474: Chapter 474 Bystander Restraint

After being called upon, Lin Que took eight minutes to spread all thirty notes submitted by the students out on the desktop.

Lin Que spread all the notes on the desktop.

He scanned through them and quickly confirmed the core that these questions were truly pointing to.

He picked up a carbon pen and quickly organized an outline on a blank sheet of paper.

The questions were divided into three groups, arranged in a logical progression.

The first group was about the "degree" of the technical level, the second about the "position" of the stance level, and the third about the "root" of the ultimate level.

The tip of the pen paused on the paper for two seconds.

Lin Que lowered his eyes to check his wristwatch.

He put down the pen, stood up, and faced the projection screen above the podium that was glowing with a deep blue virtual outline.

"Teacher Jian Shen, I have finished organizing them."

His voice was clear and steady, carrying far in the quiet classroom.

The backs of the thirty students tensed up slightly.

The virtual outline on the screen didn't change at all, and after a brief pause, a voice-processed sound came from the speakers.

Deep, restrained, with a very slight metallic grain in the trailing tone.

"Thank you for your hard work, Student Lin. Please go ahead."

The tone was gentle, like a real teacher speaking to a student.

Lin Que nodded slightly and looked down at his manuscript.

"The first question that the students are most concerned about is: When dealing with narratives of extreme suffering, how does one grasp the boundary between 'compassion' and 'misery-mongering'?"

As soon as this question was asked, several people in the audience leaned forward.

This was the core confusion that appeared repeatedly on at least twelve notes.

Most people who try to write about the bottom rungs of society or suffering walk a tightrope on this line.

If you veer even an inch, you slip from "literature" into the mud pit of "exploiting suffering."

The question ended.

The classroom fell silent.

One second. Two seconds. ... Five seconds.

A very light breath came from the speakers, as if gathering thoughts. Then, Jian Shen's voice sounded.

"This question is very precise."

"My experience is four words: Bystander Restraint."

The pen tips below almost simultaneously landed on paper.

"When writing about suffering, the most dangerous trap is for the author to shed tears before the characters do."

"You are writing about a person starving. If your narrative tone carries 'Look how pitiful he is,' the reader can smell it.

This tone turns compassion into charity.

Readers will instinctively resist this condescending pity."

"The essence of compassion is looking at things at eye level.

You stand at the same height as him, and with eyes at eye level, lay out the things he experienced one by one.

The calmer you lay them out, the greater the power."

"In the section where Sun Shaoping sleeps under the bridge in ordinary world》, I didn't write that he felt cold, didn't write that he felt bitter, and didn't even write that he sighed.

I only wrote one thing: he took out a book and read it by the light of the street lamp shining in from outside the bridge arch."

"Why handle it this way? Because for a person who is truly freezing, the most urgent thing is often not lamenting the cold, but grabbing onto something that can help them make it through the night."

"The author's eyes should be like a video camera.

You are only responsible for recording, not for shedding tears on behalf of the characters.

Every tear you shed will blur the lens."

"This is Bystander Restraint. Swallow your tears and keep the lens clean. Compassion is not you crying; it is the reader unable to stop themselves from crying after reading it."

The last sentence landed.

A girl in the front row dragged her pen across the paper, leaving a long ink mark.

Her hand was shaking.

She suddenly understood the real reason her previous draft was rejected by Elder Cui.

She had written a story about a laid-off female worker, and as the manuscript pages turned, sentences like "eyes moistening" kept appearing repeatedly.

She thought that was empathy.

Now she knew that was the lens being blurred by her own tears.

Chen Jiahao's notebook was already more than half full.

He wrote extremely fast, and almost every time he finished noting down a sentence, he would draw a heavy horizontal line next to it.

Xu Changge didn't start writing until a few seconds later.

He didn't record it word for word; he only wrote four words in the center of the page: Bystander Restraint.

These four words resonated with the third draft of heavenly questions》 that he had been repeatedly polishing these past few days.

What he was doing in his revised draft was essentially wiping away the traces of the author's tears bit by bit.

Dan Yi's thumb gently rubbed the pen cap under the desk.

He thought of the ending in his own work where the lamp was passed through the snowstorm.

He didn't let any character say "thank you" or "don't be afraid."

That lamp passed into the hand was everything.

Dan Yi lowered his eyes, pressed the note where he had written his ending revision into his palm, and slowly relaxed his fingertips.

In the back row, Professor Liu Zuoqing nodded slightly.

Su Mubai tapped his fingertips on his knees twice, with a bit more seriousness in his eyes.

Xu Zhengqing's gaze passed over the crowd and landed quietly on the back of Lin Que's head.

In the middle of the first row, Lin Que bowed slightly.

"Thank you, Teacher Jian Shen, for the answer."

His tone carried just the right amount of respect from a student to a senior. He paused for less than two seconds and turned to the second page of his manuscript.

"The second question is also one that was mentioned by multiple students."

His voice slowed down by half a beat.

"When an individual's suffering comes into irreconcilable conflict with the grand era, which side should the author stand on?"

As the question landed, the temperature in the classroom seemed to drop, as if someone had drained a portion of it.

The individual and the era.

This was a question without a standard answer.

Everyone held their breath, waiting for the sound from the speakers.

One second. Five seconds. Ten seconds.

Only the faint background hiss of electricity remained in the speakers.

Elder Cui looked down at the control panel.

The green light was on.

The connection was normal.

So everyone understood—Jian Shen was silent.

Chen Jiahao's back began to break out in a sweat.

Twenty seconds.

People in the classroom began to fidget.

Tang He's fingers gripped the edge of her notebook, her gaze shifting back and forth between the screen and Lin Que.

She sensed the weight of this silence earlier than most.

Jian Shen was not someone who would be stumped by a question.

The previous question about "compassion and misery-mongering" was equally sharp, yet it had given a perfect answer almost without pause.

This silence carried a weight that was almost prudent, as if someone were laying several paths on the table, weighing them one by one.

Lin Que's fingertips gently pressed against the edge of the manuscript, his brows knitting slightly.

Chen Jiahao immediately winked at him, his lips moving silently, as if reminding him not to be anxious.

Xu Changge didn't move, his knuckles gripping the pen turning a shade whiter.

Dan Yi's cap brim was pulled very low, his gray-blue eyes staring at the note on the desk filled with his own writing.

His shoulder lines were tense, but his breathing was steady.

Lin Que withdrew his gaze.

His gaze naturally swept to the back row.

Dai Shengzong sat in the seat closest to the aisle, his arms crossed over his chest.

When he met Lin Que's gaze, the corners of his mouth lifted slightly, and he nodded.

The movement was light, but the message conveyed was clear: It's okay, just wait.

Su Mubai sat next to Dai Shengzong, his fingers still tapping silently on his knees.

He saw Lin Que look over and nodded just as peacefully.

Lin Que's gaze continued to move to the right.

Xu Zhengqing.

The old man was still leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed.

When Lin Que's gaze landed on him, Xu Zhengqing first nodded slightly.

Then, a layer of smile surfaced in his eyes.

It was just that there was something very deep in that smile.

Lin Que returned a proper smile to him.

He turned around and faced the screen.

Thirty-five seconds.

People in the front row began to look at each other.

Two boys in the fifth row near the aisle whispered a few words, but were suppressed by a look from Professor Liu Zuoqing.

Just when the air had almost solidified, there was finally movement from the speakers.

"This question is very good."

Jian Shen's voice slowly flowed out from the speakers.

The tone was different from before.

When answering the first question earlier, its speech rate was steady and smooth, with very short intervals between sentences.

This time, there were gaps between each word, as if it had weighed every word on the tip of its tongue before allowing it to leave.

"So good that I don't want to give it an easy, singular answer."

Someone in the audience gasped.

Chen Jiahao froze, as if hearing a mountain peak admit with its own mouth that it also had fog zones.

"But I don't intend to brush you all off."

"This question..."

It paused for a beat.

"I want to hear Student Lin's own opinion."

Twelve words.

This sentence hit the classroom floor, and the vibration spread through every row of seats.

The first to react was Chen Jiahao.

His head turned toward Lin Que at a nearly mechanical angle, his eyes wide, his lips moving silently three times, his facial expression frantically switching between "shock" and "sweating for his brother."

Xu Changge's pen cap stopped between his fingers.

His gaze lifted from his notebook and landed on Lin Que's profile.

Dan Yi's body leaned forward slightly by two degrees.

Tang He closed her notebook, her gaze locked tightly on Lin Que.

The masters in the back row reacted differently.

Professor Liu Zuoqing's eyebrows raised half an inch.

Dai Shengzong's smile faded, replaced by a serious scrutiny.

Su Mubai's fingertip tapping on his knees stopped.

Elder Cui poked half his head out from behind the equipment panel and glanced at Lin Que.

Xu Zhengqing sat with his arms crossed, not moving a muscle.

The smile on his face not only didn't fade, but grew even deeper.

All the gazes in the classroom, like lowered arrows, were pinned on the youth standing in the middle of the first row.