Chapter 13
The next day, Tang Xiao logged back into the game and headed to the laboratory. To his surprise, the workstations where people usually started experimenting bright and early were deserted.
Rocky passed him and patted him on the shoulder. “What’s wrong? It’s the group meeting today. Didn’t I tell you last night?”
Tang Xiao: ...
Yesterday, with all that going on, how could he have paid any attention to what Rocky was saying? His mind had been entirely occupied by his chastity crisis.
And now, just like that, he was facing a different kind of crisis.
Still, Tang Xiao wasn’t in much of a hurry. With a calm expression, he overwrote his save.
Bard soon appeared and led everyone to a dedicated conference room.
428 watched them quietly from inside the glass room. Only after everyone had left the laboratory did it cautiously extend a strand of mycelium and crawl through the ventilation duct to the ceiling above the conference room.
“Then, let’s officially begin this week’s meeting.”
Bard sat at the head of the table, while Babbit chaired the meeting, eagerly directing assistants to serve tea and water.
Tang Xiao sat with several other newcomers. He watched Babbit thoughtfully. No wonder the man had been so well-behaved these past few days and hadn’t given him any more trouble.
So this was what he’d been waiting for.
Thinking back over what he’d done this week...
Menial work, menial work, and more menial work.
And because Babbit had isolated him, Tang Xiao hadn’t even been informed of many meetings, let alone allowed to take part in experiments. He’d basically been treated as invisible. Who knew how far their experiments had progressed?
When Tang Xiao had arrived earlier, Rocky had explained how unusual this group meeting was. Besides the usual progress reports, Bard was here partly to test the newcomers—to see what they had been doing that week, whether they’d studied on their own, and whether they had any new ideas.
In other words, it was basically a preliminary assessment.
By this point, Tang Xiao more or less understood Babbit’s intentions. The man had deliberately set him up to embarrass himself in front of Bard and make Bard lose interest in him.
Once Tang Xiao lost his backing, Babbit could do whatever he pleased with him.
The situation was quite obvious.
Sure enough, as soon as the meeting began, Babbit aimed his fire at Tang Xiao. “As usual, let’s start with the newcomers. Tang Xiao, tell Dr. Bard about our experimental progress this week.”
Tang Xiao glanced at Babbit’s smug face and stood up expressionlessly. “Sorry, I don’t know.”
Bard furrowed his brow, and Babbit immediately grew bolder. “What? You don’t know? Come on, Tang, not to criticize you, but once you join the laboratory, you have to take the project seriously.”
The people around him looked at Tang Xiao with scorn. A flash of indignation crossed Rocky’s face, and he stood up as if to say something, but Tang Xiao stopped him. “It’s all right...”
He stared at Babbit and smiled ambiguously. “I haven’t studied it thoroughly enough. Why don’t you give us a demonstration first, Dr. Babbit?”
“Hmph.” Babbit wasn’t intimidated in the least. He stood up, nodded to Bard, and began his report.
When he finished, applause broke out around the room. Bard nodded in satisfaction, then called on a few other newcomers at random. After everyone had reported, they moved on to the discussion, and Bard personally explained the difficulties people had encountered during their experiments.
Throughout the entire process, Tang Xiao didn’t say a word. He quickly jotted down the key points of everyone’s remarks with pen and paper, ignored Babbit’s taunts, and organized the important information from the meeting while seated. The outline of the entire experiment gradually took shape in his mind.
The regular reports ended. Tang Xiao had remained silent the whole time. Rocky’s eyes grew more and more disappointed, and Bard stopped looking in Tang Xiao’s direction.
At last, Tang Xiao had memorized it all.
Load the save!
“...Tang Xiao, tell Dr. Bard about our experimental progress this week.” Babbit maliciously called on Tang Xiao first.
He did it first because he wasn’t going to give Tang Xiao the chance to piece together the others’ reports.
“All right.” Tang Xiao stood up expressionlessly. Under Babbit’s and everyone else’s mocking gazes, he calmly said, “Our experiment has successfully extracted a stable acidic substance from the biological samples. This special substance can act on PESA materials, rapidly corroding them by breaking down their carbon structure. Besides PESA, this enzyme is also highly corrosive to other materials with similar carbon structures.”
“However, we’ve encountered several difficulties. First, we’ve hit a bottleneck in reproducing this acidic substance through artificial synthesis. Second, it remains to be seen whether this enzyme can be produced on an industrial scale.
“Third, even if it can be industrially produced, the cost will remain extremely high, limiting its use to a few specialized high-tech fields.
“Fourth...”
The expressions around the room gradually shifted from gloating to blank astonishment. Everyone stared at Tang Xiao, speechless as he spoke at length. Babbit in particular looked as if he’d seen a ghost.
If Bard hadn’t been sitting right there, Babbit would probably have slammed his hands on the table and demanded to know how Tang Xiao knew all this.
After all, Babbit hadn’t let Tang Xiao take part in any of the experiments that week. Many meetings had even been held behind his back, and no one had been allowed to speak to Tang Xiao.
Babbit had also factored Rocky’s help into his plans. Certain circumstances kept him from targeting the blond kid, but he could still hide some conclusions or deliberately feed Tang Xiao false information. That way, even if Rocky and Tang Xiao had exchanged information in advance, they would still fall into Babbit’s trap.
But Tang Xiao hadn’t.
He spoke as if he knew the entire experimental process inside out, listing the progress, key problems, and core data with effortless familiarity. He didn’t even have notes in front of him.
After Tang Xiao finished speaking, Bard already understood the entire experiment’s progress and the problems they’d encountered. He didn’t need anyone else to fill in the gaps.
Everyone stared at Tang Xiao as if he were a ghost. Even Rocky’s eyes shimmered with something unusual.
Everyone present was highly educated and intelligent. And people like that... admired nothing more than a “genius” smarter than themselves.
No one knew how Tang Xiao had managed it. Perhaps someone had let something slip, or perhaps he’d figured it out by observing them day to day. Either way, it showed that even under Babbit’s pressure, Tang Xiao had still managed to distinguish himself.
After Tang Xiao sat down, Babbit’s expression remained dazed. He couldn’t even figure out how Tang Xiao had done it.
Bard praised him. “You have a very good grasp of the laboratory’s overall progress. Well done.”
“You’re too kind. Anyone with eyes and ears could figure out at least that much.” Tang Xiao curled his lips and looked coldly at Babbit. “Isn’t that right, Dr. Babbit?”
Babbit managed to force a smile. The people present reacted in different ways.
Everyone knew that, because Babbit had deliberately excluded him, Tang Xiao hadn’t participated in the experiments at all lately. He’d mostly been ordered to do odd jobs like sweeping the floor and taking out the trash.
“Eyes and ears...” Rocky murmured the phrase, gradually understanding. He looked at Tang Xiao with indescribable shock.
Could Tang Xiao have deduced the current state of their research and the problems they’d encountered just by observing their experiments during brief lulls in his chores and catching the occasional stray remark from other researchers?
Was that even something a human could do?
No wonder Tang Xiao had said last night that he didn’t need Rocky’s notes. He hadn’t been putting on a brave front. This kind of suppression might not even count as a problem in his eyes.
Rocky shivered, his gaze on Tang Xiao growing more and more feverish.
By contrast, Babbit looked frighteningly grim. Bard called on him next, and Babbit hurriedly stood up. But perhaps because Tang Xiao had put so much pressure on him, his normally clear train of thought came out in disjointed fragments. His report was also almost identical to what Tang Xiao had just said, proving that Tang Xiao hadn’t been talking nonsense.
The researchers’ attitudes toward Tang Xiao had already changed. The sporadic increases in favorability made that clear.
Babbit had often used his influence to bully others, and he’d gotten away with it time and again. This was the first time he’d met his match.
After everyone had reported on the experiment’s progress, Bard cheerfully changed Tang Xiao’s seat. Tang Xiao had originally been sitting farthest from Bard, but now Bard moved him directly to his left, with Babbit seated at Bard’s right, directly opposite Tang Xiao.
Babbit’s face darkened, but Tang Xiao smiled without the slightest hint of fear.
“All right, let’s move on to the next item. If no one minds, let’s talk about the problems we’ve encountered during the project and discuss them together.”
As he spoke, Bard looked at Tang Xiao. “Tang, would you like to start?”
Tang Xiao said, “Sure. The main problems I’ve encountered are that the mop doesn’t work very well, and there’s a hole in the bottom of the trash can, so garbage sometimes leaks out...”
“W-Wait a moment, Tang,” Bard said, taken aback. “I meant the difficulties you’ve encountered in your work, not in your daily life.”
“But this is the work I’ve been doing on the project.” Tang Xiao blinked his clear eyes. “You can ask Mr. Babbit if you don’t believe me.”
The newcomers and researchers below them didn’t dare make a sound. Even Rocky was stunned by Tang Xiao’s candor.
He’d practically torn away the pretense and laid the problem bare.
Bard looked at Babbit, whose face was dark with anger. “Is that true?”
Babbit tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Ah, that’s my fault. We don’t have enough workstations, and I didn’t coordinate things properly. You know how newcomers start with odd jobs. I didn’t realize the kid was so stubborn that he wouldn’t even borrow someone else’s equipment.”
“Enough.” Bard cut off Babbit’s attempt to turn the blame around, his expression impatient. “If the laboratory doesn’t have enough equipment, tell me directly in the future. Don’t make that decision on your own. This has just caused a misunderstanding and wasted everyone’s time.”
Babbit gritted his teeth. Under Tang Xiao’s gaze, he forced a bitter smile. “That’s right, a misunderstanding. It was all a misunderstanding. I apologize to Tang here.”
Tang Xiao watched Babbit bow his head to him and simply smiled. “No need. I don’t accept it.”
“You!”
“All right, both sides can take a step back.” Bard intervened, playing peacemaker. Then he urged, “Babbit, show some sincerity.”
With a stiff face, Babbit looked at Tang Xiao under everyone’s gaze and said, one word at a time, “I’m sorry.”
His face burned. Since joining the laboratory, this was the first time he’d apologized to a newcomer—and in front of everyone in the laboratory, no less.
For someone as arrogant as Babbit, that was harder to accept than being beaten up.
His apology hung in the air, unanswered for a long time.
Babbit raised his head and saw Tang Xiao looking at him with a faint, mocking smile. His gaze was cold, neither smug nor angry, as if he were looking at an ant by the roadside.
In fact, that was exactly how Tang Xiao saw it. In his mind, everyone was just an NPC in the game, so he hadn’t really taken Babbit’s earlier harassment to heart. He was only taking the opportunity to give him a hard time now.
But for someone like Babbit, being ignored might hurt more than open hostility.
Babbit’s face suddenly flushed red. Before he could slam the table and jump to his feet, Tang Xiao said in an odd tone, “It’s fine.”
“All right, then that settles it.” Before Babbit could react, Bard spoke first, acting as if nothing had happened. “What about everyone else’s problems?”
The meeting continued, but the atmosphere was strange. None of those present were fools. Seeing how obviously Bard was taking sides, they each formed their own opinion.
“If no one has any problems, let’s move on to the final item,” Bard said. “The annual Research Results Conference is coming up soon. I hope everyone can pick up the pace over the next few days. Let’s try to produce some results before the conference. I hope you’ll all keep working hard these next few days instead of suddenly slacking off at the last minute.”
The Research Results Conference?
Tang Xiao was puzzled.
“It’s one of the Third Eye’s most important events,” Rocky whispered beside Tang Xiao. “It’s basically an event where scholars are recognized and evaluated. They present their achievements from the past year, defend their papers, and answer questions. It’s a grand academic feast.”
Bard said, “All right, if there’s nothing else, you’re dismissed. One last thing: as for 428, try to finish dealing with it after the Research Results Conference.”
Tang Xiao and the little monster hiding in the shadow of the ventilation duct both felt their hearts stir at the mention of “dealing with it.”
“Yes,” everyone replied calmly.
“All right, that’s all for now. We’ll end here for this week. Tang Xiao, stay behind.”
Generally, when Bard asked someone to stay behind, it was never for anything good. But there were exceptions—and this was one of them.
Seeing Bard’s satisfied smile, the researchers exchanged glances in secret, forming a new judgment about the laboratory’s future power dynamics.
[Achievement Unlocked: A Promising Debut (Faction Favorability +10, Intelligence +3)
Description: You delivered an impressive presentation at the group meeting, leaving everyone with the impression that you are a genius. This is both an opportunity and a challenge. What helps you rise may one day destroy you, unless you keep moving forward.
Please note: Personal Achievement Quests have been unlocked. Best of luck as you forge ahead on the path of scientific research!]