He had done simple bacterial staining experiments in the lab before under the guidance of senior students. After watching the teaching assistant demonstrate the procedure again, he was even more familiar with it. The assistant occasionally walked around to check everyone’s progress and correct their technique. Old Man Li had nothing better to do, so he joined him.
Just as Xu Xianglei was nearly finished, he suddenly heard Professor Li’s voice behind him.
“Oh, nicely done.”
“Thank you, Professor. I’m not finished yet...” Xu Xianglei answered instinctively, but then realized the professor’s voice sounded a little distant.
He looked up and saw that Professor Li wasn’t standing beside his station, but one group away.
Right where Tang Xiao and his friends were.
Professor Li glanced at the microscope again and nodded in satisfaction. “You’re quite proficient with Gram staining. I wouldn’t have guessed. Have you worked in a lab before?”
“Uh, sort of.” Tang Xiao scratched his head awkwardly. He couldn’t exactly say he had done it in a game before...
Earlier, when Babbit had picked a fight and stopped him from doing the experiment, it had given Tang Xiao a chance to stall for time. During that period, he had done odd jobs around the lab while observing the researchers, and he had also gotten someone to walk him through the procedure in real life. So when he finally got to do it himself after the group meeting, no one noticed anything unusual.
In a top-tier laboratory, his ordinary experimental technique might not stand out, but among a group of beginners who had barely touched the equipment, he made the whole process look effortless.
When had he ever worked in a lab?
Xu Xianglei frowned.
Professor Li patted Tang Xiao on the shoulder encouragingly. “Keep it up.”
With that, he strolled out of the classroom with his hands clasped behind his back. He had only come to keep the students in line. The teaching assistant could handle the rest.
Xu Xianglei had just finished his experiment and was waiting for Professor Li’s feedback. But when he turned around, all he saw was Old Man Li’s retreating back.
At a loss, Xu Xianglei looked toward the teaching assistant, who was giving feedback to the other students. The shy senior noticed Xu Xianglei’s gaze, came over to take a look, then walked away again without saying anything.
Xu Xianglei: “...”
After Old Man Li left, Baldy and the others slapped Tang Xiao hard on the back.
“Not bad! You’ve really been hiding this trick up your sleeve.”
“No wonder you hardly ever came to lab class before. You must’ve done this kind of experiment plenty of times already, right?”
Tang Xiao’s mouth twitched.
“...Yeah. I have.”
Until he was sick of it.
In the game.
After class, once everyone had cleaned the equipment and put it back, Xu Xianglei paused as he passed Tang Xiao. He gave him a long look, then walked out without looking back.
Tang Xiao was puzzled.
“What was that supposed to mean?”
“Allow me to translate.”
Baldy cleared his throat and put on a solemn expression.
“From today onward, we’re rivals. I won’t lose next time.”
“Get lost. You’re crazy.”
“Hahaha, good luck, Xiao Xiao! We’re rooting for you to take first place!”
“That’s right! You can’t lose to him!”
Tang Xiao didn’t joke around with them for long. When he saw the teaching assistant leave the lab, he hurried after him with the bound notebook in hand.
“Excuse me, is Professor Li still in his office?”
“He should be, but you’d better hurry. He might leave soon.”
“Okay, thanks.”
Tang Xiao thanked him and hurried toward Professor Li’s office.
When Tang Xiao entered, he saw Old Man Li still sitting at his desk and quickly called out, “Professor!”
Old Man Li had just unscrewed his thermos and taken a sip of hot water. He looked over at Tang Xiao, somewhat surprised.
“Do you have a question?”
“N-not exactly...”
A trace of guilt flashed across Tang Xiao’s face.
Aside from wanting to improve his attendance, there was another important reason he had returned to class: he wanted to show the professor the paper he had nearly finished.
It was just a game, so perhaps he didn’t need to take it this seriously. But whenever he thought about how intelligent the game’s NPCs were, then looked at the mess he had spent an entire week working himself to the bone on, Tang Xiao felt uneasy.
He wondered whether he could get Professor Li to help revise it.
He knew it was a bit much to show a real-life professor something from a game, but there was no harm in trying.
And since his family had some history with Professor Li, surely he wouldn’t get yelled at too badly...
Right?
“Do you have a moment?”
Professor Li said, “Tell me what it is first.”
And then he would decide whether he had time based on what it was, right?
Tang Xiao scratched his head and took out the bound notebook.
“A friend of mine is making a sci-fi game and needs some convincing project materials. He put together a document and asked me to check whether it looked professional, so I thought I’d ask you to take a look...”
Old Man Li raised an eyebrow.
“How about this? I’ll give you a few questions. Based on your answers, I’ll decide whether to help you.”
Tang Xiao looked completely baffled.
“Ah... All right.”
Professor Li rummaged through a drawer, tore off a few questions, and handed them to Tang Xiao.
Tang Xiao looked down at them.
A. The introduced genetic circuit...
B. The introduced genetic circuit should have a constitutive... paired with GFP
***
D. Green fluorescent protein expression depends on the cell’s energy...
Tang Xiao stood there thinking for a moment, then chose D.
Image.jpg.
(Omitted below)
There were only three questions, and all of them were multiple choice. Yet each one left Tang Xiao more baffled than the last.
He frowned and pondered them carefully, so absorbed that he didn’t notice the teaching assistant had returned.
Seeing Tang Xiao working on the questions, the assistant glanced at them and froze.
Old Man Li gestured for him to keep quiet, so he obediently sat down beside Professor Li and helped grade papers, occasionally glancing at Tang Xiao.
Tang Xiao remained oblivious to everything around him, completely immersed in the difficult questions.
After spending some time on them, however, he eventually finished.
Old Man Li glanced at his answers and calmly took another sip of water.
“Your grades have improved very quickly lately. Have you been studying on your own?”
“Sort of.”
Though mostly thanks to leveling up.
Professor Li couldn’t help asking, “Are my lectures really that bad?”
“No, no!”
Tang Xiao hurriedly waved his hands.
“It’s nothing like that. I just, uh... only started studying recently.”
Professor Li looked at Tang Xiao even more strangely.
“So...?”
Tang Xiao looked at Professor Li expectantly.
“Hand it over. I’ll take a look.”
Professor Li took the notebook with a frown.
After reading a couple of lines, he let out a soft, “Huh.”
He didn’t say anything else to Tang Xiao. Instead, he turned around, put on his reading glasses, and laid the material on his desk to examine it carefully.
Tang Xiao didn’t disturb him and simply stood quietly to one side.
More than half an hour later, Old Man Li finally finished reading through the material.
He let out a quiet breath and turned to Tang Xiao.
“Where did you get this project?”
“It’s from that game,” Tang Xiao replied.
“Games these days are really that particular, huh?” Old Man Li muttered.
Tang Xiao had been waiting for exactly this opening.
He immediately pulled out the paper he had written over the past few days.
“Um, I also helped test the game, and I wrote a paper about this project to clear that part of it. Could you take a look at this too?”
Old Man Li: ?
Teaching assistant: ?
What kind of nonsense was that?
You couldn’t even be bothered to study properly in real life, but for some make-believe game, you had actually written a paper?
Old Man Li was stunned for a moment.
When he recovered, he really did take the paper from Tang Xiao.
If nothing else, he wanted to see what kind of nonsense the boy had written.
But once he started reading, it was surprisingly convincing.
Old Man Li’s casual expression gradually turned to astonishment.
He slowed from skimming ten lines at a glance, and by the time he finished reading, he was looking at Tang Xiao strangely.
Tang Xiao was a little nervous, mostly because he was afraid of being scolded for neglecting his studies.
He had even prepared himself to write a self-criticism.
But to his surprise, Old Man Li didn’t throw the paper back at him and tell him to get lost.
Instead, he patiently said, “Setting aside the fact that this is fictional, judging solely from the project materials you gave me, it’s not bad. It could fool a layperson.”
“Of course, there are still plenty of things you can improve in the paper. First, the formatting. I’ll send you a document about that later. Then there’s this section—you’re being too wordy. And here, you haven’t cited enough data...”
To the teaching assistant’s astonishment, Professor Li didn’t lose his temper.
He actually sat there and showed Tang Xiao how to revise the paper.
Tang Xiao seized the rare opportunity and carefully wrote down every single one of Professor Li’s suggestions.
“...All right, that’s the gist of it.”
“Thank you!”
Tang Xiao bowed repeatedly, excited.
Then a hint of nervousness crossed his face.
“So, do you think this paper could overturn the conclusions of the previous project?”
“It’s possible.”
“Okay, I understand!”
Satisfied, Tang Xiao left with the paper in hand.
He still had to make more detailed revisions.
After Tang Xiao’s voice faded from the office, a nearby lecturer who had overheard their conversation stretched and stood up.
Smiling, he said to Old Man Li, “Professor Li, you’re really patient. If one of my students came to ask me something like that, I’d have cursed him out.”
“What’s there to get angry about?”
Old Man Li sighed.
“Times have changed. Kids these days don’t dream of becoming scientists anymore. They want to be influencers. It can’t be helped. Research is hard work. Unless someone is genuinely talented, who would willingly choose it?”
“These days, it’s actually games and TV shows that get young people interested in this path. If he really ends up going into research because of that game, I’d be delighted.”
The other teachers exchanged glances, then shook their heads, snickered, and sighed.
As if that could happen.
A gaming streamer, maybe.
But research?
If playing games could turn a student into a scientist, they’d let him pull their heads off and kick them around like balls.
Professor Li offered no explanation.
He smiled as he looked at the questions Tang Xiao had answered earlier and asked the teaching assistant, “Did you solve these when you competed?”
The teaching assistant replied awkwardly, “I was eliminated in the preliminaries.”
“Oh.”
Professor Li nodded calmly and put the test away.
He thought that before long, he could probably start asking Tang Xiao who he wanted as his graduate advisor.
Professor Shi, for instance, had made his move early.
His lab was about to start a new project, and he needed people too.