Just because I wrote "Zhu Xian," the school beauty sent me razor blades.

Three days after the announcement of the preview screenings, all tickets sold out instantly.

It wasn't because of the publicity, it was because of that Weibo post.

The number of reposts from that film review account eventually stopped at 460,000, with 3,000 comments.

The event was held in the screening room on campus of the Beijing Film Academy, with 300 seats. Tickets were not open to the public and were only available to students from all universities. In the end, all seven schools were booked, with 40 seats available for each school. Even the Film Academy's own seats were allocated by lottery.

Lin Yuan arrived early at 7 p.m. on the day of the screening.

A long queue had already formed outside the screening room. Two girls were chatting at the end of the line, each holding a thermos. As they talked, one of them sighed, "Sigh, if I still don't pass this exam, my mom will definitely think I'm hopeless."

Another said, "Don't think about that now, let's watch the movie."

As Lin Yuan passed by that line, those words drifted into his ears. He didn't stop and continued walking.

Lin Yuan didn't sit in the VIP section. He found a seat at the back, pulled his hat down low, and hardly anyone noticed him. Everyone was focused on the screen in front of them.

Lin Yuan wanted to watch it quietly once.

Let's see what this story leaves a lasting impression on young people who haven't yet left the ivory tower.

At eight o'clock, the lights dimmed and the screen lit up.

The night of his imprisonment.

The sound of the iron lock clicking shut echoed through the theater in the dimly lit cell.

The new prisoners huddled in their cramped cells, and the fat man was the first to break down. He huddled in his cell, his face pale, his voice trembling, repeatedly crying out that he shouldn't have come here.

Prison guard captain Hadley stood outside the iron bars, listening to the fat man's cries, his patience slowly fading.

After a shout, he didn't bother with any more words and swung his baton directly at the target.

The entire cell fell silent instantly.

Reed's voice rang out, calm as if he were recounting an old story from many years ago.

"I've seen many newcomers come to Shawshank. They all go through that night. Some cry, some plead. But Andy Dufresne was different."

He just sat there, leaning against the wall, without saying a word. All night long, no one heard him utter a single utterance.

The theater fell silent for a moment.

Then Lin Yuan heard a soft gasp from someone in the front row.

He glanced to the side—it was the girl who had been standing at the door earlier, seemingly afraid of failing the exam.

He knew what this reaction meant.

It wasn't because the scene was so tragic, but because those who understood it saw themselves reflected in that corner.

The dimly lit, cold prison cells and the rented rooms and study rooms where they spend their days are not much different—the iron gate has been replaced by a rental contract, the sentence has been replaced by a deadline for leaving prison, the fear is the same, and bearing it in silence is the same.

The rooftop scene was a rare respite for the entire Shawshank Prison.

More than thirty prisoners worked under the scorching sun to repair the roof. Andy risked his life to help the prison guards solve their tax problems. He had only one request: that on the day everyone finished, they could sit on the roof and have a chilled beer.

So that afternoon, a group of people in prison uniforms sat on the edge of the prison roof, beer in hand, their faces relaxed in the way that only comes when you forget everything for a short time. Sunlight shone on them, and a gentle breeze blew through the high walls.

Andy sat to the side without drinking, just looking up at the sky with a faint smile on his lips.

Reid later recalled that at that moment, they felt like free men.

After those words were spoken, the theater fell silent for a second.

Because those sitting here know that feeling all too well.

For many, life isn't fundamentally different from that of those prisoners—getting up, doing practice problems, memorizing, submitting resumes, failing, doing more practice problems, day after day, monotonous to the point of being colorless. The only things to look forward to are the occasional funny video they stumble upon, the extra twenty minutes between classes, or a discounted milk tea bought from a roadside stall.

The smallest, most fragile things are the only things that keep a person going.

The scene in the broadcasting room was the first time that the entire audience gathered together to cry.

Andy locked the door to the broadcasting room, ignoring the sounds of the prison guards banging on the door outside, put on a Mozart opera record, and turned the broadcast volume up to the maximum.

The Marriage of Figaro permeated the entire Shawshank.

The prisoners, bent over from their labor on the exercise yard, straightened up and raised their heads. The guards in the corridor stopped and stared blankly at the loudspeaker. The person sitting numbly in the cell slowly closed their eyes.

No one speaks.

Reed's narration began in the silence:

I don’t know what those two Italian women were singing. Maybe they were telling a beautiful story, so beautiful that it can’t be described in words and can only be expressed through music.

I told myself it was so beautiful, even the high walls of Shawshank couldn't stop it; at that moment, all the prisoners of Shawshank felt free.

Come over in a bit.

Lin Yuan heard someone crying in the theater. It was a very soft cry, like someone who had been holding it in for a long time and suddenly couldn't hold it in anymore.

more than one.

He didn't turn his head, but simply lowered his eyes and looked at the screen in front of him.

Those whose paths have been laid out for them by their parents, those who gave up on the majors they wanted to study, and those who put away the things they liked one by one—the "opera" they lost is no less significant than Andy's.

During the prison break scene, the theater fell completely silent.

Andy crawled out of the sewage pipe, covered in mud, as the torrential rain poured down on him, soaking him from head to toe.

He stood up, slowly took off his prison clothes, looked up, and opened his arms.

He just stood there.

Twenty years of humiliation did not diminish his last glimmer of hope.

Rain washed over his face, but his expression held no anger, no tears, only the calm of someone who had waited twenty years for something and had finally achieved it.

The theater was so quiet at that moment that only the sound of rain and breathing could be heard, followed by suppressed, intermittent sobbing that spread from the front row to the back.

Reed's third parole hearing was another blow.

It contains no tears, nor does it deliberately evoke emotion.

It was just an old man calmly recounting the past, yet it felt like a stone was pressing on one's chest.

The first two times, Red said what everyone wanted to hear, with a good attitude and sincere apologies, but was rejected time and time again. The third time, he stopped pretending and said:

"What I regret is not going to jail. What I regret is being a young fool back then, ruining my own life."

As for whether it harms society? There's no point in discussing that with me. I'm a different person now.

Lin Yuan noticed that many people were staring intently at the screen, their hands clenched tightly.

This scene doesn't touch on sadness, but rather something that's been bottled up for a long time—they know all too well what it feels like to say things you don't really want to say just to pass an audit. The "I am ambitious, hardworking, and down-to-earth" on the resume, the "I am full of expectations for the future" during the interview, the "I understand, I'll listen to you" at the family dinner table.

He spoke so fluently that he eventually came to believe it himself.

When Red didn't say that for the third time, many people felt for the first time that someone had spoken the truth for them on screen.

The beach at the end of the film.

Red walked step by step along the beach into the distance, where Andy was repairing a small boat. The two finally stopped in front of each other, and without saying a word, simply embraced quietly.

There was a few seconds of silence in the screening room.

I don't know who started clapping first.

The applause was soft, as if responding to something, or as if confirming that this long journey had finally come to an end.

Then, a second person and a third person joined in.

Soon, applause filled the entire theater.

No one stood up to cheer, and no one shouted anything. Everyone just sat in their seats, clapping earnestly, one clap at a time.

At this moment, they were applauding not only for Andy's regained freedom.

It is also for that version of myself who was once in darkness but never completely gave up hope.