572: Chapter 572 Four Firsts

The lights in Dormitory 303 were dimmed, leaving only the glow from desk lamps and computer screens to illuminate four faces in different hues.

Lin Que sat on the upper bunk, his back against the wall, with a copy of "History of Huaxia Folk Culture" spread open on his lap to the two-thirds mark.

The pages had not moved since.

His gaze drifted over the spine of the book, landing on the backs of the heads of the three people below.

Dan Yi occupied the desk by the window, his entire body embedded into the back of the chair, his eyes fixed on the countdown for the Kunpeng Youth Award on the left side of the screen.

Xu Changge sat to Dan Yi's right, his back straight, though his index and middle fingers tapped against the edge of the desk in turns, missing a beat several times.

Chen Jiahao stood in the gap between the two chairs, having paced back and forth four times, his slippers making clacking sounds against the floor.

"One minute left," Chen Jiahao said, staring at the string of red numbers in the top right corner of the screen.

"The final minute."

He paced another half-length, stopped, and looked at the screen: "Forty seconds left. Why is time slowing down?"

Xu Changge did not turn his head.

The countdown ticked to 00:00:30.

Dan Yi lowered his arms from his chest and placed them on either side of the keyboard.

His posture leaned forward by two centimeters. For Dan Yi, this already counted as being excited.

00:00:15.

Chen Jiahao gripped the back of Xu Changge's chair.

Xu Changge did not push him away; his fingers stopped tapping on the desk edge.

00:00:10.

The dormitory fell silent.

The sound of four people breathing blended together, forming a certain sense of ritual with the numbers jumping on the screen.

00:00:05.

"It's about to settle," Chen Jiahao said, his voice strained, squeezed out through his teeth.

00:00:03.

The three of them focused their gazes entirely on that string of numbers, their lips opening in unison.

"Three."

"Two."

"One."

The red numbers hit zero.

A full-screen overlay window popped up on the screen, white background with black text, the system font cold and rigid:

[Kunpeng Youth Literature Award · Public Reading Channel Closed.]

[All work reading, commenting, bookmarking, and data fluctuation functions have stopped.]

[Selection data has been locked and cannot be changed.]

Chen Jiahao let out a long exhale.

His whole body seemed as if the bones had been removed, and he collapsed directly beside Dan Yi's chair, hands resting on his knees.

"It's over."

His voice carried a slight, exhausted tremor.

"Finally over."

Xu Changge clicked on the system announcement page.

The loading icon spun three times; in those short three seconds, not a single person in the dorm made a sound.

The page finished loading.

The announcement page only published the top rank of the public reading phase; under the golden title, the name of "qin opera" occupied the first line.

Below was the public reading data overview for a single work.

[Work: "qin opera"]

[Comprehensive Popularity Ranking: 1]

[Effective Reading Completion Rate Ranking: 1 (85.3%)]

[Number of Long Comments per Thousand Words Ranking: 1 (1893 comments)]

[Reader Attention Ranking: 1]

Four "1"s, arranged in a column from top to bottom.

Clean and crisp, without any modifiers.

Chen Jiahao turned his head abruptly and shouted "Master Que" at Lin Que, but his hands instinctively grabbed the person closest to him, Dan Yi:

"Four first places! All first places!"

Dan Yi stiffened for two seconds: "You're hugging the wrong person."

His arms were held by Chen Jiahao, and he couldn't move.

One second. Two seconds.

Dan Yi raised his right hand and patted Chen Jiahao on the back twice.

It wasn't much force, but he did pat him.

Chen Jiahao froze for a moment; this was the first time since entering the camp that Dan Yi had responded to such an embrace.

Xu Changge did not stand up.

He sat in the chair, reading those four lines of data from top to bottom once, and then read them again.

Xu Changge read them twice, and the corners of his lips, which had been tense all night, finally lifted.

The result had been expected for a long time, but seeing it actually appear on the screen still made his chest feel warm.

Lin Que on the upper bunk closed his book and placed "History of Huaxia Folk Culture" next to his pillow.

He didn't get off the bed; one leg hung over the edge, the other was crossed, his posture relaxed.

"I'll look at the others."

Xu Changge pulled the page down.

Below first place, the system no longer marked specific rankings, only listing the names that "entered the expert final evaluation."

The list was sorted by pinyin initials, with a green checkmark following each name.

Chen Jiahao released Dan Yi and leaned back in front of the screen.

"What about me? Am I there?"

His name appeared on the third line of the list.

A green checkmark.

"I'm in!"

Chen Jiahao jumped up, his head nearly hitting the bed frame of the upper bunk.

"Hey, I also made it to the final evaluation!"

He thumped his own thigh, grinned, and turned to look at the upper bunk.

"Master Que, I didn't lose face for you, did I?"

Lin Que stretched on the upper bunk.

"How is your data?"

Chen Jiahao scratched his hair.

"Fifty-one point three, above the baseline, and I also got the qualification for the final evaluation."

Chen Jiahao rubbed his hands together.

"At least I didn't drop the ball in the second half."

He turned to look at Dan Yi.

"Dan Yi, what about you?"

Dan Yi had leaned back against the chair again, returning to his taciturn demeanor.

He glanced at his data panel.

"Seventy-one point four."

"Seventy-one!"

Chen Jiahao gasped.

"Brother Xu, tell us yours."

Xu Changge clicked open his own work page.

The number for the completion rate stopped at a position.

"Seventy-nine point six."

Chen Jiahao spread his hands.

"Fine, at least for the completion rate, you three are still ranked in the order of the Fu Zhi Yao Competition."

"One eighty-five, one seventy-nine, one seventy-one. You three even have your data lined up neatly."

Dan Yi ignored him.

Xu Changge stood up, walked to the ladder of the upper bunk, and looked up at Lin Que.

"Lin Que."

His tone was very formal, carrying that weight that Xu Family descendants used to express a serious attitude.

"In the public reading phase, you won without controversy."

This sentence was clean and crisp, without embellishment, without twists.

Xu Changge never beat around the bush when speaking.

When he acknowledged a fact, he simply acknowledged it.

Lin Que leaned half his body out from the upper bunk and reached his right hand down.

Xu Changge raised his hand and grasped his hand.

"The top spot only proves this round."

Lin Que smiled.

"Readers being willing to finish reading is more valuable than the top spot."

Xu Changge's hand paused for a second, then released.

He nodded and took a step back.

"On this point, I concede."

Chen Jiahao watched the scene of them shaking hands from the side, muttering:

"Every time you two talk, it's like there are three cameras set up behind you."

His phone vibrated.

Xu Changge saw it first.

He clicked on the WeChat group.

The message was from Professor Liu Zuoqing.

No text.

Only a screenshot.

The content of the screenshot was the internal statistics page of the Qinglan Project.

Thirty names, neatly arranged.

Behind each name, a logo of the same color was lit up.

Green.

Next to the logo, it uniformly read: [Public reading met, entered expert final evaluation.]

Thirty names, thirty green logos.

Everyone in the Program passed.

The next second, Professor Liu Zuoqing sent a second message:

[The expert final evaluation will only keep ten seats. The day after tomorrow at 8:00 AM, the first round of anonymous cross-examination.]

...