564: Chapter 564 Your Ruler Isn't Long Enough—A Title Chapter from "Prime Minister Yu"

Huanyu Publishing Group, Technical Department.

12:40 PM.

Shen Jiangping leaned against the console, holding a cup of black coffee, his gaze sweeping over the ranking of the hot forum posts.

He saw that post.

He saw the over 1,800 replies beneath it.

He saw those voices coming from construction sites, mining areas, and taxis.

Shen Jiangping put down the coffee cup, the corners of his mouth curling downward.

"Just this?"

He turned his head to look at Vice President Chen Mo, who was sitting in front of the master control console.

"A group of ordinary readers without any literary training piling their personal emotions onto the forum; does this even count as a counterattack?"

Vice President Chen Mo did not respond.

Shen Jiangping pulled a chair from beside the console and sat down, crossing his legs.

He tried hard to appear relaxed, his chin slightly raised, yet his fingers gripping the coffee cup never loosened.

"Do you know who sits on the judging panel for the Kunpeng Award?"

Shen Jiangping tapped the rim of the coffee cup twice.

"Those are academic seniors who have written papers for decades and reviewed countless texts."

He spread his hands.

"Will these people be moved just because bottom-tier readers are crying on a forum?"

Shen Jiangping snorted through his nose.

"Emotions can get a post onto the trending list, but they can't get into the scoring sheet."

He pointed to the data of Chu Pengshu's article on the large screen.

"Look, 4,300 reposts, and there are people in the discussion area still citing his points."

"This is what truly influences the judges."

Vice President Chen Mo still did not speak.

His hands were on the keyboard, his gaze falling on another page.

Shen Jiangping continued to mutter to himself.

"Let them cry. Once they are done, the judges still have to score according to professional standards."

"As long as Chu Pengshu's article remains, the blade of 'no structure' will stay at the throat of qin opera."

"Before the judges give a high score, they will always have to bypass one question: How can they explain the structural rationality of this article to their peers?"

He picked up the coffee cup and took a sip.

"As long as no one can answer this question for qin opera, Lin Que will always be lacking that final push."

Vice President Chen Mo finally turned his head.

He looked at Teacher Shen and opened his mouth.

"Teacher Shen."

"Hm?"

Teacher Shen's expression was very strange.

"There is a new post on the forum homepage."

Shen Jiangping frowned.

"What post? Another worker here to cry?"

Vice President Chen Mo shook his head.

He turned his screen at an angle so that Shen Jiangping could see the content on it.

It was a post that had been published less than three minutes ago, located in the official recommendation spot at the very top of the forum homepage.

The recommendation spot meant the forum editor had manually pinned it.

The title of the post was very long:

"On the Implicit Subtext Narrative of qin opera: Chu Pengshu's Failure and the Self-Reflection of Young Criticism"

The author column displayed a real-name verified account with an orange "V" mark.

The verification information was only one line:

[Vice Dean of the School of Liberal Arts at Fudan University · Executive Director of the Chinese Contemporary Literature Research Association]

The coffee cup in Shen Jiangping's hand stopped at his lips.

He stared at that name, his pupils adjusting their focus twice before locking on.

"Chen Jingzhi!?"

His voice changed pitch.

Vice President Chen Mo nodded.

"Published three minutes ago."

"Because Chen Jingzhi is a real-name verified account and has served as a judge for the Kunpeng Award, the forum editor sent the article directly to the first column of the homepage recommendations."

Shen Jiangping put the coffee cup down.

The bottom of the cup hit the table, making a dull thud.

"How did he..."

Shen Jiangping did not finish his sentence.

He had already started scrolling the screen to read the main text of the post.

...

Forum Homepage.

"On the Implicit Subtext Narrative of qin opera: Chu Pengshu's Failure and the Self-Reflection of Young Criticism"

Author: Chen Jingzhi

The main text totaled 4,200 characters.

In the first paragraph of the opening, Chen Jingzhi directly cited the core argument in Chu Pengshu's long article:

"Mr. Chu Pengshu proposed in the article 'The Rules and Disorder of Youth Literature': When creators treat raw ecology as an end rather than a means, literature degenerates into a kind of unprocessed information transport."

"This argument seems reasonable, but in reality, it commits a fatal premise error."

In the second paragraph, the pen fell.

"He equates unidentified structure with the absence of structure."

"This is not a problem with the work; it is a problem with the critic's own vision."

Starting from the third paragraph, Chen Jingzhi went directly into text decomposition.

Chen Jingzhi did not beat around the bush.

He only did one thing.

He pulled the three deepest bones hidden in qin opera onto the table, one by one.

The first line: Auntie Song's opera singing.

"Auntie Song's qin opera appears seven times in the full text."

"The timing, pitch description, and scene background of each appearance are different."

"On the surface, this is a repetitive use of environmental sound effects."

"But if you mark the positions of these seven appearances one by one, you will discover a startling fact."

"These seven opera segments correspond exactly to the seven life stages of the protagonist Liang Shoushan, from entering the factory to his sacrifice."

"The first time it appears, the singing is complete, clear, and carries the joy of a new bride."

"The last time it appears, the singing is shattered into three discontinuous syllables, as if a sentence had been torn apart from the middle."

"This environmental description performs the function of a complete implicit timeline."

"Auntie Song's lips are singing, but she is not singing opera; she is singing the chronicle of the entire Muchuan Town."

The second line: Old Zhao and the East Wall.

"Old Zhao's patrol route is described four times in the text."

"The route is the same every time: starting from the guard room, following the west wall north, turning to the east wall south, and finally returning to the guard room."

"The only difference is that every time he passes the forbidden zone of the east wall, the author's description of Old Zhao's walking pace has subtle changes."

"The first time, 'footsteps did not stop'."

"The second time, 'the pace slowed by half a beat'."

"The third time, 'stood outside the wire fence for a few seconds'."

"The fourth time, the description disappears."

"The disappearance of the description is precisely the heaviest stroke."

"Why not write it the fourth time? Because that time, Old Zhao went in."

"The author used the progression of walking pace and the final blank space to construct a complete psychological arc of collapse."

"And the end of this arc is the moment Old Zhao opens his mouth to say his first sentence before the stone tablet."

"This progression, already precise to the step frequency, constitutes Old Zhao's complete psychological structure."

The third line, Chen Jingzhi calls it 'The Breakage and Stitching of Sound'.

"The full text contains a large number of 'auditory faults'. In certain paragraphs, environmental sounds suddenly disappear."

"There is no wind, no insect chirping, no buzzing of machines."

"These auditory blanks are not oversights, but carefully arranged."

"Every auditory fault corresponds to a node in the narrative where the 'truth is suppressed'."

"When the sound returns, it inevitably brings back a new piece of information."

"Example: At the end of Chapter 7, it describes Old Zhao sitting in the guard room dozing off."

"There is no sound description for the entire two hundred words here."

"Immediately following the first sentence of the next chapter is, 'A crash came from the distance, like an enamel bowl falling on the cement floor'."

"That crash is Auntie Song accidentally dropping a cup in the kitchen."

"And the reason she was careless was that the radio broadcast a retrospective report on the chemical leak accident that winter."

"The place where the sound disappears is where the author is holding the reader's hand, not letting you move forward."

"Until he is ready, he does not push you forward one step."

"This is the absolute control of narrative rhythm; it is hiding the structure in those places you cannot hear."

After the decomposition part ended, Chen Jingzhi used a full 1,200 words to summarize.

"The 'structure' that Mr. Chu Pengshu expects is an explicit narrative framework that can be cataloged and charted."

"There are clear causal chains between chapters, and character arcs have clear development."

"This kind of structure is of course a structure. But it is not the whole of structure."

"The structure of qin opera is hidden in the texture of life."

"It is hidden in the fragments of Auntie Song's opera singing, hidden in the changes in Old Zhao's walking pace, hidden in the gaps where sound disappears and reappears."

"It is not in the table of contents. It is in the distance between every word and the next word."

"You cannot touch it, but you can feel it."

"Those readers who finish the full text and cannot say why it is good, but just cannot walk away—what they are feeling is this thing."

In the last three paragraphs, Chen Jingzhi's pen aimed at Chu Pengshu himself.

"Mr. Chu Pengshu is a leader in the youth criticism circle."

"His logic is rigorous, his argumentation is standardized, and his writing is restrained."

"These qualities make him stand out among his peers."

"But it is precisely these qualities that constitute his biggest blind spot."

"When a critic can only see structures with clear frameworks, and can only acknowledge narrative logic that can be dismantled and illustrated, he will never see those skeletons hidden in the mud."

"What Mr. Chu Pengshu needs to reflect on is not whether his evaluation criteria are strict, but whether his evaluation vision is wide enough."

"If a critic can only measure one kind of structure, then what he is judging is not literature, but his own ruler."

"As a senior, I have no intention of attacking a junior's professional ability."

"But as a judge from thirteen years ago for the Kunpeng Award, I have a responsibility to point out: Labeling a work like qin opera with 'lack of structure' is a misjudgment of the criticism profession."

"Mr. Chu,"

"Perhaps, what you see as disorder,"

"That may be because your ruler isn't long enough."