547: Chapter 547 Public Reading Channel Opens – Bonus Chapter for Sponsored Novel <The New Type of Salted Fish>

In Shen Jiangping's apartment, the morning light shone in through the floor-to-ceiling windows, spreading a layer of warm gold across the solid wood floor.

Shen Jiangping stood in front of the wine cabinet, his fingertips resting on a bottle of red wine.

The vintage on the label was 2015.

That year, at twenty-six, he had held the Kunpeng Youth Award trophy for the first time.

The smell of alcohol in the early morning was somewhat pungent.

Yet, Shen Jiangping did not put the glass down.

He had only slept for three hours last night, and upon waking, the same sentence he had heard readers say in his dream kept spinning in his mind—Shen Jiangping's talent has dried up.

His phone vibrated.

A message from his assistant popped up.

[Teacher Shen, everything is normal so far.]

Shen Jiangping let out a breath.

He pulled out the cork and poured himself half a glass.

The wine swirled in the glass, the deep red sliding down the sides.

He walked to the floor-to-ceiling window.

The morning rush hour downstairs had not yet dissipated, the traffic jammed into a long line.

The sound of horns came up through the glass, muffled like the noise of another world.

Shen Jiangping raised his glass.

"To the past," he said in a low voice.

"And to the future."

After today, the hierarchy of the young literary scene would be rearranged.

Qinglan Project.

Lin Que.

Those young people brought to the forefront by the Qingbei School of Literature would all be pressed back to where they belonged by that red line.

Shen Jiangping took a sip of wine and turned back to his desk.

On the table lay a printed copy of the review process.

His gaze fell on that line of text.

[Public Reading Feedback Weight: 30%]

Thirty percent.

In the past, the weight of the Kunpeng Award was held in the hands of judges, magazines, and the literary criticism circle.

This year, thirty percent of the weight had been handed over to public reading feedback.

And Huanyu Publishing Group had already paved the entrance for the public to enter the competition.

Shen Jiangping put down his glass and walked to the closet.

The closet door opened.

A dark blue custom suit hung on the outside, the silver-gray tie pressed perfectly straight.

He changed his clothes and stood in front of the mirror.

The man in the mirror was nearly thirty, with a refined face, smooth cuffs, and a steady gaze.

He looked like a representative of the young literary scene who had already established his footing.

Only Shen Jiangping knew how much anxiety, unable to dissipate for years, was pressed beneath that composure.

After the last Kunpeng Youth Award, he had written three more novels and two short story collections.

The reputation was not bad.

But not a single one had surpassed the work he had written when he won the award.

People in the circle began to say that Shen Jiangping's talent had dried up.

The best things he had to say had already been left behind at age twenty-six.

This sentence was like a thorn that had been pricking him for three years.

In those three years, he had run seventy-three lectures, done forty-six interviews, and appeared on twenty-one literary Programs.

He had packaged himself as a "leader of the young literary scene."

Packaged as a "model of the combination of market and pure literature."

But he knew in his heart that these labels were only effective within the circle of young writers.

Taking it a step further, the people sitting at the real Kunpeng Award judging table were all old monsters who had been writing for half their lives.

Those people had an era, seniority, and weighty representative works.

When Shen Jiangping arrived there, he might not even be guaranteed the qualification to compete for a spotlight.

So he had to defend the young literary scene.

He had to hold this position.

Yet just at this time, in the list of this year's Kunpeng Youth Literature Award, thirty young people appeared, along with someone named Lin Que.

Shen Jiangping stared at the mirror and slowly tightened his tie.

They were too young, young to the point of being blinding.

In the end, they were just a group of young people who had just come of age.

By what right were they pushed directly to the Kunpeng Award judging table, bypassing those who had slogged for years?

Shen Jiangping gritted his teeth, picked up his phone, and dialed President Zhao.

"Mr. Zhao, I'm ready."

On the other end of the line, President Zhao's voice was still gentle.

"Good. Arrive at the company at ten, and we'll go through the process first."

"Understood."

After hanging up, Shen Jiangping looked out the window again.

The sun finally peeked out from the clouds, and the light fell on the glass curtain wall in the distance, stinging his eyes.

He picked up his car keys and turned to leave.

While Shen Jiangping rushed to Huanyu Publishing Group, another battlefield at the Qingbei School of Literature had also lit up its screens.

Nine o'clock sharp in the morning.

The School of Liberal Arts computer room.

Thirty computers were lined up on both sides, all screens lit up.

The thirty students of the Qinglan Project sat at their respective positions, with the Kunpeng Youth Literature Award author backend logged in before them.

In the center of the page, a countdown was ticking.

[3 hours 0 minutes 0 seconds]

The computer room was very quiet.

There was only the low hum of the air conditioning vents.

Outside the window, a few sparrows were hopping around on the locust tree, their chirping intermittent.

Chen Jiahao sat behind Lin Que.

He wasn't looking at the computer, just staring down at his phone.

The large Qinglan group chat was still quiet.

No one spoke.

No one complained either.

Last night, Professor Liu Zuoqing's words, "Wait for the readers," weighed on everyone's hearts like a stone.

The door was pushed open.

Professor Liu Zuoqing walked in.

His footsteps were very light, but everyone in the computer room raised their heads.

Professor Liu Zuoqing stood in the center of the computer room, his gaze sweeping over the thirty young faces, and finally stopped on Lin Que.

"Three hours left."

His voice was not loud, but clear enough.

"In these three hours, you can check your work pages, you can drink water, you can go to the bathroom, or you can lie down and take a nap."

"But there is one thing you must not do."

Professor Liu Zuoqing's gaze sank bit by bit.

"Before it opens, do not check the rankings."

"Do not touch the comment section."

"Do not browse any news about the Kunpeng Award."

The computer room was so quiet you could hear the soft click of a mouse.

Professor Liu Zuoqing continued:

"From now on, until the works are fully open, the only thing you should believe in is every word you have written yourself."

No one spoke.

A few seconds later, Tang He nodded first.

Then Dan Yi.

Xu Changge.

Chen Jiahao.

One after another.

Thirty people nodded in succession.

The movements were light, but it was as if they had signed the same silent military order.

Professor Liu Zuoqing looked at them, the corners of his mouth twitching.

He turned and walked out.

When he reached the door, he stopped and looked back, saying one sentence.

"Go ahead."

"Go and welcome your readers."

The door closed again.

The computer room went quiet once more.

Lin Que withdrew his gaze from the door panel and let it fall onto his screen.

The countdown was still ticking.

[2 hours 47 minutes 22 seconds]

He clicked on the preview page of qin opera one last time.

The title, synopsis, inspiration background, and reading entrance were all fine.

The battlefield was set.

Next, he just had to wait for people to come in.

The clouds outside the window split open.

Sunlight leaked into the computer room, fell on the floor, and slowly moved forward.

It moved from the first row to the third row.

Finally, it stopped at Lin Que's hand.

He looked at the light and suddenly remembered the morning in Muchuan Town.

At the entrance of Old Liu's noodle shop, the steamer was emitting white steam.

The smell of chili oil mixed with the fragrance of noodles drifted out from the narrow street entrance.

At that time, Lin Que stood by the door with only one thought in his heart.

Write this down.

Write about those silent people.

Now, he had finished writing.

The rest was up to the readers.

Up to those who would click into the page after twelve o'clock, flip past the title, flip past the synopsis, and flip to the first line of the first page.

Would they stop?

Would they read about Old Zhao's silent finger?

Would they see, through the screen, those people in Muchuan Town who had been left behind by the turning of the era?

Lin Que didn't know.

If he had just taken the classics from his memory and moved them over intact, he wouldn't have had a shred of panic.

The classics had long been proven by time.

But this time, he didn't do that.

The framework of qin opera gave him the direction.

The rain in Muchuan Town, the rust, the old factory buildings, the red line of secrecy, Old Zhao and Old Zhou, and those who guarded the old era and refused to leave—these were the flesh and blood of this manuscript.

Every silence he wrote down came from the sounds he had truly heard over that month.

It was a tribute.

And it was an answer.

Lin Que looked at the screen, his heart calming down instead.

The story was already laid out there.

Like the old factory buildings in Muchuan Town.

Like the mist in the Qinba Mountains.

Like the silence of Old Zhao sitting in front of his wife's grave that afternoon.

Those people could rewrite the rankings, could manufacture presets, and could sentence a work to death in advance.

But the rain, rust, and silence of Muchuan Town had already fallen into the words.

Whoever clicked in would see them.

They were right there.

Waiting to be seen.

Lin Que leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

Two hours and forty-three minutes left.

He could rest for a while.

11:50 AM.

Huanyu Publishing Group Technical Department.

Fifty computer screens switched to the real-time monitoring panel simultaneously.

Vice President Chen Mo stood in front of the master control console, staring at the dense status of accounts on the screen.

The first batch of task accounts were all glowing green.

Once twelve o'clock arrived, they would surge into the thirty work pages like a pre-arranged dark current.

Shen Jiangping stood nearby, holding a cup of coffee.

His posture was relaxed.

His gaze fell on the main screen.

In the real-time curve of the popularity ranking, his red line was still pressed at the very top.

"Has Mr. Zhao arrived?"

Shen Jiangping asked.

"In the conference room downstairs," Vice President Chen Mo replied.

"He will come up five minutes before the start."

Shen Jiangping nodded and took a sip of coffee.

11:55 AM.

President Zhao walked into the technical department.

He was wearing a dark gray cashmere sweater with a black casual suit jacket over it.

His face still wore that gentle smile, his pace unhurried.

Vice President Chen Mo immediately greeted him.

"Mr. Zhao."

President Zhao nodded, his gaze sweeping over the fifty screens.

"Ready?"

"All ready," Vice President Chen Mo lowered his voice.

"The first batch of eight thousand accounts has passed pre-inspection, and three hundred seed comments have all been packaged."

Vice President Chen Mo lowered his voice.

"They will enter in batches at twelve o'clock sharp, and the subsequent diffusion pool is ready to connect at any time."

President Zhao walked to the master control console.

Popularity ranking.

Reservation count.

Read count.

Comment section.

All indicators were jumping.

The countdown started from five minutes, ticking down second by second.

President Zhao did not speak.

Shen Jiangping did not speak again either.

In the technical department, only the sound of keyboards and equipment running remained.

The last minute.

Vice President Chen Mo held down the intercom.

"Final confirmation."

"All accounts are in position."

"Sixty-second countdown."

A string of responses came through the intercom.

Thirty seconds.

Ten.

Nine.

Eight.

...

Three.

Two.

One.

Vice President Chen Mo confirmed the task queue one last time and pressed execute.

At the same second.

Qingbei School of Liberal Arts computer room.

Lin Que opened his eyes.

The countdown on the screen hit zero.

The page refreshed automatically.

The gray lock icon disappeared.

A line of text lit up below the title of the work.

[Kunpeng Youth Literature Award · Public Reading Channel is now open.]

Thirty works were unlocked simultaneously.

In the computer room, everyone sat up straight.

Lin Que's gaze fell on the title of his own work.

qin opera.

He took a deep breath and clicked on the page.

The page loaded.

The first line of text jumped into his field of vision.

[In the autumn of 1998, I stood in front of the rusty iron gate there, listening to the sound of the wind blowing through the empty factory building.]

[The sound was very light, like the hum of metal cutting from many years ago when the lathe was still turning.]

Lin Que looked at those two lines of text.

The next second.

The number in the comment section on the right side of the page jumped from zero to one.