452: Chapter 452 Beneath the Structure, There is Another Structure

The tall boy pushed up his glasses, a smile surfacing at the corners of his mouth.

That kind of smile wasn't mockery; it was something even more uncomfortable.

Condescension.

"Classmate, I can understand your passion."

He placed the printout on the long bench and crossed his arms over his chest, his tone carrying a sense of superiority unique to academic circles.

"But have you ever considered a question?"

He looked at the "snow plum" on the left side of the display board.

"Who is Jian Shen?

A universally recognized phenomenal author of the contemporary era. 'ordinary world', 'The Miracles of the Namiya General Store'—which one of them isn't a textbook-level existence?

He circled the Dream Weaver's name in the poem, so what do you think that could mean?"

Dan Yi's jawline tightened.

The tall boy didn't give him a chance to speak and continued.

"The Web Novel Circle has had a lot of volume in recent years, but its production mechanism is indeed special.

Update pressure, traffic algorithms, instant feedback—

these things cause many works to emphasize emotional stimulation over textual depth.

No matter how well Dream Weaver writes, his roots are still in that circle.

Jian Shen circling his name is, in essence..."

The boy paused, glancing at Xu Changge and Dan Yi beside him.

"More like a senior who has already entered the heartland of traditional literature,

offering a reminder and correction to an author who fought his way out of the traffic field."

His tone was calm, as if stating an axiom.

"More like an established senior who, seeing a junior about to go astray, lent a hand to nudge him in the right direction."

The short-haired girl opened her mouth but didn't argue.

The other members of the literature society looked at each other in silence.

Dan Yi's breathing grew heavy.

He took half a step forward, something extremely cold churning in his grey-blue pupils.

That coldness wasn't anger; it was the reaction one has only when their deepest wound is stepped on.

To Dan Yi, the name 'Dream Weaver' had long surpassed the word 'author'.

That was the first beam of light during the long winter nights in Mo City that didn't treat him like a monster.

His fist clenched tight.

A hand reached out from the side, resting neither heavily nor lightly on his forearm.

Dan Yi turned his head.

Xu Changge didn't look at the tall boy; he only gave him a glance.

That glance was very calm, but its meaning was clear.

Leave it to me.

Dan Yi's footsteps stopped.

He glanced at Xu Changge; the other's expression showed no fluctuation.

Xu Changge withdrew his hand and took a step forward.

He wasn't in a hurry to speak. Instead, he looked up at the poem 'in response to snow plum' on the right side of the display board,

his gaze slowly sweeping from the first word to the last.

Then he turned around and looked at the tall boy.

"You said Dream Weaver's poem is artificial, constrained by the acrostic structure."

Xu Changge's voice silenced everyone in the corridor.

"Then let me ask you, did you notice the first word of the second line?"

The tall boy blanked for a moment.

"What?"

"The word 'Zhi' (to hold)."

Xu Changge extended a finger, pointing vaguely at the position of that word on the board.

"According to the tonal rhythm established in the previous line, at the start of the second line, the reader would naturally expect a word that follows the flow.

But Dream Weaver used 'Zhi'.

This word is short, hard, and ends abruptly, like the back of a blade suddenly pressing down on the breath, causing the sharpness of the entire line to sink an inch."

"This treatment is called 'Using discordance to create momentum' in Classical Poetry."

The tall boy's brow furrowed.

Xu Changge looked at him, his tone indifferent.

"First let the breath break, then rescue the momentum later. It looks risky, but when read smoothly, it is actually more powerful."

The tall boy's gaze quickly shifted to the display board. His lips moved, but he made no sound.

"The second line is suppressed with 'Zhi', and the fourth line is released with 'Hua' (grace/bloom).

One word presses the breath down, and one word sends it out.

With sharpness in front and light behind, these four words do not feel strangled by the acrostic."

Xu Changge withdrew his finger from the board and tucked it into his trench coat pocket.

"This kind of cross-line rhythmic rescue occasionally appears in Regulated Verse, but used in a Quatrain, it requires extremely high mastery of the poem's vital energy.

With the slightest mistake, the breath of the entire poem would snap."

He looked at the tall boy.

"So, can you call this 'artificial'?"

Lin Que stood behind the crowd, his fingertip lightly rubbing the edge of a tissue.

He suddenly felt a bit of regret.

When he wrote that acrostic poem back then, he just wanted to calm down the readers on both sides who were about to start a fight.

Now look at this.

Xu Changge was about to take the bones he had casually pressed into the poem and dismantle them one by one for exhibition.

The tall boy's expression changed.

He opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but Xu Changge gave him no room to breathe.

"Look back at the opening line.

The word 'Ge' (each) leads the whole piece. Opening with an oblique tone, it first presses the momentum down an inch,

which is more like the 'Ancient Style' opening, different from the usual steady entering tone of 'Recent Style' poetry.

But the subsequent three lines strictly follow the Recent Style rules; the Ancient Style opening instead becomes a rule-breaking blade edge."

Xu Changge's speaking speed wasn't fast; every word carried a certainty that came from being chewed over a thousand times.

"At least from the structure, it opens in Ancient Style and closes in Recent Style. Breaking the rules first, then upholding them.

In other words, the first line is like drawing a sword, and the following three are like sheathing it. There is sharpness, and there is restraint.

Even in the contemporary poetry scene, few people dare to use this technique."

The tall boy's fingers gripped his pen.

He wanted to refute.

"What you've said at most proves that Dream Weaver knows how to manipulate rhythm."

He pushed up his glasses, his voice clearly tightening.

"But risk in rhythm does not equate to height in poetic meaning. Technique can make a poem stand firm, but it won't necessarily make it go far."

"Poetic meaning?"

Xu Changge softly repeated those two words.

"Then let me ask you another question."

His gaze fell on the tall boy's face, not heavy, but very steady.

"Do you know what the four words 'each holding their own grace' would read as if interpreted by breaking down the character's imagery?"

The tall boy's lips moved, but no sound came out.

"'Ge' (Each) implies an origin;

'Zhi' (Holding) implies a grasp;

'Feng' (Wind) implies flow and cultivation;

'Hua' (Bloom) implies flowering and glory."

Xu Changge spoke word by word, as if flipping through an old book only he could see.

"Origin, grasp, cultivation, flowering.

Connecting the four words, it is exactly a line: people come from their respective origins, hold onto their respective persistence, are worn by the wind and snow, and finally bloom with their own light."

The corridor was so quiet that the sound of the wind blowing over the lake could be heard.

"Even if this came from the author's subconscious, it shows that his textual instinct is terrifyingly strong."

Xu Changge's voice was very soft.

"This is a hidden thread Dream Weaver buried beneath the acrostic for those willing to read deeply."

"You say he is constrained by the structure?"

Xu Changge looked at the tall boy with a calm gaze.

"What you see is the acrostic constraint; what he wrote is a second layer of structure beneath the structure."

The tall boy's face flushed red.

He opened his mouth, his mind rapidly searching for academic vocabulary to strike back,

but every thought that popped up was blocked dead by Xu Changge's words.

He couldn't handle it.

The classical literature literacy Xu Changge displayed had far exceeded the level an undergraduate poetry club member could reach.

That foundation came from years of family upbringing and an eye sharpened inch by inch through old paper and old ink.

The surrounding members of the literature society looked at each other.

The short-haired girl who had been nodding in agreement just now lowered her head, the printout in her hand unconsciously rolled into a tube.

She stared at the four words 'each holding their own grace' for a long time and whispered:

"Reading it this way... it really does make sense."

Another boy wearing round-framed glasses quietly took half a step back, as if not wanting to be affected by this pressure.

The atmosphere had completely flipped.

In the watching crowd, people began to whisper.

"The one in the grey-blue trench coat, what's his background?"

"I don't know, but this classical literature foundation is too ridiculous, isn't it? A master's student? Or a PhD?"

"He doesn't look old, seventeen or eighteen at most."

A girl with a ponytail stared at Xu Changge for several seconds, her gaze moving from his face to the cut of his trench coat, and then to the natural poise he maintained while standing.

Her finger slid quickly across her phone screen, pulling up a news photo.

In the photo, a youth in a dark suit stood on an award stage, behind him a massive backdrop for the 'Fu Zhi Yao Competition' National Essay Competition.

Her gaze jumped back and forth twice between the phone screen and the person in front of her.

Then she covered her mouth.

"Oh my god." Her voice was sharp and trembling as it leaked through her fingers.

"That's Xu Changge! The Xu Changge of the Beijing Xu Family!"

...