441: Chapter 441 That Student...

Lin Que's final word fell into the silence.

There was no applause in the classroom, no discussion, and not a single person made a sound.

Thirty pairs of eyes were locked firmly on Lin Que, and even breathing was deliberately suppressed to the minimum.

It was as if whoever spoke first would shatter that extremely thin, brittle layer in the air that could crack at any moment.

Xu Changge sat to Lin Que's left, his fingers resting on his knees.

Those hands had repeatedly clenched and loosened over the past few minutes, and now they finally hung quietly on his knees.

He had grown up immersed in the essays of famous masters; he had seen more good writing than most people present had read books.

Even if Lin Que's "the steps" had shaken him and "folding beijing" had surprised him,

there still remained a small, quiet space in the depths of his heart.

But today's piece, "rural teacher," had filled that space to the brim.

Technique could eventually be polished with time, but the scale raised by this piece before him had already crossed the line he could originally reach.

Lin Que had stitched together a drafty classroom on the Loess Plateau with a galactic judgment fifty thousand light-years away.

That line connecting the starry sky and the yellow earth did not fall in a laboratory, nor did it fall on the muzzle of a fleet's cannons;

instead, it fell on a dusty blackboard, within a half-stub of chalk that could barely be held.

Xu Changge closed his eyes for a moment.

He thought of his own "heavenly questions."

He thought of Old Zheng's three seconds of romance in the space station.

Elder Cui had said he was "finally willing to let the people under his pen be undignified," and at the time, he felt that was already a huge breakthrough.

Xu Changge's shoulders relaxed, and his back leaned against the chair.

At this moment, a string in his heart that had been taut for many years loosened a bit.

It was the kind of quietness that only comes after seeing a high mountain.

By the window.

Dan Yi's fingers slipped from the edge of the desk and rested on his knees.

His eyes felt hot.

The phrase "Sparks of Reason" echoed repeatedly in his mind like a red-hot iron bar, carving into his bones stroke by stroke.

Lin Que said,

The underlying tone of a civilization is determined by its lowliest foundation stones.

Things placed at the margins can also become the scale for judging a civilization.

Entrusting the life and death of seven billion people to a few children on the Loess Plateau who couldn't even get enough to eat.

He thought of the school gate in Mo City in winter, of those nicknames left behind, and of the many times he stood on the edge of the crowd,

like a stone kicked aside at will.

But Lin Que's words just now had placed such a stone right onto the base of civilization's scales.

Dan Yi lowered his head and blinked hard twice, forcing back the thin mist of tears.

He didn't let anyone see.

On the podium.

Elder Cui stood there, motionless.

The light in his eyes, which had burned brighter and brighter over the past ten or so minutes, was quickly withdrawn at this moment.

The entire process took only two seconds.

Elder Cui raised his hand and took the black-rimmed glasses off the bridge of his nose.

The movement was very slow and steady.

He folded the glasses and put them into the left pocket of his faded jacket.

Then he glanced at the wall clock.

"Alright."

Elder Cui spoke. His voice was coarse and his tone flat, no different from when he walked into the classroom an hour ago.

"Everyone, get up, move around, and take a break. Come back and continue after."

Everyone thought he would say at least something.

Even if it was just the word "good."

But Elder Cui gave no critique, no summary, and didn't mention another word about "rural teacher."

After saying this, he turned and walked down the steps from the side of the podium, striding toward the front door of the classroom.

His old sneakers stepped on the floor, making dull thudding sounds.

The door was pushed open and then closed again.

Elder Cui's back disappeared at the end of the corridor.

The classroom was quiet for another three seconds.

Then, as if someone had flipped a switch, all the long-suppressed voices exploded at once.

"Holy crap!"

Chen Jiahao was the first to spring from his seat. He tossed his water bottle onto the desk and charged toward Lin Que like a cannonball.

"Master Que! Master Que, you're too incredible!"

His voice was so loud the whole classroom shook,

and his eyes uncontrollably glanced at Lin Que's head, as if he really wanted to see through that skull.

"Ants Moving Sand! Sparks of Reason! How did you think of that? What on earth is inside your head?"

Lin Que reached out and swatted his paws away.

"Let go."

"I don't care!" Chen Jiahao's voice was already cracking.

"Do you know that Elder Cui's brain-computer interface panel just overloaded? Overloaded! A third-generation system! It was fried by one of your drafts!"

Yuan Ningning, who was nearby, turned around. Her eyes were still red, and her voice trembled slightly:

"Lin Que, that ending of yours, the part where the chalk writing on the grave gets washed away by the rain... I almost couldn't hold it back."

"More than almost."

Tang He added from behind, her tone carrying a complex sense of admiration.

"I saw that your eyes were all red."

Yuan Ningning glared at her but didn't argue.

"After reading your 'rural teacher,' I suddenly feel that the sentences in my own writing are... light."

The discussion in the classroom grew louder and louder.

A few students from other provinces huddled together, flipping through the playback data on their brain-computer panels, pointing at the broken red emotional curve to confirm it repeatedly.

"Look here, the system directly issued an overload warning."

"Twice. Two overloads. In the entire class, there were only these two, and both were during Lin Que's piece."

"Young Master Xu's piece was already strong enough, pulling the red peak so high.

But Lin Que's... it can't be viewed as normal classroom data anymore."

Someone looked back at Xu Changge and then quickly looked away.

Xu Changge sat in his seat without moving.

His expression was calm, and there was even a very faint smile at the corner of his mouth.

Chen Jiahao was still circling Lin Que, his words popping out like rapid fire.

Dan Yi never stood up from his seat.

He sat by the window, his fingers resting on the desk, his fingertips unconsciously rubbing the metal frame of his brain-computer panel.

The surrounding clamor felt as if it were separated by a layer of glass.

He was digesting.

Digesting those words, digesting the things surging from the depths of his chest that he hadn't yet fully sorted out.

Time flowed through the noise.

From the moment Elder Cui left, time ticked forward bit by bit.

Five minutes, ten minutes, twenty minutes...

The discussion never ceased.

It wasn't until nearly an hour later that the front door of the classroom was pushed open.

All sounds evaporated within half a second.

Elder Cui strode onto the podium, his old sneakers making two dull thuds on the floor.

His jacket pocket was a bit flatter than when he left, he carried a faint scent of tobacco that had just dissipated, and the collar of his jacket still held the cold wind from the corridor.

The whole room sat up straight in unison.

Elder Cui stood still and scanned the classroom.

That gaze slid from the first row to the window, and then pressed back from the back row,

only failing to stop when it passed Lin Que's position.

"Continue."

Elder Cui reached out and tapped the master control terminal twice, and the projection screen lit up again.

"Next assignment."

He put his black-rimmed glasses back on and pressed the switch on the temple with his thumb. The green cursor woke up on the right side of the screen.

From beginning to end, he did not mention a single word about "rural teacher."

But everyone in the classroom knew that from today on, that piece would be like a nail driven into their memories, unable to be pulled out for a very, very long time.

Time rewound.

An hour ago.

Qingbei School of Literature, Dean's Office.

Dai Shengzong sat behind a mahogany desk, holding an old-fashioned fountain pen, writing annotations in the corner of the Qinglan Project Phase Evaluation Form.

The sunlight outside the window filtered through the blinds, cutting a neat row of light and shadow next to the name 'Lin Que.'

The office door was pushed open from the outside.

The force was great, and the doorknob hit the rubber pad on the wall with a dull thud.

Elder Cui strode in, a lingering tension wrapped around him like an invisible shell.

He didn't greet anyone or exchange pleasantries; he walked straight to the leather sofa in the reception area and plopped down.

The sofa springs creaked under the pressure.

Dai Shengzong's pen tip stopped on the paper, and he looked up.

Elder Cui didn't look at him.

His hand reached into the pocket of his faded jacket, felt around, and pulled out a flattened pack of cigarettes.

The cigarette pack was crumpled, its corners worn fuzzy.

He pulled one out, bit it in his mouth, and then fished a cheap plastic lighter out of his pants pocket.

With a "click," a flame jumped up.

The cigarette tip was lit, and an orange-red light glowed for a moment in the dim sofa area.

Elder Cui took a deep drag, held the smoke in his lungs, and only after a long time did he slowly exhale it through his nose.

The white smoke dispersed in the air, cut into pieces by the light leaking through the blinds.

Dai Shengzong put down his fountain pen, screwed the cap back on, and set it next to the documents.

He didn't speak.

He had known Elder Cui for nearly thirty years.

This man had a foul temper, a sharp tongue, and eyes that looked down on everyone; he had spent more than half his life walking tall in the domestic sci-fi circle,

and nothing had ever been able to cause a visible fluctuation in his emotions.

But the man sitting on the sofa at this moment had his shoulders tensed,

and the frequency of his smoking was nearly twice as fast as usual, the exhaled smoke coming out quick and short.

Elder Cui didn't stop until the cigarette was only one-third left, then reached out and crushed the butt into the glass ashtray on the coffee table.

The ashtray was clean; this was the first one today.

He looked up.

His lenses had been tucked into his pocket,

and in those unobstructed eyes, an extremely complex light was flowing.

Elder Cui paused for a long time, his voice raspy.

"Shengzong, that student..."