Shen Qing opened her mouth, but before she could answer, Qi Shuyun who had just finished her phone call came over. “Wen Yao, my dad said that Professor Ma…”
She glanced at Shen Qing and Ji Shaojun.
Shen Qing was wearing a cotton jacket and an irregular wool hat – terrible aesthetics. Qi Shuyun linked arms with Xu Wenyao and asked, “These two are…?”
Xu Wenyao paused briefly, but maintained his usual gentle expression as he introduced Shen Qing and Ji Shaojun to Qi Shuyun.
Upon hearing they were Ji Mulan’s relatives, Qi Shuyun lost interest and looked away.
“Give me the lunchbox and Ah Lian’s address. I’ll deliver it to her when I return to school,” Xu Wenyao said to them.
Hearing that Xu Wenyao wanted to deliver food to Ji Mulan’s daughter.
Qi Shuyun glanced at the two, her tone gentle, “But Wenyao, my father is waiting for us at school. Didn’t you want to see Professor Ma’s lecture?”
“This won’t delay us…” Xu Wenyao tried to control his tone as he reached for the lunchbox in Shen Qing’s hands.
Ji Shaojun stopped him.
“It’s fine, Wenyao,” Ji Shaojun patted his shoulder, smiling casually. “Go handle your business. We were planning to go shopping anyway. When you have time later, you can show us around Jiangjing University.”
Xu Wenyao watched as Shen Qing and Ji Shaojun left.
“You must have a lot of free time,” Qi Shuyun turned to Xu Wenyao. “You spend all day in the library and don’t even have time for our dates, but you can deliver food to her? Is she so precious she can’t get it herself? Did you forget you wanted to attend Professor Ma’s lecture?”
Xu Wenyao pressed his brow, his usually gentle demeanor showing signs of fatigue: “It’s different. She’s also studying, and they’re guests. If there’s a next time, I hope you can respect my opinion.”
“Studying? Is her studying more important than you?” Qi Shuyun pressed the elevator button. “Isn’t Uncle Xu planning to buy her way into an international school?”
Since the Qi family was in education and Xu En had approached them when they went to Xiangcheng, Qi Shuyun naturally knew about this.
How dare they.
Making them deliver food?
Qi Shuyun thought these Ji family members were really presumptuous.
Even her father wouldn’t dare make her run errands.
On the road.
Ji Shaojun was also advising Shen Qing, “You need to maintain some distance. Does Wenyao look like someone who delivers takeout for us?”
“I didn’t say anything, he was just going that way anyway,” Shen Qing said quietly.
Ji Shaojun got along well with Xu En and the others, and Xu Wenyao was respectful and polite. She treated Xu Wenyao like family, and she had even asked Bai Lian to run errands many times.
Seeing Xu Wenyao was also going to Chang’an District, she just mentioned it casually. If it were little Jiang, he would have been overjoyed.
Ji Shaojun knew Xu En’s attitude had clouded Shen Qing’s judgment, but Xu En didn’t represent the entire Xu family. “Just use one-third of the attitude you had towards the Ren family, don’t act so familiar.”
** Shen Qing brought extra soup.
After Ning Xiao and Tang Ming didn’t finish theirs, they shared a bowl with everyone in the group.
Only Bai Lian didn’t drink any.
After drinking the soup, everyone in the group worked like they were energized, completing the academic report by afternoon.
At 8 PM, in the classroom.
Bai Shaoqi brought everyone late-night snacks again, casually looking around the classroom, “Bai Lian isn’t here?”
“She went out for something,” Song Min said calmly.
His response made Bai Shaoqi feel strange – Song Min didn’t make any comments about Bai Lian, and everyone else seemed harmonious.
“You all are very tolerant,” Bai Shaoqi remarked.
“She’s already fulfilled her role,” Since Bai Lian had presented the model yesterday, Song Min no longer had opinions about her. He said indifferently: “We don’t need her for writing the report, it doesn’t matter if she’s not here for the follow-up.”
Bai Shaoqi wanted to say something.
Just then, Wang Xu shared the complete report to the group, “This is the report Sister Bai and I wrote, everyone take a look.”
Hearing this, Bai Shaoqi smiled faintly to herself – they should remove “Sister Bai” since she wasn’t even here.
Beside her, Song Min casually opened the file and started reading from the title.
He had never written papers before, but he had written experimental reports.
He didn’t have high expectations for the academic report, thinking it would just be experimental data like always. The most interesting part should be the mathematical model.
Until he finished reading the introduction.
His previously indifferent expression became serious, and he sat up straight to continue reading.
The academic report was filled with professional terminology from the introduction onwards. Even Song Min occasionally had to pause to look up what certain words meant.
Others in the room were in the same situation.
They had to look up professional terms after reading each section.
The dozen-page report, which included many diagrams, took these people half an hour and they still hadn’t finished reading.
Bai Shaoqi curiously took a look—
She couldn’t understand it.
She stood up, seeing everyone in the classroom buried in reading the report, said goodbye to Song Min, and left the Boyuan Base.
Another half hour later, Pei Qin and Ning Xiao were the first to finish reading the report.
Pei Qin looked at Wang Xu in shock, “How did you do this?”
Since Bai Lian hadn’t come in the evening and everyone knew she typed slowly, they assumed Wang Xu had written it himself.
“It’s very simple,” Wang Xu looked at Pei Qin, shrugging.
“You…” Tang Ming was also shocked, “Are you being pretentious?”
“No,” Wang Xu smiled: “Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, don’t you know how?”
Ctrl+C?
Ctrl+V?
“Copy and paste?” Song Min frowned, “But this is clearly our data, where did you copy from?”
“Wasn’t I writing the paper with Sister Bai?” Wang Xu looked at the computer screen. “Sister Bai had edited all the content, but her formatting was a mess. Though my content wasn’t great, my formatting was correct, so I pasted her content into my format.”
“So, all this…” Pei Qin and Song Min were even more shocked, “She wrote all this?”
How did she know so much?
At the scene, perhaps only Ning Xiao remained calm.
If the group members knew what Bai Lian read every day, they wouldn’t be so surprised.
She had been reading reviews since high school, professional terms came naturally to her, and her research direction aligned with the reviews she read. With such a broad perspective, how could she not write well?
** The next day.
Academic report.
Held in the lecture hall.
In previous years, few professors would come to high school students’ academic reports, but today a row of professors and experts sat in the back.
The students were affected by this solemn atmosphere as soon as they entered the classroom.
None of them dared to look back.
“Professor Ma,” Wang Xu grabbed Tang Ming’s arm excitedly, “Did you see Professor Ma sitting in the middle? He actually came to hear our presentation.”
People from other groups also discussed: “He must be here for Dr. Gao.”
“…”
At 7:50, Gao Jiachen also arrived. He first walked to Professor Ma’s side and respectfully greeted him, “Professor Ma, thank you for coming.”
Professor Ma lifted his head and nodded slightly.
Beside him, other bigwigs from the Physics Department also greeted Gao Jiachen, “The future looks promising.”
At 8:00.
The first group went up to present, this group was Liang Wuyu’s group, with Liang Wuyu as the speaker.
Everyone, including the row of professors in the back, listened very attentively.
“So this is Liang Wuyu, indeed someone who’s been in a lab before, in a few years he could compete with He Wen…”
These professors nodded in approval, and the professor sitting at the very edge, who had given the lecture to Bai Lian’s group on the first day, wrote down a high score—
This was an affirmation of Liang Wuyu. After this group finished.
It was Ling Ziyao’s group’s turn. This group was much worse than Liang Wuyu’s, and the people in the back row stopped paying attention. Gao Jiachen, as their training teacher, gave them 81 points.
After that, each presenting group performed worse than the last.
“Director Huang,” the professor sitting at the edge whispered to the balding man beside him, “You don’t think your teacher really came for Gao Jiachen, do you?”
They hadn’t seen anything worth listening to in this academic report session so far.
Only Liang Wuyu’s group had performed acceptably.
The balding man paused briefly, glancing at Professor Ma sitting in the middle, “Well… perhaps the teacher just wanted to see the new generation’s style. Ah, it’s the last group, let’s listen first.”
He sat up straight.
Someone distributed the last group’s paper report to each professor.
Although Director Huang talked about listening to the report, he didn’t even open this report, and neither did the other professors.
In fact, except for the first group, they hadn’t looked at any of the later papers.
These professors were used to reading papers from Jiangjing’s graduate students, doctoral students, and SCI papers. These high school students’ papers had too many holes and nothing worth exploring.
Reading too many would be painful and require eye bleaching.
The professor beside Director Huang casually tossed the report aside, then looked up to see a girl taking the stage.
The classroom was well-heated, and the girl wore a thick white cross-collared top with black ink bamboo leaves embroidered on it, paired with black and gold satin pants that shimmered gold as she walked.
A black wooden hairpin held up all her hair at the back, revealing her long neck.
She went up with a USB drive and bent down to open their group’s PowerPoint.
The speaker was Bai Lian, because only she better understood these professional terms. The PowerPoint was made by Wang Xu, and Bai Lian had already familiarized herself with it several times.
In the middle.
Ling Ziyao glanced at Wang Xu, then looked at Bai Lian and others with mockery in his eyes.
Wang Xu coldly glared back at Ling Ziyao.
Song Min had some doubts, this was his lifelong suspicion of Bai Lian, “Letting her present, will she really not make mistakes?”
Hearing this, Wang Xu and others who didn’t know Bai Lian well also quietly asked Tang Ming: “Yeah, I just heard Liang Wuyu’s voice shaking, can she handle it?”
“This…” Pei Qin thought it wasn’t good last night, but now was also worried, “If we had known there would be so many people today, we should have let Ning Xiao or Song Min present.”
They naturally didn’t know Professor Ma and many professors would come, this kind of pressure wasn’t something an ordinary person could handle.
While these people were worried, Tang Ming just smiled, “If she can’t handle it, then no one else here can.”
His tone was somewhat proud.
Song Min looked at Tang Ming in surprise.
On the stage, after the PowerPoint came up, Bai Lian bowed to the professors and students before beginning today’s presentation.
“We used Berry phase and Berry curvature to adjust the parameter space, achieving lossless quantum bit transitions between different energy levels…” She barely looked at the PowerPoint behind her.
Standing slightly sideways on the stage, holding the USB drive in one hand, casually pointing at the PowerPoint behind her.
The USB drive landed on exactly the line of text or image she was discussing each time.
The winter sun had risen, golden light streaming through the glass and dust-filled air onto her. The young girl, holding the USB drive, spoke eloquently, as if what she was pointing to wasn’t just PowerPoint slides or her paper, but vast mountains and rivers.
In white clothes and black dress, with casual eyebrows and eyes, she exuded the vigor of youth.
While everyone was still captivated by her presence, as she continued to the latter part, Director Huang finally reacted, hurriedly opening the paper in his hands, comparing it word by word with the text described above.
Then looked up in astonishment.
Wait, this model? Could this really be done by a high school student?
Beside Director Huang, the professor was also listening very attentively, only Gao Jiachen, sitting on the other side, frowned when Bai Lian got to the model part, squinting at her.
Twenty minutes.
Bai Lian finished her presentation, her right hand behind her back as she bowed slightly: “Thank you, teachers and students.”
Below the stage, Wang Xu gave her a thumbs up.
Ling Ziyao, however, was full of disbelief.
Liang Wuyu, who had been looking down, also raised his head to look at the PowerPoint, and beside him, Xu Zhiyue also stared at Bai Lian intently.
“Teacher, I think this group is really good,” Director Huang, who hadn’t commented before, looked at Professor Ma, seeming to understand why his teacher had come, “What do you think?”
Professor Ma gave an “mm” sound, which counted as an evaluation.
While others were still quietly discussing, hearing Professor Ma’s “mm,” the room exploded with excitement.
Bai Lian stood straight, about to return to her seat.
“Wait,” from the crowd, Gao Jiachen stood up, looking at Bai Lian with cold eyes: “Student, I believe I mentioned beforehand that the model for this time needed to be done with your own participation. Are you sure you participated in the model you presented?”
With these words, the bustling classroom suddenly fell silent.
In the last row, Director Huang breathed a sigh of relief, saying to the professor beside him: “I was going to say, how could students nowadays be this insane.”
Thankfully, it wasn’t done by these students.
The professor nodded, “Though the paper’s terminology is indeed good, you can see they’ve studied reviews and papers.”
** In the middle seats.
Wang Xu looked up blankly, turning to Tang Ming, “Was there such a rule?”
Before this, Gao Jiachen had never mentioned this rule, which was why they collaborated with Ling Ziyao.
Pei Qin saw it clearly, squinting his eyes and calmly saying: “Whether there was or not, now that Dr. Gao has said it, it means there is.”
“Then what do we do?” Wang Xu’s excited mood sank.
From behind, Ling Ziyao’s voice was a bit loud, “Actually getting a model from someone else, teacher, this shouldn’t count towards the total score, right?”
Director Huang and others were also stunned, looking at each other.
They had originally planned to give Bai Lian a high score.
“Dr. Gao, as long as someone in our group participated in the model, it’s fine, right?” Bai Lian leaned one hand on the podium, her eyes slightly narrowed.
Gao Jiachen glanced at her, saying gravely: “Indeed, but you’re not going to tell me you participated?”
“Yes.” Bai Lian raised an eyebrow.
Director Huang, who was about to take a drink of water, choked again.
Looking up in shock – wait, are you really that incredible? “Do you think that no one would know about a new paper so quickly? That no one would pay attention? This model is from a paper published by He Wen yesterday at eleven o’clock.” Gao Jiachen had always considered He Wen as his rival.
He didn’t know why He Wen could get into places he couldn’t.
So he always paid attention to everything about his opponent, researching whatever He Wen researched.
As soon as He Wen published a paper, Gao Jiachen was the first to receive the news.
“Student, you’re not going to tell me that you wrote that paper?” Gao Jiachen looked at Bai Lian, almost sneering.
The students nowadays were so blatant in their cheating.
The entire classroom fell silent.
In the last row, all the professors became serious, their expressions not good.
They could understand if the model wasn’t self-made, but insisting it was their own work showed a problem with character.
It showed a serious problem with academic integrity.
“Of course I didn’t write it,” Bai Lian shook her head, and just as Ling Ziyao was about to laugh out loud, she continued unhurriedly, “But I did participate in the modeling.”
“Look at the name after the title, you should see my name, I’m Bai Lian.”
He Wen had said that she and another student were both second authors.
As second authors, they naturally would have their names listed.
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