472: Chapter 472, please have Lin Que do it for me.

Elder Cui's fingers paused on the keyboard for half a second before steadily pressing the Enter key.

The massive projection screen at the front of the lecture hall lit up instantly.

There was no real face on the screen, only the outline of a virtual character sketched in deep blue lines, sitting quietly in the center of the image.

The lines were extremely minimalist, as if capturing a person's presence with the fewest strokes possible.

A faint halo flowed along the edges of the outline, like some quiet creature breathing in the deep sea.

The air in the entire classroom was completely frozen in that instant.

The gazes of the thirty students were all pinned to that screen. No one moved. No one made a sound.

Even their breathing became cautious, as if a slightly heavier breath would disturb the presence on the other side of the screen.

Chen Jiahao's hands gripped the edge of the table tightly, his knuckles turning white. His lips were trembling, and his eyes were already rimmed with red.

Xu Changge held the pen cap in his right hand, his thumb unconsciously rubbing the metal clip.

His posture remained upright, but his shoulders were tenser than usual.

The deep blue light reflected in Dan Yi's gray-blue pupils, unblinking.

Then, a faint crackle of static came from the speakers. "Bzzt."

It was very soft. Soft enough to be almost inaudible. But in such an absolutely silent environment, that trace of static sounded like a needle dropping onto a glass plate, and everyone heard it clearly.

Immediately after, the voice came. A voice processed with a secondary voice changer poured out from the speakers on both sides of the classroom simultaneously.

Deep and restrained, the tail end of the sound carried a slight metallic grain, yet it still commanded the entire classroom.

"Greetings, seniors and students. Good morning."

A half-beat pause.

"I am Jian Shen."

Four words.

Just these four words.

The next moment, Lin Que's eyelids lifted slightly.

This reaction was even more intense than he had anticipated.

These literary elites, selected from all over the country and each holding a high opinion of themselves, saw someone in the front row stand up the moment they heard that voice.

Immediately after, the sound of chair legs scraping against the floor rang out row by row, like a long-suppressed wave finally sweeping across the entire classroom.

No one shouted a command. No one took the lead.

Xu Changge was the first to stand straight, his chair sliding back half an inch.

Chen Jiahao was practically yanked from his seat by those four words, his lips trembling violently.

Dan Yi followed closely behind, a thin sheen of light welling up in his gray-blue eyes beneath the brim of his cap.

Tang He also stood up.

Subsequently, students in the front row, back row, by the window, and in the corners of the Qinglan Project rose one after another.

Everyone stood up.

"Hello, Teacher Jian Shen!"

The voices were not synchronized.

Some shouted loudly, some had trembling voices, and some moved their lips but only emitted breathy sounds.

Chen Jiahao was the loudest, but his voice clearly trembled at the end.

Xu Changge's voice was steady, yet it held an extra touch of solemnity compared to usual.

Dan Yi only opened his mouth slightly, his voice so low that only those beside him could hear.

But everyone's eyes were bright.

That brightness contained an almost devout reverence, like a youth seeing the mountain they had long looked up to for the first time.

Lin Que stood in the middle of the crowd.

Like everyone else, he stood up the moment that voice rang out.

His posture was natural, his expression calm; compared to the classmates around him who were on the verge of losing control from excitement, he appeared exceptionally composed.

But it was merely composure. No more, no less.

He blended perfectly into the collective reaction of these thirty people, neither abrupt nor conspicuous.

His left hand was tucked into his hoodie pocket.

Behind the podium, the reactions of the five grandmasters were all different.

Professor Liu Zuoqing wore a satisfied smile, while Dai Shengzong stood with his hands behind his back, nodding slightly.

Su Mubai watched the children below, a gentle light in his eyes.

Xu Zhengqing stood with his arms crossed, his gaze sweeping past Xu Changge before landing, almost imperceptibly, on Lin Que.

Elder Cui leaned against the wall, his expression the most indifferent. His gaze swept over a few students in the back row, lingered for a brief moment on Lin Que's back, and then quickly shifted back to the equipment panel.

The voice in the speakers paused for two seconds.

In that two seconds of silence, no one sat down.

Then, the voice of Jian Shen rang out again. The tone was more relaxed than before, carrying a steady rhythm that put people at ease.

"Thank you for the invitation, Dean Dai."

"To be honest, when I received this invitation, I hesitated for a long time."

"Dean Dai mentioned in the email that the children of this Qinglan Project still have fire in their eyes and blades under their pens. Such seedlings cannot be left to merely polish their techniques in cubicles; someone must tell them that writing must ultimately land on people."

"That sentence moved me."

"I am just an ordinary person telling stories behind the text; I cannot claim to be preaching, teaching, or resolving doubts. Any of the seniors present here is more qualified than I am to teach this lesson to these young people."

"But since the seniors have put it this way, it would be hypocritical of me to decline further."

Another pause.

"Today, I'd like to take this opportunity to chat about a small matter: how writers should put people back into the soil."

"If there is anything said inappropriately, I ask the seniors to please offer your corrections."

After these words were spoken, the five grandmasters in the back row moved almost simultaneously.

Professor Liu Zuoqing nodded gently.

Neither humble nor arrogant, advancing and retreating with measure. A mysterious writer who had never appeared in public, facing five grandmasters of the Chinese Literary World and thirty talented students, did not show excessive humility nor arrogance in his first words. The sense of propriety was perfectly grasped.

Su Mubai turned his head to look at Xu Zhengqing. Xu Zhengqing returned a very faint smile to him.

In the back row, Professor Liu Zuoqing raised his hand to signal: "Everyone, please sit down."

The thirty students finally snapped out of their daze and sat down one after another. The sound of chair legs scraping against the floor rose and fell, but quickly returned to silence.

When Chen Jiahao sat down, he was still trembling slightly. He turned to look at Lin Que, his lips moving as if he wanted to say something, but in the end, he just sniffled hard, straightened his open notebook, and gripped his pen tightly.

Lin Que returned a calm look, meaning "steady." Chen Jiahao nodded vigorously.

In the speakers, the voice of Jian Shen continued.

"I will first share my own writing journey. During this process, everyone can prepare your respective questions."

"Because time is limited, to improve efficiency, one student will summarize them at the end and ask them collectively."

As the voice fell, a sound of rustling paper immediately rang out below. Thirty people lowered their heads almost simultaneously, writing down the questions they most wanted to ask on blank pages.

Two hours was too short; everyone knew that there wouldn't be enough time for everyone to elaborate slowly. Having one person summarize and filter questions could both ensure the quality of the questions and maximize the use of time.

The students below nodded one after another; some had already started writing down the questions they wanted to ask on the blank pages of their notebooks.

The voice of Jian Shen did not stop.

"In the past few days, I have read some of the exercises from the Qinglan Project sent by Dean Dai."

The air in the classroom tightened another degree. Everyone's pen tips hovered above the paper, not daring to touch down.

"I am very honored to see that the Chinese Literary World still has so much burgeoning vigor."

"Your reverence for and ambition toward writing make me, a writer still on the path, feel deeply gratified."

"I can also imagine the pressure you have endured during this time. The discarded beginnings, the deleted paragraphs, the screens still lit in the early hours of the morning, those nights when you began to doubt yourself by the time you finished writing."

"But please believe that every night you survive will become an inch of bone in your writing. It may not shine immediately, but one day it will support your words, preventing them from floating lightly on the paper."

As these words fell, the eyes of someone in the front row instantly turned red.

The tall, thin boy sitting by the door was stunned for a long time, his pen tip hovering over the paper, an ink blot slowly spreading in the same spot. It was as if he had finally heard someone acknowledge the distress of these past few days.

Tang He's fingers gripped the corner of her notebook tightly. She remembered the manuscript pages she had repeatedly discarded and rewritten these past days, the anxiety of staring blankly at a blank document in the middle of the night, and the pressure of Elder Cui's words: "If you don't show improvement, go back and prepare for the College Entrance Examination."

And now, someone she had looked up to for a long time was telling her, 'I have seen your efforts.' This feeling of being recognized was heavier than any A+ grade.

Chen Jiahao lowered his head, fiercely wiping the corners of his eyes with his sleeve, his nose sniffing "sniff, sniff." Then he turned the notebook to a new page and wrote a line of large characters at the top: "Class Notes of Teacher Jian Shen."

Xu Changge's reaction was much more restrained. With Xu Zhengqing sitting in the back row, he did not allow himself to show too obvious a loss of composure, only nodding slightly, though the fingers gripping his pen relaxed at that moment.

That feeling of being affirmed by a top-tier senior, even for a scion of a prominent family like him, who had grown up surrounded by grandmasters, still held undeniable weight.

Dan Yi sat beside Chen Jiahao, silent. But his back was straighter than ever.

The voice of Jian Shen rang out again after a brief pause, with a touch more seriousness in the tone.

"As for the person to summarize the questions."

The attention of the entire room instantly focused. The voice on the screen paused slightly.

"Please, Student Lin Que, do the honors."