Can Support Chen Guiliang

Mo Du.

Eros Garden.

This is the location of the Hu Shang Writers Association.

The editorial departments of several magazines, including Harvest, Sprout, and Hu Shang Literature, are all located here.

On the second floor of the Sprout magazine office, contest submissions are piled high.

There's no longer room for them inside, and even the balcony outside is filled.

This year, there were actually only over 60,000 participants, but the number of submissions reached over 400,000, averaging out to 7 submissions per person.

Chen Guiliang only submitted 4, which is considered very conservative.

With over 400,000 preliminary submissions, reviewing them has become a physical task, and it's naturally impossible to burden the renowned writers.

The first step is rough screening.

This is done by ordinary editors, who select about 10,000 submissions of a certain standard.

The second step is detailed review.

This is carried out by the chief editor, deputy chief editors, and senior editors, as well as second-tier writers and literary critics residing in Mo Du. From those 10,000 submissions, 400 participants (Group A + Group B) are selected for the semi-finals.

Renowned writers like Yu Hua and Su Tong will not participate in the review process at this stage; they will only appear during the semi-finals.

In any matter in the world, as long as "profit" is involved, there will definitely be people wanting a slice of the pie.

The New Concept Composition Contest is no exception.

For example, certain well-known high schools, especially those in Mo Du, can recommend students to participate in the competition.

Of course, appearances still need to be kept up.

The usual procedure is this: a top-tier Chinese language teacher "polishes" their student's work and then recommends it under the school's name. A high-quality preliminary article is thus produced, guaranteed to pass the rough screening and with a high probability of entering the semi-finals.

Once in the semi-finals, they are guaranteed an honorable mention, and with good luck, they might even win a second or third prize.

Although it doesn't add points to the college entrance exam or guarantee admission to a prestigious university, having a prize record can be used to facilitate other things.

So, who knows how many of those 400 semi-final spots are filled by recommended students from prestigious schools.

At this moment, the preliminary review has concluded.

The submissions that were unfortunately eliminated are bundled in stacks of one hundred, labeled with stickers indicating "Group X 100 copies," and thrown in bundles onto the balcony of the editorial department.

They definitely can't be sold as scrap paper directly; it will take at least half a year to process them.

Zhao Yan and Hu Weishi are repeatedly reading the articles that passed.

One reason is to select twenty to thirty articles to be included in next year's Selected Winning Essays of the New Concept Contest; the other is to pick out individual promising candidates to be listed as key promotional and cultivation targets for Sprout.

"This Li Haiyang's essay is good, the writing is very seasoned," Zhao Yan said.

Zhao Yan is the chief editor's son, a senior editor and reporter at Sprout, and a future well-known suspense novelist. Currently, he is also active on Long Kong and has published a web novel through Long Kong.

He is considered an ancient web novel great god.

Hu Weishi said, "I called Li Haiyang yesterday. He said he's planning a full-length novel. He's finished the beginning, it's called The Youth Zha Biliang Injury Incident. But he's busy with his third year of high school studies and plans to continue writing after the college entrance exam."

Zhao Yan read dozens more essays and sighed, "Although the number of submissions has surged this year, the quality continues to decline. Most articles are formulaic and completely lack appeal."

Hu Weishi commented, "They are too utilitarian, all New Concept eight-legged essays, which goes against our original intention for holding the contest."

The main theme of the New Concept Composition Contest is "new," but the submissions received in recent years are incredibly "old-fashioned."

Counting them up, there are mainly two writing styles.

One imitates Han Han, pretending to be mature, but it's actually just showing off knowledge and being clever. They quote obscure books or famous sayings, write childish words pretending to be profound, and offer so-called sharp satire on social issues.

The other imitates Guo Xiaosi, playing at melancholy, forcing sadness for the sake of writing new words.

The number of submissions that can break free from these two styles is extremely small, and even fewer can write them well.

When the editors review the submissions, facing hundreds of thousands of manuscripts, it's no different from sifting for gold in excrement!

Whenever they encounter an article with a fresh idea, they have to read it repeatedly to cleanse their eyes. As for the trash manuscripts, they are done in a few seconds; looking at them any longer feels incredibly tiring.

"Look at Chen Guiliang's manuscripts," Hu Weishi tossed over a stack of manuscripts. "Four articles. One four-six parallel prose, one science fiction novel, one rural prose, and one reading essay. All passed the rough screening, which is very impressive."

Zhao Yan laughed, "Are people still writing parallel prose these days?"

"I even suspect if he found someone to ghostwrite, or if he just copied it from somewhere," Hu Weishi added, "He's Guo Xiaosi's schoolmate."

Hearing that he was Guo Xiaosi's schoolmate, Zhao Yan couldn't help but frown.

Chen Guiliang's four articles were clipped together by the review team with a paperclip.

Zhao Yan read the article A Call to Arms Against American Aggression in Iraq and immediately laughed, "As expected, it doesn't sound like a high school student's article. It must have been polished by a Chinese language teacher. These Chinese language teachers just hope their students win awards and become famous."

The full-score college entrance exam essay Death of Red Hare two years ago was also written in classical Chinese, and the author was even exceptionally admitted by Nanjing Normal University.

But that was just classical vernacular Chinese.

And Chen Guiliang's piece is four-six parallel prose!

Of course, the difficulty is impossible to evaluate.

After all, "Death of Red Hare" was written during the college entrance examination, with extremely limited writing time, and most people wouldn't have the guts to do it.

Below Chen Guiliang's article was Hu Weishi's comment: "It is extremely rare for a high school student to have such a foundation in classical Chinese. 'Ten thousand lives become new ghosts, a thousand years of civilization falls into the nine abysses,' this line fully expresses the cruelty of war and highlights the anti-war core of this article."

After reading the first article, Zhao Yan read the second one and his eyes lit up: "It's actually cyberpunk!"

Hu Weishi asked, "Isn't it science fiction? What is cyberpunk?"

Zhao Yan said, "Cyberpunk is a genre of science fiction. 'The Matrix' is cyberpunk."

"Is this kind of memory deletion, customization, replacement, and sale common in cyberpunk novels?" Hu Weishi asked.

Zhao Yan shook his head: "It doesn't seem common. It's a pity it's just a short story; it would be great if it could be expanded into a full-length novel."

He immediately wrote a comment: "The imagination is bizarre, and reading it makes one's hair stand on end. Although it is a five-thousand-word short story, it outlines a vivid and distorted future world."

Then he looked at the remaining two articles, all of which had comments.

In the past two or three years, fewer and fewer articles have been eligible for comments.

Even among the articles included in the "Selected Works of the New Concept Writing Competition Winners," more than one-third did not receive comments from the reviewers.

Because the quality was just average, writing comments felt like a waste of ink.

"Knock, knock, knock."

An editor knocked on the door, which was not closed: "Editor Hu, the editor-in-chief would like to see you."

"Coming."

Hu Weishi took several manuscripts and walked directly towards the editor-in-chief's office.

"Knock, knock, knock!"

"Please come in."

Inside the editor-in-chief's office sat two people.

One was Zhao Changtian, the editor-in-chief of "Sprout."

The other was Li Qigang, the general manager of the New Concept Competition.

Hu Weishi fanned away the smoke in the air, walked in, and joked, "Are you two praying to gods? How many cigarettes have you smoked?"

"No more smoking, respecting female comrades." Zhao Changtian got up and opened the window wider.

Hu Weishi asked, "Have you encountered something difficult?"

Li Qigang's expression was serious, and he said, "Major universities have further lowered their cooperation standards. Only two are still willing to offer admission without examination, and both are art schools. Next year, the exemption from examination will be completely canceled!"

"That serious?" Hu Weishi was stunned.

Editor-in-chief Zhao Changtian nodded: "Further standardize independent admissions, and major universities must implement the policy. This competition has already started, and those universities are not convenient to change their minds temporarily, and they also understand our difficulties. Therefore, each school will still send people over, but it's just going through the motions."

"What is the attitude of Tsinghua and Peking University?" Li Qigang asked.

Zhao Changtian said, "They may lower the admission score by 10 to 30 points, and they still need to discuss how much exactly. In fact, how many points are lowered is not the key; the key is whether to give quotas. Even if they agree to lower the score by 200 points, what's the point? They can not give any quotas, or add an interview stage to weed people out."

The specific situation is more complex.

For example, in the case of Guo Xiaosi back then, Xiamen University had agreed to make an exception for admission, as long as he passed the first-tier score line. Guo Xiaosi exceeded the first-tier score line by a full 54 points, but because his essay only scored 30 points, Xiamen University went back on its word and refused to admit him.

In fact, these are all excuses; the truth is very simple: universities changed their minds temporarily due to public opinion and policy influences.

Hu Weishi asked again, "What about other key universities?"

Zhao Changtian said, "Some must pass the key line, some only need to pass the undergraduate line, and some need to exceed the key line by a certain number of points. The next New Concept Writing Competition is finished. Without the gimmick of being recommended to prestigious schools, fewer and fewer students will participate, and the media won't give it much attention."

This situation occurred because of excessive public controversy and the competition itself becoming increasingly lackluster.

Also, the state is further standardizing the college entrance examination, recommendations, and independent admissions.

The triggering event was the leakage of this year's college entrance examination math paper, which led to a series of reforms in the college entrance examination and admissions.

Due to the college entrance examination reform and strict investigation of various irregularities, a large number of scandals will be exposed next summer.

For example, a teacher from a certain school actively contacted candidates, and as long as the college entrance examination score was not too far off, they could be admitted by paying 10,000 yuan for each point they were short.

Another example is a top art school that was confirmed to have engaged in favoritism and cheating in art exams, and they were so blatant they didn't even bother to avoid people.

There was also a certain university that even appeared on "Focus Interview," forcing candidates to pay 100,000 yuan for admission. The final investigation result was that a total of 7 national defense directed students were extorted a total of 550,000 yuan by teachers from that school.

The above are just some cases, and they are from prestigious schools!

Major universities lowering their cooperation standards and giving up on recommending New Concept Competition contestants were purely collateral damage from the college entrance examination reform.

Li Qigang sighed, "We must find a way."

"Standardizing admissions is the general trend; we cannot resist it," Zhao Changtian said.

Li Qigang thought for a while: "Then we will organize activities ourselves and invite the media for hype."

Zhao Changtian asked, "What are your thoughts?"

Li Qigang explained, "Invite back the first prize winners from previous years, especially celebrities like Han Han, Guo Xiaosi, and Zhang Yueran. Let them have a dialogue with famous writers like Yu Hua and Su Tong, and discuss the development trend of contemporary Chinese literature."

"Okay," Zhao Changtian nodded.

Li Qigang added, "Among this year's winners, we can also select a few with potential to attend."

"You want to create new Han Hans and Guo Xiaosis?" Zhao Changtian asked.

Li Qigang said, "Han Han is off racing cars, Guo Xiaosi is busy running a magazine, and Zhang Yueran can't generate enough buzz. Plus, Guo Xiaosi is caught up in a plagiarism scandal. We must promote a new talent to maintain the attention on Sprout and the New Concept competition."

Zhao Changtian said to Hu Weishi, "The task of finding promising candidates will be left to Xiao Hu."

Hu Weishi took out Chen Guiliang's four articles: "There happens to be a good contestant. He's even Guo Xiaosi's schoolmate."

Li Qigang praised, "That's a great selling point. We can have them, as senior and junior, interact in front of the media."

After reading the four articles, Zhao Changtian worried, "These articles were probably guided by a teacher."

He was just short of saying they were ghostwritten.

Hu Weishi said, "So we still need to see his performance in the finals."

Li Qigang said, "In the finals, pay close attention to this... what's his name?"

"Chen Guiliang," Hu Weishi said.

Li Qigang said, "Right, pay close attention to Chen Guiliang. As long as he's the real deal and writes a good article in the finals, we can promote him heavily."