435: Chapter 435 Galactic Trial (Part 1)

On the projection screen, white text stood quietly against a light gray background.

[Lin Que, rural teacher]

Six characters, no subtitle, no introduction, and no labels indicating it belonged to the sci-fi genre.

A very brief, dead silence fell over the classroom.

Thirty pairs of eyes pulled back from the screen, searching for answers on each other's faces.

Yuan Ningning's brow furrowed slightly; her lips parted a fraction, then closed again.

Tang He glanced at Dan Yi. Dan Yi sat by the window, his grayish-blue eyes staring at the screen without expression.

A few students from other provinces in the back row exchanged glances.

Someone shook their head slightly.

rural teacher.

Taken separately, every character was familiar.

But put together, alongside the third-generation brain-computer interaction system on the desks and Xu Changge's hard sci-fi piece about a space station from earlier—

It felt like they were separated by two completely different narrative universes.

The commotion started from the back row and pushed forward like a ripple.

"Rural? How are the sci-fi elements going to be presented?"

"The title is too realistic; it's like the sense of genre was deliberately suppressed."

"Could it be... that he misinterpreted the prompt?"

That last sentence was spoken softly, but in the quiet classroom, it was still heard by those in the front row.

Elder Cui looked away from the screen, peered over the podium, and gave Lin Que, who was sitting in the middle row, a deep look.

That look lasted for two seconds.

Elder Cui's expression offered no clues for interpretation.

Behind his lenses, scrutiny mixed with something more complex in unknown proportions.

The other twenty-nine gazes all swiveled in unison, following Elder Cui's line of sight to converge on Lin Que.

Lin Que sat in his seat, his posture unchanged.

His back was against the chair, hands on the desk, fingers naturally interlaced.

Chen Jiahao couldn't take the pressure next to him.

He lowered his voice, leaning his upper body toward Lin Que's shoulder, his voice so low it was barely a breath.

"Master Que, you said before you were writing a story about a teacher, but why rural teacher? What does this have to do with sci-fi?"

Lin Que didn't move.

His gaze fell on Elder Cui's hands on the podium; there was no sign of his lips opening.

There was a beat of silence.

Lin Que tilted his chin slightly, making a tiny gesture toward the podium.

Chen Jiahao followed his gaze.

Elder Cui had already turned back to the projection screen.

Chen Jiahao closed his mouth and shrank back into his seat.

He had known Lin Que long enough to know that asking more at a time like this was useless; he just had to wait.

Elder Cui readjusted his black-rimmed glasses.

He pressed the switch on the left temple with his thumb.

A green cursor woke up in the eye-tracking area on the right side of the screen, hovering at the very top of the manuscript.

The first line of text enlarged on the screen.

[He knew that this last lesson had to be taught ahead of schedule.]

The green cursor swept steadily from left to right across those thirteen characters.

The speed was steady, the trajectory clean.

This meant Elder Cui was reading normally, not yet truly snagged by any single word.

The cursor continued to move down.

The second paragraph of text unfolded.

[Loess Plateau.

Winter.

The wind howled down from the mountain ridges, making the newspapers pasted over the classroom windows rustle loudly.

Several cracks had opened in the classroom's earthen walls, patched with old newspapers and mud.

The podium was made of two stacks of bricks with a crooked wooden board placed on top.

Only half a piece of chalk remained.

Teacher Li stood behind the podium and coughed for a long time before stopping.

He wiped the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand.

There was blood on the back of his hand.]

Adjectives were kept to a minimum, and any literary flair had been deliberately stripped away.

The sentences were short and hard,

carrying a scent of yellow earth ground by wind and sand.

The green cursor moved through these descriptions at a constant speed.

The speed was stable, the trajectory clean.

Yuan Ningning in the front row frowned.

She looked down at the brain-computer panel in front of her; the green trajectory drew a straight horizontal line.

No fluctuations.

No backtracking.

Nor was there the deceleration that had appeared during the "tea leaves" part of Xu Changge's piece.

Yuan Ningning's judgment wavered slightly.

She knew Elder Cui could keep reading, but so far, this manuscript hadn't truly caught his eye.

Xu Changge sat to Lin Que's left, his gaze pinned tightly to the projection screen.

He was searching.

From the very first word, he had been looking for the entrance to that hidden sci-fi setting.

He almost always finished reading the next line before the cursor did,

trying to dig out a signal frequency, a set of coordinates, or some hint or foreshadowing of a time jump from between the lines.

But his eyes were filled only with earthen kangs and chalk dust.

A terminally ill country teacher, standing behind a podium made of two stacks of bricks, using half a piece of chalk to teach a final lesson.

Xu Changge's brow furrowed involuntarily.

The text on the screen continued downward.

Teacher Li wiped away the words on the blackboard and wrote a new line with the chalk.

His hand was shaking.

The chalk characters were crooked, but every stroke was made with all his strength.

After finishing, he turned around and looked at the seven or eight children huddled in their tattered cotton-padded jackets.

["Kids, today we won't be learning new characters or reading from the textbook. We're going to talk about physics."]

The green cursor slowed down significantly at this line.

It abruptly slowed from its steady pace, as if an invisible hand were gently pressing down on it from behind.

On the brain-computer panel, that flat green trajectory line showed its first tiny dip.

Several students in the front row saw this change at the same time.

Someone gasped.

Chen Jiahao gripped his water bottle so hard the plastic deformed.

The whispers from the back row dropped another level.

"Physics is the entrance? But he still hasn't introduced a single sci-fi setting..."

Someone scrolled through the progress bar on their brain-computer panel, their frown deepening.

The total length of the manuscript was just over twelve thousand words; currently, the cursor was still stuck at the eight-hundred-word mark.

A boy from another province sitting at the edge of the second row sighed softly and leaned back against his chair.

That sigh was very light, but it was exceptionally jarring in the quiet interval.

Lin Que heard it.

He didn't look back.

Elder Cui heard it too.

He didn't look back either.

The cursor continued its progress.

Teacher Li began to talk about Newton's First Law.

He spoke very slowly, having to stop and catch his breath after every sentence.

The sound of the chalk on the blackboard was harsh, like fingernails scratching on sheet metal.

[The children didn't quite understand.]

[A little boy wearing split-seat pants asked, "Teacher, what's inertia?"]

[Teacher Li thought for a moment, knelt down, and picked up a piece of broken brick from the floor.]

[He placed the brick on the wooden board of the podium and gave it a push with his finger.]

[The brick slid off and fell to the floor.]

["This is inertia. When something is moving and no one stops it, it just keeps moving."]

[The little boy nodded, seemingly understanding.]

The next line of text cut to the outside of the classroom.

[It was dark.]

[Teacher Li saw off the last child and sat on the low stool behind the podium, staring blankly at the blackboard alone.]

[The formula he had written was still on the blackboard.]

[F equals ma.]

[The chalk characters were crooked, like wheat stubble blown by the wind.]

[He coughed for a while and forced himself to swallow that mouthful of blood.]

[Then he picked up his lesson plan book and wrote a line on the last page—]

[Teach the Second Law tomorrow. If there is a tomorrow.]

...