567: Chapter 567 The Spirit of a Scholar – Titled "The New Type of Salted Fish"

The computer lab at the Qingbei School of Literature.

The countdown in the bottom right corner of the large screen ticked over to "09:42:17," the cold white light casting a ghostly pallor over everyone's faces.

The forum homepage was set to refresh automatically every three seconds, and each flicker felt like a dull thud echoing through the lab.

Chen Jingzhi's long analytical post had already surpassed twenty-seven thousand shares, and every time the comment section refreshed, a whole new page of replies appeared.

Lin Que sat in the middle of the second row, the cup of water by his hand having gone cold without being touched.

His gaze wasn't on the comment section, but fixed on the data curve in the left column.

The effective reading completion rate of "qin opera": 78.1%.

It had risen another 0.7 percentage points from an hour ago.

Xu Changge sat to his right, his screen displaying the forum's real-time activity page.

Suddenly, his scroll wheel stopped.

"Lin Que."

Xu Changge's voice was very low, though his tone faltered uncharacteristically at the end.

"Come take a look at this."

Lin Que turned his head.

On Xu Changge's screen, at the very top of the forum homepage, a new post had just appeared.

Posting time: 1 minute ago.

The post title consisted of only four characters: "Apology Statement."

The verification information in the author column featured an orange V-mark, followed by a line of text: [Young Critic] Chu Pengshu.

Chen Jiahao leaned over from the back row, and as soon as he saw the title, the sentence he was about to speak got stuck in his throat.

"He's issuing a statement at this time? What kind of narrative is he trying to spin now?"

Xu Changge didn't answer; he clicked on the body of the post.

The air in the computer lab suddenly went quiet.

Tang He was the first to notice the anomaly.

She turned her head, saw Xu Changge and Lin Que both staring at the same screen, and stood up to walk over.

Yuan Ningning also put down her mouse, Dan Yi took off one earphone, and several others quickly gathered behind Xu Changge.

Everyone's eyes were fixed on the post that had been up for less than two minutes.

The first paragraph of the main text: "Three days ago, I published a long essay titled 'Rules and Disorder in Youth Literature,' questioning some works in the Qinglan Project, with the core argument that 'original ecological narratives lack structure.'"

"Today, I solemnly declare: this judgment is incorrect."

Chen Jiahao gasped.

"He just... admitted it?"

"He personally overturned his own long essay?"

No one replied to him.

Everyone continued reading.

The second paragraph: "The article 'On the Implicit Subplot Narrative of <qin opera>' published today by Vice Dean Chen of the University School of Liberal Arts has completely corrected my misjudgment."

"After re-examining the text, I confirm that the three implicit structures pointed out by Dean Chen not only exist but are precise, complete, and self-consistent."

Tang He's hand gripped the back of the chair.

The third paragraph: "I made a fatal error in my critique: equating the structure I failed to recognize with the absence of structure."

"The root of this error lies in the fact that my critical horizon is not broad enough. I could only see explicit structures with clear frameworks, and could not see the implicit skeletons hidden within the texture of life."

"Dean Chen mentioned in his article: 'If a critic can only measure one kind of structure, then what he is judging is not literature, but his own ruler.'"

"This statement is correct."

"My ruler is indeed not long enough."

Dan Yi took off his other earphone.

He stared at the screen, his Adam's apple bobbing, but he didn't speak.

The fourth paragraph: "I hereby offer my solemn apology to the author of 'qin opera,' Student Lin Que, and to all readers and judges who have been misled by me."

"At the same time, I announce the following decisions:"

"1. Effective immediately, I am terminating all commentary, consulting, and column collaborations with my current publishing group."

"2. I will indefinitely stop publishing literary critiques publicly and return to my desk to relearn."

"3. Until I can truly understand those hidden bones, I will not publish any more critical articles."

After this line, the computer lab went completely silent, and even the notification sound of the automatic refresh seemed jarring.

The final paragraph: "What literary criticism needs is not self-righteous standards, but eyes that are broad enough."

"I do not have them."

"Therefore, I am withdrawing."

"——Chu Pengshu"

Xu Changge scrolled down the page a bit.

The comment section hadn't yet piled up into a high tower, but the post had already been continuously reposted on the real-time activity feed on the right.

As soon as this post appeared, the real-time activity column on the right kept popping up repost alerts.

The name Chu Pengshu was enough to drag half of the youth critic circle into this.

Every word he published would be seen by people in the industry immediately.

Chen Jiahao gripped the back of the chair, his knuckles turning white.

"He's crazy." His voice sounded a bit airy.

"He just broke his contract with Huanyu Publishing Group and retreated from the internet, just like that."

Tang He turned to look at Lin Que.

There was no surprise on Lin Que's face, only the coldness in his eyes slowly settling.

He withdrew his gaze from the screen and let it rest on the cup of cold water by his hand for two seconds.

"He made the right choice." Lin Que's voice was very flat.

Chen Jiahao grew anxious.

"Master Que, aren't you even a little excited? This is Chu Pengshu we're talking about, one of the most formidable people in the youth critic circle. He actually overturned his own judgment in public because of 'qin opera'!"

Lin Que placed the cup back on the desktop: "He understood it himself, and he dared to stop. This is much harder than continuing to tough it out."

Xu Changge leaned back in his chair, his fingers tapping lightly on the armrest.

"Lin Que is right."

His voice wasn't loud, but everyone in the lab was listening.

"If Chu Pengshu had just been called out by Dean Chen, he could have easily written an academic supplementary article, admitting a limitation of perspective while retaining his stance. This is too common in the critical circle, and no one would have said anything about him."

Xu Changge scrolled the screen back, his gaze landing on the third paragraph of the apology statement.

"But he chose the hardest path. Admitting the premise was wrong, admitting he couldn't see, and then withdrawing."

"This step is very decisive."

Xu Changge paused.

"He personally cut off the broken piece of judgment on himself."

Dan Yi spoke up.

His voice was very soft, like he was talking to himself.

"He cut the chain of interests between himself and Huanyu Publishing Group in public."

Everyone's eyes turned to Dan Yi simultaneously.

Dan Yi stared at the line on the screen, "Effective immediately, terminate all labor cooperation agreements with the publishing group," his throat bobbing.

"This is equivalent to him personally tearing down the academic sign that Huanyu Publishing Group had been pressing down on the Program."

The computer lab was silent for three seconds.

Lin Que stood up and walked to the front of the large screen.

His gaze swept over the data panel on the right column.

The curve for "qin opera" was still rising steadily. 78.2%.

Then he moved his gaze to the left column.

The effective reading completion rate for "three or two things in jincheng" had fallen from twenty-five in the morning to twenty-two.

The creative talk was still drawing traffic, but most of the new readers were dropping off within the first three chapters.

With Chu Pengshu's withdrawal, those readers who were originally kept out by the "lack of structure" label had already begun to return.

Shen Jiangping's last layer of professional filter was shattered as well.

Lin Que put his hands in his pockets, standing in front of the large screen, not speaking.

Chen Jiahao leaned in.

"Master Que, what are you thinking about?"

"I'm thinking about that last sentence of Chu Pengshu's."

Lin Que's gaze was still on the screen.

"'I do not have them, therefore I am withdrawing.'"

He paused.

"The integrity of a man of letters is sometimes reflected in persistence, and sometimes in knowing when to stop writing."

Xu Changge glanced at him.

Tang He stood to the side, her fingers unconsciously twisting the hem of her clothes.

She looked at Lin Que's silhouette standing in front of the large screen and suddenly realized that the truly terrifying thing about this person was never his sharp edge, but his ability to wait for his opponents to crash into him on their own.

In this debate about structure, Lin Que had never personally entered the fray.

He removed himself from the center of public opinion, leaving only his work standing in everyone's view.

Then he waited for those who surrounded him to run into their own blind spots one by one.

Chu Pengshu had exited the stage.

How much longer could Shen Jiangping hold on?

Tang He suppressed this thought and didn't ask it out loud.

She knew Lin Que wouldn't answer.

But the answer was already written on the descending curve in the left column of the large screen.

The commotion on the forum was faster than everyone had expected.

Eight minutes after the apology statement was issued, comments exceeded five hundred.

Twelve minutes later, reposts broke three thousand.

Fifteen minutes later, "Chu Pengshu Apologizes and Retires from Reviewing" surged to seventh on the literary forum's real-time trending list.

The style of the comment section was not quite what they had expected.

There wasn't much mockery.

"To be honest, this apology statement by Chu Pengshu is written more like what a critic should look like."

"Admitting a mistake isn't hard; what's hard is explaining clearly where you went wrong."

"Breaking down the root of the error to the cognitive level—this takes so much courage."

"Reposting and saving. From now on, whoever uses 'lack of structure' to criticize 'qin opera,' just throw Chu Pengshu's own apology at them, and that will be the end of it."

These comments poured in at a rate of a dozen per second.

Lin Que didn't continue reading.

He returned to his workstation, sat down, and switched the screen back to the backend data panel for "qin opera."

78.8%. It was still rising.

Xu Changge also sat back in his own seat.

He opened a new page, his fingers pausing on the keyboard for two seconds.

"Lin Que."

"Hmm."

"Chu Pengshu has cut ties with Huanyu Publishing Group."

Xu Changge turned, his voice lowered between the two computers.

"Shen Jiangping now effectively has lost all academic cover."

Lin Que nodded.

"Completion rate twenty-two."

Xu Changge recited that number.

"Based on the current weighting, the chances of him squeezing into the final review with this data are already very low."

"Do you think he will admit it?" Lin Que asked.

Xu Changge didn't answer immediately.

He moved his gaze from the screen, looked at the gray wall across the computer lab, and thought for a few seconds.

"No."

Xu Changge looked at the curve on the screen that continued to fall, his voice lowered even further.

"A person like him, the more he loses, the more he will grasp at the last rope that can drag others down with him."