583: Chapter 583 The Ten Seats of Kunpeng

There was exactly one hour left until the announcement of the Kunpeng final ten seats.

At eight in the morning, Lin Que pushed open the door to Dormitory 303.

Xu Changge sat at his desk, a notebook filled with annotations spread out beside him, his pen tip hovering over a line of text, having remained there for a long time.

He looked up at Lin Que, nodded, and then looked back down.

Lin Que placed the breakfast bag on the corner of the desk.

Inside the bag were hot soy milk, deep-fried dough sticks, and a box of steamed buns.

"Eat something."

"Thanks."

Xu Changge nodded, but his hand remained pressed against that page of notes.

His gaze fell on a page in the notebook, his index finger pressing on a line of text, as if he were repeatedly confirming something.

Lin Que said nothing more.

He climbed onto the upper bunk, sat back against the wall, and took out his phone.

On the screen was the official page for the Kunpeng Award.

At the very top of the announcement board hung a line of bold red text: "The final results will be announced promptly at 9:00 AM today."

Rapid footsteps echoed from the hallway.

Chen Jiahao, with Dan Yi in tow, rushed from Dormitory 305 into 303, the door slamming against the wall with a sound that was exceptionally clear in the hallway.

He was still clutching his phone in his hand.

"It's 8:33!"

Chen Jiahao paced back and forth in the room, the soles of his shoes squeaking against the floor.

"Twenty-seven minutes left, twenty-seven minutes!"

Dan Yi followed him in and quietly found a stool to sit on.

Chen Jiahao had just sat down when he stood up again.

He turned his phone screen brightness to the maximum and stared fixedly at the Writers Association official website.

"Are you guys really not nervous?"

Lin Que leaned against the wall and tore open the bag of steamed buns.

"Does being nervous help?"

"It doesn't, but I'm just nervous!"

Dan Yi picked up his water cup, took a sip, set it down, and then picked it up again.

The water in the cup had barely decreased.

The room was quiet for a few seconds.

Chen Jiahao suddenly held his phone up to his eyes.

"The group chat has gone silent."

Lin Que glanced at the WeChat group for the Qinglan Project.

Usually, this group was active from morning to night—sharing material, quoting golden sentences, and teasing each other; with thirty young people gathered together, the messages almost never stopped.

The group chat interface was unusually quiet.

The last message was from 11:43 last night, a screenshot of study notes sent by Han Yi.

Since then, for a full eight hours, not a single person had said a word.

Even the most active people had disappeared.

No emojis. No "good morning." No "what are we eating at the cafeteria today."

The silence of thirty people at once was a sound in itself.

8:41 AM.

Finally, someone in the group broke the silence.

Yuan Ningning sent a message with a screenshot attached.

The screenshot was a report from the Literary Weekly, with the headline: "Number of Applicants for This Year's Kunpeng Youth Literature Award Hits Record High, 4,217 Valid Manuscripts Competing."

Yuan Ningning's text followed: "Four thousand two hundred and seventeen people fighting for ten spots. The highest record in previous years was two thousand six hundred. This year, it broke four thousand."

The message bar paused for five seconds.

Zhong Hengyuan replied: "And there are quite a few established authors among this year's contestants. I saw a few familiar faces on the public reading page during the public reading stage; they are all authors who have been serializing in provincial journals for years."

Wei Yiming added: "There's a contestant from our Guangxi Province division who is thirty years old this year, has published two novels, and has won the provincial first prize three times."

Chen Jiahao stared at these messages, his throat bobbing.

"Picking ten out of over four thousand..." he muttered. "How is this more exaggerated than the College Entrance Examination?"

Someone else in the group added a message. It was Tang He.

"There's a famous case from a past Kunpeng final. In the third year, there was a case disclosed only after the competition: a vice Chairman of a Provincial Writers Association entered with an anonymous manuscript, ranked fourth during the public reading stage, but after entering the final, only received three recommendation votes and was still cut."

"Later, when reporters interviewed the judging panel, the only answer they got was: 'On the judging panel, we only recognize the writing, not the business card.'"

After this message was sent, the group fell silent again.

Chen Jiahao tossed his phone onto the bed and squatted on the floor with his hands on his head.

"If even a vice Chairman of a Writers Association can be cut, then we…"

"All thirty of us passed the public reading." Xu Changge finally looked up and closed his notebook.

His tone was flat, as if stating a fact. "Being able to walk to the final stage at least shows that our manuscripts have already passed the first hard threshold."

"Before the results are out, doing anything is the same." Lin Que crumpled the finished bag into a ball and accurately threw it into the trash can by the door. "Might as well eat breakfast."

Chen Jiahao looked up at him, then at the breakfast bag on the corner of the table. "...Alright then."

He stood up from the floor, tore open the seal of a cup of soy milk, and took a big gulp. He grimaced from the heat.

8:47 AM.

Messages in the group began to appear intermittently. But no one was chatting.

Everyone was sending the same type of content: data, past cases, screenshots of judging rules. It was as if they were using information to fill the void of waiting.

8:52 AM.

Dan Yi suddenly spoke up: "Does anyone know the list of judges for this year's final?"

Xu Changge glanced at him. "It won't be announced. The rule for closed-door judging is that judge information is completely confidential until the results are announced."

"But we can guess." Chen Jiahao said, with a dough stick in his mouth, speaking indistinctly. "Elder Su and Elder Cui will likely be there, Elder Xu…"

He paused and snuck a glance at Xu Changge. Xu Changge did not respond.

Lin Que leaned against the railing of the upper bunk, his thumb unconsciously sliding across his phone screen. His expression was calm, and the rhythm of his breathing did not change.

Chen Jiahao was no longer pacing back and forth. He sat on the chair next to Xu Changge, his legs shaking incessantly, his eyes checking the time in the top right corner of his phone every few seconds.

Dan Yi's water cup had been picked up and set down no less than ten times, and the cup wall had already been warmed by the heat of his palms.

8:55 AM.

A message popped up in the group. Professor Liu Zuoqing. Only one sentence. [Everyone, get ready.]

Not one of the thirty people replied. But Lin Que knew that at this moment, the screens of thirty phones were lit up, and thirty pairs of eyes were fixed on the same place.

Chen Jiahao's breathing became rapid. He held his phone in his hand, his thumb hovering over the refresh button, his fingertips trembling.

"Five minutes." His voice was hoarse.

Xu Changge slowly stood up. He walked to the window and pulled the curtain halfway open. Early winter sunlight spilled in, landing on the cover of the closed notebook on the desk.

He stood there, back to everyone, his shoulder line pulled taut.

8:58 AM.

Lin Que flipped down from the upper bunk. He stood in the center of the room, his gaze sweeping over the three people present.

Chen Jiahao was gripping his phone tightly, and Xu Changge stood motionless in front of the window.

"No matter the result," Lin Que said, his voice not loud, but everyone in the room heard it. "The things we submitted are worthy of ourselves."

No one answered. But the force with which Chen Jiahao gripped his phone loosened just a little.

8:59 AM. The final sixty seconds.

Chen Jiahao's palms were full of sweat, leaving a blur of fingerprints on the phone screen.

He stared fixedly at the Writers Association official website page; he had pressed the refresh button more than thirty times, and each time it popped up with the same "No updates yet."

His breathing became shallow and fast. The entire dormitory building was abnormally quiet. The neighbors in 304 and 306 had also gone quiet, and the entire hallway seemed to have had its breath held by someone.

9:00 AM.

Chen Jiahao's phone screen flashed. The page refreshed automatically.

A new announcement popped up at the top of the China Writers Association official website, in bold red font, with a timestamp accurate to the second: 09:00:00.

[Kunpeng Youth Literature Award · Final Ten Seats List Now Announced]

Chen Jiahao's finger tapped on it, and during the two seconds it took to load the page, he even stopped breathing.

The loading icon stuck in the center of the screen. Chen Jiahao held his breath. One second, two seconds. The next second.

Ten names, arranged by pinyin initials, in bold black type, were neatly lined up in the center of the screen. ...