585: Chapter 585 The True Meaning of Blue and Green

Xu Changge was just about to speak when Chen Jiahao raised his hand to stop him.

"Brother Xu, don't try to persuade me."

He looked up, his face still wearing that devil-may-care smile. Only the trace of disappointment in his eyes had been forcibly suppressed.

"I know where I fell short."

Xu Changge paused.

Chen Jiahao leaned back against the chair, hands clasped behind his head.

"I read Tang He's 'Market' three times last night."

"From the second chapter on, the overt and covert plot lines were locked in. The vendors, the passersby, the old buildings, the demolition notices—every subplot eventually tied back to that market."

He twitched the corner of his mouth.

"My 'Sounds of the City' is lively enough, and it hooks the reader in the beginning. But by the middle, once there were too many characters and too much noise, I lost my own way."

"Her middle section was still tightening towards the theme, while mine was just left with atmosphere."

Chen Jiahao clenched his fist and tapped it lightly on his knee.

"The structure is a level off, and the depth is a level off too."

"In conclusion: I lost fairly."

The dormitory went quiet.

Xu Changge looked at him, and all the words he had prepared were swallowed back.

Chen Jiahao looked up at Lin Que.

"Master Que, I'm serious."

"I didn't make it in this round, but I'll come back for the next."

"For the next Kunpeng Award, just wait and see if I'm among those ten names or not."

Lin Que leaned against the bed frame, his expression devoid of any perfunctoriness. He simply nodded.

"I'll be waiting to see."

Chen Jiahao felt firmly caught by that response, and his shoulders finally relaxed.

He leaned back completely, letting out a long breath.

"Alright, that's enough for me."

Beside them, Dan Yi had been holding a water cup. The water inside had gone cold, but he hadn't taken more than a few sips. At this moment, he finally spoke.

"My problem is different from yours."

All three of them looked at him.

Dan Yi lowered his eyes, his fingertips gently rubbing the rim of the cup.

"I revised 'the rainy season in the south' four times."

"Every time, I unconsciously stuffed things into it."

"The feeling of being ostracized all those years, the way others looked at me, and the things I had been holding back for a long time."

He paused for a few seconds.

"Later on, the more I wrote, the more cluttered it got."

"There were three segments in the middle that I couldn't bear to delete at the time. Looking back now, those words were just me venting, and they didn't advance the character relationships at all."

He set the water cup on the table. His voice was soft but steady.

"That was no longer storytelling."

"It was emotion hijacking the pen."

Chen Jiahao tilted his head and looked at him for a moment.

"Dan Yi, you've changed quite a bit these past few months."

Dan Yi didn't respond to that, just moved the corner of his mouth slightly.

Lin Que stood to the side, never interjecting. One was a wealthy young master from Guangdong Province, the other a mixed-race teenager from Mo City.

When they first entered the Program, one treated being a genius as a spectacle, while the other was accustomed to hiding behind everyone else's gaze.

Now, one could look at a list of over four thousand people and admit defeat convincingly. The other could personally tear open his own most painful parts. They had crossed this hurdle themselves.

Chen Jiahao picked up his phone again and opened the Qinglan Project group chat.

He originally wanted to send, "Congratulations to Master Que, Brother Xu, and Tang He." But as soon as the input box lit up, the screen was already flooded with messages.

Zhong Hengyuan sent a long paragraph.

"The pacing in the second half of my 'Casting' dragged. From chapter seven to nine, the protagonist's motivation changed twice. When I was writing, I only focused on pushing the plot forward and didn't think clearly about why he would change. The foundation of the outline was shaky. Congratulations to the three of you for making the top ten; you deserve it."

Immediately following was Wei Yiming.

"I re-read my draft alongside 'qin opera'. I have the material too, but the gap lies in the handling. Master Que can press the pain into the actions, while I can't help but let the characters speak their bitterness aloud. This flaw—I'll practice to death to fix it when I get back."

Yuan Ningning also added a message.

"'Wind of Donglu' ended up being written like a thesis. There were enough allusions, but the characters didn't come alive. In Tang He's 'Market', everyone has their own breath. My characters here are only responsible for proving a point. I need to make up for this lesson."

Messages kept rushing up one after another.

Some wrote very briefly.

"I accept it, will keep writing."

Some just sent a fist-clenched emoji. Others stayed silent for a long time before typing: "I still have a long way to go."

Even after dozens of messages scrolled by, no one said a word about "the judges being biased." And no one used "luck" as an excuse for themselves.

Chen Jiahao stared at the screen, his mouth opening wider and wider.

"This bunch of people…" He wanted to laugh, but couldn't.

Someone in the group even called names directly.

"Lin Que, was the decay of Auntie Song's opera singing in 'qin opera' set as the main plotline from the beginning, or was it revised later?"

"Xu Changge, was that old rope and the seven knots in 'rules on the wilderness' there in the outline stage, or did they pop up halfway through writing?"

"Tang He, did you completely scrap the first twenty thousand words of 'Market'? From which draft did you start pulling the lines back together?"

Tang He replied quickly.

"I'll organize all my revision records later and send them to the group tonight."

Immediately, a wave of "waiting" flooded below.

Chen Jiahao scrolled the chat interface up and back down. The trace of disappointment in his eyes had completely dissipated.

This group of people hadn't been crushed by the top ten list. On the contrary, they seemed to have been ignited by this list.

Just then, a voice message popped up. Professor Liu Zuoqing. Duration: one minute and forty-seven seconds. The dormitory went instantly quiet.

Chen Jiahao opened the voice message and turned the volume to the maximum. Professor Liu Zuoqing's aged but powerful voice rang out in Dormitory 303.

"I saw the messages in the group."

"Some things I originally intended to wait until you returned to class to say. Now, I'll say them in advance."

"Four thousand two hundred and seventeen manuscripts, and only ten emerged. This ratio is very cruel."

"Lin Que, Xu Changge, and Tang He entered the door, and they deserve it."

"The other twenty-seven people also let me see something else today."

"You didn't rush to find excuses, you didn't attribute others' achievements to luck, and you didn't shy away from your own shortcomings."

"How far a writer can go often doesn't depend on how beautifully they win."

"It depends on whether, when they lose, they dare to tear their own manuscript open and see clearly which bone inside has grown crooked."

"Today's clarity is more precious than a trophy."

"It will make you drift a little less and sink a little deeper the next time you put pen to paper."

The voice message ended. The group was silent for seven seconds. Seven seconds later, the messages exploded again.

"Professor Liu, I'm going to the large classroom to critique drafts tomorrow night. Who's coming?"

"Count me in."

"I'll bring my first draft and a public critique."

"Don't hold back when critiquing each other, be harsh."

"I'm coming too."

Chen Jiahao turned the screen for Dan Yi to see. Dan Yi glanced at it and nodded lightly.

"They are indeed strong."

Chen Jiahao stuffed his phone back into his pocket and chuckled.

"Strong in that refusal to bow their heads."

Xu Changge leaned by the window, the light from his phone screen reflecting on his face. He read the group messages from beginning to end, and it was a long while before he looked up.

"What the Qinglan Project truly wants to leave behind is perhaps this." He looked at Lin Que. "Once someone enters the door, the people behind know where the door is."

Lin Que set down the cold soy milk on the table. He walked to the window.

The early winter city of Beijing was pressed under a layer of gray-white fog; the silhouettes of buildings in the distance were blurred, and the direction where the Writers Association building stood was indistinct.

"The final top ten list is just an admission ticket." Lin Que spoke. "The defense panel is the place where the blade truly falls."

The smile on Chen Jiahao's face faded a little. Xu Changge also looked up at him.

Lin Que continued: "The core of your 'rules on the wilderness' is the order between strangers."

"The core of my 'qin opera' is the memory left behind in time."

"Tang He's 'Market' has the loneliness among urban crowds as its core."

"The three manuscripts are completely different in their approaches, and the judges' blades will fall from different places." He turned to look at Xu Changge.

"From now on, you must disassemble your manuscript sentence by sentence."

"Every word choice, every change in rhythm, every paragraph deleted and added back, every source of material—you must be able to explain it all."

"Where you cannot answer for yourself, the judges will certainly pry it open for you."

Xu Changge was silent for a few seconds, his knuckles tapping lightly on the window frame.

"What about you?"

Lin Que picked up his coat and draped it over his arm. "I'm going into seclusion." He walked to the door, his hand already on the handle. "I'm going to dismantle 'qin opera' from the first sentence to the very last punctuation mark."

The door opened. The cold wind from the corridor blew in. Lin Que looked back at the three people in the dormitory. "See you in three days." The door closed. Footsteps faded away along the corridor.

Chen Jiahao lowered his head, looking at those ten names on his phone, and suddenly clenched his fist tightly.

Dan Yi picked up the water cup again, and this time, he finally took a sip. Xu Changge stood by the window, his gaze passing through the glass and falling into the depths of the gray fog.

Three days later. China Writers Association building.

The cameras would light up, and the judging panel would take their seats. Five to seven pairs of the most critical eyes would tear open their manuscripts in person. At that moment, these three names from the Program would have to personally catch the first blade handed to them by the adult literary world.