579: Chapter 579 A pendulum, or a person?

The review hall was silent for a long time.

Several valid voting seats did not turn the page immediately; Tao Zhiyan stared at that "first sentence," his knuckles pressing against the edge of the terminal.

"At this point, Liang Shoushan has changed from a character into an entrance," Gu Changfeng said in a low voice.

Professor Zhang circled the words "Muchuan Town" again, his expression much more serious than before.

The main text continued to scroll downward.

[Every evening at 5:30, Old Zhao would appear on time on the patrol route outside the east wall.]

[That route had long since lost its meaning. The factory sign had been taken down, the warning signs had faded, and even the patrol logbooks were piled up in the depths of the warehouse, covered in dust.]

[Yet he still walked it.]

[Footsteps echoed through the empty factory area, one step after another, like some stubborn beat.]

[In the family housing building, Auntie Song's qin opera started right on time.]

["So bitter..."]

[The voice was drawn out long, the tail end of the sound swirling in the rain and mist.]

[Old Zhao's footsteps paused for a moment.]

[Then he continued forward.]

[As his left foot landed, the opera singing reached its highest pitch.]

[As his right foot lifted, the lyrics cut off in mid-air.]

[For twenty years, his patrol line had never deviated from the range where that qin opera could reach.]

Professor Zhang pressed the pause button.

"I would like to raise a question first."

Elder Cui Wen looked up at him.

"Is there a fatal flaw in the rhythmic chain?"

Professor Zhang shook his head, not answering immediately.

He marked all four points— "left foot landed," "opera reached highest pitch," "right foot lifted," and "lyrics cut off in mid-air"—in red.

"It's not a fatal flaw; on the contrary, it's too precise."

The review hall went quiet for a moment.

Professor Zhang's voice grew deeper.

"An old man who has guarded the old factory area for twenty years, an old woman who hums broken opera tunes every evening. The author has written their actions and sounds to fit together perfectly."

"That is certainly beautiful."

"But what is most dangerous in literature is precisely this kind of beauty."

He looked up at the main screen.

"What I am doubting now is not whether the author has the ability, but whether he has turned real life into a specimen for the sake of structural beauty."

"Left foot lands, high note rises. Right foot lifts, lyrics cut off."

"Would it be this neat in reality?"

"Or did the author place both Old Zhao and Auntie Song into his own rhythmic model just so the judges could see this so-called 'intertextuality'?"

As these words fell, the atmosphere in the review hall suddenly tightened.

Several valid voting seats stopped writing at the same time.

This question was sharper than "whether it holds up."

It directly questioned the foundation of "qin opera."

If these details were merely literary devices forcibly arranged by the author, then all previous judgments regarding reality and restraint would have to be re-examined.

Xue Hongchuan did not stop him.

"The question is valid."

He looked at Tao Zhiyan.

"Verify the facts first. Only verify the facts; do not make literary evaluations."

Tao Zhiyan opened the sealed materials.

His red light was still on.

This meant that every sentence he spoke from then on would be labeled by the system as a "Fact Verification Seat Statement" and could not enter the scoring recommendation chain.

"The distance between the Muchuan Town family housing and the east wall is measured at 173 meters."

"Auntie Song originally lived on the second floor of Building 3; it is the common testimony of old residents that she sang qin opera at the corridor entrance in the evening."

"Regarding Old Zhao's evening patrol route, the old guardroom patrol logbook has intermittent records from 2001 to 2014. Although no one checked it later, three residents in the town confirmed that he still maintained this habit."

Tao Zhiyan pulled up a floor plan of the old factory area.

"Here is Building 3."

"Here is the east wall."

"In between are the old canteen and an open space. On rainy days, the sound would be partially blocked by the factory walls, but the high notes of the qin opera could reach outside the east wall."

He paused.

"As for whether the footsteps and the singing correspond precisely, the materials cannot prove it."

"Fact verification can only confirm: Auntie Song sang, Old Zhao walked, and their time and space overlapped. The specific rhythm is the author's literary treatment."

Xue Hongchuan nodded.

"Record it."

Beside the console, He Yuanda typed a line into the system:

[A-081: The qin opera and the patrol route have a factual basis. The synchronization of footsteps and singing is a literary treatment; pending judgment on its reasonableness by the valid voting seats.]

Professor Zhang looked at the main screen.

"Then my doubt still stands."

"Literary treatment is not a crime, but excessive treatment will flatten a character."

"If every step Old Zhao takes serves only as a symbol, he is no longer a person, but a pendulum."

Gu Changfeng did not immediately refute.

His voting privileges were also locked, so he looked at Xue Hongchuan first.

Xue Hongchuan said:

"Chairman Gu may discuss textual evidence, but not make a recommendation judgment."

Only then did Gu Changfeng speak.

"Professor Zhang's question is necessary."

He pulled up several passages from the previous text.

[Old Zhao had received three transfer requests. Each one, he returned exactly as it was.]

[After the workshop shut down, he moved to the guardroom and continued walking the night patrol route.]

[Whenever the grass at the foot of the wall grew tall, he would cut it down.]

[Every time he reached outside the east wall, he would reach out to touch the faded warning sign. The cigarette in his pocket would also be pressed back down by him.]

Gu Changfeng said:

"If there were only 'left foot' and 'right foot' here, it would indeed be too neat."

"But the text has already repeatedly written about Old Zhao's repetitive behaviors."

"Three transfer requests returned, nine pairs of rubber shoes worn out, grass cut every time it grew, cigarettes pressed back into his pocket."

"This is not the author suddenly turning him into a pendulum."

"The character of Old Zhao has been written from the beginning as someone who relies on repetition to maintain his memories."

He placed the three sections— "footsteps," "patrol route," and "cigarette"—onto the same split screen.

"Therefore, the rhythm of his footsteps here is not a symbol designed out of thin air."

"It is the result of the character's twenty-year lifestyle."

Professor Zhang stared at the split screen without speaking.

A judge from the Provincial Writers Association, who was a valid voting seat, took over.

"Let me add one point."

He highlighted "the range where the qin opera could reach."

"The author did not write that Old Zhao sang along with Auntie Song, nor did he write that he deliberately matched the beat."

"The text says 'the patrol line never deviated from the range where that qin opera could reach.'"

"The focus of this judgment is not the precise rhythm, but the spatial choice."

"For twenty years, he never left the place where that sound could reach."

Professor Zhang tapped his pen lightly on the table.

"In other words, you believe the issue of being 'too precise' has been partially resolved by the previous repetitive behaviors and spatial logic."

Gu Changfeng said:

"Not completely resolved."

"It still has traces of literary processing."

"But this processing has roots; it is not empty rhetoric."

Xue Hongchuan looked at Professor Zhang.

"Do you maintain your doubt?"

"I do."

Professor Zhang wrote on the evaluation form:

[The intertextuality between the qin opera and the footsteps is valid, but the localized sense of synchronization is a bit too strong; one must be wary of symbols suppressing the character.]

After writing, he added another sentence.

[The repetitive behaviors in the previous text provide support for this treatment; it is not judged as unrealistic for now.]

The main screen continued to load.

[On the fifteenth night, I finally saw Old Zhao enter the restricted area of the east wall.]

[He used that old key to open the rusted iron gate, the light of his flashlight flickering among the ruins.]

[I did not follow him in.]

[I just stood outside the gate and heard him walking inside for a long time.]

[The footsteps were very light, as if afraid of waking something up.]

[After more than ten minutes, the flashlight beam stopped.]

[I heard him sit down.]

[Then there was an extremely light tapping sound.]

[One tap.]

[Another tap.]

[The sound was mixed within Auntie Song's qin opera, almost about to be drowned out by the rain.]

[I walked forward a few steps and looked in through a gap in the iron gate.]

[Old Zhao was sitting in front of a stone tablet, his right hand resting on his knee.]

[His index and middle fingers were slightly curled, tapping on his pant leg, beat by beat, following the rhythm of the qin opera.]

[The movement was too light.]

[So light that it was as if he were keeping time for someone.]

Tao Zhiyan's reading progress stopped.

He turned back to the previous text, finding the passage where Liang Shoushan taught Old Zhao to sing qin opera.

[Liang Shoushan sang at the top of his lungs, while Old Zhao sat on a toolbox peeling peanuts.]

["You'll never learn this in your lifetime."]

["Then don't teach me."]

["Tomorrow, we continue."]

The two passages were separated by dozens of pages.

Yet the image of Liang Shoushan teaching the qin opera back then and the action of Old Zhao sitting in front of the tablet tapping his knee now overlapped in that moment.

Tao Zhiyan put down his pen.

He wanted to speak, but found his throat tightening.

No one in the review hall urged him on.

Everyone was looking at that passage of text.

Old Zhao did not cry.

He did not shout.

He did not say anything to the stone tablet.

He just sat there, using two fingers to keep time for someone who had been dead for twenty years.

Elder Cui Wen pulled up the data panel.

"From the beginning to here, the words Old Zhao has actually spoken total less than three hundred characters."

He projected the statistical results onto the main screen.

"The author has used a large amount of space to write about his silence."

"Silent while patrolling, silent while looking at warning signs, silent while listening to qin opera."

"The most significant time he spoke was those five words he repeated before the restricted area."

Elder Cui Wen magnified that line of dialogue.

["Take the person away quickly."]

Those were the last five words Liang Shoushan left for him.

Twenty years later, Old Zhao finally handed them over for someone else to hear for the first time.

Professor Zhang raised his hand.

"I have a question."

He pulled up the "tapping knee" passage separately.

"Old Zhao's actions in front of the tablet are written with great restraint. There is only tapping; there is no outward display of emotion."

"When emotion is suppressed to this degree, it is very easy for readers to only see the action and not the person."

Gu Changfeng did not answer immediately.

He turned to the previous text, finding the passage where Auntie Song sang the qin opera.

[When she sang to the high notes, she would always suddenly go mute.]

[Half a note hung in the rain, unable to fall.]

Then came the passage of Old Zhao in front of the tablet.

[His index and middle fingers were slightly curled, tapping on his pant leg, beat by beat, following the rhythm of the qin opera.]

Gu Changfeng looked at these two passages.

"The qin opera breaks in Auntie Song's throat, and the beat remains in Old Zhao's hands."

He looked up.

"The sense of pain has shifted from the voice into the body; this stroke is heavier."

Professor Zhang re-read that passage of text.

Auntie Song could no longer sing the qin opera completely.

But Old Zhao still remembered the complete rhythm.

He used twenty years of repetition to keep that complete qin opera in his muscle memory.

Professor Zhang added a line after his previous question.

[Emotion is not outwardly displayed, but the sense of pain is deeper.]

Su Mubai spoke.

"These two fingers are heavier than a whole passage of wailing."

Everyone looked at him.

"The most difficult part of this passage is that the author pressed the pain into the movement of two fingers, letting the readers hear it themselves."

"Old Zhao did not cry or shout at the tablet, did not ask why fate was unfair."

"He just sat there, keeping time for a dead person."

Su Mubai marked the "tapping knee" and "qin opera" images side by side.

"The author used the incompleteness of the sound to support twenty years of regret."

"This kind of restraint has reached the point where readers must fill in the emotions themselves."

The main screen continued downward.

[I stood outside the door, watching Old Zhao's back.]

[He sat in front of the tablet for a long time.]

[Until Auntie Song's qin opera stopped completely, he slowly stood up.]

[Before leaving, he took out the cigarette from his pocket that he had never lit.]

[He broke the cigarette into two pieces.]

[He placed one piece in the soil in front of the tablet.]

[He put the other piece back into his pocket.]

[He did not look back.]

[He just locked the door and walked back along the patrol path.]

[The sound of footsteps gradually faded away in the rain.]

[I returned to the guesthouse and opened my notebook.]

[In the first line, I wrote:]

["qin opera."]

Tao Zhiyan's hand stopped on the terminal.

He remembered the scene from a month ago, of Lin Que standing at the street corner of Muchuan Town.

At that time, he asked Lin Que:

"How do you plan to write it?"

Lin Que answered at the time:

"I will make Old Zhao live in the readers' hearts."

Now this manuscript lay before his eyes.

Old Zhao was not written as someone waiting for sympathy.

He was not molded into a tall, towering hero either.

He was just a line-keeper walking in the rain year after year.

Yet Tao Zhiyan knew clearly that once such a person was written to life, he could preserve Muchuan more effectively than any loud praise.

Tao Zhiyan typed a line into the written comments section.

[Old Zhao's silence is louder than all the dialogue.]