Shanghai, Huaguang Building, Fudan University.
This teaching building, known as the number one building in universities,
At this moment, a solemn and oppressive atmosphere prevails.
The entire thirteenth floor server room has been temporarily requisitioned.
Two warning signs with blue backgrounds and white lettering stand at the entrance:
"This is a designated area for marking papers; please refrain from making noise."
And "fully enclosed management, electronic devices are prohibited from entering."
This is the marking center for the Northern Jiangsu region of the "Fuzhiyao" National Middle School Students' Essay Competition.
There was no sound of papers being turned over in the computer room.
Instead, there was the crisp sound of hundreds of mouse clicks, densely packed.
The air was filled with the burnt smell of computer case cooling, as well as the strong smell of mentholatum that hit you right in the head.
To ensure absolute fairness and professionalism, the marking system used this time adopted the latest "Wenshu" sixth-generation terminal.
Each examiner needs to undergo both iris scanning and fingerprint authentication to log in.
On the screen, the candidates' names, schools, and regions were all blurred out with mosaics.
All that remains is a cold barcode and the text content.
Zhou Yu, sitting in the third row of Section C, took off his glasses and pressed his temples hard.
As a doctoral student in the Chinese Department at Fudan University,
He had originally thought this would be a pleasant journey of discovering hidden gems.
He even specifically turned down his doctoral supervisor's courses for this reason.
But after those four hours, he felt like his brain had been thrown into a washing machine.
"Ouch, I can't take it anymore."
Zhou Yu pushed the mouse away, slumped into his chair, and let out a desperate wail:
"Does anyone have eye drops? I need some to keep me alive."
A girl with a ponytail next to me handed me a bottle of Bright Vision, and rolled her eyes at the same time.
"What, Zhou Bo? Did you see Grandma come back to life again?"
"It's even worse than that."
Zhou Yu tilted his head back, letting the cold liquid drip into his eyes.
This piece is about a long-awaited rain after a drought.
Wow, this junior student is really writing about farming!
He wrote that his family's two acres of land were so dry they were cracked, then it rained, and his grandfather was so happy he rolled around in the field...
"Sigh, this is a literary competition, not a get-rich-quick scheme on an agricultural channel!"
Be content.
A boy in the back row chimed in, his tone filled with utter despair.
“This is what I call a disaster site.”
The topic was supposed to be a joyous occasion, but these younger students all wrote "touching China" instead.
This afternoon, I read over twenty articles about people from my hometown meeting while traveling.
I read over thirty articles about my mother's hug after I failed an exam.
I'm feeling a bit nauseous right now.
A low chuckle rippled through the marking room, but the laughter carried more of a sense of helplessness.
This is a common problem with assigned essay topics.
The topic of happy events seems easy to grasp, and anyone can write a few lines about it.
However, precisely because the threshold is too low, there is a serious overlap in the resource libraries.
In order to play it safe, most candidates chose the most conservative, positive, and also the most boring approach.
They're like plastic flowers produced on an assembly line—they look vibrant, but smell like glue.
"Everyone has worked hard."
A gentle voice came from behind.
Looking in the direction of the sound, an elderly man with gray hair walked slowly down the corridor with his hands behind his back.
It was Chen Jingzhi, the vice dean of the Fudan College of Arts and the head of the marking team.
"Hello, Dean Chen."
"Hello, Professor."
Several young examiners quickly sat up straight.
Chen Jingzhi waved his hand, signaling everyone to relax.
He walked behind Zhou Yu, glanced at the screen where no scores had been given yet, and asked with a smile:
"Isn't the excessive homogenization causing aesthetic fatigue?"
"Director Chen, it's really not that we're being picky."
Zhou Yu pointed at the screen with a bitter expression.
"The junior students this year have pretty good writing skills. They use parallel sentences very smoothly and have a lot of idioms."
But it just...tasteless.
"No taste?"
Chen Jingzhi raised an eyebrow.
"right."
Zhou Yu organized his thoughts.
"It's all about being happy for the sake of being happy, and it's all about forced sentimentality."
I spent over four hours reviewing more than a hundred manuscripts.
It felt like looking at over a hundred standard answers in different fonts.
There wasn't that...thing that made your heart skip a beat.
Chen Jingzhi nodded, his gaze sweeping over the group of examiners present.
These are all key members carefully selected by the School of Humanities; they have a keen eye for talent.
The fact that they all felt exhausted indicates that this was a "happy event".
It really confined these kids.
"In this age of information overload, children see more but think less."
Chen Jingzhi sighed and picked up a bottle of mineral water from the table, twisting it open.
"They are used to quick and easy plot twists and exciting moments, and they are used to formulaic expressions."
It's difficult to get them to truly settle down and deconstruct a topic, to dig into the thorns in their lives.
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