524: Chapter 524 The Ticket to the Adult Literary World

Professor Liu Zuoqing's words were like a boulder thrown into a deep pool.

It didn't stir up ripples; it only brought a vacuum-like silence.

The thirty students in the classroom were all practically frozen in their seats.

A collective submission to the Kunpeng Youth Literature Award.

This sentence weighed a thousand pounds.

Xu Changge turned his head to look at Lin Que beside him, then turned back, his lips moving as he spoke in a low, yet clear voice.

"Kunpeng Award."

He spat out the three words, his eyes churning with unbelievable shock.

It was one of the three oldest awards in the Chinese Literary World; even in the youth category, all past winners were pillars of the literary scene.

"What kind of joke is this..."

A boy in the back row turned pale, his voice trembling.

"What do we have to compete with them? Just this one month of field research? What they hold in their hands is flesh and blood tempered over ten years. Our little bit of work, placed before them... is as thin as a sheet of paper!"

This desperate analysis was like a bucket of cold water, causing the previously bewildered students to all change their expressions.

Indeed, that was the Kunpeng Award!

It wasn't a campus essay contest; it wasn't an internal competition.

That was the adult literary world, truly judged by experience, writing prowess, and the weight of reality.

Every opponent was a veteran of a hundred battles, and every work was soaked in years, or even over a decade, of painstaking effort.

What right did they have?

"Students, quiet."

Professor Liu Zuoqing's voice precisely severed the panic starting to spread in the classroom.

"This student is correct."

"In the seventy-seven years since the Kunpeng Award was founded, this is the first time students have been collectively recommended for submission."

"The names engraved on its trophy are all the backbones of Chinese literature."

He scanned the room.

"What, are you afraid?"

The rhetorical question was suddenly raised.

"Afraid of those young authors who have already taken root in reality for ten years? Afraid of those pens that have been rejected, treated coldly, and repeatedly tempered by life?"

The classroom was dead silent.

Chen Jiahao sat diagonally in front of Lin Que; he scratched the back of his head hard, and for the first time, a clear sense of timidity appeared on his always energetic face.

He turned his head to look at Lin Que, his voice slightly dry.

"Master Que, I'm nervous. We're taking our one month of foundation to crash against their ten years of tempered experience? Isn't this just like throwing an egg against a rock?"

He gave a bitter smile.

Chen Jiahao's words struck everyone's weak spot.

Many lowered their heads, fingers unconsciously picking at the corners of tables or pen barrels.

Yes, no matter how rich a single month of time might be, it still seemed insignificant in the face of ten years of accumulation.

Professor Liu Zuoqing took in everyone's expressions, his tone softening a little.

"It is normal to be afraid."

He said, his gaze sweeping over those young faces one by one.

"A soldier who has never seen blood will have trembling hands, weak legs, and a panicked heart the first time they go to the battlefield."

He walked off the podium and stood in the middle of the aisle.

"I am putting this path before you today not because I want you to win the trophy right now."

"I want you to see, a little earlier, what the real battlefield on the road of literature looks like. I want you to feel, a little earlier, that suffocating pressure when your words are placed on the harshest scales."

"Only by being measured by the harshest ruler early on will you know if your bones are hard enough!"

He walked back to the podium, leaning forward with his hands on the edge of the table.

"If you choose to walk the path of literature, you cannot avoid this level of cruel collision. Rather than waiting until you graduate to face it alone, it is better for the school to open this battlefield for you now. If you lose, it's not shameful. If you win, it becomes your confidence."

You could hear a pin drop in the classroom.

Professor Liu Zuoqing turned around, his gaze passing straight over the crowd and locking onto the center of the classroom.

Lin Que.

From beginning to end, he had been leaning against the back of his chair, so calm that he seemed out of place.

"Lin Que."

Professor Liu Zuoqing's voice passed through the silent classroom and fell into everyone's ears.

Everyone's gaze instantly focused on him.

Professor Liu Zuoqing stared at him, his eyes sharp.

"The sharpest pens under thirty are all on that table; do you dare to put 'qin opera' on it?"

Xu Changge also turned his head to look at Lin Que.

Lin Que stopped his fingers from tapping the table.

He looked up, meeting Professor Liu Zuoqing's gaze, and also meeting the thirty pairs of eyes in the classroom.

Then, he spoke.

His voice was not loud, his tone was level, but it carried a strange, piercing power.

"A manuscript, once written, is meant to be read."

He paused.

"The sharpness cultivated while hiding in a classroom cannot be considered true sharpness."

There were no grand words.

There was no arrogance.

But as these two sentences fell, the restlessness in the classroom was suddenly subdued.

For the first time, they realized that Lin Que was never just looking at the trophy.

He was looking at his own words, wondering if they were qualified to stand before everyone.

Xu Changge turned his head back, staring at Lin Que's profile.

On the youth's smooth-lined profile, there was no exaggerated expression, only a near-icy calm.

But it was precisely this calm that was more impactful than any grand statement.

An indescribable burning sensation surged from the depths of Xu Changge's chest.

He found the corners of his mouth twitching upward uncontrollably, an unprecedented, intense light exploding in his eyes.

What a "meant to be read"!

That wasn't recklessness, but a certainty, a willingness to submit his manuscript to the table even after seeing his opponents clearly.

This was the kind of "peer" that he, Xu Changge, truly acknowledged and was worth walking side-by-side with!

Chen Jiahao was stunned for a few seconds, then suddenly looked down at his palms.

That hand, which had been frostbitten in the Northeast market, slowly clenched into a fist.

"Right! At worst, I'll just consider it an opportunity to broaden my horizons; it's not shameful to lose!"

No one else shouted.

Some reopened their notebooks; some lowered their heads to write a line on the edge of their manuscript paper.

The panic was still there, but it now had a focus.

As if a fuse had been lit, the previously oppressive atmosphere suddenly exploded.

The way they looked at Lin Que had changed.

It was a resonance—being ignited, led, and forcibly dragged onto a higher battlefield.

Professor Liu Zuoqing watched this scene, and a smile finally blossomed on his aged face.

He raised his hand to calm the atmosphere in the classroom.

"Put the matter of the award aside for now."

"Today's class is not about rankings, techniques, or who can win."

He closed the list and placed it in the center of the podium.

"Talk about the people you saw, the sounds you heard, and the scents you smelled this past month."

"Who will go first?"

Soon, the news of the Qinglan Program collectively submitting to the Kunpeng Youth Literature Award swept through the Beijing literary scene like a hurricane.

Countless young authors who had signed up for the Kunpeng Youth Literature Award heard the news one after another.

Some scoffed, feeling that Qingbei was trying to force growth.

Some frowned, feeling that the literature award shouldn't be paving the way for youngsters.

But there were also those who, after reading the publicized works of "Fu Zhi Yao Competition," silently drew a red circle around the name "Lin Que."

This time.

The sharpest pens in the country under the age of thirty cast their complex gazes toward Qingbei for the first time.