."

Lin Que closed the mailbox window, his gaze lingering on the screen for a moment.

The words Xu Zhengqing said in the courtyard and the invitation sent by Dai Shengzong through official channels

hit "Jian Shen" from different directions at almost the same time.

He had received all the anxiety and sincerity of the elders.

It was just that the timing of his appearance had to be decided by himself.

Lin Que pulled back his thoughts, opened the browser, and entered the login address for the Hong Guo Net backend.

The moment he finished typing the username and password, the entire backend interface seemed to explode.

The notification bar was densely packed with red dots, exclamation marks, and system reminders.

The number on the message board had already exceeded the display limit, leaving only a "999+" red mark hanging in the upper right corner.

The messages urging for updates scrolled from the top of the screen to the bottom, and he couldn't finish them even after flipping through seven or eight pages.

[Cthulhu Must Also Pay Rent]: "Dream Weaver, are you still alive?!"

[Waiting for Updates Even While Squatting]: "It's been 47 days. I come to check in every day. Please give us a sign."

[Step Aside Sea King Let Me Do It]: "If Dream Weaver doesn't update, I'm going to the sea to ask Cthulhu for an explanation."

Lin Que scanned a few times but wasn't in a hurry to reply.

He exited the message board and clicked on the Hong Guo Net homepage.

The moment the page finished loading, his gaze fell on the category list in the navigation bar.

The words "Cthulhu" were prominently listed in the seventh position of the category bar,

with a small "HOT" flame icon next to the font.

Lin Que clicked into the Cthulhu category.

Total number of works: 123.

During the time he stopped updating, the entire category was like a wasteland soaked by spring rain, with new sprouts popping up everywhere.

Naturally, the top-ranked one was still his cthulhu mythos, with 8.23 million readers, the data far ahead.

Second place—"Deep Sea Pastoral," author "A Cat with One Foot in the Abyss," with over 2 million readers.

Lin Que flipped through a few chapters.

It didn't copy his system but started from the deep-sea setting he had mentioned in passing, expanding into a whole set of narrative lines on its own.

The writing was still a bit green, but the sense of fear in its bones was real.

There were also comments following the book.

[Old One Wage Slave]: "Is this author a personal disciple of Dream Weaver? They actually captured that flavor."

[Held by Cthulhu as a Child]: "This is what a real tribute is called."

[The Abyss Gazed at Me]: "Requesting Dream Weaver to notice this! Let the founding master certify it!"

Lin Que leaned back in his chair, looking at the book reviews one by one, a smile unconsciously rising at the corners of his mouth.

Creators in this world never lacked imagination; what they lacked was just a key.

He had used cthulhu mythos to tear an opening,

and those talents suppressed underground had found their own way out, gushing forth.

He exited the Cthulhu category and quickly scanned the entire site.

In the Horror and Supernatural sections, his the human world is like a prison and soul ferry still firmly held the top spots, their data indestructible.

But the second-place entries in both sections were also performing eye-catchingly, with reading data already approaching the section records of the previous quarter.

The entire ecology of Hong Guo Net was slowly transitioning from "one person carrying the flag" to "a hundred flowers blooming."

The catfish effect he had stirred up when he first entered the game was finally beginning to show its long-tail effect.

The top data of other sections across the site also rose accordingly, and the long tail of the catfish effect finally took shape.

Lin Que's finger slid on the scroll wheel, stopping when it scanned to the end of the navigation bar.

A brand-new category icon was quietly tucked away in the far right corner of the navigation bar,

the font a size smaller than the other categories, like a new recruit casually stuffed at the end of the line.

"Adventure."

Lin Que clicked in.

The category homepage was cold and lonely.

The total number of works was less than thirty, the cover designs were crude, and the titles were much the same, revolving around tropes like "Jungle Mystery."

The data was even more pathetic.

The work with the highest popularity had just over ten thousand readers.

A few scattered comments hung in the review section, their tone carrying a sense of listless perfunctoriness.

Lin Que flipped down one by one.

The more he flipped, the tighter his lips pressed together.

The problem with these works wasn't the writing, but the skeleton.

They wrote "adventure" as travel guides plus monster-slaying and leveling up,

lacking a set of underlying logic and cultural roots that could truly support the entire genre.

Just like the Cthulhu category before he entered the scene.

A blue ocean without landmarks.

Lin Que lifted his fingers from the mouse, crossed them over his abdomen, and leaned back into his chair.

He stared at the word "Adventure" on the screen for a long time.

Deep in his mind, an image irrepressibly floated up.

The thousand-year-old tombs of the Kunlun Mountains, the secrets of the Ghost Cave Tribe of the Queen of Jingjue,

the Sixteen-Character Yin-Yang Feng Shui Secret Arts, the ghostly light of the Mojin Talisman swaying in the candlelight.

And that classic-to-the-bone Iron Triangle trio.

A veteran soldier full of ruffian spirit but possessing extraordinary skills,

a fat man who was greedy for money and afraid of death but would never let anyone down at a critical moment,

a mixed-race female scholar calm to the bone.

Three people, one lamp, one tomb.

...