The ambulance siren receded until the hallway was quiet again.
The students who had been crowding around just now were all looking at Elara differently.
Some looked impressed.
Some were flat-out stunned.
Some had expressions so complicated they were almost hard to read.
Who would have thought the student Barnaby had just expelled from the research team would be the one to save the Ashford family’s eldest son?
Elara ignored the attention and went back to packing her things.
The clear vial in her hand gave off a faint, icy gleam under the lights.
Barnaby’s attention fixed on the vial, and his expression darkened again.
“Elara.”
Elara lifted her eyes and looked at him.
“What now?”
Barnaby’s voice turned cold.
“Don’t think that just because you saved Mr.
Ashford a minute ago, you can ignore school rules.”
“Today, there’s no way you’re taking that Nexo-7 with you.”
Elara raised a brow, calm as ever.
“Oh?
So now it belongs to the school too?”
“Of course it does.”
Barnaby’s tone was firm.
“This is a major achievement of the research team.”
“You’ve already left the team.
By the rules, all related materials and experimental results have to stay here.”
Elara looked at him, then suddenly let out a soft laugh.
“Weren’t you just saying my research results belonged to the school?”
“And now even the reagent in my hand has to stay too?”
“What do you think?”
Barnaby stared at her, his expression cold enough to make the rebuke unmistakable.
“Elara, I’m warning you.
Don’t push this too far.”
Elara had just parted her lips, ready to speak.
Then a hurried voice suddenly rang out from the other end of the corridor.
“Wait!”
Everyone turned at once.
A woman in a white lab coat was striding over fast.
She appeared to be in her forties, with her hair neatly pinned back and several folders tucked under one arm.
She barely seemed to notice anyone else.
Her attention was fixed entirely on the vial in Elara’s hand.
“Is that…”
She quickened her pace and came right up.
“Is that Nexo-7?”
The hallway fell silent.
Even Barnaby looked caught off guard.
“Professor Warnock?”
The newcomer was Abigail Warnock, one of the country’s leading biomedical researchers.
She was the specialist the school had brought in to advise on the project.
Abigail barely looked at anyone else.
Her eyes stayed fixed on the vial in Elara’s hand.
“May I take a look?”
Elara handed her the vial without comment.
Abigail took it carefully and lifted it toward the light, inspecting it with full focus.
She opened a testing kit and ran several quick checks.
Her expression shifted from surprise to disbelief, then to outright shock as she kept reading.
“It really is Nexo-7!”
She snapped her head up.
“It’s real.
This is actually real!”
The students around them burst into excited whispers.
“Nexo-7?”
“You mean that drug for rare genetic disorders?”
“I heard labs overseas have been working on it for years without a breakthrough.”
“Isn’t that exactly what our research team’s working on right now?”
But Abigail looked like she hadn’t heard a single word of the chatter around her.
Her eyes were locked on Elara.
“How do you have this?
I’ve been researching Nexo-7 for three years.”
“From the initial structural model to the later experimental ratios, I’ve tried over and over again.
I don’t even know how many times anymore, but I always got stuck at the very last step.”
She stared at Elara in disbelief.
“So where on earth did you get it?”
Elara didn’t answer.
She simply reached out, took the vial back, and said flatly,
“Your ratio was wrong.”
Abigail froze.
“What?”
“Your ratio was off.”
Elara spoke as calmly as if she were discussing an ordinary calculation.
“It was wrong from the very first step.”
Abigail’s expression shifted.
“Wrong where?”
Elara glanced around the room.
“Anyone got paper?”
A student beside them immediately handed some over.
Elara took the paper and pen and began writing quickly.
Line after line of complicated formulas quickly covered the sheet.
At first, Abigail watched with mild curiosity.
By the third line, her expression had changed.
By the fifth line, she went completely silent.
After writing the final number, Elara handed the paper to her.
“Run it again.”
Abigail lowered her eyes and stared at the formulas, her fingers trembling slightly.
“This…”
she murmured.
“So it was here.”
“This is where the real problem was.”
She had spent a full three years on this research.
She had run the experiment countless times, and every attempt had failed at the final step.
Yet Elara had glanced over her notes once and identified the problem immediately.
Abigail took a slow breath, then lifted her eyes to Elara.
“This Nexo-7…
who made it?”
The hallway fell silent.
Everyone around them stopped talking and waited for the answer.
Especially Rosalind.
Her pulse jumped.
In the very next second, she stepped forward without hesitation.
“It was me.”
Elara’s gaze shifted, just a little.
Meeting Abigail’s stunned look head-on, Rosalind kept her voice soft and steady as she said,
“Nexo-7 was developed by me.”
The hallway erupted in shocked whispers.
“Rosalind?”
“No way, it was her?”
“Oh my God!”
“So she’s actually that good?”
The students nearby instantly broke into loud whispers, shock written all over their faces.
Abigail’s eyes lit up at once.
“So you’re the developer of Nexo-7?”
“Yes.”
Rosalind fought to keep her expression composed, even as excitement surged through her.
She knew it.
This was exactly the opportunity she needed.
If she won Abigail’s approval, her standing in the medical field would change overnight.
“That’s great!”
Abigail was clearly impressed.
“I’ve been working on this project for three years.
I honestly didn’t expect the person who actually finished it to be standing right here.”
“Your research logic is seriously impressive, especially this ratio…”
She studied the formula Elara had written, growing more enthusiastic by the second.
The people around them started praising Rosalind too.
“Rosalind is amazing!”
“No wonder her grades are always so good.”
“This is Nexo-7 we’re talking about!”
“She’s definitely going to be an international-level expert someday!”
Listening to all that, Rosalind’s lips slowly lifted into a smile.
She sneaked a glance at Elara.
She had expected anger, a denial, perhaps even an immediate attempt to expose her.
But Elara did nothing.
Elara simply stood to the side, calm and detached, as though the scene had nothing to do with her.
For some reason, that made Rosalind uneasy.
Then Abigail suddenly asked, “Since you’re the developer, can you make it again right here, right now?”
Rosalind’s smile froze on her face.
“On-site?”
“Yes.” Abigail gave a small nod.
“The lab is right here.
I’d really like to watch your full experimental process.”
The noisy corridor fell quiet almost at once.
Rosalind opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
Sweat gathered at her hairline.
“Well…”
Abigail looked at her, puzzled.
“What’s wrong?”
“I didn’t bring my experimental data with me.”
Rosalind forced herself to explain, her voice sounding a little stiff.
“Some of the data still needs to be pulled up again.”
“I see.”
Abigail nodded, not sounding suspicious.
After all, an experiment at this level needed a huge amount of data to back it up.
No one would carry all of that around with them.
Right then, Elara suddenly spoke.
“It’s fine.”
Everyone turned to look at her.
Elara’s expression stayed calm, almost unreadable.
“Give her a few days.
She won’t disappoint you.”
Rosalind turned sharply toward Elara, startled.
She had expected Elara to expose her, not give her more time.
Because of that, Abigail looked even more convinced.
She fixed her gaze on Rosalind, serious and calm.
“Then it’s settled.
Over the next few days, organize the full experimental process for me.
If you’re willing, you can come straight to my lab.”
“My lab has the most advanced equipment available.
As for compensation, you don’t need to worry about that.”
Rosalind’s eyes lit up.
“Really?”
“Of course.”
Abigail smiled, her tone warm with clear appreciation.
“A young researcher like you deserves a better platform.”
Rosalind nodded so fast it was almost desperate.
“I’m willing.”
She answered too quickly, even as unease began to creep in.
But there was no way she was letting this chance slip through her fingers.
As long as she got into Abigail’s lab.
As long as she could actually make Nexo-7…
Then no one would be able to dismiss her as an ordinary student.
Rosalind shot Elara a cold glance.
She refused to believe it.
Without Elara, could she really not formulate Nexo-7?
No way.
She had to be able to do it.
After all, she was the Westons’ biological daughter.
She had spent her whole life believing she was better than Elara.
This time, she was not going to lose.
Not a chance.
Elara noticed, but only gave the faintest smile.
She didn’t say a word.
She just turned around and calmly packed up her things.
If Rosalind wanted the credit that badly, Elara would let her have it for now.
The higher Rosalind climbed on a lie, the harder the fall would be.
Elara was content to wait.
Sooner or later, Rosalind would be standing in front of her with failed results and no way out.
…
That afternoon, Elara returned to the classroom.
There were still thirty minutes before the exam.
She sat down in her seat and pulled a textbook out of her bag.
The classroom was unusually lively.
“Did you hear?
Rosalind is the developer of Nexo-7!”
“Professor Warnock even invited her into the lab.”
“This is going to make her famous.”
“Elara’s completely been overshadowed this time.”
The gossip swirled around her, but Elara did not look up.
She opened her textbook, her gaze settling on the tightly packed lines of notes and key points.
Back when she was still with the Weston family, she had never truly shown what she could do.
It wasn’t because she couldn’t.
She had simply never cared enough to compete.
If Rosalind wanted the top rank, Elara had let her have it.
If Rosalind wanted the praise, Elara had never bothered to compete for it.
But now…
There was no reason for her to keep giving way.
There were two exams that afternoon.
This time, she was done holding back.
She wanted to see where that so-called “genius” would rank once Elara stopped stepping aside for her.