451: Chapter 451 Battlefield Poetry: Not Just About Metrical Rules

Chen Jiahao's voice sounded as if someone had twisted the volume knob to the maximum.

The entire pavilion corridor vibrated from his shout.

Several middle-aged people who were taking photos turned their heads.

Their gazes fell upon this tall youth in a trendy brand jacket, who was gesticulating wildly.

Two college students carrying canvas bags also stopped in their tracks, looking toward the display board in the direction Chen Jiahao was pointing.

"Brother, you follow these two as well?"

One of the boys wearing a baseball cap leaned over, his eyes shining.

Chen Jiahao stood with his hands on his hips, his chin slightly raised, looking immensely proud by association.

"Follow? I don't just follow them; I'm a die-hard fan of Jian Shen!"

"I've been following since the first book, The Miracles of the Namiya General Store, until now. I've shed three pounds of tears and used up half a box of tissues. I still haven't left the fandom—I guess I'm just tough!"

The boy in the baseball cap gave him a thumbs up.

"To have followed since The Miracles of the Namiya General Store and still not have recovered... Brother, you're a certified old-school fan."

Lin Que stood behind them, expressionlessly chewing the last bit of his fried dough stick.

His gaze swept back and forth between the two poems.

"snow plum" was hanging on the left, and "in response to snow plum" was on the right.

Two different temperaments had been framed together on the same wooden board.

The mounting was quite sophisticated.

The color of the base coat was well-chosen, making the ink marks look very textured.

He silently gave himself a score in his heart.

Public Execution Index: Seven points.

Three points were deducted because Ye Xi wasn't present.

If that "Beethoven" were also here to study the breathing rhythm of the two poems on the spot, this display board could be upgraded from an exchange exhibition to a crime scene today.

Lin Que finished his last bite of the dough stick and inconspicuously glanced at Xu Changge's face.

It was fine.

The other man was looking at the poems and wasn't looking at him for the moment.

Xu Changge had already walked up to the display board.

His gaze slowly swept from left to right.

When the storm at Wenyuan Pavilion had reached a boiling point across the internet, Xu Changge had also compared "snow plum" and "in response to snow plum" word by word for their phrasing.

But seeing them through a screen felt somewhat different from seeing them transcribed in two different calligraphic styles on the same wooden board at this moment.

The ink in "snow plum" on the left was steady, like snow weighing down a branch, its sharpness restrained.

The strokes in "in response to snow plum" on the right were sharper, like someone drawing a blade from its scabbard in the cold night.

Xu Changge watched for a long time before saying softly,

"Putting these two together makes the atmosphere even clearer."

Xu Changge's voice was very soft.

Several tourists nearby who were taking photos stopped what they were doing.

"'snow plum' uses an ancient tone; the opening line is restrained while the closing line is expansive. It's like an elder standing on high looking down, seeing the big picture and advising all living beings."

His finger gestured vaguely toward the poem on the right.

"While this 'in response to snow plum' has sharper brushwork; every character carries a force that pushes upward.

Between the two poems, one gathers energy while the other reveals its edge; one elevates the dispute to a grander scale, while the other declares its stance clearly.

It's like two people sitting opposite each other from a thousand miles away, each holding a lamp, yet illuminating the same piece of night."

Xu Changge withdrew his hand, his gaze still lingering on the display board.

"It is rare for such a long-distance poetic dialogue to appear in the contemporary literary world."

Lin Que stood behind the crowd and gave a calm 'mm'.

"It is indeed rare."

When he said those words, his eyes couldn't help but look toward the sky.

Dan Yi did not speak.

From the moment the four of them squeezed to the front of the display board, his gaze had been pinned to the poem on the right, not moving even an inch.

"in response to snow plum".

Handwritten by the Dream Weaver.

Those characters were transcribed onto the display board, each stroke carrying power, as if someone had hidden a blade's edge within the ink marks.

Dan Yi's breathing was very light and slow, the reflection of those characters mirrored in his grey-blue pupils.

The brim of his hat had been pushed up half an inch at some point, revealing his full brow and eyes.

He looked like someone who had walked alone in the dark night for too long, suddenly seeing a lamp in the distance that hadn't gone out.

Lin Que's peripheral vision caught Dan Yi's state, but he didn't speak to interrupt him.

From deep within the pavilion corridor, a discussion with an academic tone drifted over.

Five or six young people were sitting in a circle on a long bench, holding printed copies of the poems and enthusiastically exchanging opinions.

The leader was a tall boy over 1.8 meters tall,

wearing thin metal-framed glasses, with a silver badge of the Renmin University Chinese Department Poetry Society pinned to his chest.

The header of the printout was also printed with the small words "Poetry Study Group".

The tall boy held a pen, circling and marking the printout as if he had already built a complete analytical framework in his mind.

"Look at 'snow plum'; it shifts from natural scenery to human affairs. This transition is very sophisticated."

A short-haired girl beside him nodded in agreement.

The tall boy pushed up his glasses.

"Jian Shen's work has always followed this path—steady brushwork, an expansive perspective, and a temperament between the lines that only traditional literati possess.

This isn't something that can be built with technique; it's something in the bones."

He paused, his gaze moving to the right side of the display board.

"Now look at this one by the Dream Weaver."

He tapped the text on the printout with the tip of his pen, his tone shifting subtly.

"Frankly speaking, there is sharpness. The wording is also crisp and doesn't drag.

But look closely at the parallelism of the middle two lines; the traces of effort are too obvious.

Every word is straining to prove itself 'worthy' of matching a poem with Jian Shen."

The short-haired girl hesitated.

"Isn't saying that a bit harsh? It's also an acrostic poem; the conception is already very clever."

The tall boy shook his head, his expression carrying a gentle yet firm denial.

"Clever, certainly clever. But things that are too clever can easily lock the phrasing tight."

He looked at the poem on the right.

"Once the acrostic structure suppresses the whole piece, the poetic meaning is easily led by the nose by the structure."

"Go back and read Jian Shen's poem; there are no tricks, it's supported entirely by the artistic conception. That is the gap."

He placed the pen on his knee and made a concluding gesture.

"One has deep roots, the other has a sharp edge."

The tall boy paused, his tone softening.

"From the perspective of textual completeness, I lean toward the former.

The latter has a sense of presence and posture, but the poetic meaning itself is held too tightly by the acrostic structure."

The other students nodded along; the atmosphere was like a small academic seminar.

Six meters away.

Chen Jiahao's brow twisted into a knot.

He turned to glance at Lin Que, then at the group of Renmin University students; the cup of fermented soy milk in his hand was squeezed until a part of it caved in.

"Master Que, what do these people mean? They're playing the game of praising one while putting down the other, aren't they?"

His voice wasn't kept very low, and several passing tourists heard him.

Lin Que put his hands into his hoodie pockets, his gaze falling on the tall boy, and said nothing.

Just as Chen Jiahao took a step forward, an even colder aura pressed in from his left.

Dan Yi.

Dan Yi's hat brim had been pushed up completely, revealing his deeply contoured face.

His grey-blue eyes were fixed in the direction of the tall boy, his gaze devoid of warmth.

His whole being was like a piece of iron just unearthed from the permafrost.

Chen Jiahao instinctively stepped half a pace to the side.

Dan Yi had already walked out.

His soles made almost no sound on the stone tiles,

and he stopped in front of the group of Renmin University students.

The tall boy was about to continue saying something when his peripheral vision caught a black figure blocking his way, and he looked up.

A pair of grey-blue eyes looked straight at him from three steps away.

"How much of the Dream Weaver's work have you read?"

Dan Yi's voice wasn't heavy, but every syllable sounded as if it had been frozen hard before being spat out.

The tall boy was stunned for a second.

"I've read some."

"What about the shadow over innsmouth?"

"No."

"What about the colour out of space?"

"I haven't had the chance to see it yet."

The tall boy frowned.

"But I was evaluating the poem in front of me just now, not drawing conclusions about the Dream Weaver's entire creative spectrum."

Dan Yi took half a step forward.

That half-step distance made the tall boy involuntarily lean back an inch.

"What you see is the acrostic, the parallelism, the so-called artificiality."

Dan Yi's voice was kept very low.

"But that night, what many people were waiting for was not a poem meant for a competition."

"It was a tourniquet."

"You didn't see the wound, yet you say the bandaging technique isn't pretty enough?"

"When he wrote that poem, the readers from both sides were tearing at each other.

Some were cursed into closing their comment sections, some were doxxed, and some received death threats."

The tall boy's fingers stopped on his pen cap, not twisting it down.

"He could have ignored it.

He is anonymous; no one knows who he is.

He only needed to quietly continue writing his stories and let the traffic and heat burn themselves out."

"But he stood up."

There was something very heavy in Dan Yi's voice.

"With four lines of poetry, he suppressed an out-of-control feeding frenzy."

Dan Yi stared at him, his grey-blue eyes cold and bright.

"When an author is at the easiest moment to harvest traffic, he chose to make his own readers stop first."

"And you call that artificiality?"

The pavilion corridor fell silent for a few seconds.

The several students from the Renmin University Literature Society looked at each other, and some lowered their heads.

The tall boy's expression changed several times, and the gaze behind his thin metal-framed glasses flickered before he regained his composure.

He held the pen between his fingers and slowly stood up from the bench.

He was half a head taller than Dan Yi.

"Classmate, don't be excited; I understand your feelings."

His tone was steady, and his phrasing returned to that academic style.

"But literary criticism is about textual analysis, not fan sentiment.

I know all those background stories you mentioned, but what we are discussing today is the quality of the poem itself."

He reached out and patted the printout.

"From the three dimensions of meter, density of imagery, and precision of allusions, the gap between the Dream Weaver's poem and Jian Shen's is objectively present.

This isn't disparagement; it's a fact."

He looked at Dan Yi with a composure that suggested, 'I am being reasonable'.

"If you are willing, we can set aside emotions for a moment and return to the text itself."

The tall boy pushed up his glasses.

"Poetic evaluation has its own scales. Relying solely on the background of events makes it easy to conflate the significance of a work with its quality."

"Wait a moment."

The voice came from behind Dan Yi.

It wasn't Lin Que, and it wasn't Chen Jiahao.

A man wearing a grey-blue trench coat stepped out from the crowd.

He wasn't in a hurry, nor did he show any emotion.

He simply walked to Dan Yi's side, unhurriedly straightened the cuffs of his trench coat, and then stood still.

The tall boy's gaze moved to his face, first glancing at his clothing and bearing, then letting his gaze fall on that excessively proper face.

He didn't recognize him.

But his intuition told him that this peer in the grey-blue trench coat was not someone easy to deal with.

Xu Changge glanced at the two poems on the display board, then at the printout in the tall boy's hand,

and finally withdrew his gaze, letting it fall on the other's face.

"Meter, imagery, precision of allusions."

Xu Changge repeated them in a flat tone.

"These three rulers are certainly useful."

"But what you are measuring now is a poem written on a battlefield of public opinion."

He looked at the right side of the display board.

"A poem on the battlefield must first stop the fighting. Only then is it the turn of posterity to slowly discuss the meter."

He paused for a beat.

"Then let me ask you a question."

The tall boy's fingers slightly tightened around the pen barrel.

Xu Changge's voice was very soft, so soft that only the people in the first two rows could hear clearly.

"Do you know why, when Jian Shen was writing 'snow plum', he specifically had to single out the Dream Weaver's name?"

...