Chapter 863



Nora stared at her data.

Although she caught only a glimpse of the data that had just been loaded, she could see it clearly: the Epson experiment was the same one she had done in the past. Its end result would only be a failure.

She looked down and fell silent.

Many of Epson’s students swirled toward them.

They had all worked conscientiously day and night for a month and now it was time to get the fruits of their labor. This was the moment that mattered most to them.

Epson pressed the data consolidation button.

Epson’s students said, “Lisa, you’ve never seen an experiment like this in the United States, have you? Today you will witness a miracle.”

“Yes, you are very lucky! Even though you have done nothing, you have earned Professor Epson’s trust. It’s really a blessing for you to be able to participate in an experiment like this!”

“Yes! I bet even Professor Anti wasn’t so kind to you, was she? Besides, Staav University is much better than NYU Medical School! At least, Anti is the only internationally known doctor there, while Staav University has many! Professor Epson is just one of the many professors here! By now you should have a better understanding of how big Staav University is, right?”

In the midst of his sarcastic, envious or admonishing remarks, Nora didn’t utter a word.

“Look, it’ll be over soon enough!”

Distracted, everyone stopped concentrating on Nora.

At that moment, someone tugged on Nora’s arm.

Nora turned her head to see that Oscar had approached her. He lowered his voice and said, “Why don’t you apologize later to Professor Epson for disrespecting him? Professor Epson may pretend to be magnanimous and say he will forgive you, but in reality he is very mean. Once the project succeeds, he will definitely go around saying he is better than Professor Anti, and you are going to be the proof he will use. Be careful not to let him use you.”

After speaking, Oscar sighed. “You’re only an exchange student after all, so you have to come back sooner or later. If you offend Anti, your studies won’t go well in the future.”

Nora: “…”

Oscar had given her so many kind warnings that she didn’t know what to do anymore.

Oscar explained, “Actually, I secretly like Professor Anti a lot because she’s cool, but I can’t say it out loud. Even if Professor Epson succeeds in his experiment, I’m not going to think he’s really better than Professor Anti. It would be nice to be able to meet Professor Anti even once in my life.”

Then Oscar sighed and added, “Unfortunately, there’s probably no hope for that anymore because Professor Anti only took one graduate student under her care. I really wonder who the lucky one was…”

Nora: “…”

“I’m sure you’ll meet her,” she said.

After all, they had already met.

However, Oscar lowered his voice again and asked, “By the way, you must have already told Professor Anti that Professor Epson is conducting this experiment, right?”

“… Yes, she already knows.”

Oscar then asked, “Can you pass on a message to Professor Anti for me?”

“Sure.”

Oscar sighed. “Actually, I admire her a lot. A one-time failure means nothing; after all, Professor Anti doesn’t specialize in pharmaceuticals; her forte is her surgical skill.”

Now, Nora couldn’t agree with that. She coughed and said, “Anti…. Professor Anti is actually even more skilled in her pharmaceutical knowledge than in her surgical skills.”

“Really?”

Oscar was a little surprised. Although he didn’t quite understand why Nora would suddenly say something like that, he nevertheless said, “Well, that doesn’t matter. Even if Professor Anti is more of an expert in pharmaceutical knowledge, I still think this is just a one-time failure for her. I’ve heard that many of the pills Professor Anti created have already spread to Switzerland…. She is still very impressive, no matter what. Now that Epson has beaten her at something for once, it will definitely spread the rumor about how incompetent Professor Anti is. Tell Professor Anti not to take it to heart…”

“She won’t get the chance,” Nora replied.

Her answer took Oscar by surprise. “What do you mean?”

The corners of Nora’s lips curved into a smile. “I mean Professor Epson won’t get the chance.”

Immediately after she spoke, one of the students standing by the computer with the experiment data exclaimed, “It’s stopped! It’s reached 100%! The result… The result will be out in a moment!”

“It’s already out!”

However, the moment after his shouts, everyone suddenly fell silent.

Oscar was quick to tug on Nora’s arm. “For the sake of Professor Epson’s class credits, congratulate him…”

Before he could finish, however, he hears someone exclaim in shock, “How…how can this be?”

“Yes, why did he fail?”

Oscar: “?”

“No, this is impossible!” Epson let out a low bark. He rushed to look at the computer and said angrily, “Something must have gone wrong! Yes, that must be it! It’s impossible for it to fail! Reload it! Reload all the data!”

“Got it!”

All the students nodded and reloaded all the data.

Epson then pressed the consolidate button.

But five minutes later, the lab was still filled with silence, indicating that he was still unsuccessful.

Epson still refused to believe it. He said, “One of you must have made a mistake in the data! Go check it again, pronto! And get it up again before half an hour.”

“Understood!”

Following Professor Epson’s order, all the students jumped back into the intense experiment.

Only Nora and Oscar stood in a corner off to the side, one with an expression of waiting for some kind of result and the other with an expression of being a bit lost; after all, with Oscar’s current level of knowledge, he still couldn’t quite understand the experiment.

Another hour passed.

They loaded the data once more, but it kept failing!

Epson looked at his computer in disbelief. The students started talking to each other at that point.

“What’s going on?”

“Yeah, it’s really weird, what’s going on?

“… It suddenly occurred to me that someone had once said that Anti had tried this idea before, but had unfortunately failed. Therefore, this particular hypothesis did not work…. We were overconfident and careless!”

However, as soon as the student said that, Epson looked at her angrily. “How can that be, this is the only possible way! How can it fail? This doesn’t make sense, something must have gone wrong somewhere! But where? Where’s the problem?”

“This… every line of data is extremely accurate, we’ve already confirmed it a dozen times and there really isn’t a problem, how could this happen, what should we do?”

“Yes, the data is too strange!”

While everyone was deep in thought, they heard a deep voice.

“It’s the third set, it can’t be integrated with the rest of the data. This problem is unsolvable.”

Everyone was contemplating the matter seriously, so when they heard this, they all looked at the computer.

Sure enough, they all figured out the problem.

“How did it turn out like this!”

“It really is impossible to integrate this part into the rest of the data. In other words, our hypothesis was wrong from the start!”

“Have we been doing useless work all this month?”

“Professor Anti once said that this method would never work, but we simply refused to believe it and insisted on wasting a month to verify it…”

In the midst of everyone kicking themselves for their actions, Epson grabbed his head. “How can this happen? How? This is impossible? I’m definitely better than Anti…”

Seeing his reaction, the students rushed to comfort him. “Professor Epson, you have done your best.”

“Go away! Even if you have done your best, I cannot accept this! It’s a matter of academic dignity.”

Epson’s eyes were fixed on the screen.

No one noticed that Nora was the one who had pointed out the problem a moment ago.

Oscar, who had been at Nora’s side all this time, looked at her dumbfounded. It wasn’t until then that she finally recovered and asked in amazement, “How did you know there was a problem with the third data set?”

“… Well, I’ve experienced this glitch before,” Nora replied.

Oscar was puzzled. A moment later, however, he suddenly realized something and said, “I see! Did you also participate in Anti’s experiment at NYU School of Medicine? That’s why you knew from the beginning that this experiment would never succeed!”

“… you can put it that way,” said Nora.

Indeed, she had been involved in her own experiment from the beginning.

But the moment she said that, a rapt look appeared on Oscar’s countenance. “Professor Anti is simply too amazing! As soon as she started the experiment, she realized the problem and gave it up. Gosh, I’d like to meet her!”

After speaking, he lowered his head and pulled out his phone. “What are you doing?” asked Nora.

Oscar replied, “I’m going to look for pictures of Anti…. I want to see what she looks like!”

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