502: Chapter 502 I'll go with you on this trip.

Four hours later, the high-speed train pulled into An City, the capital of Shaanxi Province.

Lin Que dragged his silver-gray suitcase out of the station, and the autumn wind of Guanzhong rushed to meet him.

Dry and noisy.

It was completely different from Beijing and Jiang City.

Standing at the exit, he had just opened the transfer information for Muchuan Town,

when a middle-aged man in a dark jacket cut through the crowd and stopped directly in front of him.

The other party first glanced at the suitcase by his side, then looked up to confirm his face.

"Student Lin Que, right?"

Lin Que put away his phone.

"I am."

The man immediately handed over his work ID.

"Provincial Writers Association, Zhou Mingda. Chairman Tao asked me to come and pick you up."

Lin Que took the work ID, scanned the name and number, and then looked down at the travel arrangements on his phone.

"Teacher Zhou, the original plan given to me by Qingbei was to transfer to Muchuan Town on my own after arriving in An City."

His tone was flat, but his eyes did not immediately relax.

"Was the pickup arrangement changed at the last minute?"

Zhou Mingda paused for a moment, then smiled and explained:

"Yes, it was changed at the last minute. The shuttle bus to Muchuan Town is not fixed; there is only one trip this afternoon, and it also depends on the condition of the mountain roads.

Chairman Tao was worried that you would be left waiting at the station, so he asked me to take you to the Writers Association to rest first, and while we're at it, explain the safety precautions for Muchuan Town in person."

As he spoke, he added:

"The academy has also been notified, you can verify it now."

Lin Que opened his phone, glanced at the confirmation message sent by Song Yuan, and then handed back the work ID.

"Then I will have to trouble you, Teacher Zhou."

A passenger queuing for water nearby heard the words "Writers Association" and "Chairman Tao" and slowed down their movements.

Even the driver holding a pickup sign not far away took an extra look at Lin Que's face.

A young man dragging a silver-gray suitcase being specially picked up by someone from the Provincial Writers Association—this scene appeared particularly abrupt in the noisy station.

Lin Que didn't look around much.

He just lowered the handle of his suitcase by half an inch and followed Zhou Mingda toward the parking lot.

After getting in the car, Zhou Mingda started the engine.

The traffic merged into the main road.

The streets of An City receded section by section outside the window—gray-yellow buildings, dense shop signs,

and the steaming breakfast stalls by the roadside, all carrying the hustle and bustle of a strange city in the early morning.

While driving, Zhou Mingda looked at Lin Que twice through the rearview mirror.

The young man sat in the passenger seat, his back relaxed, but his hand was resting on the handle of his silver-gray suitcase the entire time.

The shouting from breakfast stalls outside the car window, the screeching brakes of buses, and the jarring sound of rolling shutters being pulled up at roadside shops all flashed past his eyes one by one.

He watched very quietly, as if he were committing the early morning of this strange city to memory, bit by bit.

Zhou Mingda couldn't help but speak up.

"Student Lin, is this your first time in An City?"

"Yes."

Lin Que nodded.

"I've only seen it in short videos before."

Zhou Mingda was taken aback, then smiled.

"Then you must take a good look this time. South of An City, once you enter the Qinba Mountains, it's a whole different scene."

Lin Que withdrew his gaze.

"Teacher Zhou, the information says that entering Muchuan Town requires crossing two stretches of mountain roads. There has been a lot of rain recently, will the road conditions be affected?"

Zhou Mingda's hands tightened on the steering wheel.

"The drive is fine, it's not the most grueling part."

He paused for half a second.

"What's grueling is that road itself."

After this sentence fell, the car was silent for a moment.

Lin Que did not ask further.

Zhou Mingda did not continue either.

More than half an hour later, the car drove into the compound of the Provincial Writers Association.

As soon as it stopped, the glass door of the office building was pushed open from the inside.

A loud, resonant voice fell first.

"Has Lin Que arrived?"

The person speaking was tall and sturdy, taking fast strides, and descended the steps in just a few steps.

Zhou Mingda quickly got out of the car.

"Chairman Tao, the person has been picked up."

Tao Zhiyan had already walked up to Lin Que.

His gaze landed on Lin Que's face, and then he laughed heartily.

"Good, good!"

He gripped Lin Que's hand; his palm was broad and powerful.

"That old guy Gu Changfeng called me last night, telling me to make sure I take good care of you."

Lin Que shook his hand with both of his, his tone respectful, yet without any awkwardness.

"Chairman Gu thinks too highly of me. Since I've arrived in Shaanxi Province, I'll follow Chairman Tao's arrangements. I'm sorry for the trouble."

Tao Zhiyan's eyes lit up.

The smile on his face deepened.

"What trouble? You choosing Muchuan Town is both a difficult problem for our Provincial Writers Association and an opportunity for us."

Lin Que looked up.

Tao Zhiyan didn't explain immediately, just patted him on the shoulder.

"Come on, let's go upstairs first."

The Chairman's office was not large.

Two rows of old bookcases stood against the wall, the glass doors polished very bright.

On the wall hung a traffic map of the southern Shaanxi mountainous area, with several red and blue lines crisscrossing between the mountains.

Beside the tea table, a kraft paper bag was held down.

Several words were written on the cover.

Muchuan Town Old Factory Area.

Tao Zhiyan personally brewed Ziyang Maojian tea.

The tea soup was clear and bright, and steam slowly rose.

He pushed a cup of tea in front of Lin Que.

"Try it. Southern Shaanxi tea, it tastes different from the tea in your Jiang City."

Lin Que picked up the teacup and thanked him.

It was slightly astringent at first, but the aftertaste was sweet.

Tao Zhiyan looked at him and suddenly asked:

"On the day of the Fu Zhi Yao Competition finals, I also went to Beijing to proctor remotely."

Lin Que put down the teacup.

Tao Zhiyan stared at him, his voice deepening.

"In a 72-hour competition format, you handed in your work in 28 hours and even achieved an unprecedented Triple-S."

He tapped his fingers lightly on the tea table.

"At that moment, I even thought there was a problem with the system."

The office fell silent.

Zhou Mingda stood by the side, his breathing growing lighter.

After that competition, the name Lin Que had been circulating within the various Provincial Writers Associations for a long time.

The Fu Zhi Yao Competition Triple-S, the Beihai "autumn poem", and the recently submitted "Ether"—any one of these alone would be enough for a young author to be discussed repeatedly.

Yet all these spotlights were pressed onto a seventeen-year-old boy.

It was too bright, and it was also too easy for it to make someone lose their footing.

If it were anyone else, even if they were humble in words, it would be hard to hide the gleam in their eyes.

Lin Que smiled.

"Articles are born of nature; one occasionally stumbles upon them with a deft hand."

After saying this, he pulled back that flowery phrase by half an inch.

"Of course, ultimately, luck played a part.

The topic that time happened to collide with things I had thought about before; handing it in quickly was more about my previous accumulation catching up."

Tao Zhiyan looked at him for a few seconds, then suddenly laughed out loud.

"What a 'stumble upon'; you say that so lightly."

He picked up his tea and took a sip.

"But in the literary world, how many people spend their whole lives trying to stumble upon one, yet never do."

Lin Que did not accept this praise.

The appreciation in Tao Zhiyan's eyes grew heavier.

For a youth to achieve fame, the hardest part is not being dragged along by that reputation.

The one in front of him was so steady that he didn't seem like a seventeen-year-old.

After laughing, the hearty look on Tao Zhiyan's face slowly faded.

He reached out and took the kraft paper bag from beside the tea table, pulled out a few pages of materials, and pushed them in front of Lin Que.

"Let's talk business."

Lin Que looked at the materials.

On the very top was an aerial photograph of the Muchuan Town old factory area.

Surrounded by mountains, the factory area was gray and dim, with several old-fashioned family residential buildings scattered at the foot of the mountains.

Large swaths of old factory buildings were connected together, with some areas circled in red.

Tao Zhiyan pointed to the picture.

"Muchuan Town is not quite the same as the information you saw before."

"The mountain roads are winding, there's a lot of rain, and the old residential buildings are very damp.

After the factory moved away, most of the young people left with it, leaving behind mostly old workers and their families."

He paused.

"There's no liveliness, only a lot of silence."

Tao Zhiyan looked at the aerial photo, his voice dropping a little.

"As soon as it rains, the whole town feels like it's soaking in water.

The old factory buildings don't have machines running, and there are few footsteps of young people in the residential buildings.

Many windows have lights on at night, but the hallways are so quiet you can hear the water dripping from the pipes."

Zhou Mingda stood by the side, his expression also becoming serious.

Tao Zhiyan continued:

"For this deep-dive field trip of your Qinglan Project, Dean Dai values safety above all else.

In ordinary places, arranging a liaison is enough."

His finger landed on an area on the map circled in red.

"Muchuan Town has one more rule."

His finger landed on an area on the map circled in red.

"Here, there are several old factory buildings that you cannot approach, cannot photograph, cannot ask about in private, and definitely cannot climb over the fence."

Tao Zhiyan looked up at Lin Que.

"This is not just polite talk in the field trip guidelines. When you get there, the local liaison will re-draw the lines for you.

You can write whatever you want outside the lines, but don't touch anything inside the lines."

Lin Que's gaze rested on that red-lined area.

He remembered the line of small gray text he saw in the candidate location description before he left.

Classified site.

Unauthorized entry into the red-lined area is prohibited.

Tao Zhiyan watched him.

"It's still not too late to apply to the academy to change your field trip location."

He spoke very slowly.

"Lin Que, literature requires courage, but I won't gamble a student's safety on a burst of passion.

If you really feel it's not suitable, I will call Dean Dai right now."

Zhou Mingda subconsciously looked at Lin Que.

In the office, the fragrance of tea remained.

Footsteps in the courtyard could be heard faintly from outside the window.

Lin Que placed the materials back on the tea table and looked up.

"I have no regrets."

Tao Zhiyan's eyebrows twitched slightly.

Lin Que's tone was not loud, but very clear.

"Mr. Jian Shen criticized me for 'watching the fire from the other shore,' and he was right."

Hearing the words "Jian Shen," Tao Zhiyan's expression became noticeably more solemn.

Lin Que continued:

"I used to trust the deductions in my head too much."

Lin Que's tone was not loud, but very clear.

"Settings, pacing, structure—once you get used to using these things, it's easy to mistakenly believe you've grasped real life."

He looked at the aerial photo.

"But some smells, some dampness, the half-second pause when someone speaks—you can't deduce those while sitting in a room."

He looked at the aerial photo.

"So this time, I want to go to a place where there's no way to take shortcuts and spend some time there."

Zhou Mingda was stunned.

Tao Zhiyan did not speak immediately either.

He had seen too many young authors.

Some were eager to defend themselves after being criticized.

Some accepted it on the surface but turned around and continued on the same old path.

Others chose a comfortable place, wrote an article that looked very strenuous, and tried to save face.

Lin Que did not.

He sent himself into that old factory area deep in the Qinba Mountains, the heaviest, most stifling, and most difficult place to take shortcuts.

This level of clarity was rarer than talent.

Tao Zhiyan picked up his teacup and took a sip.

When he put the cup down, the sound was very light.

"No wonder Old Gu praised you like that."

Lin Que smiled.

"Chairman Gu has always been protective of his own."

Tao Zhiyan was amused by this remark, and the heartiness that had just been suppressed emerged again.

"He is indeed protective."

After laughing, he looked at the kraft paper bag again.

This time, his gaze was a bit deeper.

"However, regarding a place like Muchuan Town, I really can't just let a young staff member take you there."

Zhou Mingda was slightly taken aback.

"Chairman?"

Tao Zhiyan didn't look at him, only tapped his fingertips on the kraft paper bag.

"This preliminary investigation was done by a few young people from the Writers Association. I haven't been into Muchuan Town for some years."

When he said this, his gaze lingered on the aerial photo for a long time.

"When that factory moved away back then, a group of writers from the province went there.

The things they wrote afterward didn't satisfy anyone."

Tao Zhiyan looked up at Lin Que, his voice dropping by half.

"That place owes an article that has truly written into it."

He paused.

"This trip, I will accompany you."