Chapter 44

The leader himself: “…”
So Xi Siyan had somehow missed Jing Miao’s graduation photo—
and somehow not entirely missed it.
This time Zhong Yuan naturally handed the camera to Fang Heng.
“Little Fang, you’re the only outsider here. You take one for us.”
Fang Heng clenched his jaw and used every bit of composure he had to smile and say, “Okay.”
Song Fuxue secretly gave Zhong Yuan a thumbs-up.
They were Xi Siyan’s parents, long-time colleagues, old friends, and Jing Miao’s classmates from years of study.
Only Fang Heng didn’t fit.
So, in a bizarre twist, the Math department lined up for another giant group photo.
Wang Song shouted to the back rows:
“This pose is too dry. Youth needs slogans, right?”
A classmate yelled, “Then what should we shout?”
“How about ‘Happy Graduation, Goodbye Campus’?”
“Great, great!”
“Can we shout twice? Once for ‘May your marriage last forever,’ once for ‘Happy Graduation’!”
“Yes! Let’s pretend we attended a Temple CP wedding!”
“And one more: ‘Xi Siyan is Math Department’s son-in-law!’”
“Hahahahahaha! Math has *not* forgotten centennial-day grudges!”
At that moment, Fang Heng finally gave up all the fantasies he should never have had:
the idea of “six-year fatigue,” the “childish white lotus,” the “I’m better than him.”
From Xi Siyan’s arrival until now, Xi Siyan had not looked at him once.
In Xi Siyan’s eyes there was only that little crybaby.
Around Jing Miao, Xi Siyan shone with a gentle warmth and bright smile no colleague had ever seen, like a nebula wrapping him whole.
Fang Heng remembered the video *Encounter* he had secretly watched and that line—*Though a thousand stand against me, I go on.*
He no longer wanted to dissect why love happens.
Xi Siyan didn’t like Jing Miao because Jing Miao was “good” in some objective way.
He liked him, and therefore everything about him became good.
The whole world was their wingman.
Xi Siyan was wonderful, yes—but he belonged to someone else.
And I’m not bad either, Fang Heng thought. Why hang myself on this one tree?
Understanding and not understanding happened in the same instant.
He shrugged, casual now.
“Ready? Stand still. I’m taking the photo.”
Completely unaware, under everyone’s chaotic operations and Xi Siyan’s shameless public affection, Jing Miao had eliminated one romantic rival.
Originally, Xi Siyan should not have been able to make it back.
Math’s graduation photo was at 2 p.m.; commencement started at 3.
Their final meeting ended at 11 a.m.
Three hours total for flying, not counting travel to and from airports.
Xi Siyan had directly refused this exchange meeting.
Now Vice Dean Professor Jin had cursed him bloody.
He said this meeting was about naming a newly discovered advanced composite material by domestic authorities;
it was a milestone-level exchange;
an important conference worthy of being written into Chinese materials science history;
an introduction opportunity Xi Siyan could never buy with money or influence at home…
Even mighty Huada Materials Institute had only one invite—Professor Jin, who was also a national academician.
He was allowed to bring one outstanding junior.
He had chosen Xi Siyan without hesitation.
And Xi Siyan, after hearing the schedule, had refused without hesitation.
Professor Jin had slammed the table in fury.
“Give me a reasonable reason! For a decision that trashes your own future, you’d better give me an explanation! Or I’ll beat you to death myself!”
Xi Siyan answered blankly:
“The last day of the conference… is Miaomiao’s graduation.”
He regretted even the time they had already missed and tried everything to make up and recreate it.
How could he possibly bear missing Jing Miao’s long-delayed graduation?
In Xi Siyan’s understanding, college graduation was the most boring ceremony.
Whether you had studied hard or coasted through, it marked the complete end of student life.
It meant entering society, becoming an adult running after worldly obligations.
It meant youth never coming back.
Nothing especially commemorative—if anything, a warning line.
He himself had skimmed through his own graduations casually.
When his parents wanted to come, he had repeatedly begged them not to, or the family background he had hidden for years would be exposed.
But Jing Miao’s graduation was different.
This was not the end of his youth.
This was the first graduation of his brand-new life.
In a way tangled with pain and illness, he had been left by this world in the rose era of adolescence.
In that forever-young life, this moment deserved ritual.
Maybe it wasn’t important to Jing Miao.
But to Xi Siyan, it was very important.
The flower he had nurtured with all his love and effort—
every bloom should have him by its side.
Jing Miao’s first step out of the safe zone had begun with him,
and its completion should also include him.
In the final analysis, Xi Siyan’s obsessive love could not accept being absent from any important moment in Jing Miao’s life.
Or from any moment at all.
Professor Jin had been furious, but one sentence from Xi Siyan rendered him speechless.
The most unreasonable kind of reason.
Professor Jin, old enough to have seen all shades of life—love, hate, desire, resentment, breakups and reunions—still found Xi Siyan’s love uniquely contradictory to the world, yet somehow able to make the world bend around it.
This prized student was excellent in everything.
If there was one flaw:
he placed his partner too high.
To be a whole-hearted lover was worthy of praise.
But there were many things in this world above love.
Ideals. Freedom. Life’s value…
For Xi Siyan, all of those came after.
Professor Jin, forced into earnest persuasion, tried to elevate it to principle:
“If this were wartime and the country asked you to go to the battlefield, would you still become a coward just because you can’t bear to leave your wife?”
Xi Siyan rebutted:
“Professor, that analogy doesn’t fit. We grew up under the red flag. If the country suffers, Miaomiao won’t be well either. Of course I would go to war without hesitation. To create a better environment for him—that’s only natural.”
Professor Jin: “…”
He couldn’t refute it.
He was so annoyed.
Debating “loyal to Buddha or loyal to love” with a shameless romantic like Xi Siyan was just lifting a rock to smash his own foot.
“I’m giving you one night. Think it through. Go back and discuss it with your wife. Stop making it look like Jing Miao is some unreasonable, tantrum-throwing person. If he knows his graduation delayed your career, do you think he’ll feel okay?”