Wen Di was an illegal tenant of Heqing Garden.
At first glance, Heqing Garden was no different from other old and shabby neighborhoods in Beijing. Wires protruded from the walls, bundled together and hanging below the balconies. The paint had faded, making it look dull and gray. It was six stories high, without an elevator, and the unit doors that were covered in small advertisements were already rusty. The staircases varied in height, the motion sensor lights were not sensitive, and in winter, even stomping your feet wouldn’t turn them on, leaving the corridors pitch black.
The special thing about this residential area was that it was a teacher’s apartment complex of T University.
School teachers could live here at a relatively low rent, and there were significant discounts for purchasing homes. There were hundreds of professors living in the small building with an unattractive appearance. The elderly who exercised by the green belts in the community might have been the first batch of academicians in the country, founders of certain disciplines.
Wen Di lived in that hidden dragon and crouching tiger1talented individuals in hiding
concealed talent community. However, he was neither a professor nor a family member. At twenty-six years old, he was a hopeless humanities PhD candidate.
Last semester, a senior who was teaching at the school received an invitation to be a visiting scholar overseas for a year. He lived in Building 2, Apartment 302 of Heqing Garden, facing south, with good greenery, far from the road, low noise, and a floor neither too high nor too low, avoiding both insect trouble and breathlessness from climbing stairs. With such an excellent location, he didn’t want to terminate the lease, so he paid an extra year’s rent to keep the apartment while abroad. Coincidentally, Wen Di had a falling out with his roommate and wanted to rent outside but was short on funds. The two quickly agreed and verbally signed an illegal sublease agreement. Wen Di transferred the rent to the senior fellow teacher monthly, for a year.
House in Wudaokou with Mentougou’s price, where else could he find a cheap place like this?2Wudaokou is a neighborhood in the Haidian District of Beijing, known for its numerous universities and student population, while Mentougou is a district located to the west of Beijing, known for its more suburban and rural characteristics compared to the urban center. Housing prices in Mentougou are typically lower compared to more central areas of Beijing
Not long after, an old classmate, Yu Jingyi, came to work in Beijing. Wen Di invited her to be his roommate, and the rent dropped to the level of Mohe.3A county located in Heilongjiang Province, China, characterized by extremely cold temperatures, especially in winter and has a low cost of living.
Wen Di joyfully carried his suitcase and moved into the new house, hoping that the academic atmosphere of the community would give him some inspiration.
But alas, God poured a basin of cold water on his head: Wishful thinking.
Within less than a month of moving in, Wen Di received the second-round review comments from the editor of ‘Foreign Literature Studies’.
‘Foreign Literature Studies’ is a core journal in the field of English and American literature. In the first half of the year, Wen Di’s paper was rejected by the reviewers, accompanied by four pages of revision suggestions. The reviewer was surprisingly patient, meticulously criticizing his citations and arguments page by page, questioning his logical reasoning, and finally delivering a heavy blow ——the paper’s ideas were not innovative at all…
It was extremely offensive and insulting.
Don’t Chinese have degree adverbs? Couldn’t they have said the paper’s viewpoint was hardly innovative?
After being completely rejected from head to toe, Wen Di learned from the painful experience, fought through the night, made significant revisions, and resubmitted the paper. It took over two more months of waiting before he received a response.
Trembling, he opened the email, scrolled down cautiously, and then…
It is with regret that we inform you…
He slammed his phone onto the table with a loud bang, his head knocking against the edge of the desk.
To be honest, his level had always been hovering around ordinary journals and conference papers so submitting to ‘Foreign Literature Studies’ was a bit of a stretch. But his advisor insisted on him submitting to C journal.4So basically, from what I’ve gathered, C journal can have two meanings: 1) Journal ranking.
A – Includes highly authoritative journals such as SCI (Science Citation Index) and EI (Engineering Index) journals.
B – Refers to core journals.
C – Generally includes national and provincial-level journals.
So I’m pretty sure it’s not referring to the ranking since Wen Di is really struggling with this so it might be this one journal; The CSSCI (Chinese Social Sciences Citation Index), often referred to as a ‘C journal,’ is the most authoritative core journal in the social sciences field and is considered the highest level of core journals within this context. One failure led to another attempt, and now, nearly half a year had passed, and the paper hadn’t been submitted yet.
His advisor wasn’t lacking in papers under his name, what he lacked was C journal papers. Regardless of the student’s level, they would first try their luck in C journal. After all, it wasn’t his time being wasted, and it was a risk-free transaction.
Students who got stuck in this process were in a tough spot. If the review process was slow, it meant wasting several months for nothing. Wen Di knew full well that his abilities were limited and he had no intention of making a name for himself in the academic world. He only hoped that his advisor would spare him, not waste time on unrealistic fantasies. If this dragged on and caused a delay in graduation, all the blood he shed from banging his head would be for nothing.
Suddenly, WeChat started vibrating continuously.
Wen Di glanced at the screen and then slammed it shut once again.
Speaking of the devil, here came the advisor.
Wen Di’s advisor was named Liu Hao, currently forty-five years old. By the standards of a professor, he wasn’t considered old, but he had the habit of acting like an elder, hence why everyone in the department privately referred to him as ‘Old Liu’, and Wen Di had saved his contact as such.
Old Liu: [Compile materials for the senior professor and send them to me by the 3rd.]
‘Senior professor’ was a professional title that had only been available in recent years. China’s academician system was only for science, technology, agriculture and medicine, lacking equivalent titles for humanities and social sciences. Therefore, the Ministry of Education initiated a plan to ‘establish senior professor positions, providing academician-level treatment’. Under the national call, T University finally remembered it was a comprehensive university and enacted corresponding policies to promote the development of humanities and social sciences majors.
Wen Di sighed. It seemed that Old Liu’s expectations for himself were as unrealistic as his expectations for him. The number of senior professor positions was limited. In the past two years, those who were promoted were at the level of department heads and deans. How could an ordinary professor, without outstanding academic or administrative achievements, have a chance? It was just like his attempt to submit to C journal from the start, destined to be a waste of effort — of course, all the effort was his own.
And…
Wen Di was on the verge of crushing his mobile phone. When it came to revising papers, this person was like a distant relative who owed you money, disappearing for days or even weeks. But when it came to needing help for his own promotion application, suddenly he sprang to life!
It was common to write application materials, but could he have some sense of timing? He still had a pile of literature to go through, and with this rushed deadline, was he trying to prevent him from sleeping?
Next was supposed to be the National Day holiday, a statutory break, but he didn’t even give him a breather!
He took a few deep breaths, suppressing the urge to vent his frustration, and humbly replied: Teacher, it might be a bit tight for the 3rd, can I send it by the 5th?
Old Liu’s response came quickly: [I’ll be busy after the 5th, so send it to me earlier for a review.]
Wen Di stared at the screen for a while, then replied with a simple “Okay,” accompanied by an OK gesture.
He was a 26-year-old sub-healthy young man, who said he needed sleep anyway?
Seizing the opportunity while his advisor was online, he quickly asked: [Teacher, how about submitting that paper on Shakespeare’s cross-cultural adaptation to the S University Journal?]
Old Liu replied promptly: [Stop focusing on low-tier journals every day; a student from T University should have some ambition. Revise it properly, and next time, try submitting it to ‘Foreign Literature Review.’]
Wen Di took a deep breath – he wasn’t resigning himself to failure; he was being realistic! How many C journal were there in English literature in China? How many articles could one publish in a year? He hadn’t heard of any senior students succeeding!
Let him publish a paper already!!!
Before he could finish his breath, another message popped up on WeChat, this time from the administrative office of the School of Humanities: [Student, it’s time to update the promotional video on the display screen in the humanities building.]
Followed by: [The scholarship defense is on the 8th; please organize it as soon as possible.]
Then another: [Have you finished organizing the materials for the interview of the recommended students?]
Wen Di rubbed his forehead, which was already bruised. He couldn’t afford to hit it anymore.
He sighed and typed word by word: [The promotional video from the Student Union has just been filmed, I’ll go change it right away. The scholarship has a group chat set up, and materials are being collected.]
At T University, Ph.D. students had three types of jobs: assistant manager, assistant researcher, and teaching assistant, and they could choose one of them, all of which pay a monthly salary of 2700 yuan. Assistant researchers would be responsible for research assistant work, teaching assistants would be responsible for tutorial classes and grading assignments, while assistant managers would be responsible for all teaching-related tasks in the department, such as interviews for doctoral students and recommended student, compiling graduate information, scholarship defenses, and even… college publicity, such as the display screens in the teaching buildings.
Whether the job would be high-level or not didn’t matter much, after all, there’d be some salary. What Wen Di was resentful about was that he only received the salary of an assistant manager but did the work of all three assistants.
In addition to teaching tasks, he also had to help his advisor write monographs, apply for SRT5The SRT (Student Research Training) program is an educational program designed to enhance college students’ scientific research, innovation and teamwork capabilities and funding, send materials, organize meetings, and prepare teaching materials——these were teaching assistants’ tasks, but no one wanted to be Old Liu’s teaching assistant, so it all fell on him in the end. Recently, Old Liu got interested in self-media and started several TED talk groups, and Wen Di had to help manage them.
Wen Di sighed and wrote down the things he needed to handle on the memo. After staring at the densely packed schedule for a while, he decided to go to the library today to look up materials, revise his paper, and also go to the humanities building to sort out the video issue.
He packed his backpack, rode his bike out of the community, and rushed towards the school gate. T University had renovated its entrance mechanism, setting up a row of gates at the entrance where students need to swipe their campus cards to enter. He leaned on one leg, swiped his card to enter, and dashed into the campus like lightning. Along the way, the gingko trees were turning green with a hint of yellow, indicating that they were already starting to shed their leaves.
He parked his bike at the entrance of the humanities building and went inside to upload the promotional video. As he reached the first floor, he happened to meet the administrative staff member coming out.
“You’re here,” the administrative staff nodded at him.
The system used in the humanities building was quite old and couldn’t directly upload videos online. Instead, it required a direct connection to the electronic system in the teaching building to transfer the video. Wen Di took out a USB flash drive, dragged the newly filmed promotional video from the Student Union onto it, and replaced the old one.
Before he moved the original video to the recycle bin, he took a moment to reminisce while looking at the cover—it was shot by the department when he was a sophomore. The main characters were once considered a golden boy and jade girl, but now they had long since parted ways, their relationship beyond repair.
The passing of youth, ah.
After storing the USB flash drive, he walked out of the humanities building and saw the Third Teaching Building.
He looked at the time. It was the second period in five minutes. Students were anxiously getting off their bicycle and rushing into the building. Among the crowd, there was a tall figure. His light gray suit stood out with its broad shoulders and narrow waist, very eye-catching. He walked slower than the others around him, and students rushed past him, creating a clear path through the crowd for his gray figure.
Wen Di watched from afar, his heart flushed with sourness and throbbing.
He thought of the first day of school this semester.
The library was full, so he went to an empty classroom in Third Teaching Building to gather the materials for his advisor. It was easy to catch a cold during the change of seasons, and Wen Di was no exception. Wearing a mask to stifle his coughs, he managed to write a few words before drifting off into a drowsy sleep, his head resting on the desk.
With things on his mind, even his sleep was restless. His consciousness was like the waves of the tide, swaying back and forth, rising and falling.
After what seemed like an eternity, in a hazy state, the surroundings quieted down, and a low, magnetic voice sounded.
“In most disciplines, what mankind has explored is, at best, an infinite approximation of an ideal, always changing with time. One generation may overthrow the achievements of another, and the academic edifice built by one generation will be toppled by the next. Only mathematics is adding a new story to the old structure with each generation.”
Wen Di opened his eyes and raised his head. Unconsciously, the surrounding seats were already filled with students. They were looking ahead attentively.
Wen Di turned his gaze towards the podium and saw a tall man standing there. As a professor, he looked surprisingly young. His nose was high, and sunlight cast a glow on one side of his face, leaving the other half in shadow. His jawline was sharp, and even in a suit, his bulging chest muscles were apparent. He looked more like a boxer than a mathematician.
But his voice was steady, punctuated with strength, and carried a scholarly elegance. “I hope everyone can feel this constant power in this course.”
Wen Di watched as he turned around and wrote formulas on the blackboard. The white shirt was rolled up to his elbows, revealing the solid muscles of his upper arms. His fingers were distinct, and as he gripped the chalk, the veins on the back of his hand formed a graceful arc.
His teaching style was as sharp and refined as his dressing style. Wen Di listened to a lecture that might as well have been in the heavenly book, yet he found it far from boring.
Listening to the steady tone of the man on the stage and looking at his deep eyes, Wen Di’s long-dormant love brain was suddenly rekindled.
Since then, every time he took a detour to the Third Teaching Building, he would always stop and look at it for a while. If he was free, he would put on a mask, sneak into the Mathematics department, and quietly listen to the lectures in the back row.
However, so far, he had only satisfied his curiosity, without exchanging a single word with the person. His heart had been racing for weeks, but the professor hadn’t even glanced at him.
Thinking of this, Wen Di’s heart grew even more clouded.
No breakthrough in academics, his advisor was a pain in the arse, he did odd jobs all day long, and his relationship was a long way off. It was already the fourth year of his PhD, was his doctoral life going to end so miserably?
The crows on the school road cackled, adding a touch of sadness to the atmosphere.
His mobile phone buzzed and vibrated again, and Wen Di looked at the new messages that kept popping up, packing his bag—it was useless to be sentimental, it was better to work first
He worked on revising his paper in the old library until 10 in the evening, then went home after the library closed. He continued gathering materials until the early hours of the morning. At some point, he fell asleep on his desk.
It was like being beaten into a sleep without any impurities.
Then, at the end of the darkness, a harsh creak sounded violently.
Wen Di woke up in a flash.
The sound was sharp and chilling, like someone scraping metal with their fingernails. Wen Di got goosebumps all over his body and jumped up from the table.
Before he could catch his breath, creak after creak came crashing down on him, a combination of punches made him tremble all over, and left him with a splitting headache, as if someone had drilled him in the head with a wire.
Wen Di collapsed on the bed, clutching his head, trying to make sense of it all. It was a violin, very close by, probably coming from the next room.
On the morning of the National Day, who forced the child to play the violin?!
Wen Di, filled with grief and anger, took out his mobile phone. When he rented a room, in order to get timely information about power and water outages, his senior brother pulled his second account into the building’s WeChat group. He clicked into the group, found the avatar with note 301, and added him to chat privately.
The violin cruelly tortured him for another five minutes before pausing. Wen Di glanced at his phone and saw that the person had accepted his friend request.
Wen Di sent a message to the other party: [It’s a holiday, everyone is resting. Could you practice your violin somewhere else?]
He felt that his tone was very gentle, and he had the demeanor of being a gentleman first and a soldier second.6basically mean trying fair means before resorting to force
Who knew that the other party would quickly reply: [This is my private space, whether I practice the violin or not is my personal freedom.]
Wen Di frowned. What kind of attitude was this?
He then typed: [Even in private spaces, one should consider public etiquette, right? It’s not like the building is occupied by one person, if you make noise like this, everyone will be disturbed.]
The other party said again: [Noise? How can you casually label someone else’s music as noise?]
Wen Di felt a surge of anger. What kind of music was this? Did they even have ears?
Before he could press reply, resident 301 in the group sent a message: [Has anyone heard the noise from the third floor?]
Wen Di stared at the screen, wondering why this man was digging his own grave, but the residents on the second and fourth floors all said: [Nope] [What’s the sound?]
This… Wen Di was dumbfounded. Did the others not have hearing?
Then, a private message came from the neighbor next door: [No one else heard the noise, you should find the reason within yourself.]
Wen Di was furious and typed: [Yes, this isn’t just noise, it’s disturbance! If you play again, I’ll call the police!]
For a moment, there was no response from the other side, and even the sound of sawing wood stopped. Wen Di breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that the disaster had been eliminated.
Then, a message popped up from the other side, containing a Taobao link. Wen Di clicked on it in confusion, and a photo of a sound level meter appeared.
A message popped up on top of the photo: [Noise is only considered a disturbance at 55 decibels during the day, remember to do a volume test before calling the police].
The author has something to say:
1. Shou has an ex-boyfriend, someone he genuinely had feelings for. The ex-boyfriend is a scumbag, but the main purpose of the appearance is to render a humorous atmosphere.
2. Studying for a PhD in liberal arts and sciences (or studying with different advisors) may be different. Wen Di’s experience has an element of artistic creation.
3. In this article, diplomas are roughly 0.5 yuan per jin71 jin is approximately 500 grams. so maybe the author implies that diplomas are so common or devalued in this book???
Additionally:
All chapter titles are taken from “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.”
The ‘Add a new chapter to the story’8‘增加一段新的故事’. This is what Bian Cheng said in his class, this sentence: Only mathematics is adding a new story to the old structure with each generation. is from the German mathematician Hermann Hankel.
Translator note:
As the author said, the title is taken from Shakespeare’s works. The title is written in Chinese and I tried my best looking for English version of it, but please remember, I’m a Shakespeare illiterate!
