DSYOM Chapter 70

On the day of the graduation ceremony, the weather was uncooperative. Early in the morning, it was already as hot as a steamer. The department required male students to wear shirts under their academic gowns, creating a sweat-drenched, living-hell effect.

Sitting on the plastic chairs at the East Field, Wen Di wiped his sweat while glancing at the stands on either side. Friends and family who had come to attend the ceremony all opened their umbrellas, creating a colorful array of mushrooms across the steps.

On such an important day, Wen Di’s parents naturally attended. His grandparents, who rarely felt like traveling far away, also wanted to come and watch the ceremony. To top it off, his uncle, believing that the graduation ceremony would be helpful in ‘cultivating’ his son, brought along Wen Di’s younger cousin.

This, of course, created some problems.

First, the issue of guest tickets. T University’s consistent style was to treat undergraduates as their own children and master’s and doctoral students as adopted ones. Wen Di had experienced the preferential treatment of a biological child before, but now, as an adopted child, the contrast was particularly stark. The five guest tickets he had directly received during his undergraduate years now had to be fought over. Fortunately, a few doctoral students in his department had fewer family members attending and could transfer their tickets to him. After patching things together from various sources, he managed to get enough tickets. However, two were in the East Zone Two, two in the West Zone Three, and one for remote viewing in the lecture hall, leaving his family scattered. He had to wave toward the stands multiple times—once to the east, once to the west.

Second, the itinerary. Since his family rarely visited Beijing, and the cost of train tickets and accommodations was substantial, it was only natural to combine the trip with some sightseeing. Over the past two days, under the scorching summer sun of Beijing, Wen Di had once again experienced the crowd levels from the Forbidden City to the Great Wall, his wheat-colored skin looking healthy and pleasing.

Busy entertaining his family, Wen Di hadn’t seen Bian Cheng all week. With his family visiting, he naturally had to avoid suspicion. He had even moved his usual clothes and pillows back to the dormitory, just in case his parents decided to pay him a surprise visit. Fortunately, he had secured a job at a university in Beijing. Otherwise, his mother would surely have packed his belongings and sent them home, which would have been a real hassle.

Thinking of this, Wen Di wiped his sweat again and pushed aside the hair sticking to his forehead. He glanced at the black graduation gown with red trim and felt a twinge of regret.

Having his family present was, of course, a good thing, but with so many pairs of eyes watching, there was no way to take a photo with Bian Cheng. It felt a pity not to have a commemorative photo on such an important occasion as graduation.

The seats for the Humanities department were far from the stands, and the speeches from the secretary and alumni only reached them as a continuous rumble. When the graduate representative took the stage, however, a few sentences were clear enough to be heard. The doctoral representative was from the Chemical Engineering department and was about to become a full professor at a 211 university[footnote]211 university: A term referring to a group of top-tier Chinese universities included in the “211 Project,” aimed at strengthening around 100 institutions of higher education and key disciplines.[/footnote] in the western region.

A doctoral graduate becoming a full professor—was that even possible? How could someone achieve that?

Wen Di discussed this with the classmates around him and they concluded: If you’re good enough, you can do it.

For such talent, he felt neither jealousy nor even envy, only a mixture of admiration, thinking, ‘Is this even human?’ and a calm realization of ‘it’s not surprising.’

The ceremony lasted only an hour, but it felt like an ice age; by the time the school song played, his back was already soaked.

The broadcast started announcing the names of the colleges, and students whose college was called stood up, lined up, and went to the gymnasium for the tassel-turning ceremony.

Wen Di stood in line, fanning himself with his cap, and sweated for another hour before completing the final procedure. As he walked out of the gym, ready to find his parents, he noticed a familiar figure on the steps, and the eyebrows raised high in surprise.

Bian Cheng walked through the ‘Happy Graduation’ archway decoration, heading in Wen Di’s direction. He was also wearing a gown, but unlike the black graduation robes, his had a large patch of red on the back—signifying an advisor’s robe.

Wen Di stood at the entrance, waiting for him to approach, unable to suppress the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Why are you here?”

Bian Cheng replied earnestly, “You’ve officially graduated now. You’re no longer a T University student, so dating you doesn’t violate school regulations. Of course, we need a commemorative photo.”

Wen Di made ‘tsk’ sound, pretending to question: “A photo’s fine, but why wear the advisor’s robe?”

“If your uncle and aunt see this, just tell them I’m a member of the degree conferral committee who helped turn your tassel.”

Wen Di burst out laughing, handed his phone to a classmate, and then raised his hand to turn the tassel which had already moved to the left, back to the right.

The atmosphere in the Department of Foreign Language had always been open-minded. The classmate assigned to take their photo merely wrinkled their nose and commented that they were making people feel sour.

The camera focused on them. Bian Cheng looked at Wen Di, raised his hand, and slowly moved his tassel back to the right, a smile spreading across his face.

“Congratulations on your graduation,” he said. “Dr. Wen.”

The author has something to say:
It’s short, everyone just read it for fun~

T/N: Soo, that’s it everyone! After a year(??), and a few MIA period from me, this story finally comes to an end! I kinda want to see Wen Di’s parents reaction to him and Bian Cheng being together but I also understand why the author keep it this way, with the way how Wen Di’s mom reacted when he asked her what if he has a boyfriend. Pretty sure it’s gonna take a while to convince the parents!

Anyway, thank you to everyone who has been reading this and I hope you all enjoy this as much as I did! Also, don’t forget to support the author on the official site! Please buy the book if you have the mean to. If you need my help to create gongzicp account or anything related to gongzicp, just hit me up on discord! I’ll help you as much as possible.

Till we meet again in another project (if I ever pickup any hahaha because now I just want to focus on translating Poison of the Heart that has been dropped by me because I was too busy to work on two projects at the same time)