523: Chapter 523 Kunpeng Youth Literature Award

Late November in Beijing, the wind already carried a tangible chill.

Six days after returning from their field research, and three days after the thirty Qinglan Students submitted their novel first drafts.

Today was their first group class after submitting their drafts.

At 6:00 AM, the lights in Room 303 turned on.

Xu Changge stood in front of the mirror at the vanity, adjusting his collar.

He didn't reach for the meticulously ironed custom-made shirts in his wardrobe, but instead casually pulled on a plain grey knit sweater.

The cuffs of this garment had been frayed by the fierce winds of the Gansu Gobi Desert, but he didn't replace it.

That bit of fraying suited Xu Changge better than any custom-made shirt ever could.

The wind and sand of the Gobi seemed to have scoured him, grinding away that layer of overly polished decency from the past and leaving behind a silent, rugged coarseness.

Dan Yi was already waiting by the door.

On his mixed-race face with Slavic features, the aloofness that used to keep people at a distance had largely dissipated.

The month of hot, humid, and crowded days in a village-in-the-city in the south had softened the coldness in his eyes.

Chen Jiahao stuffed his notebook into his backpack, the zipper making a rattling sound.

The windbreaker he wore had been washed, but it always made people feel like it still retained the scent of garlic sprouts from a Northeast farmers' market.

Lin Que sat at his desk, putting the two mobile phones on the table into his pocket.

The four of them exchanged a look, neither saying much.

They tacitly pushed the door open and walked together toward the lecture hall of the School of Liberal Arts.

Inside the lecture hall, there were ten minutes left before class.

In the past, at this time, this group of top students would always be discussing some complex literary structure in small groups, or arguing about which school of thought had more sophisticated phrasing.

Today, the atmosphere here had completely changed.

The topics no longer contained flowery language or intricate rhetoric.

Several students in the front row were discussing fluctuations in vegetable market prices.

In the corner on the left, two boys were arguing about the direct impact of the harbor's fishing moratorium on the employment of local processing plants.

Everyone was still immersed in the realistic experiences they had brought back from these four weeks; no one treated that time as a lighthearted trip.

A boy wearing a khaki jacket stood in the aisle, his voice carrying a clear sense of bitterness.

He had chosen the A-tier Jiangnan water town.

"Before I went, I thought it was enough to write about the poetry of bluestone slabs and black-awning boats."

The boy grabbed a handful of his hair, his tone somewhat heavy.

"Only after actually living there did I realize that those intangible cultural heritage artisans couldn't even afford next month's rent. The old neighbors were driven away one by one, and what remained were all identical, mass-produced Yiwu trinkets."

Several classmates nearby listened quietly.

The boy gave a bitter smile and continued:

"Watching that old man who makes bamboo crafts lower his head and smile apologetically to tourists for ten yuan, that was the moment I realized my previous high and mighty literary pride had been smashed by reality until not even a scrap remained."

A few soft sighs sounded around them.

Just then, the back door of the classroom was pushed open.

Lin Que walked in the front, with Xu Changge, Dan Yi, and Chen Jiahao following closely behind.

The originally noisy classroom, the moment the four stepped in, had its volume drop by an octave in unison.

More than twenty gazes in the classroom focused on Lin Que simultaneously.

After the recent fermentation of the viral internet incident, everyone was amazed by Lin Que's experience in Muchuan Town.

He had gone to the most arduous old factory district in Southern Shaanxi, stayed there calmly for a full month, and in that small town with almost no surveillance, personally sent a viral internet celebrity with six million followers into an official investigation report.

Someone in the back row lowered their voice.

"I've scrolled past that internet celebrity before; I really didn't expect him to be that kind of person."

"But I have to say, Lin Que's move to record secretly was a stroke of genius. If it weren't for that recording, Brother Liang would probably still be live-streaming and provoking people right now."

"I read the official report; the recordings, witnesses, and timeline were all tightly linked."

The discussion soon died down.

No one looked at that storm as mere entertainment anymore.

What shocked them even more was Lin Que's current state.

He wore a plain black jacket, his posture upright, his steps steady.

Lin Que sat down in the middle row, his movements very light.

Xu Changge, Dan Yi, and Chen Jiahao took their seats in turn.

Several students who had been secretly competing with Lin Que in their hearts now had a different color in their eyes.

They knew very well that if it were them facing the provocation of a millionaire internet celebrity in that remote town without surveillance, they absolutely could not have pulled off such an airtight counterattack like Lin Que.

The discussion in the classroom also sank down, and the atmosphere became fervent and pure.

Everyone was waiting for the mentor's final judgment on the hard work of these four weeks.

A very steady sound of footsteps came from outside the corridor.

The heels of leather shoes clicked against the terrazzo floor, with a distinct rhythm.

The discussion in the classroom ceased, quiet enough that one could hear a pin drop.

The door was pushed open.

Professor Liu Zuoqing of the Qingbei School of Liberal Arts walked onto the podium alone with long strides.

He was wearing a dark grey zhongshan suit today.

He didn't hold any lesson plans, nor did he bring a water cup; he only clutched a thin list.

Professor Liu Zuoqing stood still, his gaze like a torch, scanning the thirty students below the stage carefully.

Looking at this group of young people who had changed so much, a look of satisfaction appeared on his wrinkled face.

"It seems that everyone's bones have hardened quite a bit this past month, and you have all treated this 'descent' very seriously."

Professor Liu Zuoqing's voice was aged but full of energy, echoing in the spacious lecture hall.

The students below looked at each other, all revealing knowing smiles.

Professor Liu Zuoqing pressed his hands on the edge of the lectern, leaning forward.

"Three days ago, you submitted your first drafts."

Professor Liu Zuoqing's tone carried hard-to-conceal excitement.

"Thirty full-length novels in total. The mentor group read them in groups, and the consolidated opinions were only delivered to my desk last night."

The classroom was deathly silent, everyone waiting for Professor Liu's subsequent commentary.

"Standing here today, I must give all of you an affirmation."

Professor Liu Zuoqing stood up straight, his voice rising.

"In the works submitted this time, you have finally written life onto the page, and you have finally shattered the empty shells of those pretty sentences."

This sentence fell into the classroom with the weight of a thousand pounds.

Several students who had suffered immensely at their field research sites and had broken down while revising their drafts felt their eyes turn red immediately.

Professor Liu Zuoqing's gaze fell on the third row.

"Chen Jiahao."

Chen Jiahao stood up reflexively, his spine straight.

"Your 《Food Stall》 has flavor. The sound of the bone-chopping knife hitting the cutting board, the reversing of delivery trucks in the early morning, the ice shards in the throats of the street vendors when they shout—you have listened to these things."

Chen Jiahao was so excited that he clenched his hands into fists, his knuckles turning white.

He nodded vigorously, and when he sat down, his peripheral vision subconsciously glanced at Lin Que beside him, his eyes full of gratitude.

He knew very well that if it weren't for Lin Que's guidance that night, he might still be writing those floating commercial stories.

Professor Liu Zuoqing's gaze shifted horizontally, landing on Dan Yi.

"Dan Yi."

Just as Dan Yi was about to stand up, Professor Liu Zuoqing raised his hand to press down, signaling him to sit and listen.

"Your village-in-the-city subject matter gave me a completely different perspective."

Professor Liu Zuoqing walked slowly down from the podium and stood in the middle of the aisle.

"You created an extremely excellent collision between that crowded, humid, boundaryless living space and the loneliness in people's hearts. You are no longer a bystander; you put yourself into that narrow alley."

A light of recognition appeared on Dan Yi's mixed-race face.

His fingers tightened under the desk.

Dan Yi lowered his eyes, recalling the words in his draft that had been repeatedly revised.

The noise in that humid, narrow alley seemed to surge up against his eardrums once again.

Professor Liu Zuoqing walked back to the podium, his gaze falling to the other side.

"Tang He."

Tang He stood up.

"Your draft is sharper and has more body temperature than the first draft."

Professor Liu Zuoqing said slowly.

"You wrote about grassroots women without writing them as thin symbols of suffering anymore. That mother who was sewing school uniforms for her daughter on a rainy night—after her finger was pricked by the needle, her first reaction was to rub the blood onto her apron; this detail is very good."

Tang He's eyes grew slightly warm, and she responded in a low voice.

Professor Liu Zuoqing looked again at the boy in the khaki jacket in the front row.

"And your writing about the Jiangnan water town."

The boy sat up straight abruptly.

"Anyone can write about bluestone slabs and black-awning boats; what is rare is that you finally saw the waist bent by rent under the bluestone slabs. That scene with the elderly bamboo weaver was not written with enough maturity, but it had a sense of pain."

The classroom quieted down.

Professor Liu Zuoqing closed the list in his hand.

His gaze passed over the crowd, paused for a moment on Xu Changge, and then slowly fell on Lin Que.

This pause was longer than it had been for anyone else.

Lin Que looked up, his expression calm.

Xu Changge's fingers also stopped gently on the desktop.

Everyone noticed it.

Professor Liu Zuoqing had deliberately suppressed the two drafts that most deserved to be commented on in class.

Especially Lin Que's qin opera, for which the mentor group's consolidated opinion left only one line: "Suggest separate discussion."

Professor Liu Zuoqing did not explain, only saying in a deep voice:

"Some drafts cannot be fully discussed in a few words during class."

"Especially a few of them, which have already crossed the boundaries of class assignments."

Professor Liu Zuoqing paused for a moment, his tone becoming extremely serious.

"If we were to rank them one, two, or three according to our standards, it would only make this classroom seem too narrow. It would probably also be a desecration of the hard work you have put in over the last month."

All the students held their breath, their hearts pounding in their chests.

They vaguely felt that what was about to be announced would completely change the trajectory of their group.

Professor Liu Zuoqing again supported himself on the lectern with both hands and scanned the audience, his gaze highly penetrating.

He paused, then announced in a deep voice.

"After a meeting held overnight by the Qingbei School of Liberal Arts and the China Writers Association, it has been decided to cancel the internal grading for this long-form project."

As soon as these words were spoken, a very slight commotion arose among the students below.

Before the students could react, Professor Liu Zuoqing threw out a bombshell.

"The school has decided to take your works from this time and collectively submit them for this year's 'Kunpeng Youth Literature Award'!"

"This time, your opponents..."

Professor Liu Zuoqing paused, smiling slightly.

"Will be all young authors under the age of thirty in the country."