It’s good to have presence, but presence actually cannot solve any problems.
For example, Li Zheng’s group, blocking the entrance of the laboratory, had presence but still couldn’t get inside.
Although it was already seven o’clock, the group inside was still leisurely wrapping up their operations at the computer console.
Because it was a relatively secluded environment, cut off from the world, even their conversations could be partially heard by those outside.
"Hurry up, you guys. The next group is waiting."
"Huh? There are still people coming at this hour?"
"Dean Zhou arranged it."
"...That’s so odd, did Zhou Yi get some private work?"
"You can’t talk nonsense like that."
"I think I heard Teacher Deng saying that Yingpei had this incredible freshman who found Dean Zhou and wanted to do structural analysis, so Dean Zhou just went ahead and approved it without reasoning."
"A freshman?"
"A freshman."
"With the resources given, they must be related to Dean Zhou, right?"
"Or else their family must be someone important; anyway, both Dean Zhou and Teacher Deng greenlit it all the way through, and it was all very hush-hush, nobody talked about it outside."
"In that case... should we make another backup of the data we just got, in case they mess it up?"
"Alright, alright, make it fast. I’ll guide them through the process."
"Just make sure you keep a close eye on them, Brother Liu. We only have this one in the Chemical Institute, don’t let them break it."
"You talk too much!"
Outside the door, everyone else heard this and, for the most part, remained calm.
Only Lin Moming was still too young.
"It’s just an electron microscope, what’s the big deal? Give me a few more years and I’ll be able to afford one," Lin Moming cursed under her breath, "Let’s see how I stare them down in a bit."
"It’s all very human," Li Zheng said indifferently, "We are the exceptions, we need to get used to being misunderstood, and in the future, we’ll also need to get used to being praised. It’s not that we are patient, but rather those noises are too cheap and cluttered, not worthy of our individual responses."
At that, Lin Moming instantly felt her anger dissipating.
"Or to put it another way," Chang Keqing said, ruffling Lin Moming’s hair, "be not elated by external gains, be not saddened by personal losses."
"Aaaah..." Lin Moming, looking up, laughed foolishly, "That’s too hard, I’ll leave it to Uncle Mo Nian."
"Spiritual cultivation? That indeed can make one more composed," Mo Nian said, moving his fingers repeatedly, gazing steadily at the door, "But true composure comes from confidence in one’s own strength, just like Li Zheng said. Their words don’t deserve to affect me, I just want to quickly put into action the things I have planned."
"Same here, I can totally relate," the leader, patting Mo Nian, also stared straight at the door, "I’d like to take some parts back with me... I’m just fantasizing, don’t look at me like that... We’ve got to handle the surveillance first, right?"
As Shi Yang, he thought he was already quite a character, but listening to this, he gradually felt like he couldn’t keep up.
"Brother..." Shi Yang swallowed and whispered to Li Zheng, "Our teammates... except for that tall sister... none of them look like college students..."
"Don’t panic, I’m confident. You’ll understand once we get started."
"Okay then..."
While they spoke, the laboratory door finally opened.
Three postgraduate-looking seniors walked out one after another, starting off by looking at this group with a somewhat mocking smile.
But soon, they couldn’t smile anymore.
This group’s height ranged from one and a half to one and nine meters, from muscular men to doll mascots, they had it all.
This lineup seemed nothing like one that would conduct research.
It was more like they were about to go on a dungeon raid.
Battle Mage, Thief, Healer, Support — all accounted for!
Only Shi Yang was the odd one out...
Let’s just pretend he’s a slime.
Just as they were walking past with vacant steps and glaring eyes.
A sticky cry of surprise suddenly came from behind.
"Li Zheng?!"
They looked in the direction of the voice.
There she appeared, a female slime!
Li Zheng’s eyes widened as well, "Although I can hardly recognize you, to have grown to such a size... Senior Sister Shen?"
"Damn!" Shen Yiyun cursed as she hurried over, "Who did I think it was? Why did you go to Yingpei?"
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"Hey, it’s all the same everywhere." Li Zheng then turned to make introductions, "This is Shen Yiyun from the Chemical Institute, a senior in her third year of research. She taught me everything about the experiment."
The group then shook hands and got acquainted with one another.
When it came to Shi Yang extending his chubby hand, it was slapped away by another plump hand.
"What are you messing around for!"
"Hehe~" Shi Yang scratched his head and giggled, "We haven’t seen each other in so long, just wanted to shake hands."
"I’m not shaking your hand; that face of yours is definitely the face of someone who doesn’t wash their hands after using the restroom."
"...Do you have any evidence for that?" Shi Yang immediately pointed at Li Zheng, "He just went, and he didn’t wash either."
"Hey, whether he washes or not doesn’t matter."
"..."
After shaking hands all around, Shen Yiyun was about to turn away.
But Li Zheng pulled her back gently and coughed, pointing downwards.
It was then that Shen Yiyun noticed.
Below her, there was a little girl lifting her hand expectantly.
"Wow..." Shen Yiyun exclaimed as she crouched down, "So cute, like a little doll."
Lin Moming’s expression changed in an instant: "Okay, I got it."
Li Zheng hurriedly explained, "This is Lin Moming, our official team member."
"Ah? Ah?" Shen Yiyun looked back and forth numerous times, taking a while to confirm that Li Zheng was serious, and then placed her hand on Lin Moming’s like shaking hands with a child, "Chinese? Can you speak?"
"I just spoke..."
"Oh oh oh, sorry..."
After Shen Yiyun stood up, she let the senior members go in first, then turned to the operational engineer who was organizing the operation desk inside the lab, "Brother Liu, I know this group well, how about I keep an eye on them?"
"No, I have to be present for the first time," said the bespectacled big brother at the desk, waving his hand. "You all changed clothes, right? Come in."
And so, at 7:15 AM, the Science Frontier group finally entered the cryoelectron microscopy lab.
Like many labs, this one was a suite; the outer room was set up with desks and workstations.
Through the glass, one could see the cryoelectron microscope in the inner room. The device looked like a two-meter-tall grey metallic microscope scaled up, without much sense of technology, rather having a sense of crudeness. It seemed like several cylindrical pieces of metal were just stacked together, not much more sophisticated than the model assembled by Tu Yikou.
Of course, Zhou Yi had explained clearly that this microscope from the Chemical Institute was a low-end model from a few years back and couldn’t even compare to the one at the Biology Institute.
According to regulations, anyone using the cryoelectron microscope must operate under the guidance and supervision of a specialized engineer. In many cases, people working on projects can’t even touch the microscope and must entrust the engineer to operate it.
As today’s responsible engineer, Liu Tao could relax a bit with Shen Yiyun’s experienced group, but for Li Zheng’s group, he hadn’t planned on letting them touch anything and was fully prepared to operate on their behalf.
While Li Zheng’s group was registering, Shen Yiyun lobbied Liu Tao like mad, and only then did he grudgingly agree that Li Zheng’s group could perform "some moderate, slow operations."
This process unwittingly consumed another ten minutes.
They had only four hours of usage time, and nearly half an hour was wastefully passed.
Steady as Mo Nian was, he couldn’t help feeling a bit impatient.
But Liu Tao was still unhurried, asking everyone to sit down before opening a document to read aloud.
"Let me go over the key points of the manual..."
Unable to bear it any longer, Mo Nian raised his hand and said, "Teacher Liu, we have already memorized this document."
"You’ve memorized it all?" Liu Tao turned his head and pushed his glasses up, "By that, you mean all of you, every single person has memorized the entire content?"
Upon hearing this, everyone looked towards the leader.
The leader, unusually flustered, said to Liu Tao.
"Look, friend, just explain it to me, let them start operating."
Liu Tao only shook his head with a smile and casually turned to a page, saying, "What are the four major steps of using cryo-EM? That tall guy."
Mo Nian answered reflexively like a nervous reaction, "Specimen preparation, electron microscope imaging, image processing, and structural analysis."
"Hmm..." Liu Tao nodded in surprise, and then, scanning the others, said, "What do we need to pay attention to in specimen preparation? This... this young lady here, answer this one."
Age discrimination is everywhere. Although Lin Moming really wanted to curse, she still chose to look at the big picture, biting her teeth and stating forcefully.
"The specimen must be very pure, commonly using crystals, and is often prepared using rapid freezing or spray freezing methods. Judging by the layout of this lab, it seems that only liquid nitrogen freezing is possible."
"Wow, you know a lot." Liu Tao felt the urge to give a thumbs-up for encouragement.
"Nobody understands it better than me." Lin Moming also had an urge to stick out her tongue, spray water, and make funny faces.
Liu Tao glanced at the others before asking, "A quick summary of the cryo-EM lab safety points... um... the other female student, please answer this."
Chang Keqing immediately spoke without haste, "Maintain a temperature of 20-25℃, humidity at 40%-60%, report any faults or damages to the manager promptly, strictly prohibit drinking water, strictly forbid using conductive objects to touch power sources, and properly prevent static electricity. When maintaining equipment..."
"Alright, alright, that’s enough..." Liu Tao wiped the sweat from his forehead nervously and finally turned to Li Zheng, just about to ask a question when he met those staring eyes.
Although Li Zheng didn’t say a word, his eyes were filled with longing.
Come on, do it! Do it! Do it quickly!
I’m full of energy indeed!
Hurry up!
Time waits for no one!
Seeing such an excited pair of eyes, Liu Tao forcefully swallowed his question.
Let’s not test him... he must know even more than me.
Only then did Liu Tao turn off the document and nod with effort.
"Good, very energetic, all of you are very energetic... Now, let me ask you, do you have an experimental plan document?"
Chang Keqing immediately handed over the experimental materials she was holding, "Here you go."
Liu Tao flipped through them as quickly as possible, not daring to delay any further in the face of such spirited Li Zheng.
But even so, this process still took another 10 minutes.
"The plan is... indeed very clear..." By the end, Liu Tao’s palms were sweating, and his voice weakened considerably, "The problem is... this kind of experiment... I have never done it before... no, not me, but no one has ever used an electron microscope like this..."
Shen Yiyun, who had also been looking at the materials all this time, was also inevitably confused, "This method... it’s indeed different from what we do with organic photovoltaic material analysis..."
After speaking, she raised her head and asked, "Has any foreign lab introduced this set of procedures?"
By now, Li Zheng had become more excited than ever, verging on agitation.
"This is an experiment to establish a new method, and the specifics have been clearly outlined in our grant proposal," Li Zheng said, nodding to Liu Tao, "This experimental plan has already been sent to your email."
"Ah... yes..." Liu Tao gasped, rubbing the back of his head, "I thought it was going to be a more routine... material analysis... like writing a small paper, the kind you publish in just any journal... In fact, most of the experiments here are of that sort, as cryo-EM is a new technology and it’s easy to get papers out of it... but I didn’t expect... you have such a groundbreaking project..."
Liu Tao paused in his words, then pondered again, "This is a bit beyond my control... In that case, let me consult... no, no... I need to send the experimental materials to several leaders for their instructions..."
Upon hearing this.
A collective eye-roll occured.
Even including Shi Yang.
"Brother Liu, this isn’t really necessary, is it?" Shi Yang came forward and said, "There are no dangerous aspects to this experiment; we have just optimized some things for small molecules, and it’s even simpler than many experiments. We could have completed it in the time it takes to get permission."
"But this procedure isn’t in the standard experimental manual..." Liu Tao kept shaking his head, "We only conduct experiments with clear guidelines... unless a professor comes, indeed, then some groundbreaking work can be done..."
"But this is a project approved by Boss Zhou," Shi Yang said, pointing to the report, "Isn’t that enough?"
"But..." Liu Tao flipped through the materials and said, "Dean Zhou’s name doesn’t appear anywhere on it, not even as a supervising teacher."
"Oh, come on! Does it have to be like this!" Shi Yang scratched his head in frustration, "We finally got in, and now there’s this drama."
At this moment, Li Zheng’s hand had already reached into his pocket.
He really didn’t want to trouble Zhou Yi over such a trivial matter, but they only had a total of four hours for the experiment, 40 minutes of which had already passed. Any further delays and it would be questionable whether they could proceed at all today.
In his hesitation, Tu Yikou suddenly pressed his arm, gave a "steady brother" look, and then leisurely got up and walked towards Liu Tao.
"Friend, I understand your concerns, but allow me to be straightforward and say something offensive," Tu Yikou said, gently patting Liu Tao’s back, "My friend, look, our reports and procedural documents have all been in order, but you’re only looking at them now. Isn’t there an element of negligence involved? According to these so-called procedures, before we entered, you should have also made the corresponding preparations, right?"
With Tu Yikou patting him like that, Liu Tao tried hard to say, "This experiment was added suddenly, we didn’t have enough time to..."
"No worries, I haven’t finished yet," Tu Yikou continued, picking up the experimental report and tapping it on the table, "My friend, look again, this experiment is a project personally initiated by Dean Zhou, and many leaders have given their endorsements and permissions. Maybe this means they highly value this experiment, or that there are people involved that you can’t afford to offend. But that’s not important. What’s important is that you’re not just refusing us now, but you’re disrespecting our leaders, our supporters, and the future of Chinese scientific research."
"......" Liu Tao grew increasingly nervous and unconsciously wiped off another bead of sweat, "...then...just a moment...I’ll take another look at those directive documents..."
"No rush, I still haven’t finished," Tu Yikou raised his hand and looked around, "This place is a critical area for the electron microscope, an opportunity not to be missed. We are not common people, we should race against time. There’s nothing irregular about this experiment; it merely exceeds your understanding. Under such circumstances, if you shirk your imaginary responsibilities and thus delay national resources, wasting the time of multiple international competition champions, how would you justify it?"
"..."
"Dereliction of duty is inhuman, defying leadership is disloyal, and wasting our time is unjust," Tu Yikou finally gave Liu Tao another strong pat, "Turn back, friend, don’t do this sort of thing anymore."
"I...I..." Liu Tao was almost brought to tears and only turned to look at Shen Yiyun, "Then...can you help me keep an eye on things..."
"Watch...watch..." Even Shen Yiyun was affected, "I dare not stop watching..."
After the leader’s ideological work was done, at 19:47, Li Zheng and his team entered the inner room and stood in front of the cryo-electron microscope.
In pursuit of efficiency, the first experiment was primarily conducted by Shi Yang and Mo Nian, with Li Zheng providing strategic command, Chang Keqing taking comprehensive notes, Lin Moming spectating for entertainment, while the leader took the opportunity to study the construction and parts of the electron microscope.
Following Liu Tao’s instructions, they began the experiment slowly and moderately, verbally explaining their actions to ensure everything remained within Liu Tao’s control.
This led to a somewhat comical scene.
It was as if they had become teachers, giving a lecture to Liu Tao...
Mo Nian first took out a bag of white powdery crystals, slowly presenting it in front of Liu Tao: "This is the model compound we’ve chosen—Progesterone."
"Oh..." Liu Tao responded blankly with an open mouth.
"And now...I’m going to pour it onto this paper..." Mo Nian said, slowly spreading the progesterone powder onto the paper, then gave a nod to Shi Yang.
"And what about me?" Shi Yang gestured with his hands, "I’m going to take a small amount of progesterone powder, crush it between two glass cover slips, watch carefully now..."
"Oh oh..." Liu Tao nodded vigorously.
While Shi Yang performed the task, Mo Nian continued to explain: "Next, Shi Yang will deposit the crushed fine powder onto the porous carbon-copper grid...Meanwhile, I’m going to fetch liquid nitrogen over there...look carefully, I’ve put on gloves already, to avoid frostbite."
Shi Yang continued, "Then, when Mo Nian brings the liquid nitrogen, I’ll quickly freeze the copper grid in it before placing it into the electron microscope to start collecting data..."
"Alright, alright..." Liu Tao couldn’t take it anymore, "Just do it...stop talking...like I’m an idiot..."
"Wasn’t that your request, Brother Liu?" Shi Yang burst into laughter.
"Quit your jabbering; the liquid nitrogen is here." Liu Tao waved his hand dismissively. "Who knew all you freshmen were already so experienced..."
With Liu Tao’s various demands now absent, the procedure went much more smoothly.
Once the sample was placed in the microscope, everyone quickly moved to the workstations beside the screens, with Shi Yang operating the software to perform the rotational projection as Li Zheng had requested.
To put it in perspective, this was like a molecular-level CT, constructing the entire molecular structure model through a massive amount of scanning at different angles, so how to control the rotation and how long to rotate became a question crucial to efficiency.
At this time, Liu Tao and Shen Yiyun had also joined in, offering their advice and strategies.
Meanwhile, Li Zheng and Chang Keqing were already at the next experiment station, preparing the next set of samples.
According to Li Zheng’s plan, within the limited time, all six members of the group were to conduct as many experiments as possible. Although this affected efficiency, the sacrifice was worth it for the sake of a stronger talent reserve.
Unfortunately, as the Demon Emperor, this was the least he could do in terms of his breadth of view.
He knew what every lab was busy with day and night, and he was aware that Yellow River-2 affected hundreds of units and thousands of engineers and scientists.
He knew the costly equipment before him might be a toy for some private school in Europe or America, and he knew what Zhang Shandong and Liu Tao were thinking, as well as what Zhou Xiao was persisting for.
He knew there were monsters like Yang Zhenhua and Jie Qifen, but the world also needed leaders like Xu Youyou and even Chu Youhua in academia.
Science Frontier was his stronghold; this laboratory was his first battle.
At this moment, in Li Zheng’s eyes, the form of Science Frontier underwent a subtle change.
They were no longer a team from the Canyon Battlefield or a group running a dungeon.
It was...
Chief of Staff: Chang Keqing.
Diplomat: Lin Moming.
Commissar: Tu Yikou.
General: Mo Nian.
Commander-in-Chief: Li Zheng.
As Zhou Yi said, it’s best to become famous early.
This scholar faction, I shall definitely lead.
