Chapter 27: Chapter 15: The 4 PM Film (Part 2)
"Let’s go big."
Those three words were like a spark dropped into a group of boys practically brimming with gasoline.
To a group of first-year middle school boys, overflowing with energy and constantly itching to cause trouble—while still fearing their teachers’ scolding—nothing could have been more tempting.
If anyone else had said it, Liu Fei would have thought they were crazy.
But this was Chen Zhuo.
The "child prodigy" whom even the teachers treated with a degree of respect.
’A prodigy leading the charge—could you really call that making trouble?’
’That was a scientific experiment!’
’That was a quest for truth!’
’That was a rebellion by royal decree!’
Liu Fei’s eyes lit up, shining even brighter than the sun outside the window.
"How big?" he whispered, his voice filled with excitement.
"Big enough to turn this classroom into a movie theater."
Chen Zhuo took a sip of water, his tone as casual as if he were saying, "Time to turn in your homework."
Liu Fei stared at Chen Zhuo for two seconds.
Then he spun around, threw down the other newspaper in his hand, and shouted to the group of boys around them:
"Brothers! Stop what you’re doing!"
"Listen to Brother Zhuo! We’re tearing it all down and redoing it! Get out all the old newspapers, scratch paper, and used test papers we’ve saved up!"
"We’re sealing every window! Don’t let a single speck of light through!"
"Alright!"
A crowd of boys, who had been wondering what to do with all their pent-up energy, instantly grew excited.
"Wang Hao! Stop sleeping! Donate that stack of *King of Comics* you’ve got!"
"Who has wide tape? Scotch tape won’t work!"
"I do! I’ve got packing tape!"
The classroom instantly erupted into a flurry of activity.
A coordinated, unspoken riot had begun.
The once chaotic classroom suddenly had a shared purpose.
Chen Zhuo didn’t get his own hands dirty.
He knew his own limits.
At his height of four-foot-eight, he’d have trouble reaching the top of the windows even standing on a desk. Besides, in terms of physical strength, he couldn’t compete with these boys who were surging with hormones.
He just stood in the aisle with his arms crossed, like a calm chief engineer, directing everyone to bring his ideal blueprint to life.
"Liu Fei, you get the top row. Pull the tape horizontally, don’t be stingy. That’s right, pull it longer and stick both ends to the wall."
"Hey, you over there. Fold the newspaper in half. It’s too thin, it won’t block the UV rays."
"Don’t leave any gaps! That corner, add another sheet!"
The boys were now displaying an astonishing level of efficiency.
This was just the nature of the creature known as the "teenage boy":
Ask him to sweep the floor or take out the trash, and he’ll slack off whenever he can. But ask him to climb all over the place for a grand project that is both destructive and constructive, and he’ll be more enthusiastic than anyone.
They pushed desks together, building human ladders.
Some stood by the windows with tape in their teeth, while others wet the newspapers with saliva or water...
Even the girls in the class were helping.
Li Xiaoya led a few of the girls, quickly gathering all the tape in the classroom. They tore it into strips, stuck them to the edges of desks, and passed them to the boys like they were delivering ammunition.
"Here! This one’s long!"
"Be careful, don’t fall!"
"There’s light getting through here! Quick, patch it up!"
The entire classroom had turned into a massive construction site.
The boys and girls, who had just been complaining about the deadly heat and feeling drowsy, were now bustling with energy.
None of them knew what Chen Zhuo was ultimately planning, or what would happen after they sealed the windows.
But this feeling of the entire class conspiring together, fighting back against their miserable environment...
It was exhilarating.
It was a collective conspiracy, a rare chance to run wild in this rule-bound school.
「Ten minutes later.」
As Liu Fei slapped the last, thick sheet of the *Yangzi Evening News* firmly onto the center of the window...
"SLAP!"
The last sliver of light was cut off.
The entire classroom plunged into absolute darkness.
Only the cracks around the front and back doors, and the few faint rays of light occasionally seeping through the edges of the newspaper, proved that it was still broad daylight.
Other than that, it was pitch-black.
"Holy shit, it’s really dark."
Someone exclaimed in the darkness.
The whole class fell into a strange silence.
Everyone was breathing heavily—partly from the exhaustion of their work, and partly from excitement.
The act of turning their classroom into night during broad daylight gave them an inexplicable thrill.
The sweltering heat seemed to vanish the moment the darkness fell.
"Brother Zhuo, what now?"
Liu Fei, still standing on a desk, shouted into the darkness.
"So what do we do now? Tell ghost stories? Or take a nap?"
"Get down."
Chen Zhuo’s voice was exceptionally clear in the darkness, almost seeming to carry an echo.
"Everyone go back to your seats, sit down, and be quiet."
After a clatter of colliding desks and chairs...
Everyone fumbled their way back to their seats in the dark.
Dozens of pairs of eyes, glittering in the gloom, stared expectantly in Chen Zhuo’s direction.
Even though they couldn’t see him.
Chen Zhuo left his own seat.
Relying on his memory and the tiny slivers of leaking light, he walked to the very center of the back row of the classroom.
That was the only window that hadn’t been completely sealed. A small patch in the middle had been left empty, just as he had specifically instructed.
Chen Zhuo pulled a drawing compass from his pocket.
He had prepared it in advance.
He fumbled around until he found the center of that sheet of newspaper.
He took a deep breath.
’This didn’t require any calculated formulas.’
’This required feel, an intuition for optics.’
’If the hole was too big, the image would be blurry, like astigmatism.’
’If the hole was too small, not enough light would enter, and the image would be too dark to see.’
’Around 3 to 5 millimeters was optimal.’
Chen Zhuo gripped the needle point of the compass and, on that thick sheet of newspaper, gently but decisively, pushed it through.
There was a soft *pop*.
The newspaper was pierced.
A beam of bright light instantly shot through the small hole, piercing the thick darkness of the classroom.
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