479: Chapter 479, Ninety-Three Audio Segments

Lin Que's gaze swept over the waveforms on the screen.

His mind automatically began replaying the entire process from this morning.

The safest part was the theoretical lecture at the beginning.

This segment was a purely one-way output that required no interaction.

"Jian Shen" spoke about his creative journey, the classroom of life, the camera's perspective, and the restraint of an observer.

The content was a script he had written in advance, polished over a dozen times, with speaking speed, pauses, and breaths all precise to the second.

He only had to do one thing:

Let the correct audio clip flow from the speakers at the right moment.

The core of this seamless disguise lay entirely in that remote host machine.

The seemingly ordinary sports watch on Lin Que's wrist was merely a trigger.

Pause, play, force stop.

Three minimalist commands were enough for him to complete a perfect dimensional strike right under the noses of the geniuses and the five masters.

The night before, Lin Que had entered all ninety-three audio clips into the system and set corresponding keyword phrases and semantic trigger conditions for each one.

"Creative Journey," "Classroom of Life," "Restraint of an Observer," "Bottom-Layer Narrative," "The Era and the Individual"...

As long as his own voice on site entered the preset range, the system would automatically push the next audio clip into the playback queue.

All Lin Que needed to do was confirm the rhythm at a very few nodes.

His fingers occasionally touched the watch face, which, in the eyes of others, looked more like a student checking the time or unconsciously adjusting his cuffs.

No one was allowed to interrupt during the first forty minutes.

For this, he had prepared two sets of universal transition sentences.

They weren't used.

The five masters listened quietly the entire time without a single person interrupting.

But the real danger lay in the questions that followed.

It was impossible for Lin Que to know in advance what questions the thirty students would ask.

If he let them ask questions freely one after another, every unexpected question could trigger a non-existent answer.

Lin Que had thought about it for a long time; recording enough audio tracks to answer the questions was naturally the most stable choice, but the workload was simply too great.

Therefore, in the end, he decided to have one student collect them and ask them all at once.

This was the heart of the entire plan.

To make himself the gate for the questions.

And once he controlled the right to ask questions, the logic of the whole thing flipped.

He wasn't "looking for answers to questions."

He was "looking for questions to fit the answers."

Twenty-nine slips of paper were passed to him.

He spent eight minutes flipping through them all.

But what he was actually doing wasn't reading, but matching.

He had learned about the basic profiles, creative directions, and writing weaknesses of all the students in the Qinglan Project in advance.

Based on this information, he had anticipated the several major categories of questions most likely to appear in class:

The boundary between compassion and performative misery.

The standpoint of the individual versus the era.

The value and end point of writing about suffering.

Each of these three sets of questions had corresponding keywords.

The keywords triggered the Brain-Computer Interface System commands, the Brain-Computer Interface System called up the corresponding audio, and the audio flowed from the speakers.

After he read this question, his right index finger lightly touched the watch face.

The recording numbered [Restraint of an Observer] played from the speakers.

Tang He's slip of paper read: "How do you view the similar resonance in the bottom-layer narratives of Lin Que's 'the steps' and 'ordinary world'?"

He did not read the original text.

Because this question was too dangerous.

It would put Lin Que and "Jian Shen" on the same operating table for dissection.

Any answer would increase the risk of exposure.

Lin Que pressed this slip of paper under the other questions and directly substituted the concept with a more generalized expression.

Immediately after, he saw Dan Yi's slip of paper.

It had only one line of text: "Teacher Jian Shen, is it worth it to write about the suffering that no one wants to see?"

Lin Que's gaze sank slightly.

This sentence was too personal; this wasn't discussing literary theory at all.

It was a lonely teenager showing him a wound hidden for many years.

If "Jian Shen" answered too precisely, Dan Yi would feel like he was being dissected in public.

Lin Que changed it to a more generalized expression:

"Where can such writing actually reach? And who is to prove its meaning?"

Then, in his response, he triggered [Meaning of Writing: Worth It].

That audio clip was only twenty-seven seconds long.

"Worth it."

"The speed at which literature reaches a person is sometimes very slow."

...

"But he will know that he is not alone."

The final version was pitched at a level that a student could handle.

Therefore, everyone could find their own answer within these three questions.

Lin Que's gaze moved away from the screen.

The light from outside the window filtered through the gaps in the blinds, drawing a row of narrow bright strips on the ceiling.

The wind squeezed in through the window cracks, carrying the dry, cold scent unique to the north in early October.

He remembered the only part of the class that exceeded his expectations.

"The Individual and the Era."

Originally, he had recorded a neutral answer for this question.

Speaking from historical narrative to literary testimony, and finally falling back to "people."

But in class, he changed it on the fly.

He had "Jian Shen" throw the question to "Lin Que."

He long-pressed the watch screen and switched the following audio track directly to [Special Question].

"This question... I would like to hear Student Lin's own views."

The eyes of everyone in the room slammed onto him.

This seemed like a risky active exposure, but Lin Que had to do it.

He had already promised Dean Dai the public review the day after tomorrow, and he needed to hammer down an absolutely solid fulcrum for the identity of "Lin Que."

"Jian Shen" specifically calling him out to answer in class was sending a strong signal to everyone:

The senior values the junior, and the spiritual lineage is connected.

When "Jian Shen"'s comments were distributed, the students would see the high level of alignment between Lin Que and "Jian Shen" regarding bottom-layer narratives, and their brains would automatically generate a reasonable explanation:

He was mentored by "Jian Shen," so of course he writes like him.

And they wouldn't think of other possibilities.

Lin Que moved the mouse and clicked on the classroom operation log.

Every audio call left an accurate timestamp.

08:48:11 — Opening greeting.

09:03:27 — Classroom of life.

...

10:17:39 — Temporary switch.

...

10:36:41 — Concluding remarks.

His gaze stopped on the line "10:17:39 — Temporary switch."

After the timestamp, the call record was blank.

Because no recording was played during that segment.

"What literature should do is, after the wheels of the era have rolled by, help up those people covered by dust. Let them regain their names, faces, and a real breath."

These words were spoken by him personally, standing up.

And then he triggered [Supplementary Explanation] for the last sentence.

Thus creating a scene of a high school student's insight and an old man's supplement.

Lin Que exported the log and saved it into an independent partition of the local encrypted drive.

Then he selected the entire "Jian Shen Qinglan Lecture" folder.

Ninety-three audio clips, forty-seven emergency segments, and twelve classroom rhythm deduction documents.

The mouse hovered over the delete key.

He did not hesitate.

Click.

The system popped up a prompt box.

[Confirm moving this folder to the Recycle Bin?]

Confirm.

The folder disappeared from the list.

He opened the Recycle Bin and chose to empty it.

[This operation cannot be undone. Do you want to continue?]

Confirm.

The screen was clean.

Lin Que opened another offline data overwriting program and performed a triple deep overwrite on the buffer zone.

The progress bar pushed forward one grid at a time, the green light reflecting on his face.

The progress bar finished.

Lin Que picked up the glass on the table and took a sip of water.

The water had long since gone cold, with a hint of bitterness.

He put down the cup and opened his encrypted email.

The top email in the inbox was the one he had read this morning.

Sender: Director Guo Changhe. The timestamp was 6:19 AM.

[Mr. Dream Weaver, everything is ready for the reading session. All actors have signed the highest-level confidentiality agreements; only the director, screenwriter, producer, and core actors will remain on site. The equipment side has been connected to the one-way black screen channel as you requested, and the voice-changing lines have also been double-backed up.]

[See you tomorrow morning at nine.]

Lin Que stared at the email on the screen and closed the interface after confirming everything was correct.

The role of "Jian Shen" had temporarily come to an end.

He turned his head, his gaze locked on the silver-gray briefcase in the center of the desk.

Tomorrow morning at nine, he would completely tear off the gentle and compassionate mask of "Jian Shen."

This case would help "Dream Weaver" make his own voice heard for the first time at the cast reading session.

Lin Que opened the briefcase and connected the power.

The system self-test indicator lights lit up one by one.

He skipped the unnecessary modules and went straight to the configuration interface for audio output and voice-changing channels.

Lin Que began reconfiguring the sound parameters.

The voice "Dream Weaver" needed was completely different.

Deeper, cleaner, without any literary tone.

More like a creator who has seen many stories sitting behind the monitor, calmly telling you what's wrong.

He opened the timbre library and pulled up the three preset plans he had previously prepared for Dream Weaver.

Three preset plans were stored in the timbre library.

He dismissed the first two within three seconds.

One sounded too much like a horror streamer, the other too much like a director.

The third one.

He clicked it and entered the test sentence.

"Zhao Li is not here to scare people; he is here to send them off."

After audio processing, another voice line came from the speakers.

The tone was flat, age was indistinguishable, and the ending of the notes was sharp, without any dragging.

Lin Que finished listening and deleted the test file. He fine-tuned three frequency parameters.

The second time.

"The dead are not props; every person who comes to the convenience store must first be written as a living person."

This time he stopped.

The moment the voice flowed out of the speakers, the air in the studio changed.

It can be used.

3:47 PM.

There were less than eighteen hours until the reading session at nine tomorrow morning.

A message sent by Xu Changge fifteen minutes ago was hanging on the phone screen.

[Are you back yet?]

Lin Que replied with one hand.

[Later.]

Xu Changge's reply came very quickly.

[Chen Jiahao has torn his manuscript down to only the opening paragraph, and is currently emitting wails similar to a beast in the dormitory.]

Next message.

[Dan Yi went to the library and borrowed three books on urban sociology.]

The next one.

[I overturned the original structure.]

Lin Que looked at these lines and typed a few words back.

["Jian Shen" will look at it the day after tomorrow.]

There was a half-minute delay from Xu Changge's side.

[So I can't mess around.]

Lin Que looked at this sentence, his right thumb hovering over the screen.

Xu Changge is very sharp.

His respect for "Jian Shen" had been completely internalized into self-demands in creation.

Tang He will dismantle her own text structure.

Dan Yi will knead "Is it worth it?" into his new draft.

Chen Jiahao will press his own words into the mud while screaming for help.

For the public review the day after tomorrow, he has to review thirty works one by one in the identity of "Jian Shen."

The comments must be sharp enough to make the five masters recognize the gold content of "Jian Shen's personal review."

They must also be precise enough to make every student who was stung by the criticism willing to get back up and continue revising.

Including reviewing himself.

"Jian Shen" reviewing Lin Que. This piece is the hardest to write.

Praising too much is dangerous. Scolding too lightly is not the attitude a senior should have toward the junior they value most.

He needs to bury a knife in that review. Pointing out that "Lin Que"'s narrative experience relies too much on retelling, and demanding him to enter into real reality in the next stage.

Once this knife is stabbed in, others will only think that "Jian Shen" understands Lin Que's creative source and is forcing him to wean.

Elder Cui Wen and Dai Shengzong will be even more convinced: this master-disciple relationship is even closer than they imagined.

But these are things for the day after tomorrow.

Tomorrow, he has to put on another face first.

Lin Que put away his phone and pulled his attention back to the device in front of him.

He reopened the script document for the reading session.

The cursor stopped at the beginning of Act 1, Scene 1.

The text on the screen spread out quietly.

"soul ferry."

Episode 1.

Lin Que reached out and pressed the calibration key of the Brain-Computer Interface System.

The indicator light on the silver-gray panel jumped from the standby dim yellow to the working state cold white.

The device hummed deeply, as if something dormant had been awakened.

The only thing he has to do tomorrow is:

Make a group of actors believe that the Dream Weaver sitting on the other side of the screen is someone who truly understands what "between human and ghost" means.

The phone on the table lit up again.

A new email from Director Guo Changhe.

The subject line was different from before.

[Urgent: Temporary change to the reading session]

Lin Que's fingers stopped on the mouse.

He opened the email.

There was a hint of suppressed anger in Director Guo Changhe's wording.

[Mr. Dream Weaver, sorry to disturb you.]

[The investors notified us temporarily that there will be an extra "observation guest" at tomorrow's reading session.]

[They won't participate in creative discussions, just listen in.]

[I have clearly opposed it, but the pressure from the production side is great.]

[What's more troublesome is that the other party proposed wanting to have a separate exchange with you after the reading session ends.]

Lin Que's gaze swept to the last line.

[The person coming is Chen Chengrui.]

Seeing this name, Lin Que's fingers tapping on the desk suddenly stopped.

The prince of the Beijing Circle, the traffic star who was originally kicked out of the "soul ferry" crew when he used his veto power as the original author.

Failing to enter the crew with capital, now he is actually forced to air-drop in as an "observation guest."

Lin Que's mouth curled up slightly.

Since you want to come yourself, then I'll include you in this good show.

...