Gone.
As the New Year’s bells chimed, Li Zheng and Lin Yujing seemed to vanish from Ji University’s campus.
Phones inaccessible, no responses on WeChat, leaving only a message with the class leader, "Busy lately, please grant me some leave."
After skipping classes for three days, the counselor could no longer bear it and went to dorm 403.
On the balcony, he encountered Tu Yikou, who had been skipping classes for four months.
Tu Yikou silently handed the counselor a cigarette, then continued to recline in the balcony lounge chair, stuffing his hands into the sleeves of his down jacket, "It’s freedom, they are free now."
Outside the ’Biophysics’ classroom, the counselor caught up with Mo Nian who was about to go to class.
"Just three days." Mo Nian shook his head and patted the counselor, "Once, I traveled eastward all the way to the coast to collect some algae, and by the time I returned, thirty days had already passed. It’s no big deal, just suddenly felt like having a spiritual journey."
"That’s not right, Brother Nian." Yang Jun scratched his head and said, "I remember you mentioned that time, you traveled eastward, reached the coast and then... on your way back..."
"Jun... sometimes, people prefer to accept expressions that are beautifully vague..."
In the student union activity room, the counselor found Chang Keqing.
"They must be hiding somewhere secretly studying together." Chang Keqing’s nails dug into the corner of the table, "It can only be this..."
In the anime club, the counselor saw Lin Moming being surrounded by a group of cosplaying sisters, constantly being molested and dressed up.
"Teacher, save me... they said there were unlimited desserts and I came... quick, save me!"
In the end, the counselor had no choice but to call Li Yi.
"Skipping classes... Who doesn’t skip classes? As long as the exam grades are good... oh, they are rushing me to continue cooking, let’s talk later..."
The counselor felt that this person was unreliable, so he called An Ning.
"I’ve already transferred to the veteran bureau here, find the current leader if you need something."
As for the School of Physics, no one publicly mentioned this affair anymore; only occasionally would they discuss it privately.
"Good as gone... these two have gone under... probably couldn’t stand the transfer of Jie Qifen and chased him to his current job to continue what’s so called their research..."
"Sigh, such promising talents... Looking back now, publishing in ’Science’ too early might not have been a good thing."
"Yeah, they were too young, inflated by one CNS paper until they wanted to unify everything..."
"They still don’t know, most people only get one CNS paper in their lifetime..."
Those familiar with the situation were somewhat regretful.
And those who chased rumors were actually very excited.
"I always said, Li Zheng’s electron microscope was purely luck plus having the right connections."
"Did you see Zhihu? It said Li Zheng’s mom is a big shot in the Ministry of Science and Technology, quite close to the Chemical Institute, and Li Zheng was also close to Shi Yang, perfectly timed to grant this project as a favor for Mr. Li."
"Giving the first author to gain bigger rewards? Zhou Yi can really play!"
...
"Just speculating, the more they speculated, the quicker it cooled down. At the beginning of the school term, how awesome was ’Ji University Twin Stars’? Both in ’Science’ and scientific inventions, now isn’t it all quieted down?"
"Come on, publishing one paper a year is already good, I think Quiet God is more of a pity... Nothing and it just went silent... Back then, she was even beyond Li Zheng."
"Thank goodness Queen wasn’t involved..."
"Queen had it the worst, okay? She gave up Chu Youhua for Li Zheng..."
"What was she thinking..."
"Looking back now, wasn’t Li Zheng’s first paper just cobbled together from various sources? It’s hard to say what his real capabilities are, but deceiving people is his true skill, even managing to pull in Chu Youhua’s people."
...
In the administrative building of the School of Physics, Vice Dean Liu Qi hung up the phone and shook his head at Sui Miao opposite him.
"Jie Qifen hasn’t even reported for duty, just started taking sick leave right away."
"..." Sui Miao gasped sharply, bowing his head for a long while before sighing, "I can’t get in touch with Li Zheng either... It looks like they are really continuing somewhere... "
"Let it be," Liu Qi waved his hand, "At least from now on, Jie Qifen won’t have a chance to interact with students anymore. It should have been like this earlier; Dean Zhong was too soft. Sui Miao, don’t blame yourself too much, we did what we could."
"Not enough yet..." Sui Miao ran his fingers through his hair, "Li Zheng last asked me if we could provide some resources for research on two-dimensional materials..."
"I told you to stop bringing that up," Liu Qi frowned, "Taking scientific research as child’s play, those are the nation’s top-level key labs. Just because he asked, should we provide? That’s absurd! At least he should show some sincerity, bring some results to discuss, right?"
"But if he brings them forward, would anyone actually discuss them?" Sui Miao shook his head vigorously, "I think there’s still a chance. I’ll put my face out there and ask around to see if they have any opinion, then we can organize a discussion..."
"What exactly has Li Zheng done to you? You want us, the professors busy all day and night, to discuss that with two undergraduates and a Jie Qifen? Are you serious?"
"..."
"Sui Miao, you’ve been a bit crazy lately, and it’s not your fault, no one did anything wrong. Those matters should be Yingpei’s concern, stop taking on responsibility yourself," Liu Qi waved his hand, "There are plenty of summaries and evaluations to work on, focus on your own tasks first."
"Yes..."
Sui Miao left the office with his head bowed, his tall figure lacked any presence now.
"Hopefully... everything will be okay."
...
The matter should have subsided gradually, but as the disappearance of Li Zheng and Jingjing dragged on, the rumors only intensified, almost as if a real saga, "The Quantum Horcrux of the Earth Demon of the School of Physics," was about to be scripted.
Inside the school, Li Zheng, along with Gu Jianfeng, toppled from grace.
Even the media outside the school began to show a bizarre shift in narrative.
Although the topic of "academic stars" is niche, a CNS author shouldn’t have that big a name, but suddenly, there were inexplicably more articles and discussions.
All thanks to those sensationalized materials, just needing to be sequenced and a bit of imagination added, along with phrases like "conflict of interest, anonymous" and "located at Ji University, talked with Li Zheng a few times," some stories suddenly became vivid—
[The Scholar Faction is scarier than the capitalist families–Decrypting the network of the contemporary academic overachievers]
[What is packaging? Giving space projects a golden touch. What is character setting? An endorsement from the big shot as the first author.]
[Quantum leader Chu Youhua had seen through Li Zheng long ago]
With the odd twists in the narrative, even the once legitimate competitions could no longer stand their ground.
[It’s been said long ago, 50% of domestic academic competitions involve cheating.]
[Just use your brain for a second, can a human possibly win five gold medals in different subjects?]
[I mentioned from the start, as someone who has won so many domestic champions like Li Zheng, if he just participated in IPHO or IMO, wouldn’t those gold medals be handed over on a platter? And yet, he didn’t participate in any international competitions. Did he not want to, or was he afraid to go? You judge for yourself.]
[Academic prodigy Mr. Li: "Mom, the IPHO is next month, bring me the exam papers with answers, oh wait, make it two."]
[Director’s Mom: "Son, I really can’t handle this..."]
[Mr. Li: "Then won’t we expose ourselves if we go to the IPHO?"]
[Director’s Mom (after some thoughtful deliberation): "I’ve got it, you guys should go build rockets instead, then you can gracefully bow out."]
[Li Zheng (with a typical stare): "Brilliant!"]
And that wasn’t even the most absurd part, as some even dug up Li Zheng’s junior high and freshman high school grades.
One could only say that some people have way too much time on their hands.
Or maybe the paycheck was just too tempting.
...
Days went by, and even as rumors reached this fever pitch, Li Zheng, Lin Yu Jing, and even Gu Jianfeng were nowhere to be seen.
Before they knew it, it was finals week.
Just when everyone thought it was a certain thing that these individuals would skip their exams, they suddenly showed up.
After all, it was Li Zheng; not even the sky falling down could keep him from his exams.
Regardless of whether it was Li Zheng, Lin Yu Jing, or Gu Jianfeng, they all arrived exactly ten minutes after the exams started, departed within an hour, and then disappeared once again.
Like dark matter, you couldn’t see them normally; you could only flush them out with exams.
This bizarre happening continued until the last day of the exam season, early in the morning.
The first to discover all this was a buzz-cut master’s student from the School of Physics named Lu Yang, who had finished his last exam of the semester the day before. Yet, he wasn’t liberated but went to the Institute of Condensed Matter as usual, heavy-hearted.
Many people check Weibo or Bilibili as soon as they start their work day.
But not Lu Yang, he’s awesome—he checks Nature and Science.
These two top-tier journals update their websites almost daily with advance online publications of papers, which are all destined for print. Posting in advance is like staking a claim, as processes like "proof-reading" and "printing" also measure in weeks—if anything like scooping happens during this time, it can be quite bothersome.
After all, in research accomplishments, whoever publishes first, owns it. Missing by a week could mean wasting years of work.
Especially in popular fields like genetic technology and condensed matter where everyone is madly crowding in, topic redundancy is so common that "having a unique topic in the entire world" is actually rare.
Take the graphene paper by Yuan Yuan for example, Lu Yang knew of four labs working on that research, and wasn’t it MIT that eventually got the accolade?
As for Lu Yang, he didn’t dare hope for any accolade; finding a suitable topic for his graduate thesis was a realistic goal.
Without doubt, Nature and Science were his best sources of inspiration, finding a tiny, inconsequential yet supervisor-approved direction in the corners of these masters’ papers, and then spending two years to develop something, was his ultimate goal for his graduate studies.
As usual, Lu Yang first clicked on Nature, then went to brew his coffee for a few minutes before returning.
By then, the homepage had just refreshed to display a bold headline—
[A new magic angle! From Jinghua!]
Bang!
The coffee made it to the seat before Lu Yang did.
Every letter in the two lines stabbed at his eyes.
A new Magic Angle?!
Jinghua did it?!
Damn Jinghua!
Why Jinghua?
Couldn’t Zhongke manage it?
Lu Yang couldn’t even bother about the scalding coffee spilled over the chair and madly clicked on the cover spot, subconsciously glaring at the authors’ list.
Foreign names on English publications are actually easy to recognize. But Chinese names are troublesome at times like this due to the abundance of homophones, requiring some thought.
Like what Lu Yang saw just now.
Wei Xie...Zheng Li...Yi Wang...
When flipped around, it should be...
Xie Wei...Li Zheng...Wang Yi...
Hmm...
Something feels strange...
A bunch of academicians with a handsome guy mixed in...
Look again...
Xie Wei...
Li Zheng...
Wang Yi...
Hmm...
As Lu Yang mused,
suddenly his knees went weak.
He plunked down into the chair full of hot coffee.
"Shit…" Lu Yang’s mouth slowly fell open, "No... way..."
Trembling, he clicked on the tag named "Zheng Li", the response was incredibly quick—
[Yuanpei College, Peking University]
A few seconds later...
"Ah!!!" Lu Yang’s buttocks finally started to feel the burn.
"What are you doing, what are you doing?" a girl suddenly burst in excitedly, "Did you think there was no one in the lab and were sneaking around doing something?"
Lamentably, Lu Yang was indeed in the process of taking off his pants.
"Wow, wow, wow, I’ve got to catch what you were looking at this time." The girl grew even more excited and rushed to the computer before Lu Yang could react. Her eyes widened as she looked at the screen, turning to stare at Lu Yang like he was a monster, "You… you can get excited by looking at a paper???"
"No, look closely!! Look closely!!" Lu Tao frantically pointed at the screen.
The girl did look closely and soon sat down in the chair herself.
"This... must be a joke..." the girl stammered as she went back to the homepage, "Did you make a fake homepage? I’ve never heard of anyone at Jinghua working on Magic Angles, could it be… they copied somebody’s prediction and got it right??"
"Whose family?" Lu Yang swallowed and said, "Our family!"
"Ours??" The girl stared at the screen, the same as Lu Yang, and after a long time, she finally noticed a name that didn’t belong among the top figures of Jinghua. She stuttered, "This... this this this... Isn’t this what Professor Lu talked about... The one obsessed with studying... that one that one..."
"At least you got one thing right..." By this time, Lu Yang had already dropped his trousers, fully exposing his red long johns as he solemnly nodded, "They bet correctly."
...
A single stone caused a thousand ripples.
This morning, there was only one topic among the teachers at the School of Physics.
Li Zheng, phosphorene, Magic Angle.
Simply achieving superconductivity in a material under complex environmental and artificial manipulation wasn’t much news. Several years ago, researchers had already predicted that phosphorene would exhibit superconductivity under a complex set of conditions.
But no one had predicted a second Magic Angle!
A cursory look over the paper would reveal that Jinghua’s methodology was extremely similar to Yuan Yuan’s, involving rotating two stacked two-dimensional structures, only this time the angle of rotation was 0.97°, and the temperature at which superconductivity was achieved was 10K higher.
Any other method of achieving superconductivity in phosphorene hadn’t been as astounding.
But it was the replication of the Magic Angle that was striking.
This proved that the Magic Angle might be a widely existing phenomenon, almost certainly leading to deeper implications.
On the surface, this was just proof of a superconductivity phenomenon.
But every theorist was acutely aware that this heralded a completely new beginning for condensed matter and quantum theory, a brand-new continent lay beyond, the question was just who would reach it first.
But they didn’t have time to focus on that now.
The more pressing question was—
Who did Jinghua copy?
Anyone knowledgeable was very aware that regarding the graphene Magic Angle, Yuan Yuan was merely a verifier, not the discoverer. The real discoverers were a series of theoretical physicists before this experiment. MIT’s strength lay in having the highest resources to bet on the most directions.
But what did Jinghua bet on??? The stronghold of theoretical physics was at Ji University!
Wait a moment...
There was indeed someone from Ji University mixed in...
Looking at "Zheng Li," many people didn’t realize who it was until they read the name out loud, not until they saw the institutional name of Yingpei College could they gasp in surprise.
Why?!
This was the only thought of many who were unaware of the intricacies at this moment.
Why?!
This was the sole feeling of a limited few as they broke out in cold sweat.
This morning, only four words echoed back and forth through the School of Physics—
"Where is Li Zheng?"
...
At 10:20 a.m., Min Jianzhong, the executive vice-chancellor and the chairman of the academic committee, walked into the meeting room of the administrative building of the School of Physics with a stern face, sat down solemnly, and scanned the room.
As a university leader hailing from the School of Physics, he utterly failed to comprehend the situation before him.
He had been here as an undergraduate, master’s student, doctoral student, postdoc, lecturer, associate professor, professor, lab director, leading subject scholar, vice dean, and dean. Except for three years as a cooperative student in the UK and two years as a visiting scholar in Japan, he had spent nearly his entire life here.
This was his hometown, his stronghold, his place of enlightenment, growth, achievement, and brilliance.
This made it even harder for him to understand what was happening.
Now, before him were Zhong Ping, Chu Youhua, Liu Qi, Lu Dongsheng, and all the notable figures of the School of Physics.
"Why?" He spread his hands incomprehensively looking at these people, "This is a discovery that could be in textbooks, why?"
The entire room remained silent.
They fucking wanted to know why too...
Slap!
Min Jianzhong threw down his briefcase, rubbed his forehead, and lifted his hand.
"Zhong Ping!"
Zhong Ping coughed slightly, trying to stabilize himself before he began to speak.
"Li Zheng indeed started a collaborative project through Yingpei College with our department last September."
"But on December 31, Yingpei initiated the termination of the research, and we could only comply."
"I just found out too, since then Li Zheng and Lin Yujing had not been to school until the final exams."
"As for the paper this morning, all our teachers were just like you, hearing about it for the first time."
After Zhong Ping’s speech, he quietly observed Min Jianzhong’s expression.
Min Jianzhong simply looked at him, saying nothing.
"Ahem..." Zhong Ping coughed again before saying, "The project was led by Teacher Sui Miao. For further details, please ask Teacher Sui."
The perplexed Sui Miao was taken aback before he realized he was called upon.
Under everyone’s gaze, he stumbled through his report. As for trivial matters like changing locks, contacting the Condensed Matter Lab being uncertain of past "less dignified" events, he naturally omitted those.
Min Jianzhong could not stand this hesitant expression, and before hearing everything, he raised his hand to interrupt.
"What about Jie Qifen? He’s the key figure, isn’t he? Please call him over."
"..."
After a tense silence, Zhong Ping steeled himself and said, "He was transferred to a communication company affiliated with our school, and has been on sick leave ever since."
"Why was he transferred?"
Zhong Ping steeled himself again and said, "We were afraid he might mislead the students. There was a precedent, you know it too."
"Hmm..." Min Jianzhong was not surprised by this, "My impression of him is still during his rambling phase... But I’m in optics, I had limited interaction with him..."
"President." Lu Dongsheng coughed slightly, not daring to speak too loudly, "Our understanding is also limited. From what we know so far, it seems like Jie Qifen led this strike back."
"Hmph." Min Jianzhong shook his head. The tone did not seem to be snorting at Jie Qifen, rather at Lu Dongsheng, "I don’t know if you guys are shocked today, or if the collective judgment has simultaneously encountered a problem. If Jie Qifen had that capability, who could have transferred him?"
Min Jianzhong said this as he picked up the printed paper.
"Let Jinghua Physics Department’s two core national key labs temporarily halt their current projects and fully focus on tackling phosphorene’s Magic Angle superconductivity; not just Jie Qifen, even I don’t have that capability."
No one answered.
Min Jianzhong then said, "In the paper, the only person from our school mentioned is Li Zheng. Are you sure you still want to pin the responsibility on Jie Qifen?"
Lu Dongsheng bowed his head, wiping off a lot of sweat.
At that moment, Chu Youhua was relatively composed in comparison. He looked at Min Jianzhong with a wry smile and said, "President, however you put it, this matter is beneficial for us. It’s just that the greatest benefit has gone to Jinghua. The good news is, Li Zheng is still our student. We must deeply reflect on our lack of academic insight and sharpness and quickly repair our relationship with Li Zheng to strive for more opportunities for cooperation."
"Youhua is right. That certainly needs to be done." Min Jianzhong rarely nodded in agreement. Then, he scanned the room with a stern face again and said, "But the first thing to be done is—to identify the problems with the School of Physics. Yingpei has already collaborated with us, and Li Zheng has had achievements to guarantee that, but why was the collaboration eventually terminated? This is definitely not a problem of insight or sharpness. There must be management and atmosphere issues. Had the trouble occurred elsewhere, I would have just asked, but since it happened here, I am determined to intervene."
Zhong Ping quickly responded, "We’ll submit a report as soon as possible to sum up the lessons learned."
"Hmm…" Min Jianzhong glanced at his watch and said, "What about Li Zheng, wasn’t he also invited to talk?"
"Sui Miao?" Zhong Ping quickly turned to Sui Miao.
"We can’t reach him. We can only try through a teacher from Yingpei…" Sui Miao swallowed and added, "He should be... taking an exam..."
"Right, right. I almost forgot he’s a freshman…" Min Jianzhong shook his head and chuckled. "Set a time. I’ll meet him. Zhong Ping, Youhua, both of you come too. Let’s properly talk things out."
"Alright…"
Zhong Ping, seizing the opportunity, said, "There are a few teachers here who have supervising duties… would it be…"
Min Jianzhong waved his hand, "Those related to Li Zheng and Jie Qifen stay; the rest of the teachers can leave."
Many sighed in relief. Although they wanted to flee right away, they got up casually.
Chu Youhua was among them.
"President, there’s a foreign team visiting my lab," Chu Youhua respectfully said. "May I go and welcome them first? I’ll be quick."
"Ah, you’re too busy. You don’t have to come back." Min Jianzhong’s anger seemed mostly spent as he waved his hand dismissively, "I have to leave at 11 too. We’ll keep in touch if there’s anything."
"I should come back. What you said about addressing the management issues, I feel it deeply. Whether you are here or not, I must return to discuss it."
"Then you see to it." Min Jianzhong, preoccupied with his thoughts, didn’t stand on further ceremony.
Chu Youhua quickly picked up his bag with a smile, nodding goodbye to his colleagues.
The group was about to make it out when a younger male teacher suddenly shouted.
"Twin bursts???!!!"
Everyone stopped in their tracks, staring at him in bewilderment.
Clearly regretting his outburst, he could only look around with wide eyes, continuing, "Another... another paper... my student just refreshed... two papers... there’s another one... in Nature... Li Zheng has published two papers... I... I don’t know what to say…"
Boom!!
Everyone’s minds exploded.
Then someone roared out.
"What??? Boron phosphide??? Boron phosphide Magic Angle??? Zhongke???"
Instantly, no one could control the room as each person bent over their phones, all while howling uncontrollably.
At this moment, whether professor or dean, lab tyrant or theoretical guru, all went mad.
"It’s Zhongke... Zhongke’s lab achieved the boron phosphide Magic Angle…"
"But this time, the co-first author isn’t Li Zheng... it’s Lin Yujing…""
"They split between Jinghua and Zhongke?! Working on two different materials’ twist angles simultaneously?!"
"They actually did it!!!"
"They actually succeeded?!!"
"In one month..."
"The title in Nature has changed..."
"Year of the Magic Angle..."
"If it had been us..."
This chapt𝙚r is updated by freeωebnovēl.c૦m.
"Stop talking..."
Madness, sheer madness.
And it wasn’t just them; it was the entire field of physics.
If the discovery of phosphorene Magic Angle had hinted at a new continent in the distance,
Then the simultaneous appearance of the boron phosphide Magic Angle, without any predictions, by a team where the same person appeared as the first author of both discoveries,
That could only mean one thing...
That distant new continent
Had been conquered!
There should be no doubts; they likely had at least 5 more Magic Angles, maybe 10...
This is utterly insane.
At the table, Zhong Ping stared at his phone for a long while before he decided to show it to Min Jianzhong.
"I’ve seen it." Min Jianzhong’s face sank again, this time completely cold, "This is a treasure, a once-in-a-lifetime treasure… What the fuck did you all do..."
"..."
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Min Jianzhong banged the table three times to calm the teachers down.
"Everyone stays."
"All other matters, pushed back."
"Sit here. No one leaves."
Having said that, he got up and straightened his suit forcefully.
"Sui Miao, take me to request Li Zheng."
"It might not be necessary…" Sui Miao put down his phone and looked up dumbfounded, "Li Zheng said he can come anytime... but he wants to come with Jie Qifen."
Min Jianzhong raised his hand and roared with spittle flying:
"Then take me to request Jie Qifen!!!"