Chapter 45

To prevent Xi Siyan from hiding the matter, Professor Jin cut the problem off at the source and directly called his home.
Of course Jing Miao felt terrible.
He didn’t understand just how important that conference was, but he understood that it was important to Xi Siyan.
“Grandpa, I understand. I’ll help gege pack properly.”
Professor Jin thought, *What a good kid. So much less trouble than Xi Siyan.*
Later, Professor Jin often repeated this line:
“No idea what good deeds you did in your last life, brat. Matchmaker Yue gave you such a well-behaved child in this one.”
So Xi Siyan got disliked by his own father and mother, and by his own professor too.
That was why, even though Jing Miao was miserable, he still told Xi Siyan to go.
After Xi Siyan found out, he was both helpless and heartsore, full of anger with nowhere to vent it.
At night, when they were being intimate, he only felt a little better after making Jing Miao say “I don’t want gege to leave me” over and over again.
How could he be this obedient?
How could he be this heartbreaking to love?
During those conference days, Professor Jin honestly could not bear to watch.
Other than meetings and seminars, Xi Siyan was almost constantly on video call with his little wife—during meals, before sleep, even in the bathroom.
The moment a call ended, endless irritability and anxiety returned, with him repeating again and again that he definitely wouldn’t make the graduation ceremony.
He looked like a completely different person from his academic self.
Almost split in two.
Professor Jin felt like the villain who breaks up star-crossed lovers.
On the night before the second-to-last day, he finally said irritably:
“You must have burned incense to magpies in your last life. I’m out here building a bridge for your Cowherd-and-Weaver-Girl romance.
Just now, an old academician’s special research project ran into an issue and he has to rush back too.
Tomorrow’s schedule moved forward by three hours. The meeting starts at 6 a.m.
You’ll make your wife’s graduation.
And if you secretly prayed somewhere, remember to go repay your vow.”
Xi Siyan was overjoyed, then after a moment said:
“Professor, we are materialists.”
Professor Jin snorted:
“Cut it out. I think if your wife ever wanted to divorce you, you’d crawl on your knees from here to Nanhai Guanyin begging.”
Xi Siyan smiled.
“I won’t kneel to Guanyin. Kneeling to Miaomiao is enough.”
Guanyin, Buddha, God, patriarchs—none of them were his god.
In this world, only Jing Miao was.
Youth—
a word entirely unfamiliar to Jing Miao, yet happening to him in real time.
He had never experienced it in the first half of his life, when he had almost no presence.
Even after waking into his “second life,” he moved through it in confusion.
In the noisy crowd, he suddenly, inappropriately, thought of the question Xi Siyan had asked at the beginning:
*Do you want to go to school?*
School was bad.
It had the crowds he feared most, and the farthest distances, leaving him trapped in agonizing longing all the time.
Over the years, he had cried and said “I don’t want to go to school anymore” who knew how many times.
But school was also good.
It had mathematics he loved.
It had cheering, laughter, bright faces.
It had people he found hard to approach but would always find lovely.
It had honors he wanted to chase.
And it had Xi Siyan.
“Happy graduation! Goodbye campus!”
First round: Xi Siyan held him upright and proper.
“May your union last forever! Grow old together!”
Second round: Xi Siyan lowered his head and kissed him.
“Xi Siyan is the Math Department’s son-in-law!”
Third round: Jing Miao tilted his head to look at Xi Siyan, drowning in the smile flooding those eyes.
Xi Siyan whispered by his ear:
“Happy graduation, Miaomiao. I love you.”
Jing Miao thought:
*So this is what youth means?*
*Seems like it is.*
After graduation, Jing Miao did not continue school.
He liked mathematics and liked learning.
He liked the process of proving things, liked seeing a problem and seeking its answer, liked numbers, liked patterns.
But he did not like research work.
Because of Xi Siyan’s current profession, he had a natural resistance to academic research.
To him, it felt like the Milky Way between them—
if both of them did research, would that galaxy become even wider?
Xi Siyan also agreed he should not continue studying.
Unlike Jing Miao’s free-floating imagination, Xi Siyan judged based on practical reality.
Mathematics was vast and endless, applied in every field.
Even senior researchers in the Materials Institute had specialized math experts.
But Jing Miao’s love for mathematics was clearly too Platonic.
His limited cognitive framework meant he could not effectively integrate the subject into other research areas.
His personality also made it impossible for him to stay within academia forever:
master’s, PhD, lecturer, associate professor, professor…
his ceiling was probably PhD.
At first Xi Siyan had wanted to encourage him to teach.
Jing Miao was patient, and when explaining mathematics he was very clear and process-oriented, with a unique way to simplify difficult problems.
But once there were more than ten college students below the podium, Jing Miao’s legs wouldn’t move.
Pressure and reason both failed.
He was still very uneasy around adults.
The whole family worried about Jing Miao’s future career path.
Of course he could choose not to work and not continue studying.
But Xi Siyan didn’t want him to go back to that kind of life.
Even Jing Miao himself couldn’t articulate a clear answer.
He was unfamiliar with the concept of a profession.
He even asked Xi Siyan:
“Gege, can I study four more years? I can learn gege’s materials science and then stay with gege. Is that okay?”
Of course that wouldn’t work—
objectively or subjectively.
Xi Siyan said seriously:
“Miaomiao, you’ve graduated. You can’t just go back and study again.
If you don’t like something, forcing yourself to learn it will only backfire.”
Jing Miao lowered his head, unhappy.
“But things related to gege aren’t forced.”
Xi Siyan stroked his hair.
“Good boy. It’s okay. We’re not in a hurry, Miaomiao.”
Because this concerned Jing Miao’s long-term life planning, Xi Siyan took him to see a psychologist again.
Although it had been a long time, Lin Song remembered Jing Miao’s case clearly.
He was shocked to learn that Jing Miao had not only married Xi Siyan but had also graduated from university.
After several hours of communication, Lin Song clearly felt this was a big problem.
He told Xi Siyan:
“Jing Miao’s cognition is currently adult-level.
But unfortunately, he has stayed at this stage for a long time.
From what I observed just now, if you want his thinking patterns to keep maturing, he would likely need to leave all of you and live independently for quite a long period.
But for him—and for all of you—that’s impossible, right?”