Graduation day came a few days later.

Just as I had imagined, merry laughter filled the entire school on this day. Students in dark blue graduation gowns were in every corner of the school, hugging each other and capturing their bright smiles with their cameras.

Amidst the bustling noise, my RA called out to me loudly to take a photo with the other residents, but I smiled and waved before climbing up to the top floor of the Building for Grooming Talents all by myself.

I stood in front of the window where I had once decided to jump out from and looked down. There was nothing but laughter and happy chatter downstairs.

Honestly, over the past four years, I had always been afraid of graduation day. I was afraid that everyone else would graduate on this day except myself. If that happened, I didn’t know how I could possibly face my parents or even my friends.

That’s why I thought about committing suicide. I could escape all of this once I was dead.

But right now, as I stood at the same place where I had once marked as my final resting place, I suddenly realized that I actually didn’t have to die.

And that was because I had a graduation certificate in hand. I could now face my parents as well as everyone I knew.

All of this was thanks to Inspector Ji. He was the one who grabbed me from behind and stopped me from jumping out of the window that day.

I was really touched at that time because nobody ever cared about whether a student with terrible results like myself lived or died. Even I didn’t think that my death was anything to be upset about. But Inspector Ji held onto me with all his might.

Since I couldn’t get him off me, I gave up struggling and snapped frostily, “Even if I don’t die today, I’ll kill myself on graduation day all the same.”

Inspector Ji couldn’t believe how insistent I was on killing myself. He asked what would make me give up the idea of killing myself.

I scoffed and said, “I can’t even graduate from university. So what’s the point in living?”

He asked, “Will you give up the idea of killing yourself if you get your degree certificate?”

I sighed. “It’s too late. I’ve wasted my last chance at the exams. I wrote gibberish for all the exams I retook.”

He said, “That’s not a problem. Not every question has to have only one answer. Different people see things differently.”

I added, “There were a few papers where I ran out of ink halfway, so there are answers I had to leave blank.”

He had a response for that too. “That’s not a problem either. You can just tell the teachers marking the scripts about that. Who knows? Maybe they’ve filled out all the blanks for you while marking!”

I laughed bitterly and said, “You’re very optimistic, but there’s no way the teachers would do such a thing. Even if they were kind enough to close an eye on these things, the dean wouldn’t allow this to happen. To be honest with you, the entire school staff knows about my terrible results, so it’s impossible to get anybody to fudge my results. Besides, Mr. Chen even barred me from taking one of the exams, so…”

To my surprise, he said, “Others might not let you get away with it, but the dean definitely will.”

I couldn’t understand what he meant at all. “Inspector Ji, what do you mean by that?”

He explained slowly, “Don’t you know? The Department of Education has sent out a new set of policies. If two students in any institute of higher education commits suicide within one semester, the principal or dean of the school will be sacked. So, you’ve actually gotten lucky because your classmate chose to jump to his death.”

In the end, everything turned out exactly the way Inspector Ji had predicted. Three days later, I received my degree certificate, complete with the school seal in red and the dean’s own signature.

Perhaps it was really as Inspector Ji said – my degree certificate had been bought with Daning’s death. In other words, the dark blue graduation gown I was wearing right now really ought to belong to Daning.

I stood in a daze at the top floor of the Building for Grooming Talents in my graduation gown for a while. Just then, the music signaling the start of the graduation ceremony began to play and the colorful ribbons and decorations that covered the school walls flew in the gentle wind while large banners that read things like “Contribute to the Nation” and “Carve Out a Career” stood out in the bright sunlight.

The graduation ceremony was about to begin. While everyone started shuffling into the hall, I turned and left for the internet café.

I was all alone as I sat in front of the game I had been playing for the last four years. I knew I was going to leave this place soon and begin my new life. This was possibly the last time I was going to face this game. An odd feeling of discomfort welled up inside my heart. Perhaps I couldn’t bear to leave.

Even so, I tried my best to control my emotions and proceeded to do what I always did. While starting up the game, I turned on my recording device, put on my headphones and cleared my throat out of habit. Then I proceeded to use what I imagined must be a really attractive sounding voice to speak into the microphone and started my last gaming stream.

“Hello everyone, I’m Muxiaoyun, the handsome young man of the game streaming world who’s so good looking, everyone who sees me falls in love with me, every flower blooms for me and every car tire explodes when they see me. Today, I’m going to walk everyone through our local server’s League of Legends placement matches with 2200 points. All right! Let’s start by logging into the game…”

At this point, I turned subconsciously to look at the computer next to me. That used to be Daning’s usual spot. He had used this computer and kept me company in this internet café for four whole years.

Even though the seat was empty, I still felt like Daning had never left my side.

And it was true that after that day, it seemed like Daning had really never left me.