The night before the college entrance exam results were released, I redeemed my Peking University ad

Wang Jianguo stood beside the school's name stone, his forehead covered in sweat.

His suit jacket was soaked through, his shirt clung to his skin, and he looked like he had just been pulled out of the water.

But he couldn't care less.

At that moment, he had only one thought in his mind: to quickly remove the monument and reveal Ji Bai's poem!

Old Wang served as a principal for more than ten years, and he had memorized at least eight hundred or a thousand famous quotes encouraging students to study.

But compared to these twenty-eight characters, all those sentences seem like plain water.

An eighteen-year-old boy, with a casual stroke of his pen, produced a timeless masterpiece.

Wang Jianguo was the first person to read this poem.

For this reason alone, even if he fainted on the spot today, his life would have been worthwhile.

Old Wang wiped the sweat from his face, turned to face the entire audience, and also to the cameras broadcasting globally, his voice trembling slightly with excitement:

"Distinguished leaders! Honored guests!"

"The inscription on this stele was written by Ji Bai himself! "Ji Bai wrote a poem encouraging learning for his alma mater!"

"Today, this poem will be engraved inside the school gate, remaining here forever, just like this school name stone!"

"It doesn't belong to any one person, nor to any one era!"

"It belongs to every boy who walks through this door!"

"Now, please welcome student Ji Bai to unveil the plaque for the poem 'Encouraging Learning'!"

Whoosh—!

The crowd erupted in commotion once again.

The poem was written by Ji Bai alone?

Is it going to be unveiled separately?

In the foreign guests' area, the foreigners looked at each other in bewilderment.

"A poem encouraging learning? PEM?" Morgan frowned and asked the translator next to him in a low voice.

The translator gave a brief explanation, and after listening, Morgan's lips twitched slightly as he leaned back in his chair. "A mathematician and superconductor guy, writing poetry?" He tapped the armrest with his knuckles. "Isn't that a bit of a leap?"

John D. Rockefeller Jr., sitting beside him with his coffee cup, slowly added, "He's even built flying swords, so what's so strange about him writing a poem?"

“That’s different.” Morgan shook his head. “Science is logic, poetry is emotion. It’s impossible for one person to be at the top in both fields at the same time.”

"But he's already reached the top level in three or four fields at the same time." John D. Rockefeller Jr. took a sip of coffee, his tone carrying a playful "Aren't you used to it yet?"

Morgan Jr. fell silent.

On the other hand, most of the domestic guests showed knowing smiles.

It's a poem encouraging learning.

It's nothing more than the same old routine: "Strive hard in your senior year of high school, set sail for your dreams; fear no difficulties, forge ahead bravely."

Or, "A hundred days of fierce battle to break through the sky, a heart full of passion to forge the peak."

Or, "Today I study hard in the cold window, and I will surely succeed; tomorrow I will stand out from the crowd, and who else but me?"

It's all the same old approach.

Every year before the college entrance examination, the banners at the gates of universities are changed again and again, but the same words are used repeatedly. What new ideas can an eighteen-year-old boy come up with?

The leader of the council smiled and whispered to the provincial governor beside him, "This kid is quite thoughtful."

The provincial governor nodded: "Yes, it's good to leave a memento for our alma mater."

Prefect Liu had already prepared his poem in his mind. Once it was finished, no matter what it said, he would first praise the poet with a phrase like "Youthful spirit, commendable and worthy of encouragement," and he was sure to be right.

The students in the audience were even more excited.

"Is Senior Ji going to write poetry too?"

What did you write? I'm so looking forward to it!

"I guess it's one of those 'take a gamble, and your bicycle might turn into a motorcycle' kind of thing, haha!"

"Stop joking, who is Ji Shen? Would he write something so cliché?"

"Even if it's not bad, it's still just encouraging learning, what's so special about it?"

"Exactly! I could recite ten or eight poems of the same kind of encouragement to study with my eyes closed."

...on the stage.

Ji Bai walked to the boulder and grasped the two corners of the red silk with both hands.

He didn't pull it off immediately.

Instead, he turned slightly to the side, his gaze sweeping over the dense crowd below the stage.

Students, teachers, leaders, scholars, heirs to conglomerates, and the global media.

Finally, his gaze fell on the group of younger students in school uniforms.

Those youthful, restless faces, filled with both anticipation and fear for the future.

It looked exactly like how he looked when he first came into this world.

The boy smiled and said softly:

"This poem is for you."

Also, this is for... everyone who still has time.

As soon as he finished speaking, he pulled with both hands.

The red silk fluttered to the ground.

The boulder revealed its true form.

On the white marble stele, twenty-eight large characters, gilded, are written in a vigorous and flowing style:

Do not waste your golden robe.

I urge you to cherish your youth.

Pluck the flower while it blooms!

Don't wait until there are no flowers left to break off branches.

……

The audience.

A deathly silence.

Three seconds. Five seconds.

ten seconds.

No one spoke.

The playground, which was just a moment ago noisy, is now so quiet that you can hear the sound of the wind blowing through the red flag.

Everyone looked up, staring at the twenty-eight characters.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Then--

boom!

The entire playground exploded!

"Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, for ye may ye have no flowers left to pluck..." A high school girl murmured as she recited the poem, her eyes welling up with tears.

She had poor grades and wasted her days, scrolling through her phone in class and copying answers for her homework. She always felt that she had plenty of time and that the college entrance exam was still far away.

But those two lines of poetry were like a slap in the face, hitting her hard across the cheek.

Flowers bloom and fade, just for one season.

Your youth only lasts a few years.

By the time you want to work hard, the flowers have already withered.

"I want to study hard..." the girl whispered, tears streaming down her face. "I really need to study hard."

The boy who was just talking about "bicycles turning into motorcycles" is now standing there with his mouth open, unable to utter a single word.

He originally thought it would be the kind of motivational slogan.

What Ji Bai gave them was a poem that could be etched into their very bones.

He read it aloud, word by word: "Do not waste your golden robes, but cherish your youth."

The flowers can be folded straight and must be folded.

After reading it, he suddenly felt a burning sensation in his chest, as if something was on fire.

That thing is called regret.

He remembered the classes he skipped in his first year of high school, the games he played in his second year, and those times he had carelessly thrown away and could never get back.

"Damn it..." He lowered his head, clenching his fists tightly. "I'm going to study right now."

Meanwhile, the girls' group was already in tears.

"Don't wait until there are no flowers left to break the branch..." This saying is so heartbreaking...

"I'm a senior in high school this year, and I repeated a year. I used to think that God was unfair, but now I feel that I wasted my own time..."

"I urge you to cherish your youth... When Senior Ji was the same age as us, he had already proven Goldbach's Conjecture, while I was still worrying about passing math..."

"Stop talking, my makeup's all ruined from crying..."

...Li Mei stood in the teachers' formation, head tilted back, lips trembling slightly.

She suddenly remembered three years ago, when Ji Bai had just entered No. 99 Middle School.

That quiet, taciturn boy with vacant eyes.

That bad student who handed in a blank exam paper, drew turtles, and slept in class.

Who could have imagined that three years later, he would stand here and leave such a poem for the entire school?

"This child..."

Li Mei covered her mouth, tears streaming silently down her face: "How much suffering did he endure to write such sentences..."

She recalled that night when Ji Bai squatted by the river and massaged her feet.

She recalled the bright, sparkling eyes of the boy when he teased her.

I remember his nonchalant expression every time he handed in a blank exam paper.

At that time, she thought he was a heartless rascal.

Now she understood how much this young man had carried on his shoulders. He swallowed all that bitterness, that pain, that unspeakable loneliness, and transformed it all into these twenty-eight words.

Then, smiling, he gave it to everyone.

"Ji Bai..."

Li Mei whispered his name, her voice as light as a feather: "You... idiot!"

……

Front row of the playground.

The reactions of domestic leaders were even more interesting than those of the students.

Prefect Liu stood in the guest seats, looking up at the poem, his lips slightly parted, as if something had hit him hard in the head.

He recalled his youth when he worked in a rural town, riding a bicycle to every village. He felt bitter and tired back then, but he had a burning passion in his heart.

Later, he was transferred to the city, where he rose through the ranks and lived in increasingly better houses, but that passion seemed to have been extinguished at some point.

Upon seeing these four lines of poetry, he suddenly felt a burning sensation in his chest, so intense that he almost couldn't sit still.

He whispered to Magistrate Ma beside him, "This poem is of a high level." Magistrate Ma was still dumbfounded, staring intently at the inscription, and after a long while, he finally replied, "High level... This is a poem about a lifetime of persuasion."

The prefect didn't speak, but nodded silently.

Do not waste your golden robe.

In his life, how much did he miss out on because of those "golden robes"?

Thinking about the words "when I was young" again, his eyes welled up with tears.

The provincial governor stood further ahead, with his hands behind his back.

He didn't recite it aloud, but his lips moved as he mentally went over the four lines of poetry three times.

Then, he let out a soft sigh of relief and whispered to the council leader beside him, "What a beautiful poem! It's really beautiful!"

The old man did not respond immediately.

His gaze shifted from "Do not waste your golden robes" to "Cherish your youth" to "Pluck the flower while it blooms" and finally settled on "Don't wait until there are no flowers left to pluck the bare branches".

Each word was engraved into his heart.

After a long pause, the old man slowly spoke: "The first two lines, advising people to let go of worldly possessions and cherish time, are words of worldly wisdom."

"The last two lines... use the flower as a metaphor for a person; the act of picking or not picking it fully expresses a person's youth, choices, and regrets."

"This is not a poem encouraging learning."

The old man paused, his voice low and deep, as if squeezed from the depths of his chest:

"This is a poem of moral admonition!"

"It's something that will be passed down through the ages!"

The provincial governor was startled.

What storms haven't the leaders of the Council of State weathered? What brilliant articles haven't they read?

How could someone say something like "it can be passed down through the ages"?

The provincial governor couldn't help but turn his head and look at the boy standing next to the stone tablet.

Wearing a blue and white school uniform, he stands with a sword on his back and his hands in his pockets.

He suddenly had a strange feeling. This boy didn't belong to this era!

The leader of the council suddenly turned his head and whispered an instruction to the staff member beside him:

Write this poem down.

"When we get back, we'll find the best craftsmen and have one erected in the National Museum as well."

The staff member was taken aback: "Boss, is this... appropriate?"

The old man glanced at him, his tone calm yet unquestionable:

"Such poetry shouldn't belong to just one high school."

"It belongs to this country, and to every young person!"

After speaking, the old man looked at Ji Bai.

He suddenly had a premonition.

This dilapidated middle school in a third- or fourth-tier city now stands at the top of the world because of this boy.

Will China one day also...? "Hopefully that day... won't come too late..."