Chapter 17
He’d done simple bacterial staining experiments in the lab under the guidance of senior students before. After watching the teaching assistant demonstrate it again, he was even more familiar with the process. The assistant occasionally walked around to check on everyone’s progress and correct their technique. Old Man Li had nothing better to do, so he joined him.
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 by his station, but a 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—you’ve worked in a lab before?”
“Uh, sort of.” Tang Xiao scratched his head awkwardly. He couldn’t exactly say he’d 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. During that time, he’d done odd jobs in the lab while observing the researchers, and he’d also gotten someone to walk him through the procedure in real life. So when he finally got hands-on after the group meeting, nobody noticed anything amiss.
In a top-tier lab, his ordinary experimental technique might not stand out, but among a bunch of newbies who’d barely touched the equipment, he made it look effortless.
When had he worked in a lab? Xu Xianglei wondered.
Professor Li patted Tang Xiao on the shoulder in encouragement. “Keep it up.”
With that, he strolled out of the classroom with his hands behind his back. He’d only come to keep the students in line; the teaching assistant could handle the rest.
Xu Xianglei had just finished the experiment and was waiting for Professor Li’s feedback. But when he turned around, all he saw was Old Man Li’s back.
At a loss, Xu Xianglei looked toward the teaching assistant, who was giving feedback to other students. The shy senior noticed Xu Xianglei’s gaze and came over to take a look, but said nothing before walking away again.
Xu Xianglei: “...”
After Old Man Li left, Baldy and the others slapped Tang Xiao hard on the back. “Not bad! You’ve 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 did that mean?”
“Allow me to translate.” Baldy cleared his throat and put on a solemn expression. “From today on, 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 his bound notebook. “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 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 one more important reason he’d come back to class: he wanted to show the professor the paper he’d nearly finished.
It was just a game, so he probably didn’t need to take it so seriously. But when he thought about how intelligent the game’s NPCs were, then looked at the mess he’d spent a week working himself to the bone on, Tang Xiao felt uneasy. He wondered if he could get Professor Li to revise it.
He knew it was a bit much to show a real-life professor something from a game, but it couldn’t hurt to try.
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’d decide whether he had time based on what it was, right?
Tang Xiao scratched his head and took out his 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 if it seemed professional, so I thought I’d have you look it over...”
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 at the questions.
1. A microorganism is needed to detect toxins that affect humans. You have designed a genetic circuit in E. coli to dynamically regulate the expression of the reporter protein green fluorescent protein (GFP) in response to a toxin. You want GFP expression to be high when the toxin is present and low when it is absent. GFP fluorescence levels are easy to observe under a fluorescence microscope. Which of the following is a valid design consideration for your proposed genetic circuit?
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 selected D.
2. The complement system provides innate immunity by binding pathogens with serum proteins and lysing them through the following pathways. To improve efficiency and reduce hypersensitivity reactions, the complement system has evolved several safeguards. Which of the following is not an adaptation of the complement system?
Image.jpg.
(Omitted below)
There were only three questions, and they were all multiple choice. Each one left Tang Xiao more baffled than the last. He frowned and pondered them, 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 stay quiet, so he obediently sat beside Professor Li and helped grade papers, occasionally glancing at Tang Xiao.
Tang Xiao was oblivious to what was going on around him, immersed in the difficult questions. But after spending some time on them, he managed to finish.
Old Man Li glanced at his answers and calmly took another sip of water.
“Your grades have improved quickly lately. Are you studying on your own?”
“Sort of.” Though mostly thanks to leveling up.
Professor Li couldn’t help asking, “Are my lectures 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 hopefully.
“Hand it over. I’ll take a look.”
Professor Li took it with a frown. After reading a couple of lines, he let out a soft “Huh.”
He didn’t say anything more 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, standing quietly to one side.
More than half an hour later, Old Man Li had 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. He hadn’t expected Tang Xiao to be waiting for this opening. Tang Xiao immediately pulled out the paper he’d written over the past few days. “Um, I also helped test the game, and I wrote a paper about this project to get through it. Could you take a look at that 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 a make-believe game, you’d actually written a paper?
Old Man Li was stunned for a moment. When he came to, 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 looked, it was surprisingly convincing.
Old Man Li’s casual expression gradually turned to astonishment. He slowed from skimming ten lines at a glance, and when he finished reading, he gave Tang Xiao a strange look.
Tang Xiao was a little nervous, mostly because he was afraid of being scolded for neglecting his studies. He’d even prepared himself to write a self-criticism.
But to his surprise, Old Man Li didn’t toss the paper back at him and tell him to get lost. Instead, he patiently said, “Setting aside the fact that this is fictional, based solely on the project materials you gave me, it’s not bad. It could fool a layperson.”
“Of course, there are plenty of things you could 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 it. Tang Xiao seized the rare opportunity and wrote down every one of Professor Li’s suggestions.
“...All right, that’s the gist of it.”
“Thank you!” Tang Xiao bowed over and over, excited. 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!” Tang Xiao left with the paper, satisfied. He still had to make more detailed revisions.
After Tang Xiao’s voice had faded from the office, a lecturer nearby who’d 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 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’s truly talented, who’d choose it?”
“These days, it’s actually the games and TV shows that get young people interested in this path. If he really goes 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 at the questions Tang Xiao had answered earlier and asked the teaching assistant, “Did you solve these when you competed?”
The teaching assistant said awkwardly, “I was eliminated in the preliminaries.”
“Oh.” Professor Li nodded calmly and put the test away, thinking he could probably ask Tang Xiao soon 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.