558: Chapter 558 Tearing Off the Fig Leaf

On the large screen, the click curve was still surging upward, but the completion curve was sinking all the way down.

One going up, one going down.

The creative commentary Shen Jiangping had just posted had instead become the most glaring contrast.

"Right."

Lin Que raised his hand and tapped the large screen.

"Clicks were propped up by the creative commentary, but the completion rate was dragged down by the main text itself."

Xu Changge realized immediately.

"The creative commentary opened the entrance, but the main text couldn't hold them."

"It's even more serious than that."

Lin Que zoomed in on the curve to minute-level precision.

"Look here.

Fifteen minutes after the creative commentary was posted, 1,200 new visitors flooded in.

Nearly two-thirds of them left after reading only the first three sections, with stay times concentrated between eleven and thirteen minutes."

"The exit rate is even higher than yesterday."

Chen Jiahao's eyes widened.

"Why?"

Lin Que's fingertips rested on the rim of his cup, his gaze still fixed on that falling curve.

Xu Changge stared at the downward-sloping curve and said in a low voice:

"That creative commentary raised the readers' expectations too high."

The sound of keyboards in front of several computers stopped simultaneously, the cold light of the screens reflecting on everyone's faces.

Lin Que nodded:

"The brighter the entrance, the more obvious the flaws in the main text."

"Shen Jiangping's creative commentary was emotionally well-calibrated.

He laid out the workshop, the factory brand, and his frozen hands, making readers believe he had truly been to the scene."

"But the problem is, when these readers clicked into the main text with admiration for the author himself, they found that the workers in the main text spoke as if they were summarizing fate, and even the silence was stuck in exactly the places meant to be sensational."

"It doesn't match the Shen Jiangping in the creative commentary who was crouching in the workshop, too cold to hold a pen."

Chen Jiahao's expression shifted from anger to a kind of realization.

Lin Que closed the data panel and turned to face everyone.

"Emotion can only bring readers to the door."

"Whether they complete the journey depends solely on the main text."

"The more people who come in, the more people who discover the main text cannot support their expectations. The completion rate will only drop faster."

His voice was flat; there was no mockery in his tone, only the calmness of stating facts.

"In the end..."

Lin Que paused.

"The one who will panic is him."

As these words fell, the tension in the machine room was cracked open.

Chen Jiahao let out a long breath.

"I was almost led astray again."

Tang He lowered her head, her clenched fists slowly loosening.

Her previously tense shoulders also dropped by two centimeters.

Xu Changge stood beside Lin Que, watching the declining completion rate number, and was silent for a few seconds.

"What about that piece by Chu Pengshu?"

Lin Que looked at him.

Xu Changge continued:

"Shen Jiangping's creative commentary is an entrance problem. You're right; it doesn't matter how many people come in if you can't keep them.

But Chu Pengshu's piece attacks the evaluation criteria.

If the label 'lacks structure' is accepted by the judges, no matter how good our main text is, the score will be suppressed."

Lin Que did not answer immediately.

He pulled up Chu Pengshu's article again and scrolled to a certain paragraph.

"'...When a creator treats raw reality itself as an end rather than a means, literature degenerates into a form of unprocessed information transport...'"

After Lin Que finished reading this passage, his finger stopped on the screen.

"Do you think this statement makes sense?"

He asked Xu Changge.

Xu Changge hesitated for a moment.

"If looked at in isolation, it has some merit. Structure is indeed important."

"Right."

Lin Que nodded.

"That's why this article is harder to deal with than internet trolls, because what it says isn't entirely wrong."

Everyone's hearts tightened again.

Lin Que withdrew his hand and slowed his speech.

"But he made a mistake."

"What mistake?"

Chen Jiahao asked hurriedly.

"His real problem is that he tied raw reality together with creative laziness."

Lin Que looked at the line of text on the screen.

"Piling up material certainly doesn't make a good work; no one would deny that.

But the problem with Chu Pengshu's article is that he prematurely pushed all sense of presence into the suspect's seat of being a 'semi-finished product'.

But placed on the judging table of the Kunpeng Award, he is challenging the judges' judgment."

Xu Changge's eyes changed.

Lin Que continued:

"Can the judges distinguish between 'restraint with structure' and 'transportation without structure'?

By placing the ruler in front of the judges beforehand, he is effectively forcing them to respond to his standards first.

If the judges actually write their assessments according to this ruler, it will look like they are being led by voices outside the arena.

If the judges insist on their own judgment, they will be even more resentful of this kind of presumption."

Lin Que said this very softly.

"Those old veterans on the Kunpeng Award judging panel have gone through several rounds of debates on literary standards."

"Do you think those old gentlemen would be willing to let a long article from outside the arena pre-determine the answer for them?"

The corners of Xu Changge's mouth moved.

It was an expression of relaxation.

Chen Jiahao also realized it.

"Is it that Chu Pengshu set the tone too high?"

"He wanted to influence the judges."

Lin Que said.

"But he overestimated his own weight in the hearts of the judges, and underestimated their resentment toward this kind of external interference."

"When Chairman Xue won the Kunpeng Award back in the day, how many people pointed at his nose and cursed him for being 'out of line'?"

Several people in the computer room looked up simultaneously.

Tang He was stunned for a moment:

"Chairman Xue was cursed at too?"

Xu Changge added in a low voice:

"When his first article, 'Mud River', was published, his narrative included local chronicles, oral accounts, and segments of opera scripts.

At the time, many critics said it didn't resemble a novel and claimed he was breaking the rules."

Lin Que nodded:

"Later, 'Mud River' was included in textbooks and became a case study for the shift in realist narrative."

Lin Que leaned his chair back half an inch.

"Having walked from that controversy to today, Chairman Xue knows better than anyone that voices outside the arena cannot decide the fate of a work."

The atmosphere in the computer room changed again.

The tension from just a moment ago was being replaced by something more stable.

Tang He raised her head.

"So we just wait?"

Lin Que nodded.

"There are still over forty hours left until the public open day.

Readers are still coming in, and the main text is still holding them.

We have done everything we should."

He looked at the faces of these classmates.

"Some have sat by damp walls in Southern Shaanxi for half the night, some have had their lips chapped by sand in the Gobi Desert, some have listened to the sound of water pipes all night in urban villages, and some have stood in early morning markets until their feet went numb."

"These things will not disappear because of one creative commentary or one academic article."

"The judges will read for themselves, and the readers will judge for themselves."

"The only thing we need to do is stay steady."

Chen Jiahao did not clamor again this time.

He nodded and sat back in his seat.

Xu Changge also returned to his seat and reopened the backend.

Dan Yi put on his headphones and cast his gaze back to his comment section.

The computer room quieted down again.

The sound of keyboards rang out sporadically.

Lin Que held his warm water, watching the steadily rising effective reading curve in the backend of 'qin opera'.

Seventy-three percent.

It was still rising.

...