7: Essay Topic: Hope

Jiang City Cultural Palace.

One of the few landmark buildings in this city.

Unlike the futuristic floating tracks and holographic billboards surrounding it.

This building retains the rustic style of the last century.

The gray brick walls and tall colonnades exuded a solemnity that was out of tune with the entire era.

Lin Que carried a simple backpack and stood in the square in front of the Cultural Palace.

He looked up at the huge banner hanging at the entrance——

"Semifinals of the 18th Jiang City Qingyun Cup High School Students Live Composition Contest".

He curled his lips, feeling a little amused.

In his past life,

he could drink with investors until his stomach bled just for the naming rights of a script.

Now, he still had to come back and compete with a group of wet-behind-the-ears high school students in writing an eight-hundred-word composition.

Life was truly filled with black humor.

Lin Que's gaze swept across the crowd and froze on a familiar figure beside a Roman column.

Shen Qingqiu.

Today, she was not wearing her signature professional suit, but had changed into an off-white trench coat.

The light blue turtleneck sweater made her complexion look even paler.

Gone was her usual sharpness, replaced instead by a kind of exhaustion and softness.

She was forcing herself to stay awake, and even her gaze when looking at people lacked a bit of focus.

The shock brought to her by "the human world is like a prison" had kept her from sleeping well for several nights.

Lin Que walked over quickly.

"Teacher Shen, I'm here."

When Shen Qingqiu saw him, her eyes were somewhat complex.

She opened her mouth,

but looking at the noisy environment around, she ultimately swallowed her words back down.

"Mm, it's good that you're here. Sign in and get ready to enter the venue."

Her tone returned to its usual icy aloofness.

"Yo, isn't this Lin Que?"

Just as he was signing in, a sarcastic voice sounded nearby.

Lin Que turned his head to look, and it was Zhang Ya, the study committee member of their class,

walking over while arm-in-arm with a classmate wearing another school's uniform.

"I really didn't expect you to be able to come to the Semifinals as well. Teacher Shen really has... unique discernment."

She deliberately heightened her tone on the four words "unique discernment", and anyone could hear the mockery within.

Last time,

Shen Qingqiu announced in front of the whole class that Lin Que and she would represent the school in the competition, which had always bothered Zhang Ya.

In her view,

a poor student like Lin Que who relied on a little cleverness to write attention-seeking things was simply an insult to literature.

Therefore, she disdained to associate with him.

"Yeah, I didn't expect it either."

Lin Que couldn't be bothered to argue with her and replied in a flat tone.

"Maybe it's because I'm relatively handsome."

"You!"

Zhang Ya was choked enough by his shameless words, her face turning flush red.

She pushed her thick-rimmed glasses and let out a furious snort.

"Lin Que, the competition venue is not a place for you to write those freaky and weird things to catch people's eyes.

If this time's theme is a grand narrative, your little cleverness won't come in handy anymore,

Don't go off-topic when the time comes and lose face for Jiangcheng No. 1 High School."

Finished speaking, she took her friend's arm and walked haughtily into the examination room.

Lin Que looked at their backs, feeling a bit bored.

Quarreling with this bunch of brats truly lowered his class.

He yawned and leisurely followed them in.

Shen Qingqiu stopped him with words hanging on her lips.

"Um... Lin Que. Remember what I told you, the judges are relatively conservative, you... you write carefully."

She originally wanted to say "don't write those scary things", but felt it inappropriate once the words reached her lips.

Her heart was very conflicted right now.

On one hand, as a teacher, she hoped Lin Que could get a good ranking and win honor for the school.

On the other hand, deep down in her heart, she faintly looked forward to seeing what else this teenager could write that would shock the world.

"Got it, Teacher."

Lin Que nodded, his expression showing no particular emotion.

The competition venue was the grand auditorium on the third floor of the Cultural Palace, where quite a few students were already seated.

The participating students sat according to designated positions, separated by a long distance from each other, eliminating any possibility of cheating.

Lin Que found Jiangcheng No. 1 High School's examination area and sat down at the spot with his name pasted on it.

At the front of the classroom, a row of judges sat.

Lin Que glanced at them; there were about five or six, all middle-aged and elderly people with graying hair and reading glasses.

They looked just like those prestigious old pedants.

Sitting right in the middle was an old man with a thin, gaunt face and a solemn expression.

The name tag on his chest read:

Chairman of the Jiang City Writers Association.

Wang Shouyi.

Lin Que knew what was going on in his heart.

True to his name, this person was probably the leading figure of the "conservative faction" in Teacher Shen's mouth.

At nine o'clock in the morning, the bell rang.

Wang Shouyi cleared his throat, picked up the microphone, and began to speak in a cadenced, official tone.

"Students, teachers, welcome everyone to the Semifinals of the 18th Jiang City Qingyun Cup High School Students Live Composition Contest.

Literature is the lighthouse of the era, the torch of the soul.

The purpose of our holding this competition is to discover new literary saplings with potential, thoughts, and positive energy..."

A lengthy opening speech made the students below drowsy.

Lin Que was even more bored, starting to study the structure of the chandelier on the ceiling.

Finally, after a dozen minutes, Wang Shouyi got to the point.

"... Upholding our consistent purpose, we hope students can use your pens to write about light and depict beauty.

Therefore, the composition theme of this Semifinals is——"

He paused, picked up a writing brush, and wrote two large characters in a flying and unrestrained manner on the large red paper behind him.

"Hope."

Seeing this topic, a slight commotion sounded in the examination room.

Most students showed expressions of relief.

This topic was too conventional and too easy to write.

Praising the motherland, praising the era, praising struggle, looking forward to the future...

Cutting in from whichever angle, one could write a steady and sound "excellent composition".

Zhang Ya even revealed a smile of absolute certainty; she had already begun listing outlines on her draft paper.

Only Lin Que, looking at those two glaring red characters, frowned slightly.

Hope?

This topic is really...

Without any challenge at all.

In his past life writing suspense scripts, what he was best at was creating despair and crushing hope.

Now asking him to write about hope in reverse, he really felt a bit unaccustomed to it.

However...

Who says that hope must necessarily be bright?

The corners of Lin Que's mouth slowly curved into an arc.

He thought of an exquisite idea.

A story sufficient to subvert everyone's perception of the word "hope".

He picked up his pen, not rushing to write an outline like others, but closed his eyes and began to construct the scenes of the whole story in his mind.

...

Time passed minute by minute.

In the examination room, only the rustling sound of writing remained.

At the judges' table, several judges were drinking tea out of sheer boredom.

This kind of live composition, they had been judging for over a decade; every year what they saw was roughly the same, and they had long suffered from aesthetic fatigue.

"Sigh, it's hope again. Old Wang, can't we change to a slightly more novel topic?"

A judge wearing gold-rimmed glasses and possessing a relatively refined temperament said softly to Wang Shouyi.

He was a literature professor at Jiangcheng University, named Li Yuanchao.

Wang Shouyi took a sip of tea and said dismissively:

"Professor Li, you don't understand this. The more grandiose such a theme is, the more it can test a student's ideological depth and literary foundation.

Those fancy topics will only make students take unorthodox paths and write some attention-seeking things."

As he spoke, he glanced pointedly at Shen Qingqiu sitting in the corner audit seat.

A few days ago, that piece "back to back" published by Shen Qingqiu in the Writers Association chat group, he had read it.

His evaluation was: utter nonsense, corrupting students!

So today he specially chose the topic of hope, wanting to set things straight and guide students back to the right path.

Li Yuanchao smiled and didn't say anything more.

He knew Wang Shouyi's temper; he was extremely stubborn.

He picked up a list of participating students and looked at it, his gaze falling on a name.

"Lin Que, Jiangcheng No. 1 High School... That's the student recommended by Teacher Shen, right? I wonder how he will write about this topic."

Wang Shouyi let out a light snort.

Slowly blowing away the tea foam, his gaze was sharp.

"Yuanchao, you know that literature must trace the source and clear the roots.

Look at some young people nowadays, always liking to stuff sensational gimmicks between the lines, thinking this is innovation.

But a truly good article is not about form, but whether there is backbone internally.

Take that student named Lin Que for example, still relying on that attention-seeking writing style to write about hope?

Hmph, in my opinion, he can't even break the topic!"

Wang Shouyi's gaze slowly swept across the audience; most students were writing furiously with focused expressions.

When his line of sight swept over the Jiangcheng No. 1 High School representatives, it stopped.

That student named Lin Que was actually leaning back in his chair, resting his eyes.

He was even spinning his pen leisurely between his fingers, without the slightest sense of tension of being in a competition venue.

Wang Shouyi's brows knitted into a knot.

He put down his teacup, making a slight but clear clinking sound.

He didn't look at Lin Que, instead turning to Li Yuanchao, his tone flat yet revealing unsuppressable disappointment:

"Yuanchao, look at the young people nowadays.

Is this the genius strongly recommended by Teacher Shen?

In my view, he doesn't even have the most basic respect for the competition venue. If the heart is not calm, how can one write?

No, I want to drive him out of the examination room!"

Li Yuanchao glanced at Lin Que and hurriedly stopped him.

"Old Wang, don't be hasty. After all, the competition time hasn't even passed the halfway mark; maybe he is conceiving ideas?

We always say articles are naturally formed, and wondrous hands occasionally capture them. Good inspiration takes time.

I'll go over and take a look first!"

Wang Shouyi let out a heavy snort, wanting to say something, but still held it back.

He wanted to see what on earth this kid named Lin Que could hold back and squeeze out!

And at this moment, in Lin Que's mind, a complete story had already been constructed.

He opened his eyes, his gaze clear and bright.

He picked up his pen and wrote two characters on the title column of the composition booklet.

"firefly"