Final chapter: Racing toward eternal immortality, just like this (part one)
Many things happened that year.
Lin Zouwen's death, the collapse of the Gao faction Empire, Facebook Chinese surpassing fifty million active users, Wang Yue attending the ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new hotel building in Shanghai amid flashing cameras, Pineapple Media's Financial Current Affairs establishing itself overnight as a heroic, authoritative financial magazine in China through its courageous exposure of the Gao faction's inner workings, and the rising political influence of Wang Bu, an ascending star of the republic.
And the grand graduation ceremony for Su Can, Tang Wu, Zhang Qiao, Xiao Xu, Li Han, Tong Tong, Wang Dongjian, Ruan Si'ou, and so many others.
Dressed in their graduation gowns, they received their degree certificates, countless flowers, and applause in Nanjing University's magnificent, densely packed stadium.
Nanjing University had originally intended to have Su Can speak as the undergraduate representative, but he yielded the opportunity to a Singaporean girl from the Chinese Department. Whether it was her rendition of the Peking opera passage "Spilling Hot Blood to Write Autumn" at the end of her speech, which brought the house down, or an inspirational fellow's hysterical declaration-"The greatest distance in the world isn't between life and death. It isn't that you and I can never be together. It's that Dorm Twenty-One is only a hundred meters from the girls' Dorm Twenty-Two, but the supervisor won't let me charge upstairs!"-both moved people to tears.
Finally, a female associate dean of Nanjing University's School of Economics spoke. "When we're young, our definition of success is entirely different. Back then, my aspirations were: I want to be famous, I want to be a star, I want to make movies, I want to drive an expensive car, I want a group of close friends around