Chapter 36

Professor Jin pushed harder:
“If you can’t say much, then at least confess! We Materials people don’t do timid little acts!”
The crowd burst into laughter at the old professor’s humor.
Xi Siyan had no choice.
Awkward and lost, he called into the mic:
“Miaomiao.”
Instant silence.
Then rising whistles everywhere.
“Anyone recording this? Record it now!”
“Is little crybaby here?”
“Find him! Find where Jing Miao is!”
Xi Siyan still didn’t know what to say. He scanned around and saw nothing.
“The vice principal dragged me here too fast and I left my phone in the office. Don’t be afraid. This will end soon.”
A plain line.
The audience went completely still.
Professor Jin was stunned.
Was he using the confession slot to make a missing-child broadcast?
Honestly, that was a hundred times more hardcore than a confession.
Before the crowd could erupt again, Xi Siyan shoved the mic back to Professor Jin—
and jumped off the stage.
“Miaomiao!”
He ran down the side aisle.
At the far left of the stage, through packed people, he pulled a boy into his arms and grabbed his bandaged left hand in panic:
“What happened? What happened here?”
Gasps and staring surrounded them.
Jing Miao, already wanting to hide in Xi Siyan’s chest from discomfort, still answered softly when asked:
“I got burned taking hot water this morning. A classmate took me to get it bandaged.”
Xi Siyan’s thoughts were a mess.
With too many eyes around, he carefully wrapped an arm around Jing Miao’s left side, shielding the injured hand as they moved out of the stadium.
The crowd made way on its own.
Xi Siyan kept saying thank you.
With the lead gone, Professor Jin could only laugh dryly on stage:
“Uh… let me solemnly introduce: that was our Materials Institute’s external staff member! Our institute f-flower… no, I mean institute grass.”
Below, the Mathematics Department chair exploded and fired back at full volume:
“Nonsense, Old Jin! That’s our Math prodigy Jing Miao! He just won first prize for Huada at the Asian University Advanced Mathematics Competition! How did he become your institute’s person?”
“Grass or flower, he belongs to Mathematics!”
The dean of the physics-math-chem cluster also protested loudly:
“Materials has no shame!”
One slogan triggered the students below:
“Materials has no shame! No shame!”
The Materials dean below, hearing his department cursed, got annoyed too:
“Either way he already married into Materials! Cope!”
“Bullshit! Look at Xi Siyan! He’s the one who delivered himself as a package! If you don’t believe it, go ask who calls the shots in that household!”
“Hahahahahahahaha!”
……
Outside the stadium, Xi Siyan used Jing Miao’s phone to call the family driver to take them to the hospital.
Jing Miao snatched the phone back immediately:
“Uncle Yang, don’t come. I’m fine… yes, really fine. We’ll go home soon.”
He wrapped his arms around Xi Siyan’s waist:
“Gege, I’m really fine. Just a small patch. The doctor wrapped it so I wouldn’t get water on it. I’ll take it off at home and show you, okay?”
Xi Siyan sighed. “Really?”
The kid smiled sweetly. “I like gege so much. Gege is so handsome.”
It was his first time seeing Xi Siyan under stage spotlights.
Familiar and unfamiliar at once.
Even light seemed to love him—gentle and dazzling.
But in Jing Miao’s subconscious, another image surfaced:
not formal suit and tie,
but plain white shirt and black trousers,
that slightly arrogant half-smile—
equally radiant.
“Has gege been on stage before?” Jing Miao rambled.
“Maybe not in such formal clothes… in a hall not this big, but still many people… maybe there was a band behind you too… what was gege doing? Singing? Can gege sing? I’ve never heard it.”
He kept describing:
“Maybe in one of gege’s interviews? I kind of… kind of have an impression. Just thinking about it makes my heart feel hit… mm, can’t remember. I can even forget gege’s interviews.”
Xi Siyan froze.
His memory rolled back hard, rewinding to whatever time Jing Miao might have seen him.
Not such a big hall.
Many people.
A band.
It was the freshman welcome gala in Jing Miao’s enrollment year.
Xi Siyan was in first-year graduate school then, performing one program with a campus rock club.
Not singing.
Playing guitar.
He wasn’t actually that good at guitar—just a few months of crash-course training, barely enough to perform.
He hadn’t cared deeply about it; he was young and liked showing off.
Guitar was easy to learn and looked cool.
When the club invited him, he agreed and performed once.
The song was a guitar version of *Encounter*.
So Jing Miao had been down there that night.
Thinking of the time they missed each other in, Xi Siyan’s chest turned sour.
People are greedy.
At first, “as long as he stays by me” was enough.
Later, he wanted everything—to plunder all of this person, rule his joy and sorrow and all his feelings.
After that, even time already lost—time that never intersected—he wanted to reclaim.
The kid kept talking excitedly:
“Gege was so handsome, so handsome! Gege knows how I found you?”
“Miaomiao is amazing. I followed the jiejies from my class, then found gege!”
He had watched Xi Siyan from below with everyone else.
Behind Xi Siyan, the giant screen showed honors won by their project group.
When Xi Siyan called his name, Jing Miao forgot to breathe.
Then he raised his bandaged hand as high as he could.
He wanted to shout, “Gege, I’m here.”
But he didn’t dare.
He quickly lowered his hand and glanced around.
Maybe nobody noticed.
Next second he heard Xi Siyan’s voice—already very close:
“Miaomiao!”
In that sea of people, Xi Siyan came like a gust of wind—
not passing him by,
but pulling him into an embrace.
Jing Miao whispered very softly:
“Gege, I missed you.”
Xi Siyan first took Jing Miao back to the institute to get his phone.
“Baby, wait here nicely for gege, okay? Um…” He estimated time. “Wait twenty minutes. Can you? Don’t go anywhere, okay?”